[China] Teng Long Dong - World Largest Cave (Disputed)

[bugger]

Teng Long Dong (Soaring Dragon Cave)

One of the most facinating part of my recent China Trip was visiting Teng Long Dong Caves.... traslated as Soaring Dragon Cave.

It is claimed to be world's largest Cave (in terms of volume) but it often disputed. There is so far no official survey published, the length of 40km given on many websites is a guess. At any rate its a damn BIG Cave.

Their website

So lets take a ride with bugger sou (my wife)...... she comes from this part of the world and have visited this cave almost 18 years ago as part of a school trip...

#1 Getting There.... A short taxi from the town of Lichuan ride deep into the mountains.


#2 We are here!... Taxi had to drop us off and we have to walk towards the cave entrance


#3 Come... follow me... across this suspension bridge... be careful


#4 Wait lets stop to pose for camera ...


#5 Can you see the cave entrance behind me?


#6 There it is......looks small from over here..

[bugger]

#7 A Panoramic view...... of the location of the cave

[bugger]

#8 OK enough of looking around ...lets continue our walk to the Entrance of the cave...


#8 Tourist Centre - The cave is entered at one point by a huge river.


#9 This river first drops an almost 10m high waterfall, right before it enters the cave


#10 Here a path was built about 20m above the water along the cave wall, entering the river cave. The concrete path has a good view down to the cave river. The water deepens and calms down, while it is narrowed by the cave walls. However, this path goes into the cave only for a short distance, the path is always lighted from outside. At the first narrow point of the underground gorge a concrete bridge crosses the river, goes back out of the cave on the opposite side and leaves the cave again.

[bugger]

#11 The path continues along the limestone cliff outside and reaches a second, fossil aka dry entrance to the cave. The portal is almost rectangular. The floor was leveled and grassed, probably as part of the development works. It seems the water once entered the cave here.



#12 The cave offers extraordinary big passages and one of the tallest cave entrances on earth, 74m high and 64m wide. This is most liekly the biggest portal of any show cave of the world.


#13 The cave itself is an enormous passage, only slightly smaller than the entrance.

[bugger]

#14 The cave is toured on electric open top vehicles, which travel on a concrete path at speeds of some 50km/h.



#15 After 2.2km a sort of theatre is reached, where the visitors sit on wooden benches.



#16 The huge passage is filled with artificial fog which is used for a laser show.



#17 direct into the laser


To be continued........... stay tuned :grin:

[AhMah]

Wow!..these pix looks like those coming out of some coffee table magazine. I find most 'cave' pix boring, but this series is like

Where's this cave located?..the site you provided is in chinese..banana ahmah can't read

[liewwk]

wow NICE place GOOD pictures

[koel84]

Your picture really astonishing, Excellent

[bugger]

Originally Posted by AhMah

Wow!..these pix looks like those coming out of some coffee table magazine. I find most 'cave' pix boring, but this series is like

Where's this cave located?..the site you provided is in chinese..banana ahmah can't read

sorry , i also banana hehehee anyway here is the location map. From the map.
Its located in Lichuan City in Hubei Province, China. in the upper reaches of the Qingjiang River.



[MAP SOURCE : www.brucebensley.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk]

[kiankheong]

The cave certainly looks huge, moreover with a running river through it. Well captured images.

Personally, I don't quite fancy the light display. It just make the cave looks so artificial and devoid of any life (bats, etc).