The Return to Thailand (Pt.1) – Temples & Monkeys

After four and a half years, Chris Jewell and John Volanthan revisit Thailand to retrace their steps from the 2018 Thai Cave Rescue

In January 2023, 4 ½ years after the Tham Luang rescue, thanks to an invite by Malcom Foyle, myself and John Volanthan joined the Shepton Mallet and Wessex caving club’s caving expedition to Thailand.

The expedition ran for over three weeks with a team of cavers and divers hoping to find and explore new caves both above and below water.

Whilst the main expedition centred on the Doi Phu Kha national park, John and I had some other caves in our sights before we joined up with the rest of the team…

We flew into Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand along with fellow British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC) officers Mike Clayton and Emma Porter and experienced caver Andy Goddard. All three are veterans of Thai caving expeditions and we very quickly took their lead. After picking up the hire car we met Josh Morris, an American caver, climber and rope rescue expert who lives in Chiang Mai.

Josh was one of the key volunteers we’d worked very closely with in the 2018 rescue and I’d not seen him since then so it was great to meet up, swap stories and share memories. Josh had organised for us to rent an oxygen cylinder and taken custody of equipment that had been shipped in for us. With Sofnolime and cylinders collected from his shop we parted ways. Josh was joining the rest of the expedition in Doi Phu Kha to organise the rigging of the Tham Pha Phueng, Thailands deepest cave and our final objective – but first we had some other caves to explore.

In Chiang Rai it was time for another reunion, this time with Vern Unsworth and his wife Khun Tik . We stayed in the hotel we’d used during the rescue – the ‘One Resort’ in Mae Sai where pictures of us taken in 2018 were on the wall as a reminder of our previous visit.

A short distance from the resort was Tham Plah cave, a resurgence (where water springs out of the ground) located in a temple. Permission to dive is not normally granted but thanks to Tik and Vern for organising everything we were honoured guests and Thai PBS television even wanted to document our efforts. The temple complex was a spectacular setting for diving however it contained a very unusual hazard – hundreds of curious monkeys running everywhere threatening to pick up any piece of equipment not guarded!

The water was a very pleasant 22 degrees and huge catfish swarmed our feet. As we kitted up in the warm sunlight tourists, monkeys and the documentary crew watched. Over two days we explored over 570m of new cave passage and although the majority of the cave was shallow a distinct elbow after with 445m took us down to maximum depth of 23m before rising steeply via two squeezes. In contrast to the spectacular surroundings on the surface, poor visibility and low passages hampered our progress. It was slow going and on our very light weight minimalist rebreathers we felt that 1½-2hrs was a sensible limit and agreed to look elsewhere…

Images by: Josh Morris & Siripon Bugnngem

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Chris Jewell is an exploratory caver and cave diver who explores new cave passages in the UK and abroad. As a member of the British Cave Rescue Council he was one of the British cave divers who played a leading role in the 2018 Tham Luang Thailand cave rescue.

Chris Jewell