Day of Rest

It's actually Monday here, but Nancy just finished watching the Super Bowl, so we're going to treat this day like Sunday and make it a day of rest. After yesterday, we're very ready for a day of rest.

The day before yesterday, our scary waterfall climb day, we had also made reservations for the next day (yesterday) to go to the Buddhist caves in the morning and to ride an elephant in the afternoon. So, just like clockwork, and before we'd finished our breakfast, there was our (marginally) English speaking guide ready to whisk us off to the caves.

We took a tuk-tuk to the boats.

That's how you get to the caves, on a boat. It takes two hours. On a little wooden seat.

Here's our trusty, likable, marginally understandable guide.

Here's the sign promising joys to come.

It's hard to read in this size but says "Please book now for full taste of happiness."

Here's the crowd waiting for their full taste of happiness.

Here are the steps down (WAY down) to the river,

the boats on the river,

and the scary rocks leading to the tippy boat.

Here we are, all squished in and sitting on our little wooden seats.

Off we went.

Here's our trusty driver. HE had a cushion, although I suppose that if any one of us needed to not be distracted by a sore bottom, it was he.

The boats are interesting. They're very narrow for their length yet seem reasonably stable. I presume the stability comes from the hull being hard chined steel, while the superstructure is very lightweight wood and bamboo. The boats also have extreme rocker aft, like this.

The propellers are almost out of the water. I'm supposing that this is so that if they hit a rock, of which there are many, the prop is protected. We didn't hit any rocks, I'm happy to say, but we sure saw a lot.

As I was saying, off we went. First we stopped for gas.

Off we went again. What I was most impressed with,well, ultimately it was how hard my seat was, but before that what I was most impressed with was how rapidly the river flows, how turbulent it sometimes is (meaning rocks below the surface) and how many rocks we saw. Often our driver would go well out of the shortest path to, I presume, avoid hazards I could not see. Thank goodness he knew what he was doing.

It's a bit hard to capture with still photos, but here's a turbulence photo

and here's a rocks and turbulence photo.

That we were only inches off the water made it all the more interesting.

So the boats followed each other, all in a row, first hugging one rocky side then the other. Sometimes we were in the middle.

These men were going upstream under their own power. Arduous.

After about an hour we stopped at this village,

and climbed up from the river to have a look around.

There were colorful textiles

and colorful ducks.

There was even colorful alcohol. I tasted three brews poured into filthy shot glasses (what the heck, I thought, when in Rome, etc.) and bought a dollars worth of one. I eschewed the bottles with the snakes and scorpions inside, despite the proprietor gesturing to me how strong they would make me.

And, as always, there were the children.

The title of the book the girl below is reading to her brother is "Opposites". There are a giraffe and dog on the cover.

Off we went again, Nancy wearing her new scarf.

At last, we arrived at the caves.

The main cave, the lower one, is filled with thousands of Buddhas (and hundreds of tourists).

The upper cave is a LONG way up and much smaller and darker. As luck and not-so-clever forethought would have it, I'd replaced my flash with a water bottle

It was light at the entrance

and got progressively darker. We had been given flashlights, but they were of no use for photos. My water bottle was even less useful. But I tried. Here's a 0.7 second exposure, resting my elbow on a rock for stability.

After the upper cave it was back down to the lower cave

then back down to the boats

for the trip back. As we got back into Luang Prabang we passed the boat that is a floating hotel and takes people on extended river cruises. We'll save that for next time.

After all that, it was time for the elephants. Already, I was ready for a beer and a nap, but that was not to be.

On to the elephants. We had to walk to the bus. "Sorry," said our guide, one his few English words. Then we waited for the driver. "Sorry."

Once the driver finally showed up, the trip to the camp took a while as we picked people up along the way. When we got there it was time for our promised lunch. Lunch was a mostly bread sandwich and bottle of water, but made good by the company we had.

After lunch it was time to meet our mahout and our elephant. Laos was known as the Land of a Million Elephants, but their population is much reduced through poaching and habitat reduction. The ones that remain are often exploited in the (illegal) logging industry. My understanding is that the elephants in camps such as the one we visited are rescued, are ill-suited to go back into the wild, and in some sense earn their keep by plodding around with people like us on their backs. People can actually learn how to be a mahout here.

Anyway, here they come.

Climbing aboard was a bit tricky.

Off we went. Along the way we received hats made on the spot.

Sometimes our mahout would hop down off the elephant. This was distressing the first time he did it, because I had no idea how he would get back up.

Turned out getting up was no problem (for him). While on the ground he could take photos of us. Here we're going downhill, which was really problematic. There was nothing to brace your feet on. Every time the elephant put his (her? I forgot to look.) foot down, bump, our butt slid a bit further forward. We were frantically pushing on that rail in front of us, trying to keep things from falling out (including us), and wondering whether, if we did fall out, we would not only hurt ourselves but annoy the elephant into doing something even worse to us.

Here's how the elephant looked sans mahout. We really, really hoped he would be able to get back on, and that the elephant would keep minding him until he did.

There was a lot of down going. Finally, we came to the river.

We went into the river.

Across the way we saw people washing elephants. I wondered whether we were supposed to do that, or whether our elephant would playfully spray a trunk full of water on us. Neither of those things happened.

Our mahout took a few more photos.

We went into deeper water. I figured that once our elephants ears were in the water we were (or rather, he/she was) swimming.

No problem. We came out, climbed up a very steep bank, and headed for elephant home.

Here we are on final approach.

And here's our elephant all unsaddled and ready for a well earned rest.

As were we, but that was not to be for a while. We waited for the bus driver, and we waited for our other passengers. Finally we drove to the river and waited another 45 minutes or so for a boat load of additional passengers. We decided Laotian time is a lot like African time. To while away the time we skipped stones

and checked out a disturbingly large spider.

Eventually, the boat people arrived and off we went, this time for real. Once into town we were to be dropped off at our hotel, but instead were dropped off on the other end of town.

"Sorry."

There's a bit more to the dénouement of that day. We bought a couple of large beers and drank them in our room and then decided to go out to eat. Poor decision on my part, perhaps, as I hurt all over and was feeling progressively worse. But, out we went. And because we did so we met Angela and Andrew Huang. They had just been in Thailand with their folks for a week and were spending a week together in Laos before heading back to work, he with Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and she for a new corporate attorney type job in Singapore. They were delightful.

Fortunately, I'm much better today. We've spent the day relaxing. Nancy watched the Super Bowl and has been knitting and reading. I've spent most of the day doing this blog, but that's fun for me. It's 4:30 now. Soon we'll head out for the night market, a sunset view, and dinner.

In two days we head for Cambodia.