China: Into the Depth of Silence and Stone

An execution cave, exploration, everyday life - off - track China

The surface was dull and greenish, like standing water. But we knew what was under it. And that changed everything.

Far from cities. Far from trails. Deep in the jungle, where there are no asphalt roads and maps become useless. That’s what I was looking for.

Not ruins, not museums, not attractions. I wanted a place that lives by its own rhythm. A place of taste, of silence, of rare but meaningful conversations. I wanted China that smells of earth and steam rising from a bowl. The kind of China they don’t show to tourists.

No menu, no translations. Just what they eat every day — and exactly what I was hoping for.

This wish came true thanks to Corey. He simply said, "It will be fine." And it was better than fine.We spent the day preparing gear and mixing gases. The goal: a cave. Depth: around 60 meters.

I didn’t know yet that the place we were heading to had a darker past than I could have imagined.

It is said that executions were once carried out in this cave. Unfaithful wives. Thieves. The punishment was always the same. The condemned were placed in a bamboo cage and dropped into the abyss. Water. Darkness. Time. At the bottom, you can still see rusty chains. Bones.

One of the channels that drains water after heavy rainfall is almost full. A little further back is the place where we prepared the equipment before it was transported to the water.

I never treat such places purely technically. That’s not how I dive. I know how people die underwater. I know how to bring them back. But imagining someone thrown into the dark in a locked cage took something extra out of me. For a moment, I stopped thinking about depth and decompression. I tried to picture what that fear must have been like. And I failed.

The cave had two faces. The top – murky, hostile, like it didn’t want to let us in. The bottom – crystal clear, quiet, welcoming.

At 30 meters we staged the decompression tanks (EAN50 and O2) and continued into the deeper part of the system.

Me and Corey. The kind of dream team that doesn’t need to say much — just dive, plan, and pour a bit of wine for the spirits.

Back gas was standard 18/45 trimix. An additional cylinder with the same mix. The whole plan was built on precise decompression strategy, full gas redundancy and team coordination.

Despite the restrictive approach, we had enough gas to comfortably use twin 2x12 and 3 stages.

We dove in two teams of two. That let us observe the cave's structure from multiple angles. Reference lines were in good shape, but spatial awareness and light contact remained our primary tools.

A small service lift saved us a lot of time – it turned out that the owner of the site had constructed a system for transporting heavy equipment.

Evenings were filled with conversations about diving. About refining algorithms and making decisions before things go wrong. About what can be calculated, and what requires experience.

just a smile – that's how every dive in the Chinese caves ended

But behind all of that, there was something else.

I saw her only from a distance. Always in the kitchen. Always quiet. Focused. I never knew her name. Never heard her story. But her presence cast a subtle shadow over the whole place. Not her as a person, but what she brought: rhythm. Simplicity. A bowl of rice, rising steam, the repetition of everyday gestures.

the gentle positive spirit of the house - our hostess

Sometimes a glance is enough to remind you that not everything that stays with you is about caves or diving.

Even the two dogs that lived there seemed to carry a kind of nostalgic gaze. Or maybe I just wanted to believe that.

The dogs here seemed to belong to the place more than anyone. Peaceful. Settled. As if nothing could surprise them anymore. A perfect match for their owners.

Before we could dive, Corey told me I had to pray to the local spirits. "I won’t go in the water with you otherwise."

I asked if the spirit understood English. Corey said probably not, but there was a second one nearby. "Pray to both. One of them will get it."

So I did. Twice. Just in case.

An hour later, Corey came back and said, "We still need to make an offering. Good wine."

"Do I drink it?"

"No. You pour it into the water."So I poured. Every day. Just in case one of the spirits was having a bad day and needed encouragement. This is where the path ended.

Or maybe where something else quietly began.

You decide.

It all worked out. Maybe because of the planning. Maybe the prayers. Or maybe just because someone up there happens to like diving.

A few days later I got to the airport in the middle of the night, only to find out my return ticket had been canceled. No explanation.

Maybe the spirit had other plans. But that’s another story. I’m not a TikTok filmmaker. Corey knows that.

So to make me smile, he quickly put this clip together from our dives.

No drones. No fancy editing. No soundtrack Just some depth, some light, and a solid friendship. Took him two minutes. That’s all it needed.

Are you curious about a different China? The kind you won’t find in a guidebook?

Let me know. Corey knows where real adventures begin.