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A whole week in Luang Prabang and we're finally starting to relax into the pace of life here in Laos. We've visited the markets on several occasions and found them a delight to wander round compared to the chaos of Bangkok, where vendors almost chase you down the street for a sale if you are spotted giving their stall even so much as a sideways glance!
Here, you are greeted by the stallholder then left to browse their wares. They only show interest if you ask prices, and then expect you to haggle with them, which we've found to be another quite pleasant experience. They give us their price, we decide how much we're willing to pay, then offer them less than that so their next offer is what we're expecting to pay - easy!!
The town itself is very much deserving of its 'World Heritage Centre' status, although one probably bestowed upon it to encourage the city to look after its heritage rather than because they were already doing so - "Luang Prabang bears witness to major cultural exchanges between three communities - the Lao, the Vietnamese and the French. The rich architectural fabric of the city is
Luang Prabang Night Market
One of the most relaxed shopping experiences in South East Asia expressed through its mixture of styles and materials, which must be preserved at a time when urban development has a tendency towards demolition and the replacement of older buildings with new ones in discordant styles." (Taken from UNESCO's report of Luang Prabang back in 1994.)
This is a country that is still quite new to the tourism industry, but having Luang Prabang as a World Heritage Centre has helped with the progress and hopefully shown that the heritage of Laos is very much worth preserving as it can generate a huge amount of income. With the tsunami in 2006 that wreaked havoc all along the coastlines of Thailand and countries further South, tourists chose to visit further inland and have begun to find Laos in their droves. We're glad we visited now, and not in a few years when you will be able to get direct flights from Heathrow, as the old city is still very charming. There seem to be buildings going up all around the city - this is a place on the up, but thankfully the high rises are nowhere to be seen. Buildings all follow the similar feel of existing town, even the signage has
been harmonised.
Last Wednesday we took a slow boat upriver along the Mekong to Pak Ou caves. The river trip was lovely, watching Lao people along the riverbanks earning their living from the river. Some were fishing, others had terraced the banks that are on show now the river has dropped to have their own vegetable patch. We stopped at a 'whisky village' that sold... whisky!! The local rice brew, with quite a kick to it. We decided not to partake in any more than a sip as it seemed to burn our throats it was that strong!
The caves are inaccessible by land - the road is the other side of the river - so we pulled up to a boat dock and walked up to the ticket booth (ie a man sat on a stool taking money!). Before we got up to the entrance, we than had to run the gauntlet of children who had birds in tiny bamboo cages that they were selling for '$1 me no money'. It was really frustrating to see, especially when we saw one of the adults teaching a boy of about 2 years old how to say '$1 me
no money'. What was worse when we were leaving was seeing an Australian man who stopped to look at a baby owl being held aloft by one of the children and contemplating buying it. We had to bite our lips and walk on as he clearly seemed oblivious to the fact that buying the bird would be encouraging these children to continue catching and selling them rather than going to school. The number of children there implied that lots of tourists bought the birds, not knowing how much damage they could be causing. The caves themselves were quite interesting, filled with Buddhist icons and used for hundreds of years by the locals who have set up many shrines inside.
On Thursday we visited the Royal Palace museum, to learn something of the history of the Royal family here. The building itself used to be the palace of the Royal family, until they were banished by communists in 1975 and imprisoned in caves in a remote part of Laos. They all died within 4 years due to being badly treated and denied medical care. There were lots of artefacts in the museum, dating from the last few hundred years, but
nothing was mentioned about what happened to them. Apparently there are surviving members of the Royal family in France, working hard to help this country become a more democratic state.
On the way home we walked past the Laos Red Cross office and decided to call in so Gayle could donate some much needed blood (if stocks from charities run low then people are forced to pay for blood at prices far in excess of what they can afford, so go without). The whole procedure took less than 15 minutes, and earned Gayle a free T-shirt for her pains!
Early Friday morning we woke to an overcast sky and decided today was the day to trek to the waterfalls. Every tuk tuk driver seems to have a burning ambition to take every tourist they see to the waterfalls - we walk down the street to calls of 'tuk tuk waterfall?' on a daily basis. As we haven't done any exercise at all in 2 months, we decided it was time to burn off some of the calories we've been consuming, and hired a couple of mountain bikes for the 60km (35 mile) round trip. All went well initially
with lovely views of the countryside along gently undulating tarmac. A couple of miles out of LP and we met our first hill - about a mile uphill followed by a blissful sally back down the other side to make up for the pain! Then it was several miles of the nice undulating roads again, followed by the last couple of miles of hell - the sun had come out, it was approaching midday with 95 degree heat and we had a mamoth hill to get up to the waterfall. There were kilometre markers along the road from LP so we knew it was only 4km, but it still hurt like mad! We stopped half way up at a stall and necked a litre of ice cold water each before the last push - it had better be a nice waterfall after all this!
And it was beautiful! We entered the park after a stop for lunch at the gates, to find a forested wonderland dotted with pools to dip in as the river made its way down stream towards the Mekong. The falls themselves would probably be more spectacular in the rainy season but were non the less
picturesque. After relaxing and going for a dip in one of the ice cold pools, we decided to cycle back (there were lots of tuktuks willing to take us and our bikes but we wanted to brave it). Besides, we'd just hauled our bikes up a huge hill and didn't want to miss the opportunity to sally back down it! The route back was the reverse of the route there, so we knew there was a big hill near the end. Both of us decided we'd cycle all we could, then if we were too exhausted before we reached home we'd flag down a passing tuktuk and get a ride back. When we got to the big hill we were very tired but plodded slowly up it, and are glad we did - we counted the kilometre markers and didn't have to touch our pedals for nearly 3 kilometres sallying down the other side... bliss!!
The last couple of days have been scorchers so we've stayed inside and relaxed, ready for the 9 hour bus trip to Vientiane tomorrow...
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Rebecca Blain
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These pictures look really good! wish I was there!! looks like you are having a great time, having fun reading all your blogs! take care, Becks xx