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Published: January 25th 2012
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Nam Khan River
A view from the banks of the Nam Khan in Luang Prabang After our great introduction to Laos and the wonderful float down the Mekong we were hoping that our time in Luang Prabang continued to keep Laos in high regards. As a UNESCO World Heritage city Luang Prabang has become a very popular tourist stop in Laos – I think the most popular – and deservedly so. The city itself is sandwiched by the Mekong (Nam Khan) River which bends around the city and surrounds three sides of Luang Prabang. As with the rest of Laos the simplicity of growing/catching your food each day is prevalent within Luang Prabang – the connection to the natural world really is wonderful.
We were lucky enough to find a guesthouse that was reasonable and seemingly nice within 15 minutes of getting off the slow boat. Luang Prabang has a main street where the majority of restaurants, guesthouses, and the night market take place - our hotel is only 40 meters off the main street, a perfect location. As with Thailand we quickly found some wonderful fruit smoothie stands and have indulged in the fresh fruit that is so easily accessible. However, the real food treat is the Arthouse Café. One morning while
Fishing
Locals fishing. out exploring we went down an alley and came to another street, then we happened to find the café and after some indecision finally gave it a try. The breakfast was probably the best we have had on our entire trip! Freshly baked cinnamon raisin bagel with butter and jam, wonderful coffee, and a perfect sized bowl of fresh fruit! The bagel is really the shining star of the whole breakfast as it was the best bagel I have had in my life! The whole breakfast is $3, which is actually slightly high by Laos standards, but they could sell this breakfast for $10 and I still might buy it. The Arthouse Café was so good that we had breakfast there every day that we were in Luang Prabang.
In addition to our breakfasts at the Arthouse Café we had some wonderful Laos curries in the evenings. The vegetable curries in Laos seem to be a blend between Indian and Thai cuisine. Sometimes served with sticky rice the curries were full of fresh flavors. We continued to enjoy some Dark Beer Lao with our dinners as well.
For my birthday we went to ride
and bathe elephants. The experience was quite a bit different than I had envisioned. Going into the experience I figured that the elephant riding was the part I would enjoy the most and the bathing was just something else to do – it turned out to be the opposite. We were given some brief instructions on how to control the elephants (six commands in total), we boarded, and we were on our way. The company we went through had only two elephants so we had to go with a few other people – we later found out why there were only two elephants. We learned that elephants are very costly to take care of; they eat over 400 pounds of food per day! They only sleep for one hour, and the rest of the time they are pretty much eating – and our riding gets in the way of their eating time. The two elephants were 48 and 35 years old – 80 years is their lifespan assuming no diseases. Amy and I rode the smaller 35 year old elephant. Also, it seems like the tourism helps the elephants. Many elephants that used to be used for logging are out
of work and they starve without the money that comes from tourism – so in a way riding the elephants helps keep them alive.
In general, it seemed that the elephants pretty much do whatever they want while you’re ride them. They might hear your commands and loosely observe the commands but they kind of just wander at their own pace. The ride was really slow and trying to get the elephant to do what we wanted was really difficult. The trainers resorted to using sticks to urge the elephants along, which made us actually feel bad for them. It was not really abusive, but it was more stern than I would prefer. In reality, I probably would have been happy just sitting on the elephant and going for a 30 meter walk and back then to have them be prodded by the trainers. Overall it was far different than I expected, not that the ride was bad, but it was different.
The bathing of the elephant was really what made the whole trip worthwhile. The trainers (Mahouts) brought the elephants down to the river and they propped down to their knees in the
water. To me it seemed as if the elephants enjoyed being in the river – and maybe they did because it was probably 85 degrees and with 500 pounds on your back you would probably want to get in the river too. One by one we were able to get on the elephants back while they were in the water and they would toss us around in the water. I was the first of the group to go and was promptly dunked when I got on our elephants back. The water was refreshing like Lake Superior on an average summer day – it brought back fond memories of being home for the summer and I was loving it! Amy followed me and she was tossed around several times and seemed to love every minute as well.
While traveling in Southeast Asia we have noticed a lot of people that walk around with bandages for strains/breaks. It seems to be a mix between the arms/hands and legs/feet. We have not been able to figure out why so many people are injured and bandaged up. There are a lot of treks offered throughout the countries and possibly something happens
Fall
Some of the trees are turning colors in Laos, not sure if it is their fall or just the dry season causing the changes. on those treks that causes injuries. Outside of that we aren’t really sure what would cause all the injuries – hopefully we don’t find out!
Last night Amy was reading some news and came across an article by the Christian Science Monitor about the most dangerous countries in the world. As it turns out, as part of our Central America journey we were in the most dangerous country – Honduras. The most dangerous city in the world was San Pedro Sula, which passed Juarez Mexico this year – we were also there for a night. On the outskirts of town there are ten neighborhoods that the police will not enter in San Pedro Sula. All of this was shocking to us as when we were in San Pedro Sula we did not feel threatened and we walked around the center of the city some. In hindsight, maybe not the best idea, but it creates quite a story since we can now say we walked around the most dangerous city in the most dangerous country in the world!
Luang Prabang has been great but tonight we catch a bus to the capital of Laos, Vientiene.
Tree
This tree was covered in little green leaves - very neat. While there we need to get passport pages added or a new passport. We decided to fly to Northern Vietnam from here because of the horror stories about taking a bus from Laos to Hanoi in Northern Vietnam. So, on the 29
th we will be in Vietnam!
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