Guizhou Province in China has long been known for its expansive karst landscape. It’s home to towering limestone peaks, deep gorges and cascading waterfalls, but perhaps its most remarkable feature is the underground kingdom of caves that spans through its mountains and below the surface.
The Shuanghe cave system is the biggest in Suiyang city. It stretches for more than 300 kilometers, making it the largest cave network in Asia. Huge rock structures, deep sinkholes, and other natural structures are the most visited parts in the cave. They’ve been fitted with lights that create spectacular displays of limestone formations.
And amazingly, they have been slowly created over the past several million years. But this brightly-lit portion of the cave is only a small fraction of the 300-kilometer-long cave system. Explorers and researchers continue to trek into the unknown reaches of this underground world, slowly adding to the ever-growing map of Guizhou’s vast cave network.
Excited to witness firsthand the natural beauty of Guizhou’s karst landscape, Jack from China Matters heads to Suiyang’s Shuanghe cave where he meets up with long-time cave explorer Jean Bottazzi from France. He’s been living in these cave parts for more than 20 years, helping to bring these caves onto a map. But venturing through a cave is no easy task.
Our host Jack goes right into the deep end by roping down cliffs and scaling the cave walls to talk to Jean about his lifetime work of discovering the hidden world in the caves.
Contact: Li Siwei
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