Monday 17th was of course St Patrick’s Day. While we’re a long way from home, the girls decided to dress for the occasion, and also painted their nails:

For this day, we had arranged a boat trip on the Mekong. This involved a two-hour journey upstream on a pleasant boat called the Nava Mekong to a place of worship called the Pak Ou caves, with lunch onboard on the way back.

Not being a big fan of boats, DW was sceptical of this day. I was the one who had organised it, and was really looking forward to it. In fact, I had wanted to do a two-day cruise down the river from the Thai border, but that was vetoed (some nonsense or other about child safety) so this was the compromise.

It was great fun, and everyone enjoyed it, including DW (who remains convinced that this 4 hour trip was a much better plan).

Before we went on the boat, our guide for the day brought us to a village just outside Luang Prabang where they farm and weave silk by hand, so we got to learn firsthand how silk is produced and the various stages in the process from worm egg all the way to the final product. I was “lucky” enough to be allowed hold some of the silkworms:

Then we made our way to the boat.

Boarding and onboard:

The girls used the time on the journey to catch up on their homework:

Mekong river petrol station!

Before we got to the caves, we stopped at another village. This particular village specialises in rice whiskey and rice wine. DW declined, but I sampled the wares. Considering it was a very small village, it also had some very elaborate (if small) temples (spot the newly-acquired bottle of rice whiskey in my left hand):

The scenery all the way along was simply gorgeous:

Eventually, we made it to the caves. Locals have been bringing statues of Buddha here for centuries to wish for blessings and luck. When Laos was a kingdom, the king had to come here every Laos New Year’s Day as part of the new year rituals (although most of his duties on that front were back in Luang Prabang). One of the main new year rituals is the washing of the Buddha, where water is poured down a channel by the master monk (or in this case, the king) into a tabernacle like structure with a Buddha statue inside.

It’s a popular spot, so it gets a lot of boats calling:

Inside the caves:

While we were in the caves, two American tourists came in. One of them looked up and said “Is this it? Did we actually travel for two hours to see this?” Myself and DW looked at each other. We were both thinking – the journey IS the event, dummy!!!

We had a very pleasant lunch on the way back – a sampling of local Laos dishes, and very tasty.

Unfortunately for me, somewhere along the way I picked up a dose of food poisoning. It could have been the lunch, but it could also have been the rice wine sampled earlier on. Let’s just say that the last 24 hours have been very unpleasant. Very. Thankfully, I’m a lot better now. Luckily for everyone else, I was the only one who succumbed. One other silver lining is I’ve had some forced time out today, which has allowed me catch up on my posts for the last few days activities!