Pakou Caves — Give Yourself Something to Write About — Dark Fantasy Novels

Hey y’all,

For my last day in Luang Prabang, Laos, I had the grand adventure of kayaking on the Mekong River for a few hours. The main goal was to see the Pakou caves that were well known for having over a 1000 Buddhas, many of which were hundreds of years old, and many of which were headless. They were made of earth and fell apart over time.

Before we got there, we had the unfortunate experience of having lunch with some poorly treated elephants. That was not part of the tour description by the way.

Activism for the humane treatment elephants has spread far and wide, and has really impacted elephant tourism in Chiang Mai and Thailand. Most of the tours advertised are caring for the elephants and feeding them, but not riding them.

That kind of awareness has not fully reached Laos. I would say what is offered is about half and half. There were still tours advertising a chance to ride an elephant, as well as the humane caring for them.

Not the place we stopped for lunch, however. It was actually pretty frigging awful.

As we were walking up the hill, I heard a rustling in the bushes to my left. At first, I was excited to see an elephant coming out of the brush, swinging its trunk. Then I heard some guy yelling at it, and then I saw the elephant was being used as a beast of burden and dragging a couple of logs.

Song, our guide, warned me to be careful and to steer clear. I hustled up the hill and past the maligned elephant. But there were 2 more where we’d be eating.

Where we ate, the elephants were chained up and not given much space to move. They seemed restless, swinging their trunks and fluttering their ears, while taking what steps they could to move around. There was no water and no food nearby for them, and they were pretty much hanging out close to their own feces.

Song, our guide, told us to be careful because you never knew when the elephants would be calm and friendly, or angry and aggressive.

Well yeah.

The elephants were clearly not happy. I could hardly blame them. The only kindness extended to the two near our lunch was that at least they were chained up in the shade.

The bitter irony of this was that the eco-touring company’s name was “White Elephant Tours.”

The German kids I was the kayaking tour with were aware. One of them said: “I’m not spending any money here. Elephants are such intelligent animals. They know what’s happening to them.”

Good to see this kind of awareness outside of Portland. Apparently, elephant welfare has spread far; but in Luang Prabang, Laos, it still needs to spread further.

I don’t understand why the elephants were treated so poorly. Luang Prabang used to be known as the land of a million elephants.

Also, from what I’ve seen in the temples, the elephant is one of Buddhism’s sacred animals. In India, the Hindus treat their sacred cows and bulls like royalty. They go wherever they want and do whatever they want. So it’s baffling to me that the mentality would so different in Laos and in Thailand in the recent past.

This was a bit of an unusual trip in that I joined a small group who had been trekking for a couple of days. I had signed up for a sole kayak tour earlier in the week, but couldn’t make it because I woke up with a headache.

Financially at least, White Elephant Tours was very nice. The cost of the tour was $450,000 kip (about 50 bucks). Since I dropped at the last minute, they couldn’t refund my money, which I didn’t expect anyway. But to join this group because everything had already been set and paid for, I only to pay $100,000 kip (or a little over 10 bucks). So I rode in the back of a tuk tuk for 1 ½ hours to pick up three German students and their tour guide, Song, who had been on a 2-day trek and the last leg of their package was to hit the water of the Mekong River in kayaks. We started with 2 guys and a girl. But apparently, the girl didn’t take care of herself during the trek. She didn’t drink enough water and by the 3rd day was so dehydrated that she felt light-headed and nauseous. She didn’t make it to the Pakou caves of 1000 Buddhas. She had the tuk tuk driver pick her up at lunch.

The caves were cool with all the Buddhas, but my favorite part was the kayaking. The Mekong River was far more beautiful the further we were from Luang Prabang.

I love witnessing the world from the level of the water. To see this area from the river is such a different perspective. The water buffaloes at the river’s edge, the fishermen fishing and harvesting river weed. (It’s the river version of seaweed, an acquired taste. A bit more bitter and pungent than seaweed.) The limestone cliffs where there was a pause before the echo were pretty spectacular too.

I love kayaking.

And this was the perfect last adventure before I left Laos.

The bottles of lao lao whiskey with baby cobras and scorpions and green snakes were pretty creepy and macabre. According to Song, they were for medicinal purposes. By absorbing the essence of the snake or scorpion, certain ailments could be healed.

Photo by yours truly. Really, how could I not include a picture!

That puts the voodoo doctors in New Orleans to shame.

Peace,

Mana