The paper is made from the pulp of dried mulberry plant, so called mulberry paper. It was interesting to see the number of things that were made out of the paper, including various books/albums, lanterns, greeting cards and the like. Most houses in that village were selling either textiles or paper.

We saw at close quarters the weaving of cloth to make typical geometrical Laotian patterns. These are made into wall hangings, scarves, footmats and the like. Other typical Laotian stuff are bamboo products, as well as silver: all cottage industries. Nothing is manufactured on an industrial scale, but by individual families literally in their own backyard, which makes it so charming.

En route to Pak Ou, we also visited the Whisky village. This is an interesting case of forward integration. Apparently, the residents in this village initially manufactured jars, but later due to lack of custom, decided to start selling whisky instead! We saw a lot of Arabic style jars all over the place, and apparently, the local whisky is quite potent! We of course wouldn't know...

Another sleepy half hour on the Mekong later, we got to the Pak Ou caves... The first thing we saw over there (while we were still on the boat) was this massive limestone cliff - it was sans vegetation of any sort, but had a gaping hole in the middle of that rock face. That hole was one of the two caves... something we realised just as soon as we'd got out of our boat, and climbed the few steps up - this cave was relavtively well lit from the natural light that came in... mainly because this cave is not too deep. What was truly amazing is the way it was filled with Buddha statues... all of them disfigured in some way or the other. Indeed, that is the whole raison de etre of these caves - Buddha statues are not to be worshipped once they get disfigured. Over a period of time, the residents of surrounding villages began dumping their unusable Buddhas in a particular spot, ie the caves.

What was even more eerie than the naturally lit lower cave was the upper cave, which required us to climb about 150-200 steps upwards. Torches were placed outside the cave, without which it is impossible to see anything. Our torchlight fell upon a number of Buddha statues in different postures: meditation, reclining, standing etc., with the cobwebs surrounding these statues glinting like finely woven silk thread in the torch beam... a totally mystical and eerie sight. While disused Buddhas are not supposed to be worshipped as per tradition, there was a small enclosure with incense sticks in both caves, perhaps meant as a symbolic gesture.

From Pak Ou caves, it was a 1 hour trip back to LP because we were going downstream (south), while upstream would've taken 1.5 hrs nonstop. On the way, we were overtaken by a number of speedboats, which are a quicker but noisier (read: more commercial) option to the caves.

June 22, 2004