Luang Prabang, Laos: I guess I am getting used to the life style here. I had an 8:00 pick up by tuk tuk and didn’t get up until 7:58! Mad dash to brush my teeth (no time for a shower), grab the camera and out the front door. Tuk Tuk came for the pick up and took me 3 blocks to the other side of the peninsula here. I took the first picture and got the following error message on the camera: No SD card. Needless to say, you won't be seeing any photos of my trip up the Mekong River. It was spectacular however! Even though the river is wide, the current is very fast. It took us 2 hours to get to the caves. We made a stop along the way at Ban Xanghai where they make moonshine and I had a taste! Pretty good. After that we arrived at the Pak Ou Cave right on the Mekong. They believe people have been coming here to worship since 800 AD. Currently there are over 4,000 Buddha sculptures that people have left behind. After about 30 minutes we started our trip back down the river. This is where it got exciting.
I guess I should describe the boat first that took us up the river. It really isn’t much more than a long motorized canoe. It seats 8 people plus the captain. The people are seated on a wooden chair down each side of the boat/canoe (four on one side and four on the other). There were only 7 passengers so the seat opposite mine was empty. Halfway back, I got tired of my side and decided to switch sides. Who would have thought that a skinny guy like myself could have disrupted the balance of the boat so much! We began to tip over and panic ensued. Thank God for the quick thinking of the captain who rushed to the opposite side he was sitting on to counterbalance my move. Needless to say, I didn’t move much after that.
In the afternoon, I took a walk over to the National Museum that was the former Royal Palace and I found out where our US tax dollars went during the 50s & 60s. It seems like the king was presented with several “gifts” from the US. Normally gifts are just trinkets which heads of state exchange when they visit. Of those trinkets there were some: a moon rock along with the Laotian flag that was aboard Apollo XII (?) from Nixon, pen set from Kennedy, a bowl from Eisenhower. The USA also gave the King a Ford Edsel in the late 50s and two Lincoln Continentals in the 60s. Nice gifts!
UPDATE…check out the video on the June 28th story (White Temple & Hilltribes in Chiang Rai) story again if you haven’t already to see what everyone is subjected to on the bus going and coming from Chiang Rai. It is a hoot! My video only last 30 seconds. Can you imagine an hour and a half of that?
