After a long time, I just spent the entire day yesterday on a dayhike – a major one, at that – and I’m feeling all sorts of sore and achy, especially in my muscles that haven’t seen some mountain action in what seems like forever. And I loooooove it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But I won’t say no to a visit in a dark cavern or cave somewhere, because that is fun, too. Like this one “cave” that we visited when we were doing a taxi tour of Jeju.
It is popularly known by many as a cave, but technically it’s a lava tube. I suppose this shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering the history of the “creation” of Jeju, with all that volcanic action and stuff.
If you’re an avid spelunker and expecting to do some down and dirty cave exploration, however, then Manjanggul Cave is not the place for you.
The Manjanggul Lava Tube
The Manjanggul Lava Tube is only one of the several lava tubes comprising the Geomuneorum Lava Tubes System. It spans 13.422 kilometers, with lava tube caves having been formed from several eruptions by the Geomunoreum Volcano.
To make it simple, a lava tube is formed when molten, hot lava flows and creates tunnel-like spaces, leaving behind what looks like very long caverns.
The Manjanggul Lava Tube, by itself, is 7.4 kilometers of the 13-km length of the entire system. However, it has earned a reputation of being one of the finest lava tubes in the world.
You can see below how esteemed and valued this place is by the government and the Korean people.
First, it was designated as National Monument No. 98 back in December 3, 1962, being the first lava tube in the country to be declared as such.
In 2007, it was declared by UNESCO as a World Nature Heritage Site. In fact, UNESCO made all of Jeju’s Volcanic and Lava Tube Systems as heritage sites.
In 2010, this was officially declared as a Jeju Island Geopark on the Global Geopark list.
Before entering the Geopark, there is this long length of wall installation with figures of a young man with a torch coming out one wall and on the opposite wall, an older bespectacled man reaching his hand out as if to pull the younger man towards him. Between them, on the concrete floor, are footprints.
This is a montage paying tribute to Bu Jonghue and his students for “discovering” Manjanggul Cave.
A schoolteacher, Bu Jonghue rounded up his 30 students and went spelunking wearing only straw shoes on their feet and armed with just a few torches. Their expeditions led to the discovery of Manjanggul Lava Tube.
Incidentally, Bu Jonghue was the one who gave the name “Manjanggul”. “Man” meant “long”, which is self-explanatory. “Jang” was derived from the name of the cave’s third entrance, which is ‘Manjaengi Geomeol’. “Gul”, of course, means “cave”.
Which means the name “Manjanggul Cave” is redundant, haha! But hey, I suppose it’s for easier understanding, although I do hear the locals just call it “Manjanggul”, but foreigners don’t know any better, I suppose.
Here, there is a panel talking about the other things worth knowing since they are related to Manjanggul. Like Geomunoreum, for example, or the volcano responsible for the creation of this lava tube system. The small volcano, or oreum, itself has the distinction of being designated as National Monument No. 444.
(I’m not quite sure how these numbering works, but if they do it chronologically, then I suppose the lava tube got the designation waaaaay before the volcano did.)
I briefly mentioned about a third entrance. That is because there are three entrances to the Manjanggul. However, only one is open to the public for viewing, and it is Entrance No. 2.
Before entering, however, you have to purchase a ticket, which is 2,000 KRW (USD 1.86 or Php 97.00) for adults. Mr. Bruce did not enter with us, but gave us instructions on how to go about it. Since we were kind of becoming short on time, he said we could reach the end of the tunnel and then back in under 40 minutes.
Since this isn’t my first cave, I already expected some dampness. And Mr. Bruce warned us beforehand that it gets really cold inside. We didn’t know what he meant by that, and we both went in with just short-sleeved shirts on.
And thin footwear. So, yeah. Brr.
Already, I apologize for the quality of the photos, because our photo-taking devices weren’t exactly made for extremely low-light conditions. Haha!
Anyway, as we were going in, we felt the temperature dropping real fast. I actually enjoyed the chill seeping through my bones, because man, summer in Korea – even in Jeju – can be unforgiving with its heat. And I’m a cold-blooded Igorota, so no second-guessing where I’d much rather be, right?
As expected, it was like a tunnel with a very high ceiling. I can almost imagine lava flowing real fast, creating this “tube”.
What fascinated me was how well-preserved the place is. No wonder it’s getting the recognition and praise, because it very much deserves so. This tunnel is estimated to have been formed around 250,000 years ago, and look how it still looks today. I think it is a combination of nature caring for its own, and man caring for nature.
Tourists are given a specific place they could walk on, with the edges and other spots isolated or protected with cable-and-fence structures.
It’s not pitch-black, because there are strategically placed lights to give just enough illumination so you won’t trip. Of course, you’d also have to be careful because the ground is damp, even wet in places. There are some parts where cold water drops are dripping from the ceiling. At first, I was afraid they’d smell like bat manure, but apparently the bats prefer to roost close to the entrance, and not inside the cave itself.
The inside of Manjanggul is known for having rock formations and stalactites that were also formed by lava. It was here that I learned about and saw stuff like lava columns, lava rafts, lava bridges, lava shelves, and rock falls.
Rock falls refer to the rocks that have fallen from the ceiling of the tube. They piled on the floor and some of them solidified further to take on various interesting shapes. A lava raft, for instance, looks like…. a raft.
This one below is a Lava Shelf. Lava shelves form when the molten hot liquid lava hardens against the cooler walls of the tube, resulting to shelves. Some of them have “lava balconies” and “lava benches”, depending on the shape they adapt.
But this formation is more famous as the “stone turtle”, because it is said to resemble a turtle.
Most other bloggers I saw ended up at this point, after seeing the Stone Turtle, then made their way back, without completing a circuit of the tunnel.
That just won’t do for us, so even if we have to walk real quick even if our freezing feet were complaining, then walk we would!
Past the halfway point of the tunnel is a very wide area that looks like those “ballrooms” you see in typical caves. The ground is flat enough to dance on (I kid, I kid) and there are more, and larger, lights in here, so it’s brighter than the rest of the tunnel.
It is also a strategic place to rest in, because there are benches made from rocks (or hardened lava, if I’m not mistaken). There are no water droplets from the ceiling here, so it’s safe to hang out on one of the benches and just laze around.
But of course we can’t do that. There is a flight of stairs that lead… somewhere, presumably the end of the tunnel. Before getting there, however, you’d pass by these hardened rocks called “lava toe”, because they resemble the toe of an elephant.
By the way, the temperature drops even lower once you go up the raised stairs platform. The lowest it could go, I think, is 11 degrees Celsius.
So the stairs lead up to a bridge of sorts. Elevated from the ground, it winds as you go alone, following the shape made by the tunnel. And then it ends in a wider platform that can accommodate a larger group of people, presumably for photo taking.
The background is this lava column. This photo does not do it justice, however, This is like the highlight of the tunnel, and it is the end. Said to be the largest lava column in the world, it stands at a height of 7.6 meters. When you look up, you really can’t see where it ends because it is dark, but I’ll take their word for it.
Oh, and this was a formation a few minutes from the entrance, and it is apparently one of the more photographed parts of the tunnel. Mr. Bruce gave it as a “homework”, showing the photo to us, then telling us to look for it, then take a photo of it as proof that we did see it.
I… kinda forgot what it is supposed to be other than a column on the wall, haha! But the effect looked pretty while we were looking at it.
We made it back to the parking lot within the allotted time frame Mr. Bruce gave us. I didn’t mind the rush, because even if we had planned to take our time and strolled leisurely inside the lava tube, it would have meant staying inside a very coooool place for a looooong time, only to come back out to sweltering late afternoon heat, and that way lies potential colds for me.
This is not the first, and definitely not the last time you’d hear or read me praising how South Korea protects, preserves and maintains its natural and cultural sites. Again, I wish our authorities back home take some lessons from how they do stuff here.
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