Advertisement
Published: January 27th 2013
Edit Blog Post
This morning Im up early, the guy next to us is definatly from Laos, he's up early hawking and spitting, nice! He also gets a call around 6 am and he's shouting down the phone. Then the cockrell starts....Time for a run me thinks.
Its very cold and misty here in the morning, meeting Jonas and Julia for breakfast at Delilahs, they do fruit gronola and yogurt, its soo good. I've discovered this is another place you can't do a lot unless your willing to spend stupid amounts of money, I asked a guy last night about kayaking and he wanted to charge $85 for a day!!
We wait for the weather to warm about 11oclock (I go from Wearing long sleeved top, fleece, long trousers and scarf to shorts and vest in a matter of minutes) and then we head coffin search of the local Pathok caves. About 3km walk from the bridge its a nice walk and peaceful, the landscape is just so amazing. Arriving at the caves we have to pay for entry of 5,000.
First we meet the handmade bridge over the river which consisted of a couple of logs with a bamboo hand
rail, then through the field and we see the steps leading up to the first cave, wow are these bad boys steep. Half way up we meet a local guy who starts talking to us and asking where we are from, seems nice until he starts to follow us and then show us where to go ( I've read about kids being tour guides, but this guy is older than me!). Anyway he tells us about of history about the caves, this is where the Laos people hid when all the American bombing was happening, apparently this is the most bombed place in Asia, and he made a point of where we were from and then saying again and again... A lot of people died here.
After the first cave we wanted to go and explore the others our own, by this point another 'guide' had tagged along and was playing music on his phone... We wanted to explore in peace so very diplomatically told him so, in return his says ok but you pay what you think...then he says people pay normally 70,000, and says for his friend to!!! Yer right we hand him 6,000 and say thats
all we have, its a shame we seem to be getting that feeling as we did in Vietnam that your walking dollar bill... This place is so secluded I didn't expect it.
Anyway we leave our 'tour guides' and head of on our own little adventure, its was ace, we found the second cave and met a guy as he was leaving, he told us you have to walk in at least 100m to find the bankers desk. Let's just start by saying I've not done caving since I was 16 and it freaked the hell into me and since then I've not been able to combat that fear, well today think I certainly did, the path way got more and more narrow and my torch seemed to dim alot but we found it, a quick picture and an about turn to came back out, sounds stupid but I'm quite proud I did it.
Anyway so onto the third, it appeared we missed as came to the end of the path buy the heard of water buffalo taking a dip in the river. Turning round we see flashes and then hear the music.... Our previous 'tour guides' have
caught a new unsuspecting victim... We then meet Kate the Aussie, bless her she almost jumps for joy at seeing other people and trys to hang around for us as we explore this much shallower cave.
We after abit more exploring (much to the guides disgust and then shouting spiders, spiders after us) we head back the way we've come and catch up with Kate. All walking back to the village for some well earned food, by now the sun is baking.
Later meeting for dinner at where we had lunch, overlooking the river for a mighty feast of green curry, everything closes very early here so the plane was to go and sit on Julia and Jonas's balcony and play cards....well walking there we pass a group of locals lads sitting on benches at the side of the road, being polite we say hello and they then shout for us to come and sit with them then we see the Lao Lao (whisky!), as I've said before when offered something you shouldn't really refuse as its seen as rude well this was one of this awkward situations. We sit and the shots start. They were really nice
lads and we had a laugh, luckily we had the phrase books which helps. After an hour or so the whisky is hitting me so we say our goodbyes. I love it though, these people have next to nothing but they are there offering us their food and their drink, big smiles on their faces, it heart warming.
Now I need to go and sleep of this whisky head...goodnight.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.189s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 47; dbt: 0.1047s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb