laos part II - luang prapang

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Hope you are all doing well.

As I warned you last week, here is part II of the "laos blog".

After taking a boat down the Mekong for two days i spent as few days in laung prabang. Luang prabang is probably the number one tourist destination in Laos. it is a scenic spot set at the confluence of two rivers. There are quite a few European package tourists there and as a result there are higher end hotels and restaurants in luang prabang which is a contrast to the rest of the country. one of the highlights of luang prabang is the daily morning alms giving. Everyday, the Buddhist monks hit the streets barefoot at about 6:00AM. They go out in the streets to receive their daily food from the locals. In luang prabang it is a little different than other places in Asia because you hundreds of monks in about a 6 block area. in addition to the monks you have many tourists out at this time of the day to watch the morning alms and like me photograph it. the light is low at this time of the day so the photos aren't the best. I spoke with a few monks (not during the alms since this is done in silence) about having to face the tourists everyday. they had a pretty relaxed attitude and said that it didn't bother them.

TO SEE A LOT MORE PHOTOS OF THE ALMS CEREMONY CLICK HERE

TO SEE A LOT MORE PHOTOS OF LUANG PRABANG CLICK HERE

I also took a tour with some other travelers to the Jars of plains. An ancient site of large "jars". this is in an area which was heavily bombed by the US during the Vietnam war. Every village in this part of Laos was bombed to pieces. again, the US was not at war with Laos but we dropped more bombs on Laos then we dropped on Germany and Japan combined during WWII. a bomb was dropped on laos an average of every 8 minutes a day for about 3,000 days. many of these bombs were cluster bombs which didn't explode. since the US stopped bombing laos in i think 1972 over 12,000 people have been killed by these unexploded ordinances. I thought I would add a little history here since those of us "from" the US were never taught this nor did we ever see it on TV

after visitng the jars of plains i went to van vien (sP) for a few days and then to vientiene the capital to met with jason and get my visa for Vietnam. after spending a few days there i went back to luang prapang and then started to head up the nam ou river (which will be the topic of my next blog) to the northern part of Laos.

CHEERS,

David F O T O S B Y D A VI D . C O M

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Photos

bad tourist
the burst of bright light in the right of the picture was from guy using his flash very close to the monks

Comments

[Tuna]

Nice Pictures
Dave what a great page the pictures and stories of your experiences has been great thank you for including me. Keep going hope all is well.