Day 1012 – Pakbeng – Luang Prabang, Laos

Day 1012 – 15th March 2008 +7:00 GMT

Up again at 6am and down for breakfast at 7am. The breakfast was not so great but had a little to eat and then back on the boat.

Our Bungalow

Pakbeng Lodge

View Of Mekong From Lodge

At around 11am we stopped at another village. This looked to be better off than the one yesterday and had a couple of temples in the village.

Laos Tribal Village

Laos Children

Dog and Cockerel

Laos Tribal Village

Laos Children

Cute Puppy In Village

Laos Children

The Village Temple

Laos Children

The Village here does a lot of weaving and produce silk scarves and also distil Laos Whiskey. I bought a small bottle of Laos Whiskey for 30p and we spent 30 minutes walking around the village.

Peanut Production

Selling Their Silks

Distilling Laos Whisky

Peanuts Growing On Beach

Back on the boat we were served lunch and then given fruit and carried on until about 2:30pm where we stopped at Pak Ou caves. These are the caves of a thousand Buddha’s. We walked up the steps to the lower caves which has 2500 statues of Buddha in it and then we walked up hundreds of steps to get to the upper caves, this cave was 54 metres long and holds 1500 Buddha statues some a stall as 1.5 metres. I did not think the climb up all the steps was worth it as the caves were a little disappointing.

Our Boat

Pak Ou Caves

Pak Ou Buddha Statues

Pak Ou Lower Cave

Entrance To Pak Ou Upper Cave

We got back on the boat and sailed for the final 90 minutes into Luang Prabang.

The Steps Into Laung Prabang

We got a tuk tuk to out Guest house and checked into Villa Laodeum. The room is quite small but comfortable and we have a small TV and mini-bar. We headed straight out and had a walk down the street which lead onto a market where hundreds of locals had come down from the hills laid out there blankets and filled them with various arts, crafts and clothes. The stalls when on for several hundreds metres and 4 rows of them.

Luang Prabang Night Market

We bumped into Nigel from our cruise and he joined us for dinner where we had a few beers (1 ¼ pints for 59p). We then walked around for a while browsing in the shops and at stalls and then went back to the guest house to crash for the night.

Jill Enjoying A Laos Beer