Today we hired a longboat with three other young tourists to go up-river to the Pak Ou Caves. Hiring a boat can be a real pain here, since there are many boat drivers all along the river, each promising to be “the” boat to the caves, each with their own pricing and some with their own scam.

We were told by our driver that it would cost 300,000 kip for Dave and I to hire the boat to the caves on our own. We knew from our guest house host and much talking to boatmen that there was also a regular 8 a.m. morning ferry that cost 60,000 per person. We told our boatman that we wanted to wait and find some other tourists to split the cost. The boats can hold probably a dozen people, so that only made sense. We went down to look at the river and take pictures, and soon the driver came down, all excited, saying he got three other tourists to go and the boat is leaving now! We thought that was great, but then he said the price would be 100,000 kip each. You can see where this is going. After some haggling, we got our price down to 80,000 kip each. A few minutes later the three other tourists said the boatman had told them not to say anything about what they paid, which was 80,000. They felt bad and had even prompted the cut in price by saying we should all go elsewhere. After hammering out a deal, we finally left to go up river.

First we stopped at a village known for making Lao whiskey. They’ve got bottles for sale which also include snakes, bugs and lizards. Apparently, if you drink from these you will consume the power of the creatures. Here’s an easy-to-follow Lao whiskey recipe:

Then came the caves. We landed at the base, where stairs lead up to the entrance.

These caves are considered holy, and inside you can see thousands of little Buddha statues brought by locals over the years. Many are in the Louang Prabang style, with long, extended arms and curled up robes.

The upper cave is totally dark, with a few more Buddhas and a holy water trough to wash the Buddhas. On the stairs leading to the upper cave there are little village kids from across the river trying to sell small rocks and bits of candy. Others have tiny birds in just-as-tiny bamboo cages. They shake them in front of you and say, “Set bird free for only one dollar.” The poor little birds have probably been doing this routine every day since they were stolen from their nest. I will not miss scenes like this when I return home.