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Published: October 30th 2007
The rainy season is officially over!!! And we had a festival to prove it. Since our last entry over a week ago, we have planted ourselves firmly in the world heritage city of Luang Prabang, our new home away from home.
Our first day back in Luang Prabang we spent pretty much the whole day at our favourite cafe, Joma, eating pastries, drinking coffee, reading our books and avoiding anything slightly strenuous or cultural. We did however, manage to rouse ourselves before the tour offices closed at 9PM and booked an excursion for the following day. We were both quite pleased with the day's accomplishments and later treated ourselves to some shopping in the colourful night market, one of Luang Prabangs many highlights.
The next morning we were up bright and early to catch a tuk tuk out into the countryside to the Elephant Park Project; a project which rescues elephants that have been abused and overworked in the logging industry. These elephants are cared for by trained mahouts (the Lao term for elephant handler) and are allowed to live freely in the jungle of the elephant camp. Each morning, the mahouts bring the elephants in from the jungle
to bathe them in the river and to spen one hour giving rides to tourists. All the money for this project comes from the revinue from the tourists, making the project self sustaining. Upon arrival at the camp, we were taken to see the baby elephant that they had recently rescued from the black market in Thialand. He was still only 3 years old and about the hieght of a small horse. He was extremely cute and loved bananas, especially ones off my head! He was also very appreciative, and had been trained to do a little bow when he received these treats. We learned that because he was male, his unpredictable nature would never allow him to be used for riding. He would be kept at the camp for his life and would enjoy living in the jungle with his female counterparts.
We were then introduced to the three adult elephants that would take our group for a ride. All three had been employed in the logging industry and had the scars and behaviours to show for it. One of them was blind in one eye and had scars on her side from being cut while dragging timber
through the forest. we were also told that these elephants had most likely been given amphetamines so that they could be worked for longer hours. The elephant that took Ashlee and I out was the oldest, 43 years old, and was definitely the slowest. However, apparently she was quite quick with her hind legs when anyone other than her mahout stepped behind her. We didn't bother to test this. We sat on a little chair mounted on top of her back while the mahout rode right on her neck and head. It was a fantastic experience to lumber through the jungle from this royal vantage point. On our return, Ashlee and the mahout switched places giving her the prime riding position, although apperantly it was a little hard to balance when we got moving.
The rest of our morning was spent visiting the Tad Sae waterfall, a beautiful many tiered cascade running through the jungle. We were even able to go swimming in a pool midway up the falls. Ashlee thinks it was so enchanted that one wouldn't be surprised to have seen unicorns there. In the afternoon, our group returned to Luang Prabang by kayak, down the Nam
Kahn river. After a great sunset paddle, we headed over to the night market for dinner. It was a little disconcerting at first since we had no idea what most of the food was, but we soon got into the spirit, stuffing ourselves with BBQ chicken, sticky rice, spring rolls, coconut balls, chilli sauce, and of course Beerlao.
We had planned to only spend a few more days here, to catch a few more sights that we had missed our first time around because of the rain. However, we soon found out that it was the week of the Bun Awk Phansa and Bun Nam festivals, marking the first full moon at the end of the rainy season. Without much distress we decided that it was our duty to stay another few days and make sure the festivals were properly celebrated.
To start things off, we decided to see the Morning Alms Giving Ceremony, which we had been planning to see for a while. At 6 am we watched hundreds of monks and novice monks in their bright orange robes and alms bowls walk along the main street, collecting alms from the Lao people. It is simply a
beautiful ceremony to watch, and one which we will never forget.
The next day our guesthouse arranged a tuk tuk to take us out to a nearby village, Ban Vat, to see the boat races. The entire town had been converted into a sort of fair ground with food stalls and Beerlao vendors everywhere. All the locals from the surrounding region, including Luang Prabang had come to this small town to watch their boat compete. The races started at noon and proceeded, with boats racing in pairs until 5 PM. Our tuk tuk driver with his two children invited us to join their section on the river bank and it became apparent quite quickly which boat was from Luang Prabang. With each race, a different section on the river bank would start to cheer for their respective boats; we joined in with Luang Prabang and found ourselves cheering for the boys in neon green. At least they were easy to spot. In the end, our team came in 3rd while the local team from Ban Vat took first place. Upon our return to Luang Prabang, we ate dinner at the Three Elephants Resturant, enjoying some of the best Lao
food we have tasted and chatting with our very friendly waiter, Sayasone. Sayasone was a student at the university studying finance and english. He told us that he had taken the job as a waiter in order to practice his english. After chatting with him for over half an hour, he asked us about our plans the next day and whether or not he could join us to show us around and practice his english. We had loosely decided that we might visit another waterfall so we asked him if he was interested in coming along. For the festival, all the Wats (temples) had been decorated by the monks and now were adorned with brightly coloured lanterns, stars, and boats made of bamboo and tissue paper. We spent the evening walking from wat to wat, enjoying the decorations and talking with the monks who were also very eager to practice their english with us. The monks added much to our Lao experience, as they are all so friendly and very eager to start a conversation. At first, we were a bit intimidated, but by the end of our time in Luang Prapang we walked right into the Wat grounds, hoping
a monk would like to stop and chat.
The next morning we met up with Sayasone and some friends we had met at the Gibbon Experience and hired a tuk tuk to take us out to Kuang Si waterfall. This stunningly picturesque waterfall was a series of three main cascades falling over 150 feet. We spent most of our time chatting with Sayasone who taught us some new Lao phrases and was eager to learn more about Canada.
That evening was the final night of the festival, and was marked by a procession of fire boats down the main street in town. Fire boats are bamboo boats covered with tissue paper, which are covered with candles, similar to the ones the monks had made. After asking about 20 different people when the procession started and receiving a different answer each time, we decided that we would just hang out on main street from sunset on waiting for the event. Not long after we had arrived there, the party atmosphere began. Little boys, and bigger boys, started to set off fire works and fire crackers on mass, and across the street an impromptu disco was set up, complete with
Morning Alms Giving Ceremony
Ceremony at 6 am... the monks have already been up for 2 hrs... as for us, we went back to bed after!kareoke. Soon the street was lined with people waiting for the party to begin. We watched as the first of the fire boats came down the street and with it a wave of people banging drums and waving lanterns. It was a truly marvelous sight. At one point a man breathing fire came dancing along in between two boats. The only down side was the deafening number of fire crackers that were going off all around us. Midway through the procession one of the loudest ones went off right infront of us, which was a little more than we were prepared for. Ashlee lost hearing in her ear for five minutes and claims that it was still ringing the next day. As a result, we remained a little on edge for the remainer of the evening. Once the fire boats reached the main wat in town they were placed in the Mekong river and floated down past the whole town. It was really beautiful to watch them float by as we ate a late dinner at a riverside restaurant.
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stephen and daniel
non-member comment
looks ALMOST as good as sailing camp..
Your pictures are amazing! I am oh so jealous and hope to follow in your footsteps soon. Let this trip be a life-changing adventure and remember to visit the 'red light' district of thailand! Bring us back some great stuff. Miss you lots and cant wait to hear the stories in person.....