November 25, 2007. Luang Prabang, Laos.
(notes from my journal)
We woke up a bit late (7 am ish) and took our time to get ready. My throat ache was getting worse and I just did not feel at the top of the world. At 9 AM, we went down to the hotel restaurant for a quick breakfast consisting of warm baguette, fresh fruits, orange juice, strong Lao Coffee (very good) and omelet.
We booked a private boat to the Pak Ou / Tam Ting caves. It was a 2 hour boat ride, up the mighty Mekong. We started off at 9:30 AM and our first stop was a weaving/paper-making village. The make paper from a local plant: Cut the bark, beat it to a pulp and finally dry it on a net. Voila! You got paper. They also had hand-made silk/cotton scarves and shawls for sale and Heena bought one. Afterwards, we headed to the caves and it was a good 2 hour ride upriver. The scenery was quite beautiful.
The caves were quite interesting. They’re places where people leave their old Buddha’s and when the Lao kings were around they patronized the caves and even paid artisans to keep the Buddha images at the caves in good condition. Today, the caves are locally managed with patronage from visitors and local people. There were actually two caves, the lower one (Tham Ting) gets enough natural light and we did not need a flashlight. However, the upper one (Pak Ou) does require a flashlight which you can rent for a donation. On the way to the upper caves, we saw several kids selling fried potato crisps (that were slightly sweet), bananas and caged swallows. Releasing the birds is supposed to bring good luck (but the chance of the birds being caught again is high, I’m sure). One of the local guides was mentioning that these little kids prefer to sell rather than go to school, which was very sad. However, I’m also sure that there must be family / economic hardships that these children face because of which they need to do this work. At least, they were not simply begging.
After the caves, we visited a touristy whiskey village (although when we went, we were the only tourists). They sell snake/lizard/crab rice wine and also Lao Lao. It has 15% alcohol. There was a little girl who was managing the alcohol shop and even offered me a taste of the Lao Lao. Should she not be doing her homework or something? It was sad. Selling bananas is one thing, but selling alcohol at this age!! The ride back was pretty fast since we were going downstream.
Back in Luang Prabang, we set off to find something to eat. We were quite full from the breakfast, but hungry enough to eat a bit. So a full blown lunch was out of question. We walked along the road that hugs the Mekong and popped into one of the many places by the river that sold sandwiches in baguettes. Sounded tasty! We sat down and ordered a vegetarian sandwich for each of us, a papaya fruitshake for Heena and a Lao coffee with milk for myself. The sandwiches were really good, in a warm baguette (Thank You, France). The fruitshake was divine and the coffee strong. Fortified, we took a tuk-tuk back to our hotel. As soon as we got in, we just fell asleep (no words spoken). It was one of those perfect lazy afternoons, where if you don’t sleep, it’s punishable by law!
We got up a couple of hours later, and it was almost dark. Dressed up and headed to the night market. On the way, we booked ourselves a ride to the Kuang Si waterfalls with Green Discovery tours. At the night market, we walked about looking at the wares, but were soon hungry. (I’m not sure how, since we ate lunch and slept). There is this vendor who sells a good vegetarian buffet at the night market. The deal is this: You pile a little plate with as much food as you like: Cut veggies, stir fried veggies, different kinds of noodles and fried rice. Add whatever sauces and spices you want and give it to a lady who will stir fry the mix for you and give it back. Only for 5000 kip! Spring rolls cost 1000 kip each and a soft drink is 3000 kip. Our dinner was a little less than $2! And we felt stuffed.
After dinner, we walked about a bit more in the night market and did not like anything that caught our eye. One thing that we noticed is that the wares are similar and no vendor is really unique. And there are a LOT of vendors! After some time it gets quite repetitive. They are hard bargainers and sellers.
We came back to the room by nine and Heena fell asleep early, while I finished up writing this diary and surfing the net (watching funny Indian ads on YouTube).
This post is a part of the Thailand, Laos and Cambodia 2007 itinerary
