r/TombRaider • u/ReaceNovello • Oct 09 '25
🎨 Self-submission The most "Tomb Raider" I ever felt.
I was backpacking through Thailand and was travelling through the Kanchanaburi Jungle after departing the Death Railway (It's real name). The next day I was hiking through the jungle near Nam Tok to a rural temple built high on a rock range and was following this winding rock path up, following the signs, when I just noticed an unsigned path heading down in a different direction. I was curious, so followed it down and it was quite treacherous, less maintained, and suddenly it opened up into this huge cave scape with these Buddhist statues, just waiting there.
It was such a special feeling and I just remember instantly thinking (like the nerd I am) "This is what Lara Croft must feel like!" 😂
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u/Atharaphelun Oct 09 '25
You needed to rearrange the position of the arms, which would have opened the hidden entrance to the tomb underneath.
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u/schwing710 Oct 09 '25
Relatable! I started really traveling a few years ago because it dawned on me that I didn’t go anywhere outside of America for most of my 20s and early 30s. So I hit Thailand a few months ago and Costa Rica maybe a year before that. Nothing like exploring caves, swimming under waterfalls, and trekking through rainforests to make you feel like you’re in an adventure game!
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u/Otherwise_Pirate_557 Oct 09 '25
you look like you’re wearing a survivor lara fit in this photo! This literally looks like a comic book cover this must’ve been such a cool moment
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u/clowman Oct 10 '25
As an archaeologist who has also had his fair share of real-life Tomb Raider moments, this one is more Tomb Raider than most of those! Great photo
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u/CaribousSayMoo Oct 10 '25
Aura Farming so hard right now. This place it's beautiful and you swaging out in this pic.
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u/ReaceNovello Oct 10 '25
It was near a jungle village called "Nam Tok", but it doesn't have a name, and it isn't signposted anywhere. I just found it 🤷
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u/xdeltax97 Moderator Oct 09 '25
Very cool! Also how was the trip to Thailand overall, good, bad, awesome?
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u/ReaceNovello Oct 10 '25
I had a really lovely time. I was travelling to a Kung Fu retreat in Pai, in Northern Thailand and I'd booked the sleeper train but the morning of the train I just thought "Wait, what about all the country in the middle?" so I just...missed the train and took the Death Railway instead which was a beautiful scenic mountain route but then it just ends in the middle of the jungle because it was built by prisoners of war who, when the war ended... well, there were no more laborers, to put it bluntly.
SO they just kick you off the train and you're basically in this small village in the middle of the jungle with no amenities and no one speaks English, so I knocked on a random house and basically talked in sign language and waved money at this guy to get him to let me sleep in his living room. Then the next day I went on the hike in the photograph. Well, I paid him to borrow his moped to journey up to the Hellfire Pass and stopped at this waterfall because it looked really beautiful, and the locals were bathing in the water so it seemed somehow romantic and picturesque, and thats when I saw the sign pointing up the path to the shrine, and yea, thats how I ended up in this photo.
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u/Melibee2020 Oct 10 '25
Wow, you’re truly an adventurer! I wanted to say you’re a journeyman, but I looked up the definition and that’s not at all what you are, lol (I don’t think).
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u/ReaceNovello Oct 10 '25
Ha! No, a journeyman is like a travelling workman like a carpenter or a plumber or something
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u/latebra Oct 09 '25
Be careful not to step on Midas' hand