Now that Ollie is done with his work (for a bit), we’re free to roam further afield, and today we are going on an excursion to check out two of the recommended sights near Luang Prabang: the Kuang Si waterfalls, and the Pak Ou caves. We’re benefiting from mum’s experience again, as her group just did this same itinerary yesterday!
We start our day in a comfy minivan (thankfully - too many tours have been tuktuks) and head out of town once we’re filled up. First stop is a “traditional” Hmong village - or however much of it is left after being turned into a tourist hotspot. The Hmong are a hill tribe spanning areas of both northern Thailand and Laos, and one of the main ethnicities making up the Laotian population. I’ve seen examples of their traditional fabrics in Thailand: dark or black backgrounds embroidered with vivid colours and decorated with tassels, and indeed as we enter the hamlet the street is lined with women and children displaying those in their traditional outfits. It’s all a bit staged however - even the five-year-old is wearing makeup! And everyone is trying to sell us trinkets and souvenirs.
We get to a little museum area where a lovely local lady demonstrates the use of various contraptions for spinning, weaving, husking rice and grinding flour. Everything is purely mechanical and human powered - our slim, 5-foot-nothing twig of a guide has no problem operating the machines but when she hands over to the strong men in the group for a try they all struggle! We then see a recreation of a traditional hut containing a selection of tools, furniture and cooking utensils - and then the piece the resistance: the hunting demonstration! Our guide picks up a crossbow and showcases how the Hmong hunt wild pigs and birds. She’s got perfect aim (of course) but I’m most impressed by the trap she sets which automatically triggers a deadly shot when the pretend quarry trips it on its way to a waterhole. I’m not sure how much of what we’ve seen is accurate, or still corresponds to modern life in the tribe - but everyone in the village has been friendly, and the demonstrations were truly interesting, so this was well worth the stop in my books.
Our next destination is the Kuang Si waterfalls, about half an hour further down extremely bumpy roads. It’s not a comfortable journey even with the minivan, and with every jolt we’re further resolving to avoid bussing around in Laos as much as possible! We’re glad to get out for a couple of hours when we get to the park. There’s a sun and moon bear sanctuary at the bottom of the falls, which we check out on our way up. The endemic asiatic species are very different to what we expect: smaller, very fluffy, and with big round jowls for the moon bear. They’re playing around together but their enclosures seem small for a group of large mammals - hopefully they’re well cared for.
Five minutes of further strolling through the pretty forest takes us to the river and the start of the falls. Kuang Si stretches out over several rapids and small drops - we’ve started at the bottom by the least impressive ones, but they are still stunning with clear turquoise pools prettily framed by vegetation. A few people dip in, but mum warned us against the icy cold water so we abstain. As we ascend alongside the stream we build up to the big reveal: a spectacular fount of water dropping from a cliff into a churning rock pool. It’s very impressive but the journey there and the various smaller waterfalls along the way were just as nice!
Keen for some exercise, and since we have some spare time, we launch ourselves on the path to the top of the falls. It’s an arduous climb and nowhere near as safe as in Vang Vieng, with nary a handrail to help us avoid a steep drop back towards the bottom. It’s also quite a disappointing pay-off: there’s some more cute pools at the top but we don’t get a view back to the falls and the hill-top panorama is quite average. We shuffle and slide down, barely catching on the few poles along the path (inexplicably covered in nails) to break our descent.
Still happy with the outing, we get back into the minivan and off again. We’re now heading north, past Luang Prabang and on towards the Pak Ou caves - but a few kilometres before reaching them we stop for lunch at an elephant camp. I have heard horror tales from my mum’s group: the one they went to had the elephants chained to poles, permanently carrying howdahs and forced to bow to tourists whenever given a banana. A very far cry from our visit to Into the Wild in Thailand, and it does seem there’s a huge difference in standards between the various camps and countries. Luckily, ours isn’t that bad, although they do offer rides and I spot a couple of howdahs from the entrance. The animals are herded into a small spot right next to the path for us to gape at them - but once we’re past and people have taken pictures, they’re allowed to roam a bit. Although the owners, Manifa, clearly aren’t as focused on their charges’ welfare as our experience in Thailand, it’s not as bad as I was dreading.
After a surprisingly good lunch in the camp, it’s time to ditch the minivan and Laos’ patchy tarmac for our old friend the Mekong River. We’re switching to a boat for the afternoon, first continuing north towards Pak Ou, before coming back south all the way to Luang Prabang. Nominally, this is a sunset cruise and we were hoping for gorgeous colours on the way back - but today is a very grey day (the first since we left the monsoon rains in Malaysia) and it looks like we’re out of luck on that front. The clouds put a bit of a damper on the mood and the landscape. The Mekong is narrower here, with its usual rocky islets and pretty wooded hills on the banks, but in this grey light it all looks a bit miserable really, despite the novelty of the boat ride. Our tour guide, Mr Pong (“call me Ping Pong!”) tries to keep the atmosphere upbeat: maybe the sky will clear by the end of the afternoon?
Before we go to the caves proper, our boat takes us just a bit further to the mouth of the Nam Ou river (you can guess where the grottoes got their name from). It’s probably the most impressive part of the trip: huge karst cliffs fall straight into the water, even curving in slightly at their base due to erosion. The river narrows once we leave the Mekong and we’re almost uncomfortably close, counting the fault lines between the huge blocks of rock. After a quick, suspenseful boat-by, we turn round and head to the caves.
Pak Ou is a religious site: the natural rock chambers are filled with thousands of Buddhas, and for several centuries Laotians have been engaging in a yearly pilgrimage to add new images, sometimes taking in exchange an old one which will bring luck to their home. There’s (as usual) a set of steep stairs to get to the shrines - impressively, right at the entrance, some fifteen meters above the river, are some lines recording flood levels from 1966. The lower cave is very shallow and despite the profusion of idols and the pretty river views we’re not that impressed. But after another steep climb, we get to the upper cave before everyone else - and that makes a huge difference. This chamber is much larger, and we properly walk into the mountain, along a smallish corridor which suddenly opens into a larger space with a full altar in it. With the quiet and the darkness only broken by glints of gold it feels very mystical.
On the way back to the boat, we are surrounded by a group of children hassling us to buy some of their wares - Laos is the first place in our trip we have seen this (we saw it to a lesser extent this morning at the Hmong village) and it’s not a welcome addition. With two of us, we muscle through, but when we get back to the boat some of our fellow travellers complain that they struggled to move on. Once everyone is back on board, we head a few minutes downriver for our final stop: a Mekong whiskey tasting.
Riverside villages make the liquor out of fermented rice - red or white - to several strengths ranging from 15% alcohol to over 50%. After a quick (and possibly fanciful) introduction by our guide outlining the health benefits of Mekong whiskey fermented with various critters, from scorpions to snakes, we get to taste three samples. None of the cobra-venom-laced stuff for us, just a small dose of the various colours and strengths. The red liquor (made from wild rice) is really weird, but I find the white one in both strengths quite pleasant - although Ollie asks Mr Pong whether we can stock the boat up with some Beerlao for the way back. Before we set off again, we get enough time to have a quick wander around, and in particular see the weaving workshops. The villagers are selling a range of handmade scarves and we dither on a beautiful, soft indigo weave - before ultimately deciding against it due to its weight. We won’t see anything approaching that quality again however - sometimes the backpack limitations are a shame!
Back on the boat, it’s time to head back and hunt the sunset - but unfortunately, the clouds haven’t relented and we only get the smallest peek of red in the distance. Luckily, Mr Ping Pong did find some beer before we boarded, and he gallantly pours everyone a few drinks for free, which helps keep morale up. It’s still a pleasant cruise down the river, but probably much less impressive than on a clear day!
We land back in the city at 6:30pm, as advertised, and as it’s our first free evening in a while, we finally decide to go out. Luang Prabang is a fairly quiet scene but when we arrived our friends mentioned that the bowling alley was the place to go for a good time. It’s quite a way out of town, and we struggle to find a tuktuk in our sleepy neighbourhood, but we get a ride in the end. When we arrive, there’s a big Laotian party next door (maybe a wedding?) but the alley is deserted - we must still be too early! Never mind - games are cheap and the music is nice so we’ll do a bit of bowling. It’s another sport I’ve got little practice in, and this time Ollie’s teaching seems to do more harm than good. But after a while, I find my own (whacky) technique and once he’s had a few beers he’s tipsy enough for me to beat him in our third game: time to go home after this glorious victory.
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