We woke early to be reminded that it was in fact winter and so the sun had only risen by 7am. It was cold, quiet and misty as we walked down the main street to get some breakfast. We first wandered down to the river to take some photos and on the way we saw the procession of monks. There were probably more than a hundred and they all walked in a line along the side of the road as women put a handful of sticky rice into the bowl that each was carrying.
We continued to watch them as we had fantastic chocolate and banana crepes across from the travel agent where our tour was to begin.
After breakfast we followed a long line of tourists down to the river for a long boat ride to the Pak Ou Caves. We probably should’ve worked out that being on a river boat at 8am in winter is going to be cold, but we didn’t so instead shivered our way to the first village stop. This village was known as a paper making village, and while it was all lovely hand made paper, there was no way it could survive the journey in our backpacks. Not at this early stage.
Second stop was a whisky village. I didn’t dare taste any but instead wandered round and found a nice piece of silk to buy for only $4. It’s hard to look at anything without being asked to buy it. Hopefully it’ll become easier.
The village was full of content people who seemed to think we were all a pretty funny lot of people as we wandered aimlessly and a little lost through their village. There’s was also a few sleeping dogs thrown in for good measure.
We got back in the boat and assumed we were headed for the caves. We had no way of telling how much longer the journey would be as the cold river air blew against my shoulder. Thankfully it wasn’t too long. The caves were quite spectacular, filled with hundreds of different sized Buddha statues, and jutting out from a cliff over the Mekong. We climbed all the way up the side of the mountain (when I say climb, I mean up steps), to another cave but this one much darker and less densely populated with Buddhas.
Running back to the boat so that it didn’t leave without us was pretty pointless. We sat there for at least 20 minutes waiting for some tourist who clearly wasn’t wearing a watch. Luckily we got back to town just in time to get our swimmers and have some lunch before our afternoon adventure began.
A cushy minibus transported us to the waterfalls about 45minutes from the town centre. The path leading up to the waterfalls was full of food and craft stalls. It was becoming apparent that wherever there were tourists there were also things to buy. The waterfalls were probably one of the best I’ve ever seen, and the most fun. There was a little bridge that carried us over the smoky turquoise coloured water. The whole area was so beautiful and perfect that it almost looked like a theme park creation. The place was as much fun as a theme park too. We followed the path up a very steep hill and as we approached the top water was running down the path. We took off our shoes and continued under and over branches, and through knee deep pools of water. Soon enough we came to the top where there was a rickety bamboo ladder that led down to a cliff halfway up the waterfalls. Surely in any Western country there’d be fences and warning signs, but to my great joy, not here!
The trip back to town involved another village stop. More of the same stuff was getting sold, but this time there were also some little kids to harass us as soon as we emerged from the bus. I’ve really gotta get tougher, but I can’t help but spend 50 cents on something I don’t need in this situation.
Another night and another walk through the night markets. This time we ate some great Lao food from a stall there.
We tried to get to bed early again despite the karaoke downstairs because we had a long bus trip the next day.
