Ruth: On our third day in Luang Prabang we decided to take the slow boat a few hours up the Mekong River to visit the the Buddha Caves at Pak Ou. The Mekong is still a major transport route for all the countries along it, and perhaps the only flat ride in Laos. Of course, as soon as I got on the boat I needed a washroom, so I tried the on board facilities. It was not only a squat toilet, but a stoop as well. The doorless corner at the back of the boat was only about 4 feet tall.
On the return trip we stopped at a Hmong village known to tourists as the Whiskey Village. Gord was given two large swigs of the stuff with the hope that this would inspire him to buy his own bottle of rice based fire water. Many of the bottles came with an added bonus of a pickled baby cobra or scorpion. Gord was also offed some opium by a sweet old lady, but he declined both the cobra juice and the narcotic.
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