Where old Buddhas go to die: The Pak Ou Caves of Laos

Cave of BuddhasBack when the seven continents were formed, and the Indian subcontinent crashed into south central Asia, crumbling up the Himalaya Mountains, a sideways effect created the mountainous region we now call South East Asia (SEA). The countries of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam make up most of SEA. Most of the mountains in this area are jungle covered, jagged limestone peaks containing thousands of caves.

One of them, Hospital Cave, is located on Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay near northern Vietnam. It housed what once was a hospital for the north Vietnamese soldiers during the days of the Vietnam-American war. During the war, even if the United States had known it was there, its bombs could not have penetrated the hospital in the cave. Today it is a tourist site.

Another cave, remotely located near the confluence of the Pak Ou and Mekong rivers in north central Laos, contains a Buddha temple. Over the centuries, this temple has collected thousands of donated and discarded Buddha relics. It is said this is the cave “where old Buddhas go to die.”

To get to Pak Ou, my traveling companion, Pat Komarow, and I started in Luang Prabang. Komarow is a practicing Buddhist and teaches meditation and yoga. Though I’m not as spiritual in practice, I was intrigued to see this part of the world. We were on a spiritual and sightseeing journey to learn of the Buddha traditions in this foreign, to us anyway, world.

Luang Prabang is a pleasant, little town situated in Laos on a peninsula formed by the meeting of the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers. It is also a Unesco World-Heritage city with a strong French influence, leftover from the French Indochina days. Its streets are lined with sidewalk cafés, French villas and bakeries. Its many temples, known as wats, provide a spiritual connection to its Buddhist past. It has more than a hundred wats, some of which are large compounds with many temples and residences for monks. Others are small, hidden down alleyways. Yet another sits atop Mount Phu Si, a hill rising 300 feet above the old quarter of town.

While in Luang Prabang we stayed at The Villa Merry, a small bed and breakfast at the end of an alley where it meets the Nam Khan River. Breakfast was served on the patio, surrounded by banana trees overlooking the river. At the other end of the alley, where it meets a main street, drivers and their tuk-tuks wait to take tourists sightseeing. Tuk-tuks, descendants of the bicycle-powered rickshaw, range from a motorcycle pulling an open air carriage for two to four people, to a mini-truck with two facing benches that can carry a dozen passengers.

Cave of BuddhasThe day before our trip to the Pak Ou caves, we made round trip arrangements for an agreed price of 200,000 Laotian Kip. It sounds exorbitant, until you realize we are talking about $25 to hire a person and his vehicle for the entire day.

After a breakfast of banana pancakes, we were on our way. We traveled only five miles out of town when all traffic was pulled off to the side of the road. Another leftover from the French, the Tour de Laos, was underway. We waited, exploring the small village and its wat, while a few multi-colored, spandexed bicyclists flew by. Finally we were on our way again.

After another five miles, we turned off the paved road onto a bumpy dirt road. We passed an elephant with his mahout (Hindi for caretaker), coming from the other direction on the road. This was the first one we’d seen on the trip, and we reveled in it. We then passed a fit Australian tourist in his sixties pedaling a cheap bicycle he had rented in Luang Prabang. His lower legs were bloodied and bruised from the chain popping off as he rode along the dirt road.

We arrived at a small village and told by the driver to walk through town. We were impressed with the abundance of Asian greens. The generic term “Asian greens” refers to the large variety of edible plants easily grown in SEA. The Mekong and its tributaries flood each year. When the flooding recedes, the riverbanks are left with fertile soil where the villagers create luscious gardens of varieties of cabbage (choy) and other leafy vegetables.

In this country, we talk about “sustainability” and “eating locally,” but very few of us “walk the talk.” In Laos, that is all the villagers do. Everything they eat is grown within a few miles of where they live, and probably harvested a few hours before consumption.

It’s a simple life for the villagers, with little need of the outside world. They use bamboo for housing, fish from the Mekong, riverbank gardens, rice paddies uphill from the village and chickens and pigs in pens. Any excess supplies are taken 20 miles by river to Luang Prabang and sold for money to buy clothing, gasoline and other needs.

We reached the village's river’s edge, and for another 20,000 Kip we hired a boat and its captain to take us across the Mekong to the caves. It was a typical SEA longboat, long, narrow and shallow, which allowed for grounding on the riverbanks without the need for docks.

Cave of BuddhasAfter a ride across the muddy Mekong, we reached the caves contained within a sheer limestone cliff that rose out of the water. Because there was no earthy bank on this side, docks were needed. The villagers had woven bamboo mats and attached them to bamboo poles to make floating docks with the walkway lying inches above the water.

We made our way to the steep steps rising 40 feet to the entrance of the cave, and another longboat arrived. It carried tourists and half a dozen monks in orange robes, one who was visibly elderly. The monks were making a pilgrimage to the caves.

The steep steps ended at the entrance to the cave. Just inside, the villagers had created a carpeted, flat area for meditation with a shrine, a large Buddha and many smaller ones surrounding it. We stopped to meditate and contemplate the surreality of it all. By this time, the younger monks had assisted the elderly one to the area of the shrine and seated him in a chair.

We then began to explore the deeper recesses of the cave. Although there was no easy way to scramble up the sloping walls, we noticed every flat nook and cranny was covered with old, dusty statues of the Buddha, ranging from a few inches in height to several feet. Many were in disrepair. We wondered for how many centuries the surrounding villagers had made the pilgrimage to Pak Ou to donate a valuable statue or discard an old, unwanted one? We had reached the place “where old Buddhas go to die.”

After the trip back across the Mekong, we stopped in one of the open air restaurants that line the riverbank and ordered chicken vegetable soup, my favorite in SEA. Compared to what is available in Colorado, it is so fresh, so flavorful. The chickens probably eat what they find from the earth, and the vegetables probably have not encountered chemical fertilizers.

After our midday lunch we find our tuk-tuk driver has taken on another passenger, the old man with his bicycle. They loaded the bike onto the roof of the truck bed and we began the trip back to Luang Prabang. After a few miles down the dirt road, he asked the driver to stop so he could make sure the bike was secure. The bike was okay, but the bike lock placed on the roof had disappeared.

In Luang Prabang bike rentals are cheap enough, 10,000 Kips per day, but the security deposit is steep. Most outfits require your passport and $100 deposit. The old man started to worry about whether the loss of the lock would cost him the loss of his security deposit. Remembering I had brought a lock from Colorado for our own bike rentals, I pulled it out of my day pack and handed it to him. He was stunned that out of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere, such a thing would appear, and asked how much I wanted for it.

Remembering all the donated Buddha statues at the cave and one of the Buddhist tenets of not being attached to things, I answered, “Nothing, it is yours.”

Jim retired ten years ago after working more than forty years in the computer science industry. Upon retirement he spent five years living aboard a 36-foot recreational trawler traveling the Eastern coast of the country, from Montreal to Florida. For the last five years he has lived in Manitou Springs, CO, practicing yoga, sipping yerba maté with friends, biking, hiking and thinking about other travel adventures. He remains in a fulfilling relationship with his SEA travelling companion, Pat Komarow, who continues to help him find his spiritual self.