Pakbeng to Luang Prabang ….with visits to Pak Ou Caves & the Lao Lao Village

November 30th, 

A chilly morning after a good night’s sleep, quick but quite good breakfast at our hotel during which a group of monks make their way up the hill stopping at each house/business where the owners kneel on the street and hand out rice and other foodstuffs. This is called alms giving and is  the primary source for the monks one and only meal of the day….this custom goes back some 400 hundred years…

….we pack up and head down to the river as our boat is supposed to depart at 08:00. Across the river we are told there is an elephant camp and they can be seen lounging around or bathing in the early morning…..these did not bathe but were kind of cool to see…

At 08:00 everyone is aboard and we are off, there are no stops planned this morning and we motor on….it is a bit gloomy with low cloud and rather chilly….everyone grabs a blanket  as they watch the scenery go by…

…raising and re-setting nets…

…and sometimes travelling can be pretty tough…as one of our fellow travellers said, if he could go everywhere like this he would be more than ready to do so, and this was ayoung guy……

….and then sometimes the river claims a victim…

 

The picture below is of a railway bridge being built across the Mekong paid for by China….when the line will be completed it will stretch from Singapore to China  >>> yet another link in the Chinese Strategic plan to create transportation arteries across Asia and Africa, affording them access to natural resources and leveraging such economic assistance into regional and subsequently world dominance !!! The western world watches, especially the USA which pounds its chest, speaking of strength while in fact hastily alienating friends and surrendering influence with the 2nd and 3rd world, all for the sake of short-term gain for the wealthy whose sons and daughters will bear the consequences.

Lunch is again served on board and is quite good especially the “fish” wrapped in a banana leaf…actually tasted like a mousse …had several. In the afternoon, we make the first of two stops, visiting the famous Pak Ou Caves situated two hours or 25km from Luang Prabang. One of the most respected holy sites in Lao; the caves have a history dating back thousands of years. Packed with over 4,000 Buddha icons, the caves, a shrine to the river spirit and Lord Buddha, are set in a dramatic limestone cliff at the point where the Mekong joins the Nam Ou River. Pak Ou translates to ‘mouth of the Ou river’, with the first cave entrance to Tham Ting being very visible from the water, the higher cave is accessed by stairs.

After the boat is moored we ascend stairs to the first cave Tham Ting, positioned about 50 feet above the river. The cave receives some filtered light which bounces off the hundreds of Buddha statues, some of which have sat here for hundreds of years. Nearby villagers, and pilgrims from all over the world, use this cave as a place to retire damaged and old Buddha statues.

We then climbed up some steep stairs to the upper cave Tham Theung,

where there is no light save for our flashlights. Panning our lights across the cave we were greeted with the smiles of hundreds upon hundreds of smiling buddhas, alas the lack of light does not make for decent picture-taking. Reversing course we headed back to our boat, wondering what Christians did with “tired” statues ???

Our second stop is at the Lao Lao village, commonly known as the Whiskey Village. A small and not so authentic village focused on rice whiskey and weaving (at least some of the items). The whisky  is not single malt but rice whiskey flavored with preserved scorpions, snakes and other critters ……apparently the uncannily preserved reptiles and insects are said to have medicinal properties: from curing impotence to restoring hair loss!

Somewhat of a tourist trap but kind of fun and the folks here are rather timid measured on our  “Traveller’s Salesperson Annoyance Scale”. Some of the textiles: scarves, tablecloths etc were quite pretty and we could not resist buying a piece…..you can guess why the lady below is smiling, haha!

Some last views of the Mekong River

……and we are  in Luang Prabang around 16:30 substantially as scheduled.

We bid farewell to the Captain and crew and our fellow passengers before being taken by mini bus (Hyundai super nice > I don’t think this model is sold in Canada) to My Dream Boutique home for the next 5 nights.

At we looked back on our short cruise on the Mekong River:

The Mekong basin is exceedingly rich in biodiversity, second only to the Amazon, and even slight changes in the flow, temperature, or sediment profile of the river can have disastrous impacts on fish and animal populations.

The ecological impact is already visible, even to travelers like us passing through. During our Mekong slow boat cruise we were struck by how quiet the river was…..just like on our cruise on the Yangtze…. unnaturally so. Nature is rarely quiet: even when it is still, there are birds chirping, the wind blowing in the trees, the hum of insects. It took me a while to place it: there were no birds mostly eaten as were the mammals those which survive hide in the deeper jungle and are very wary of approaching humans…..what a contrast to the Khao Sok park.

Our guide told us that the birds, even local song birds, have been hunted to near extinction by local villagers. Decreased access to fish in the Mekong, in part because of the dams but also due to upstream runoff and pollution from China, have depleted the fish stocks the locals depend on. See it while you can….the end is nigh!!