The morning started out w/ me committing the first real Party Foul of the trip - I dropped my camera and smashed the lens protector – which could have been worse (it wasn’t the actual lens!) but I cracked it so bad that it was jammed on w/ jagged prices of glass I could’t remove…so all my photos for the rest of the day have this weird light-bounce happening and focus issues….uhhhhggggg!
Luckily our amazing tour guide Vinny told me he’d take us to a good camera guy after the trip to fix it – thanks Vinny! A word about Vinny: he’s our age and spends 2 weeks/month as a tour guide, 1 week writing about eco-friendly travel, and 1 week just hanging out….sweet gig!
We took a 2 ½ hour drive into the countryside which in itself was amazing to see:
We then took an hour boat ride down a river to get to the bottom of the mountain where the Perfume Pagoda is (Mike asked if the ride was for the benefit of tourists – nope, it’s the only way to get to the mountain). Locals were working along side our boat as we paddled by:
We hiked up a series of rocky stairs and then took a cable car the rest of the way up (we wanted to hike it but were told it was a not really advised due to the slippery terrain in the rainy season). After reaching the end of the cable car ride we walked up more flights of stairs and then finally reached a small entrance where we started to make our way down – it took me a while to realize what exactly we were walking down into: a cave easily the height of an NYC sky scraper. Mike called it the first real "Holy Shit" moment of the trip - it was like we stepped into the Lord of the Rings:
Inside the caves were different shrines set up – its an active site so people were there praying as us tourists walked in.
There were gifts on the alters and I asked our guide about them – it was all food and most of it modern, packaged stuff (like my custard treats!) – he told us people leave them there for others to eat - its supposed to bring for good luck and health to those who eat these gifts.
After that (wow!) and still high, frankly, we headed back down into the middle part of the mountain to see the “middle pagoda” which wasn’t in a cave but still incredibly cool :
Finally we made out way back down the river and headed back into the city – thanks Vinny for being such a cool guide!
