Travel to Laos: Luang Prabang Environs

A quick look at the Tham Ting Buddha caves upstream from Luang Prabang, then a run out to Henri Mouhot's grave.

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The tourist magnet of Pak Ou, where the Tham Ting Buddha caves are set in a cliff around which the Mekong curves, some 15 miles upstream from Luang Prabang.

Looking out from one of the caves.

Thousands of such figurines fill the caves, dark except for the camera flash.

Rimming the northern part of Luang Prabang, the Nam Khan joins the Mekong and supports intensive gardening along its moist banks.

Another instance of such gardening, this time along the Mekong itself, at the south end of town, at an agricultural-research station.

Some miles up the Nam Khan, at Ban Aen, villagers prepare to bring vegetables to market.

They set off.

Farther back in the countryside, rice paddies in the dry season.

Landscape manicure.

Nearby: the grave of Henri Mouhot, the man who put Angkor Wat on the map for Europeans. He continued north but got only this far before malaria took him.

The tomb.

Memorial from his hometown in France.

Dead at 35.

The tomb itself was erected a few years after his death by the leader of a colonial expedition.

Finding the tomb is no longer a challenge.

Just follow the distinctive signs.