The section of the river where the caves are located is quite different from the rest of the shoreline. Where for the last 2 hours we had been passing gently rolling shoreline with smoothly rising hills and sloping mountain inclines, here, the mountains are sheared off into abrupt vertical cliffs of striated limestone with the entrance to the caves tucked inside what appears to be a huge crack in the mountain side.
It’s strikingly beautiful and different from what we’ve become accustomed to on this trip. We have to dock at the very end of a rather ramshackle bamboo floating dock – and when I say floating, I mean floating. There are no supports here, as one of our fellow passengers finds out when she almost topples the whole dock by stepping too far to one side. After watching her almost fall into the water – an encore performance we would prefer not to make – we carefully pick our way past the other boats to get to dry land and begin our climb up to the two caves.
We only have 30 minutes here, so we hoof it up to the upper cave first. And it’s a haul, especially since both of us are sick and trying to breathe while sitting still is an ordeal. But, after a few rest stops, we make it up to the carved wooden frieze enshrining the entrance. Entering the cave, we walk into the first room, which is contains a wooden water channel for the ceremonial washing of the Buddha statues as well as some small figures under a rock outcropping.
Immediately after the sunlit anteroom, we enter the pitch dark cave. We had read about needing a “torch” to see anything in the upper cave, so we’ve come prepared with a pen light and two really cool ink pen/pen light/stylus combos that Ed’s barber gave him as a holiday gift. Plus we have the phones, which is what everyone else seems to be using as they navigate their way through seriously pitch blackness and rough hewn cave floors. Sort of crazy, but oh so very worth it. There are thousands of Buddhas in here – of all shapes and sizes.
The cave itself isn’t very large, and with the flash lights, we can see the chain link that keeps you on a path around the statues, you just have to really pick up your feet and beware of the little rocks on the path around the statues. We reach the back room of the cave, where smaller statues are placed, carefully making our way around in a loop to head back out to the entrance.
Reversing our steps, we walk down the staircase, stopping for a scenic photo or two..
…then fight our way through the other tourists to the lower caves. These are really cool too, with tons and tons of statues, but the walkways here are incredibly small and the area to view the statues packed with other tourists. It makes it hard to really enjoy the enormity and majesty of all these iconic statues placed here so reverently. We snap as many pictures as quickly we can…
…then hoof it back to the boat. There is a slight moment of panic when we realize the boat is no longer docked where we originally disembarked, but we quickly find it, along with our guide, at the first mooring, right at the bottom of the stairs. Safely back aboard, we begin our sail back downstream to Luang Prabang, enjoying more of the same lovely Mekong scenery.
After we are all settled, lunch is served. We share a table (against our wishes as we don’t want to infect anyone with our colds, but we were over-ruled by the staff) with two men from Germany who are enjoyable companions, and dig into a veritable feast of Cucumber soup stuffed pork (totally bizarre and incredibly good), River weed and Luang Prabang pork sausage (more of the Luang Prabang specialty fried river weed, which is incredibly good, and some decent hot doggish sausage), Fried eggplant mixed vegetables (yummy), Chicken curry, fired chicken in herbs (wrapped in some sort of leaf which wasn’t all that tasty), sticky rice, Mekong river fish mousse in banana leaf and fresh fruit for dessert.
Delightful. Along with beer and wine and more cool scenery…
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