PAK OU CAVES

Don, Norma, Ingrid and I hired our own little boatman to take us along the Mekong to see the PakOu caves. They are about 25km from Luang Prabang up the Mekong river at the mouth of the Nam Ou. The caves in the Limestone cliffs are packed full of hundreds if Buddha images. And at the lunar new year many Local people go to pray at the caves.

It took about six hours round trip with lunch at a little riverside cafe and the scenery along the river was wonderful.

Oh and for all of you who messaged me about the massages !! you may be worried I have not had any for a long time...

well I did manage to have a couple of foot massages in Luang Prabang!!

I also took a hair raising bus trip up the mountain to see the Tat Kuang Si waterfalls. The bus tyres were bald, so the bus was sliding all over the road. The driver also seemed to be in a particularly bad mood. He was playing chicken with all the other vehicles on the road, and thankfully winning!! All the passengers were just stunned into silence! When he parked the bus it is kept rolling so he wedged a stone behind the wheels and walked off. It is strange that I would not dream of getting on a vehicle like that at home, but here it just seems the thing to do!!
But the journey was worth it when I saw the multitiered waterfall tumbling over limestone formations into a series of cool,turquoise-green pools.I had a fantastic swim even though the water was freezing!




The driver made everyone wait until he was ready to go and had finished his game of pool with the locals.He was not bothered that some tourists were shouting at him to come back to the bus. But it put him in a sufficiently bad mood to make for another interesting journey down the mountain. I am sure he knew how scared everyone was.
I was so relieved that we stopped at a village to see local craftwork for a while, so that I could steady my nerves.


And when we got back to Luang Prabang he stopped the bus at the outskirts of the town and told us all we had to walk the rest of the way. He really was the John Cleese of bus drivers!