Hell and Heaven

The same day we discovered the amazing garden in the last post we also drove past a sign that said in English "Hell and Heaven". We had half an hour to spare and so followed the signs not having any idea at all what we were about to discover. It turned out that it was a pretty strange place in the middle of nowhere. The sign outside (also in English for a change) let us know that Hell and Heaven was a tunnel network that it was constructed for the purpose of educating the people in 1820. There was a 40 meter long "hell cave" and a 20 meter long "paradise cave". You enter the cave system at the "court of justice in hell" and as you pass through the narrow cave system you pass various statues including "the god who has an ox head", "the Old Woman in Hell" and the "Pond in hell". If you make it safely through the narrow caves (designed for very short people...) you arrive at a very narrow, vertical "eye of the needle" which you literally pull yourself up with chains... sweating and swearing as you do so! Once you make it up the chains you find yourself in paradise - the top of a hill with many peaceful Buddhist saints around Buddha where "you will feel peace of mind".

I'm not sure that we found ourselves in paradise, but we definitely had a few laughs trying to work out what it was all about and squeezing ourselves through the needle. Sometimes it is best not to know what is coming!