Buniayu Caves: The Preparation
We went to the preparation hut which was around 50 m up the rocky hill. There was an entrance fee that we had to pay as a group of 5. It means that If you come by yourself, you still have to pay for the entrance fee of 5 people. I handed over Rp 300.000 (US$ 25) to the guide. It was a bit pricey but they had to do a lot of work for us. I guess it wasn´t pricey after all.
We initially planned to go to the vertical ghost cave but since it would rain soon the guide forbade us to go there. He said that if it rained, the underground river in the ghost cave would overflow and could possibly swallow us. Yikes. We decided to go to the semi-vertical porcupine cave and the wind cave then.
Visitors are not required to wear a safety jumpsuit nor a hard head to visit a wind cave but both of them are cumpolsory in the porcupine cave. My girl shouted, ``Mom, you look like an astronaut.`` ...Nice try.
While we were using LED headlight, our guide, Kang Iwan, used a carbide lamp which was attached on his hard hat. The flame from the acetylene gas (which was produced by mixing Calcium Carbide with water) was amazingly bright. The smell was aweful though.
