Pak Ou Caves

Some of the Buddhas at the entrance to the Pak Ou caves

The best part of the Pak Ou caves river trip was the boat trip up the Mekong. The caves themselves are interesting. The Laos are very proud of them.

It was surreal being on a boat on the Mekong. I’d seen and read about it so many times. To be there was a moment I’ll always remember. We were headed up river first to visit the Capoper village where they made Lao Lao whiskey and then to the Sapaper paper making village.

The land on either bank of the Mekong is beautifully green and lush. Yet behind it lies hardship and a farming community that uses small patches of the banks to grow vegetables to support themselves. Clearing the patches on the banks causes disintegration when the heavy rains come. The farmer and his family then have to move onto the next path. Much of the Mekong hillsides and mountains are being destroyed by the slash and burn farming here. But how else are the farmers supposed to make a living? It’s a vicious circle unless the Government steps in and does something about it.

Some days we heard that the smoke from the slash and burn effect causes the hills to be misted over all day. We did see the effect later that day as we returned to Luang Prabang.

Very shortly after we’d started out on the trip we pulled over to the Sa paper making village. I was disappointed that we had stopped so soon, I was enjoying the ride. But it was worth it.

We saw how the paper starts out as a watery kind of pulp, it's set out to dry on bamboo baskets and when dry is made into the various kinds of lamps, painted and decorated. Also in the village were the silk cloth weavers, We had seen many of the silk products at the night market and in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. They said that it takes somewhere between 20 – 30 days to make one of the cloths, depending on their size. It certainly looks extremely time consuming.

After the sa paper village we continued up river. This time we had lost our front seats as we were slower getting back on the boat (read last). Being at the back of the boat was noisier and more uncomfortable. The seats here didn’t have cushions like the ones up front. I think everyone on board had been a bit surprised that the Jaspanese pair had taken over the front row seats. Thereafter that they made sure to always be first back on the boat to get these seats. Oh well.

A good deal later we stopped at the whiskey making village. Lao Lao whiskey is quite a lovely drink, though very potent. It’s distilled from rice. First the rice is put in what looks like water but potentially has more in it, for 5 or so days. Then it’s put through a still where it's distilled and the resulting whiskey tricles out into a large jar. The jars used to be made in the village here, but not any more. They are brought in from outside. The jars themselves are very large, holding a huge quantity of the lovely liquid.

We bought some of it for gifts for friends but left behind the bottles that had additional flavorings such as the scorpions, lizards and other nasties.

At the Pak Ou caves we spent about 30 minutes looking around. It was much smaller than I expected, but then it is just a cave. It was dark and difficult to take photos even with a flash. The caves are in two halves, a lower cave and an upper cave. We walked up the 220 steps to the upper cave. Inside is extremely dark luckily Jeff had brought his little LED light which just barely enough to see by. You can rent a torch from the two little girls outside the cave if you forget to bring a light with you.

After the caves we crossed the river to a couple of bamboo covered restaurants. Here we had a long leisurely lunch before getting back on the board and heading back to Luang Prabang.

It was an amazing journey back through the Mekong river. I watched the eddies and whirls that surfaced everywhere and canonly think that there was so much more turbulence bellow the surface that we didn’t see and was dangerous.

Unfortunately back at the Guest House Jeff’s back had paid the price of having to duck to get to the back of the boat all day, while carrying his heavy Brian’s Hot Tub in front of him. He was out of action for the next couple of days. Only barely being able to move to get to breakfast or a short walk across the street and back. Just as well we took this more expensive Guest House as it made it so much more comfortable for him to be suffering with a bad back. Especially the bed, it was good for his back.