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Published: January 15th 2010
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5:30 saw Nellie and Monk pounding the streets of Luang Prabang looking for signs of the monks doing their morning walkabout to receive food from the townsfolk. They'd been told that the monks appeared at 6am. This morning, it seems, the monks must have been out on the town last night - it was 6:30 before a saffron robe appeared in the distance.
It was all very impressive - hundreds and hundreds of monks, one after another with their alms bowls hanging from their shoulders. The pious kneeled by the side of the road. As the monks passed by, they stopped at each, and a handful of sticky rice was placed in their bowl. They just kept coming and coming and it must have been over an hour before the final monk passed by.
At this point Nellie and Monk decided it was time to head back to the hotel for their own breakfast. Nellie posed for her breakfast photograph.
In the afternoon, they decided to go walking to the small village of Ban Chang Kong upstream on the Mekong. The hotel staff were aghast that anybody should try to walk there and insisted that the only way
to go was by tuk-tuk. Regardless, Nellie and Monk walked via the bamboo bridge in the video.
In truth, it was no longer than half-an-hour's walk although, as with his blogging, Monk does tend to meander. The round trip took about 4 hours but that included browsing in the textile and silk shops for which the village is renowned. Normally, the looms are all clunking away producing the cloth for the shops. Today, however was a full moon Buddhist holiday. One of the other crafts that the village indulges in is the production of elephant dung paper. Now, for a lady elephant like Nellie, this is all bit a distasteful so Monk skipped the shops indulging in this unseemly product in order to spare Nellie's blushes.
Monk bought Nellie a silk scarf. Before leaving London, Monk had looked in vain for a silk or cotton bag in which to wrap Nellie while travelling. Having failed, Nellie had been forced to leave home and face the world wrapped in a bright yellow Barclays Bank cotton money bag. Monk had washed it to make sure it was clean, but it still wasn't chic enough for a sophistcated pachyderm like Nellie.
So, from today, Nellie can now travel, with her trunk held high, wrapped in her new silk scarf.
Arriving back in Luang Prabang, Monk realised with horror that they had not yet done one of the important sightseeing tasks in Luang Prabang - climbing at sunset to the top of Mount Phusi which overlooks the town. There were a lot of steps up, and even more coming down a different way, but the views are worth it.
Eating and Drinking
Tonight, Monk finally got to try the famous Luang Prabang buffalo sausage - he was impressed and, for the first time since leaving home, he ordered himself a bottle of red wine. Even though this breaks Monk's rule about eating and drinking local, Monk feels that wine can be excused in southeast Asia because very little is produced locally and one does get a bit fed up having beer with food all the time. The wine, together with a couple of Beerlaos earlier in the evening didn't help Monk and Nellie get up at 5:30 the next morning to meet the boat for the trip up the Mekong. Compared with Thailand, the price of wine in
Laos is quite reasonable - communism suddenly doesn't seem all that bad!
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Flo
non-member comment
Luang Prabang 5.30 am
Hi Monk, Here one of the argentinean girls you met that morning in Luang Prabang. We are back in Buenos Aires. Nice blog and wonderful pics! Congratulations! Flo