4. February 2018 22:02
by Rene Pallesen
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A two hour boat ride north of Luang Prabang is the Pak Ou cave. Since we were traveling two families the best way to get there was to hire a slow boat just for us.

The flow boats are long narrow boats that are ideal for navigating the Mekong River. This part of the river is full of underwater rocks but the boats seem to navigate these treacherous waters with ease.
Having the boat for ourselves gave us more flexibility with regards to how long we wanted to spend at the cane and also meant that we have more room to move around.

The front of the boar is where the captain sits and steers the boat. After this there is a section for the passengers followed by a small pump toilet and then the living quarters for the captain and his family. Out the back there is a small kitchen for them to do the cooking.
The cave is upstream into an area full of limestone mountains.

The many boats moor at a long and wobbly floating bamboo bridge that takes you to the cave itself.


The cave itself is not big but it is full of small Buddhas that have been put there over hundreds of years. You can tell that this used to be an important place of worship.


Now however the place is so crowded with tourists (guilty here too) coming in on boats that it is hard to move around. I could not stop myself from taking this photo of Buddha holding up his hands to stop more boats arriving.

At the top of the hill the hill there is what I think is a more 'pleasant' cave. It is equalliv>
Driving back towards Queenstown we had to go through Wanaka. Boy, has it changed! It used to be a small place with maybe fifty houses, but now it is a proper town with lots of cars and traffic.
It is very scenic approaching Lake Wanaka, and the lake itself has this tree growing in the water that photographers from all around the world come here to take photos of.