Day 11 - Buddha Caves and Whiskey Village

Was rudely awoken today but rosters go literally won't shut up! Our bus was leaving at 8am anyway so it wasn't a big deal. After a quick breakfast we were on out way to the dock for our boat trip to visit the Buddha caves and whiskey village. I made a amateur mistake that morning wearing shorts and a thin shirt thinking the sun would come out and it would warm up. Man was I wrong, the boat trip was a 2 hour ride up the Mekong river with freezing wind blowing in my face, it was miserable! I'm pretty sure by the time we got there I had mild hypothermia and frostbite. Anyway all that was fine, I can stand being cold in order to see cool stuff. However here's the kicker, when we get out of the boat our driver says '30 minutes!'. I thought to myself 'he's gotta be kidding right?! We just spent 2 hours on a boat ride from hell and we only get 30 minutes?! WTF!!'. Well turns out the boat driver was right, we didn't even need the whole 30 minutes. I think we took like 15 minutes and 10 of those were climbing up to the cave from the dock. The cave, which I would hardly call a cave, was so small and It was filled with hundreds of Buddha statues of various sizes, which was kinda cool if you're into looking at statues.

-Outside of the Cave

-Some of the Buddha Statues

I probably wouldn't have been so harsh about the caves if it wasn't such a long trip, but the two hours it took to get there left me disappointed. After the 30 minutes was up we got back to the boat and stopped at a small village on the way back. The village was called whiskey village, there wasn't too much to see there, mostly people trying to sell you different stuff. We did get to try some of the whiskey which was good, but a little early to be drinking. 

-Whiskey 

They also like to put lots of various animals in the whiskey bottles, I'm not sure why but they put everything from snakes and scorpions to geckos. I thinking adds flavor or something. 

-Snake in whiskey

After the village we finally headed back to town. The ride back was much better for two reasons: the sun was finally out so it wasn't freezing cold and we were going down river so it only took an hour and a half to get back. 

Once we got back we made a stop at the biggest wat in the town as well as the royal palace mueseum. Both of these were interesting but noting too crazy. We then stopped at a random restaurant for some pizza. I was thoroughly disappointed, it's amazing but none of the countries I have visited in my life have ever been able to make a decent pizza. After lunch we walked back to the hostel to rest until dinner. For dinner we stumbled on some street food by the night market that was a buffet, all you could fit on your plate for 10,000 kip...that's about $1.50. I had to try it! But of course my dad was being really annoying and didn't want anything to do with any food that is different than the US. After much convincing I finally got him to try it. The place was packed with people so you know it had to be good. I was not disappointed, I was finally able to  eat and not still be hungry!

-The Buffet

After dinner we wanted to look for massages but in the process of looking one of the places we came across had a ladyboy waving at us to come in for a massage. For those that don't know, a ladboy is a transvestite and for some reason they are very popular in Southeast Asia. Anyway the thought of being rubbed down by someone of a questionable gender really freaked me out so we decided against it. 

We finally made our way back through the night market to our hostel. Tomorrow we don't have much planned so well see what happens, it's our last day in Luang Prabang and then were off too Vang vieng on Tuesday!