Day 7 - Pakbeng to Luang Prabang

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This morning we were up at 6:00am to take on the shower. It took us a bit to work out how to get it from freezing cold to lukewarm; and even then I could only handle a very brief shower. We packed up our few belongings and made our way down to the eating area for breakfast. They had rolls, butter, jam, tea and coffee, and they also brought out some scrambled eggs.
By this time, the kids were back at the door waiting for us to let them carry our bags back to the boat. I gave in this time and let one of them carry one of my bags, the one with just my clothes and toiletries in it. He was so cute, he already had two other peoples bags and when he offered to take mine I said "no, no, you've already got two, you're too little" to which he replied "no, no, that's okay, I'm strong". Funny kid, so I gave him 20,000kip (about $2.20).
We boarded the boat and departed and I had a bit of a snooze before updating my journal, and listening to my iPhone. At about 10:00am, Jackie and I managed to find two deck chairs free so we moved into the sunny area. It was so nice just cruising the river while sitting on the deck chair; heaven.
Lunch was served at about 12:15pm and it was much the same as the previous day. We arrived about an hour later at the The Pac Ou Caves, Sacred Caves of Laos.
The Pac Ou Caves are a sacred sight located on the Mekong River. It is loaded with thousands of Buddha statues and is still used as a place of worship. Every New Year people make a pilgrimage to the caves. There are all sorts of different Buddhas but the majority are the standing tall Luang Prabang Buddha statues. It is sensational. Approaching the caves from the opposite side of the river is a beautiful view. The white stairs can be seen leading into the dark whole cut into the side of the limestone cliff.
We gave a $1 donation and in return received a leaf that was wrapped in the shape of a cone; inside that cone was some flowers, two little candles and three sticks of incense. It was to make a wish.
What you had to do was kneel down on the mat in front of the Buddha statues, light you candles off the big candle that is there, make sure you melt the bottom of them slightly so you can stick them to the piece of wood in front of the statues. Next you have to light the incense, all three at once, blow the flame out and stick them in this thing of sand so they can burn down. Then it's time to make your wish, make sure your mind is clear of anything and everything else at that time, when you've made your wish you put the flowers in another container. Wish done.
We travelled down the river for about two more hours before arriving in Luang Prabang, Nui's "home town". We docked and jumped in tuk tuk to get to the hotel, VisounNam Sok Hotel. It was a very cute hotel, in a very pretty town. We put our bags in our rooms and met in the lobby for our organised bike ride.
We set off on our bikes, mine was purple, basket on the front, very 'My Girl'. This city is so nice. No one cared that a group of 30 bike riders were swerving in and out of lanes, and onto the wrong side of the road, or that you cut in front of them, no one called abuse or tooted. We rode for about 10minutes before arriving at Vat Xieng Toung.
Vat Xieng Toung is the oldest monastery in town and one of the most beautiful. Entry fee 20,000 kip but that was covered by Contiki. We walked around for about 20minutes before jumping back on our bikes to head to The Whiskey man.
We paid 5000kip, about 75c for like, a triple shot of 'Laotian Snake Whiskey'.
Chum or Tom, not sure how you pronounce his name, makes some mean snake whiskey. Very mean, very intense and very strong like the sign suggests. If you’re into strangely strong drinks and don’t mind risking your life drinking a plethora of poisonous things you’d never want to encounter in the wilderness, I suggest you visit him and “give it a shot”. It has cobra, other snakes, scorpions, weird centipedes, all sorts of creepy crawlers. Basically anything that is poisonous, he finds and crams into these jugs and lets them ferment, hmmm… Describing the drink as “intense” is an understatement and tastes like nothing you’ve ever had before. (duh!!) I tipped half of it out and downed the rest and it burned the whole way down.
Probably not the smartest of ideas was to then get back on our bikes but I honestly believe that half triple shot improved my bike riding skills (or there lack of).
We did get back on the bikes, and by this time the sun was setting over the Mekong River, which made for some beautiful photos, but we also wanted to make it back to the hotel before it did set.
We got cleaned up and decided to walk down to the edge of the Mekong River (almost to where the Whiskey Man was) for a barbeque dinner, Laos style.
There was nine of us, myself, Jackie, Matt, Luke, Joey, Eno, Steph, Jules and Lucy. We had plates and plates of meat, beef and chicken, and baskets of veggies and they out this thing (see photos) over some coals in the middle of the table. You put water round the outside trench and put the veggies and noodles in it to boil them and you put the meat on top and cook it to your liking. It was delish! For the nine of us, including drinks (non and alcoholic) the whole bill only worked out to be Aus$50!! So cheap!
After, we walked back to the night markets that we'd passed on the way and we hung there for quite a while.
A lot of the stuff, like at all the other night markets, is made of wood and animal products so there was no point in me buying it because I would never get it into Australia. We went back to the hotel, dropped off our purchases and our way up the street to Hive Bar.
We sat around with the rest of the group having a few drinks until about 11:30pm when we got kicked out because that's just what time things close here...on Friday night!!
We made our way back to the hotel for a relatively early night as we have a bit ahead of us tomorrow with the elephant rides in the morning and the waterfalls in the afternoon.

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