Pak ou caves

I toured a local cave yesterday, I had to take a boat across the river to a cave in a cliff wall with stones step carved in to it.
This was a cave where religious offerings half been placed for thousands of years.
Since ancient times the people here have believed in good and bad spirits that disguise themselves as natural things like trees or animals.
They also believe these spirits inhabit caves and waterholes. So almost every natural seep or pond or cave is littered with little shrines, offered by people in hopes of gaining favor from the spirits.
The buddha caves or pak ou caves are filled with little hand carved buddha statues that people have brought to the caves as offerings. The cave walls are also covered in carvings of strange animals like creatures.
These were done long ago before buddhism entered the picture, when they went there to appease the spirits of the mountains.
There are pieces of rice and fish stuck into the mouths of the animal statues.
People have left bits of honeycomb,
And all sorts of odd little trinkets.
They say the buddha statues started showing up in the 18th century, when Buddhism was enforced and animism
(spirit worship) was banned by law.
Its bizarre and impressive to see two hundred years worth of statues piled up on every open space.