The best thing we did in Luang Prabang was the boat trip on the Mekong. For ten dollars our hotel manager offered us a trip to Pak Ou, a very special cave along the river, in his uncle's boat. The "brochure" (3x5 piece of paper) said we would stop at a couple villages along the way to see where they make Lao-Lao whiskey and weave the wonderful sarongs that all the women wear.

A tuk-tuk was waiting for us on the morning and took us out of town to "uncle's" place on the Nam Khan. The tuk-tuk driver was our hotel man's brother and we had to pay him for the ride. Uncle waited for us under a new highway bridge where six little boys were half heartedly fishing with homemade bamboo poles.

Uncle's boat was much longer than we expected, very long and narrow. It had a roof and seats, though the seats were no bigger than Sunday school chairs. We had expected a long tail boat but this had an inboard engine and steered with a big truck steering wheel. The pilot sits in front. In narrow or shallow spots he got a long bamboo pole off the roof and poled us along.

A little girl, about 7-years-old, wearing a nice sarong and blouse sat in the back. Before we left, uncle spent a few minutes in the engine room. Eventually he started the engine and walked back to the front of the boat. Then the little girl went into the engine room for a little while. When she came out we departed.

Later I discovered what she was doing in there: bailing. Throughout our trip, she would climb into the engine room every 15 or 20 minutes and bail. When we looked back we could see her little foot sticking out under the engine room door and her little hand emptying the bailer, made out of the bottom of an antifreeze container. She would sleep for awhile then get up and do her job again without being told. I named her Bilge Pump.

This was the rainy season and the river had a strong current. The Pak Ou caves were upstream so uncle stayed close to shore to catch the eddies. For several kilometers we passed continuous boats "parked" along the shore. Most of them were unpowered, canoe size craft. The owners docked them to shore by sticking a long piece of bamboo deep into the bank leaning over the water at 45 degrees. They tied a rope to the bamboo pole and moored the boats to it. Some had such a mooring line for bow and stern.

The unpowered crafts were either paddle or poled along. Most of the boats we saw were just moored. Most people fish earlier or later in the day. We did see a family of three carrying a big bag of rice and some other groceries tediously working their way upstream, the man standing in the bow poling, the woman sitting the back paddling, and a child paddle dipping in the middle.

We also saw speed boats with fancy bright red and yellow paint jobs and giant noisy engines like you typically find in boats named "Erection" (See Murray River chapters). The owners of these boats are very particular about them and keep them very clean. One was in a floating garage.

The speed boats carried (and shook, rattled and rolled) people long distance at high speed and higher volume. Most of the passengers wore helmets. Watching them and hearing them made me never want to ride one. Besides, the Mekong, like the Mississippi contains a lot of debris, especially in the rainy season. We saw whole trees floating along - one so big it actually had a person riding on it.

We also saw large slow boats that take days to do what the speed boats do in a few hours. These boats look like a canoe, 50 feet long, 10 feet wide, with a long skinny house on top. Old falling apart instances of these made for floating gas stations.

The river sits in a magnificent place, surrounded by hills and mountains. Oddly, it does not appear to be in a deep gorge. From atop Phu Si, it appears to just run around the mountains. In fact, looking at that rugged terrain it's hard to imagine how a river that size makes it through.

The main Pak Ou cave has just one large chamber. The spectacular thing about it is the location just above the Mekong. Inside we found no stalagtites, but thousands of Buddhas of every size had been placed there over centuries by Buddhists. The first European to draw a picture of this cave was a Frenchman named Francis Garnier. This was yet another awe inspiring place I too would make sacred.

We found another cave at the top of many flights of stairs. It too was filled with Buddhas of every size, though it was deep and dark so we could see much.

On the way upriver we had stopped at a village where they made Lao-Lao whiskey. When we were there, however, no one seemed to be making any. We did see hundreds and hundreds of jars, each about 15 inches tall. It smelled like a distillery so I imagine these contained fermenting materials. We looked at the town's other wears (I was ready to buy a shot of whiskey but the town just didn't seem in the party mood - it was still morning) and came back to find Uncle and Bilge Pump waiting for us, ready to go. They also waited patiently for us while we toured the caves.

On the way downstream, the brochure said we would stop a village specializing in weaving. But uncle insisted we pay 5,000 kip ($1.50) for this stop. We argued that it came with the tour but he wouldn't budge. They had waited so patiently for us all day and it was so nice being chauffeured around that we had been ready to tip uncle and Bilge Pump at least 5,000 kip. However, we refused to pay on principal and also because the Lao-lao whiskey town was really just a shopping stop and probably so was the weaving village.

Uncle dropped us at the confluence of the rivers, the tip of Luang Prabang and about 1 mile from the hotel and we were on our own to get back.

Next: Rough night with rats.

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