Miracle in the Cave Read online

  Princess Nang Non is said to haunt the area still. At various shrines around the entrance, people pray and light candles and incense, hoping to calm the deadly rage of the heartbroken princess.

  It’s true that, from a distance, the mountain range does roughly trace the silhouette of a pregnant woman lying down. Doi Nang Non is pocked with caves and sinkholes, but the biggest cave system is Tham Luang. In Thai, tham means “cave,” and luang is a word associated with royalty that’s difficult to translate into English. “Regal” is close, but not quite right.

  A short distance from the Tham Luang entrance is Saitong Cave and, in front of that, Khun Nam Nang Non (Headwaters of the Sleeping Lady), a lovely pond that fills with aqua-blue water. One village elder said that sometimes the water flowing out of the Nang Non series of caves runs red—a phenomenon locals believe to be the menstruation of the Sleeping Lady.

  The keeper of stories, Boonma Kabjainai, lives at the foothills of Doi Nang Non. He is a spritely seventy-nine-year-old with an easy smile, who still jogs every day. He also eats two or three homegrown bananas daily, and proudly offered a plate to his guests as we sat down to talk. On the day I visited, an afternoon thunderstorm threatened, and wispy white clouds hung low in the valleys.

  Grandfather Boonma first went inside Tham Luang in 1957. Back then he was a teenage novice monk on an outing with about ten other shaved-headed novices. In their orange robes, they picked their way over the rocks and mud. But deep inside, they heard a moaning sound. They were spooked and turned around, hurrying back outside. Later, when they told a senior monk about the sound, he said it was a ghost blocking them from entering.

  A few years later, when he was twenty-five, Boonma went in again, this time making it as far as Pattaya Beach, the tongue-in-cheek nickname for the huge cavern where water runs past a sandy slope. Grandfather Boonma said this chamber was a thing of beauty back then. A shaft connecting to the surface allowed light to shine down, illuminating the water in hues of brilliant blue. The aven was still there in 1997, he heard, but was now blocked by debris and soil, casting the chamber into darkness. Just beyond Pattaya Beach, farther into the cave system, he recalled the tunnel led to a spot known as Nern Nom Sao (Mound of the Young Woman’s Breasts). The water here was particularly clear and could be drunk, Grandfather Boonma said, likening it to the milk of the mythical goddess.

  Grandfather Boonma has no doubt Tham Luang is haunted. But these specters existed on a spectrum of spookiness. It’s not as bad as Doi Yatao, he explained to me. That mountain was so terrifying, even toughened hunters dared not spend a night there. All the mountains and caves had ghosts, he said, but Doi Yatao was the worst.

  The caves underneath Doi Nang Non have a habit of trapping people. After his stint as a monk, Boonma became village chief, and Tham Luang was part of his jurisdiction. He paused our conversation to go and get a framed newspaper article hanging on the wall, alongside family photos and portraits of Thailand’s beloved former king Bhumibol. The article praised his amateur detective work in tracking down two missing Danish tourists. Their rented motor scooter was found outside Saitong Cave, near Tham Luang. The couple had been gone two days. They were found deep inside Saitong Cave, trapped when their flashlight had died. Thanks to Grandfather Boonma, they were rescued alive and well, with a terrifying tale to tell when they went back home.

  But the strangest story Grandfather Boonma told that day concerned a friend of his, Nai Kham Devanjai, when he was just twelve years old. The boy went missing near the aqua-blue pond. His family and local officials searched the area thoroughly. For three days they walked around, shouting his name, but there was no sign of him. Then suddenly he appeared, sitting near the spring in front of the cave. The searchers were puzzled: they’d walked past that spot dozens of times. Nai Kham Devanjai said he’d been there the whole time—that he’d seen the search party and heard them shouting his name, but when he shouted back, they couldn’t hear him.

  The scientific story of Tham Luang’s origin is almost as remarkable as the folktale.

  Millions of years ago, Chiang Rai was the sea floor. Long after the area drained, volcanic activity pushed lava up along a fault line that almost matches the current Myanmar–Thailand border, forming a north–south mountain range. The west side of the mountain is mostly granite, the cooled remnants of that fiery lava, while the east side is displaced limestone, the compressed remains of ancient sea life: rock made from the bones and shells of the dead. In geology’s epic time scales, the Mountain of the Sleeping Lady is half new rock, half old rock; one part formed by fire, the other by water. The Tham Luang system meanders beneath these two worlds.

  Though the limestone is seemingly solid rock, tiny unseen gaps between those ancient lives have allowed the drenching monsoons of northern Thailand to soak through. Over time, tiny amounts of decaying organic matter in the soil and air above made the water slightly acidic, eroding these underground fissures into cracks and pockets and ledges and caves. At a rate so slow it’s hard to comprehend, the water changed the shape of the stone, carving out a main passageway through the mountain, Tham Luang. Each droplet also carried a minuscule amount of calcite, depositing it in a process of slow-motion sculpting. Over thousands of years, the interior of Tham Luang has become decorated—stalactites hanging and stalagmites growing, creating cathedral-like columns where the two meet. Flowstones like half-finished renderings or wavy curtains frozen in a breath of wind. Sometimes the roof sparkled with cave crystals.

  Inside a cave, a dry area is a finished work, and a wet rock is alive.

  Deep within, otherworldly creatures evolved. Black crickets burrow under rocks—entirely normal, save for the fact they have no eyes.

  These caves are a natural playground for local children—places of daring adventure, teenage first crushes, and escapes into nature. While the grown-ups of Chiang Rai have highways and smartphones and bills to occupy them, their children have the chance to explore freely and carve out their own stories, away from adult supervision.

  The boys who made up the Wild Boars faced their challenges, for sure, but they were also lucky to be born in a place of lush green mountains, labyrinthine caves, and rich folklore. A place where—given enough time—oceans become mountains, animals become rocks, and rocks become ghosts.

  4

  Entering the Darkness

  On the morning of Saturday, June 23, 2018, two weeks after their ride up Tung Mountain, the boys from the Wild Boar Academy Football Club rode their bikes to Ban Chong soccer field, at the foothills of the Nang Non mountain—all except Biw, who rode his motor scooter because his bike was broken, and Pong, who rode on the seat behind him. They warmed up and played their practice matches—just friendly run-around games, nothing too serious.

  After the practice, the boys bought snacks from a local kiosk—grilled pork skewers with sticky rice, potato chips, and soft drinks. They spent quite a lot—about two hundred baht (six dollars)—so the stall owner threw in some bottles of sugary orange-flavored drinks as a bonus. It was far from nutritious, but the boys just wanted some quick energy before their next adventure.

  They stood around on the edge of the soccer field and ate the lot.

  At about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, still dressed in their soccer uniforms, Coach Ek and ten of the boys cycled from the soccer field to Tham Luang, an easy distance of a little over a mile. Biw again rode his motor scooter with Pong on the back. They parked the scooter at the lower path leading to the cave entrance and walked with the rest of the boys up the path to the cave as the others wheeled their bicycles.

  On their left, they passed a small concrete shrine with two blank-faced female shop mannequins wearing silk dresses, inside: a double tribute to the mythical Princess Nang Non. At the statues’ plastic feet were candles and incense—peace offerings to the angry spirit.

  The boys guided their bikes up another small rise to the cave. They were in high spirits. They made up silly songs. Mix sang, “Today is the day I’m walki
ng into the cave,” and the others laughed. Coach Ek, Dom, Tee, and Titan had been inside Tham Luang before, but the others hadn’t. They had some rope and flashlights, which they pointed at each other, even though the sun was shining. It was a waste of the batteries, but they didn’t care: they planned to be in the cave for an hour or so. Some of them noticed a faded old sign among the vegetation on the cliff wall, yellow paint on a brown board. Titan paused to read the sign, written in both Thai and English:

  DANGER!

  FROM JULY–NOVEMBER THE CAVE IS FLOODED

  NO ENTRY!

  FROM HERE ON, NO ENTRY!

  Titan thought it over. “That’s okay,” he decided. It was the end of June. The dangerous period hadn’t yet begun. He followed the other boys to the cave entrance.

  Jagged gray stalactites overhung the cave mouth like rows of shark teeth, framing a dirt slope beyond. The entrance was huge, the size of a hangar for a medium-size passenger plane. The spiky walls funneled in toward the first narrow passageway. Down the left-hand side, stairs had been cut into the slippery wet dirt.

  The boys leaned their bikes and soccer cleats against a handrail at the top and continued on, wearing comfortable slip-on sandals. Most still wore their red soccer tops and shorts. They walked down the steps, still boisterous, shining their flashlights around the limestone walls. They were excited, not scared. This was going to be fun.

  As they went deeper into Tham Luang, the light from outside grew dim.

  Into the Cave

  5

  Trapped

  As their eyes adjusted to the dark, the boys noticed the passageway widening to a chamber and saw a solid picnic table about 200 yards from the entrance.

  The first 875 yards was an easy walk, the cave floor cemented in places. A sign warning DIFFICULT marked the start of a series of boulder collapses, choke points, and chambers. Farther in they went, the air getting cooler with each step, to Mueang Badan (Underwater City), a semiflooded tunnel with a small air space that required wading through.

  The boys ventured on until they reached the T-junction—or Sam Yak (Three Paths), as it’s known in Thai. Coach Ek remembered it from his previous trip. Then, as now, there was a bit of water pooled at the junction, but not too much. Some of the boys took off their sandals along the way, preferring to proceed barefoot. Tee and Note had left two backpacks near the junction, with bottles of water and phones, intending to collect them on the way back out. Turning left at the junction, they came to a short, muddy slope leading down to a pool of water where they decided to have a contest. The aim was to see who could slide down and stop themselves in time to then leap across the water. Every one of them slid down the muddy slide uncontrollably and plopped into the water, much to the amusement of the others.

  They carried on past Thong Fah Cham Long (the Planetarium) and then to the big chamber with a sandy bank, known as Pattaya Beach, which had once been lit by the shaft of light from above. The water Grandfather Boonma recalled as a brilliant blue had gone dark.

  Beyond, they passed Nern Nom Sao and eventually reached a passage called Lab Lae (Hidden City), named by someone with a rich imagination who had pictured a small village down here, completely unseen by the topside world. Here they found that the passage was flooded—but there was an air gap, and it looked like they could probably swim through.

  “Do we want to go farther?” asked Coach Ek.

  The boys were keen to push on. They would earn some serious bragging rights if they could walk right to the end of the cave—about six miles—and scrawl their names on the back wall. But it was already around 4 p.m. and they were about two and a half miles inside Tham Luang. If they were going to swim through the sump, Coach Ek needed to set some guidelines. “We have just one hour to go in, and after that we have to come out. We have to start leaving before 5 p.m., because Titan has a tutoring session.”

  There was also another reason: it was Night’s birthday, and his family was throwing him a party that evening.

  “Would you all like to join?” Night asked the group.

  Of course they would. Little Titan would have to miss the party because of his lesson, but the others agreed to ride to Night’s place together afterward.

  The boys readily accepted Coach Ek’s proposal, and waded into the water.

  All of them could swim and would often go for a dip after soccer practice. But some were more confident in the water than others. As one of the oldest and tallest, Tee volunteered to head into the flooded tunnel and check the depth. It seemed okay—he could touch the bottom—so he called to the others and the group waded into the cold water, some of the smaller boys riding on the backs of the taller ones, arms wrapped around their necks.

  They pushed forward, swimming—and walking where they could—until they reached another dry spot. There Coach Ek saw that their path was blocked by mud. He consulted Tee. “Should we go back now?”

  Tee thought they should, saying they could try to go farther another time.

  “Everyone swam back, hoping to come again in the future,” said Coach Ek later.

  Making it through the sump, they started walking back, passing Nern Nom Sao and Pattaya Beach. They were almost at the T-junction when, suddenly, Biw shouted, “Pee Ek, there’s water!”

  What had been a small pool just two hours earlier now filled the passage completely, blocking their way out.

  “Are we lost?” one of the boys asked.

  “Definitely not,” replied Coach Ek. “There is only one way in.”

  He wanted to check just how stuck they were. They had some rope, so Ek tied one end around his body. He had Tee, Night, and Adul hold the other end.

  “I instructed them that if I pulled the rope twice, to please pull me back—it means I cannot go farther. I dived down and found that the tunnel was full of sand and stone, which blocked our way out,” he revealed later.

  He gave two tugs on the rope, and the boys heaved him back to safety. There was no way through.

  The boys looked at each other.

  “I felt afraid,” said Mark. “Afraid that if I couldn’t go home, my mom would yell at me.”

  Dom wasn’t too fussed. “I thought we would be out soon; Pee Ek would find a way out,” he said.

  But some of the other boys had to rally themselves. “Get a grip first, then find a way out,” thought Tern. “Be cool, don’t be frightened.”

  “Soo soo nah,” said Mix, using a common Thai expression meaning something like “Fight on” or “Don’t give up.”

  Coach Ek told them they’d have to find another way out.

  “How?” asked one of the boys.

  He told the team to dig and try to drain the water from the flooded passage. They grabbed rocks and scooped the mud as best they could. The air was cool but not cold—about twenty-three degrees Celsius, or seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit. Not long after they started, they heard whistles—like a soccer referee—and the faint muffled sounds of shouting from the other side of the watery blockage. They shouted back, but they weren’t sure if those on the other side could hear.

  They dug for a while, but it was no use. The water, sand, and stones had sealed their exit shut, trapping them.

  Night had been gone all day, but that was usual for a Saturday. He would play soccer, and then he’d usually go on a bike ride or for a swim somewhere with Coach Ek. He normally returned home around 4 p.m., sometimes later. It was now 5 p.m. Night’s parents wondered where he had got to, but they weren’t overly worried. An ice-cream cake cooled inside the freezer, with the number sixteen iced on top. For his birthday dinner they’d be having pork, cooked on the sides of a volcano grill, like a Korean barbecue.

  As darkness fell, their concern grew. Night’s father, Boon (Somboon Kaewwongwan), called Coach Nop, who had no idea where the team had gone after the practice match. Boon and his wife, Supalak Somphiangchai, decided to drive over to Ban Chong soccer field: maybe something had happened to Night’s bike and he needed a ride home. It had been raining
heavily—perhaps they were waiting for a break in the weather before they rode back.

  While they were en route, Coach Nop called them back. He’d spoken to one of the other players and found out twelve kids had gone with Coach Ek to Tham Luang. He was on his way there now. Boon and Supalak immediately headed to the cave as well.

  As they drove up the dirt road toward Tham Luang, they saw Biw’s scooter parked at the lower path. They met Coach Nop in the parking lot, and together they walked up to the office of the Department of National Parks. But there was nobody around. As they headed back toward the mouth of the cave, they saw three parks officers walking out. One of them was crying.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t help them. The water trapped them.”

  Night’s parents and Coach Nop were confused. The rangers explained. They had noticed Biw’s scooter, so they had gone up to the cave and seen the bicycles left at the entrance. A heavy rain had started, and they were worried about the possibility of a flood. The parks officers went into the cave as far as the T-junction, but could go no farther. Water blocked the way. They had found some discarded slip-on sandals and a couple of bags. They shouted and blew whistles to attract attention, but heard no reply over the sound of rushing water.

  The officers tried to reassure the parents and Coach Nop: “Don’t worry. Whenever anyone gets trapped in these caves, they always survive. There’s high land, and water to drink.”

  Reinforcements were called: the village chief and the local volunteer emergency-services organization. From there, the news about the missing soccer team spread quickly.

  Coach Nop called Sak, telling him to hurry up and get to Tham Luang. When Sak arrived, the place was already swarming with police and soldiers. He realized that something was seriously wrong. He tried to help with the search for the boys, but the officials wouldn’t let him inside the cave. Emotions can be dangerous things in caves.