Wading into Mysterious Kudum Cave

There once was a Buddhist seer who lived in Myanmar, when it was called Burma in the time of the British. He was a simple fellow, except that his eyes could see the whole world simultaneously; but he was old. His pending death concerned him.

As it happened, what people say is he embarked upon a journey to the estate of Whykeong's landlord, nowadays in the north of Teknaf upazila.

The seer sought to visit a cave he had seen, where a porimei, a creature not dissimilar to a fairy, lived.

Today that cave is called Kudum Cave and it lies within Teknaf Game Reserve beyond the Chakma village of Harikhola.

The British era the landlord, a Rakhine, presided over a great area of forest which is now the game reserve. He had six hundred buffaloes running free.

Each year the landlord ordered cowboys to fetch some buffaloes from the forest, and long before the seer arrived, one stumbled upon that cave and saw the porimei.

“Son of man, come here!” said the porimei, “I have something to discuss.” The porimei offered a mohor, a gold medallion, on the promise the cowboy wouldn't tell anyone he had seen her. The cowboy accepted and spoke nothing of the encounter.

It's unclear how long it must've taken the cowboy to reach Harikhola from Whykeong Bazar but these days it's a thirty-minute CNG ride through picturesque countryside.

It's an attractive village with Buddhist temples, called kyangs, including one dating from 1903 which features a large wooden bell and a monk from Myanmar, asleep after lunch. According to Moni Sowpun Chakma, 37, a villager who's worked as a guide for a decade, 1903 is when the first seven families arrived, pursuing slash-and-burn jhum agriculture. Many of their descendants still reside in Harikhola.

Across the road from the kyang is a raised wooden platform called a serang, the perfect spot to rest out of the sun. Further inside on the crests of minor hills are several ching ghar, pagodas.

After consulting Birandan, 52, headman of Harikhola, Chakma is ready to lead us on the twenty minute walk to the cave.

Many years back when the seer arrived he made his way to the landlord's residence to stay as a guest. He took the opportunity to ask about the cave and the porimei; but the landlord said he knew nothing. The cowboy stayed silent.

However, on the following morning the cowboy relented, perhaps out of fear of the seer's power; thus as the seer was taking a morning bath he confessed that he knew the cave and had seen the porimei. The seer asked the cowboy to accompany him there.

The track to the cave traces muddy overgrown gullies with high clay hills rising on either side. There's a bit of jumping over streams required. In front of its entry is a small pool that continues inside, to chest-height, depending on rainfall.

“Nobody knows how deep the cave goes,” says Chakma. “They say it runs right through the hills to the Bay of Bengal.” In other accounts, the cave, unique for being clay-mud rather than stone, is 38 metres long.

He explains that far inside is a high cavern with a platform reached by ladder. He says it's not advisable to go there since a large, black python inhabits the platform, descending to feed on the several fish species in the pool.

When the cowboy and seer reached the cave, the seer told the cowboy to wait outside to catch the porimei that he would chase out. “How do I catch a porimei?” asked the cowboy; and the seer gave two handfuls of sand to throw at her.

When we reach the cave I'd happily wait outside too but Chakma is taking off his shirt to go in. Cautiously we wade into darkness, torches in hand and a polythene bag over my head on account of the hundreds of bats who relieve themselves like rain.

With the entrance but a sliver of sunlight behind us Chakma asks if we wish to continue. “The water ends shortly but beyond that, somewhere is the python.” I'm more concerned the python might be in the water looking for fish. We head back.

We didn't see the porimei but the cowboy did. As it tried to escape, it flew out of the cave and the cowboy threw sand at it. When the sand hit, the porimei transformed into a great tiger and ran into the forest, the seer in pursuit. “They say the porimei was killed at Colemamarang, some distance from here,” says Chakma, “There's a rock which looks like a girl fallen that people say is the porimei in stone.”

The seer took the porimei's eyes for eating as her eyes could do the one thing his couldn't: grant eternal life.

“Doesn't the cave python scare you?” I ask Chakma as we walk back to the village.

“No, but the wild elephants do. It's easy to encounter them along this track.”