these two children were perched on the stairway to the caves with 4,000 buddhas selling birds they had captured and put in small, handmade bamboo cages. In Lao tradition purchasing these birds and freeing them will bring good fortune but often birds die in these tiny cages from heat, stress, and lack of food and water. The contrast between the children’s innocent faces and the barbaric torture of defenseless animals was a little hard to take.
