Starry Skies under the ground
 

Once we were all down on the water, we start paddling our way of through the water.  The water in the cave is just like a river, in that it is perhaps five to 7 m across at its widest point.  On either side of the water or sheer walls of the caves.  These walls go straight up, and meet at a roof that is perhaps 20 to 30 m above us.  At some points, the roof is maybe 30 feet above us, other points. 
 

 

not from this trip, but a good image to give an idea
 

We propel ourselves along this water, for perhaps five minutes or so.  Getting ourselves through the water is a matter of splashing and pushing ourselves with your hands.  At one point along the way, the tour company has anchored a rope into the side of cave wall.  We use this rope pull ourselves along the water. 

 

Our guides gave us more commentary on the biology of the glowworms, and how they work in the ecosystem of the caves.

After a bit of paddling,, our guide said that we would be turning around and going back to where we began.  She settled us into a little bit of a train of sorts, with each person holding the feet of the person next to them, between their arm and their body.  The result was a row of inner tubes, with people going feet first.  Our guide then took the lead inner tube, and started pulling it along.  
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During some parts of the return journey, she was able to pull us by walking along the floor of the River, which was running through the cave.  During other parts of the walk, she had to pull us, by swimming.

Up to this point,  We either had our lights on or off, but there was no set rule one way or the other.  Some people have their lights on, other people have their lights off.  It was more of a case that of someone had turned their light on, it had been left on for this part of the trip.   Our guide asked us at this point, turn the lights off, so that we get better see the glowworms above us.

 We could  then set  our heads back and look straight up with the roof of the cave above us, and see the glowworms arranged and stuck to the roof the cave. They looked a lot like a starry sky on a clear night.

 

After perhaps 10 minutes of calm appreciation of the glowworms immediately above us, we arrived back at the point where we jumped into the water.

Our guides told us we would be then be getting out of the tubes and continuing our day on foot and by swimming.  The next several minutes were spent trying to throw the tubes back up on to a shelf of the cliff immediately above us.  There's no way to climb back up to the cliff above water, so we had to keep throwing the tubes until they landed up on the flat part above us.

Next, swimming and walking