Luscious Luang Prabang

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The biggest culture shock for us on our trip so far was leaving Vietnam and entering Laos. It was silent. Well almost. No car horns, hardly any traffic or air pollution and no hoards of people. It’s true what they say about Laos being laidback, calm and relaxed. We had arrived in Vientiane the capital of Laos on a 54 seat propeller plane. We had planned to stay 2 nights here as there is not a lot to do but as it happens we did nothing much at all because Jacks was struck down by a violent bout of vomiting so before we knew it we had left Vientiane and were headed for Luang Prabang which is a UNESCO world heritage site and the real reason people travel to Laos. The small town is located at the confluence of the Nam Khan and the Mekong rivers. It draws in travellers and tourists from afar for two main reasons: firstly the many beautiful and ornate temples and monasteries and secondly the morning collections of alms by hundreds of monks which is known as tak bat and all of this surrounded by palm trees and dense tropical foliage with a mountainous backdrop on the banks of the mighty Mekong river.

Tak bat is an ancient traditional ritual which is highly respected and honoured by the Laotian people. Temple drums and cymbals signal the beginning of this early morning alms giving ceremony. Silently, the monks file barefoot from the 30 different monasteries and temples onto the roads to begin their dawn procession through the town where they meet the people of Luang Prabang who line the streets waiting to give alms and pay respects. Alms is given in the form of food which is usually warm sticky rice and all done so in complete silence. Kneeling on mats on the side of the road the locals roll a small ball of rice and place it in the brass pots of the monks who remove and replace the lid in one swift movement to ensure food stays warm. Not a word is spoken by the orange-robed novice monks who file past in order of age, the eldest monk first which leaves monks as young as 8 years old bringing up the rear. In total some 300 monks take part in this beautiful dawn ceremony.

Unfortunately the picture I have tried to create above does not always happen this way because tourists and travellers alike are selfishly interrupting and destroying this ceremony. There are posters displayed all around L.P explaining how to watch the ceremony respectfully. Basically tourist aren’t happy with watching it and taking a few photos but feel it vitally important to have evidence that they were there with the monks and so they follow the monks around either in coaches or on foot and jump in the way to get photos of themselves next to the line of monks. This interrupts the ceremony, stops the monks from getting their alms and is highly disrespectful. The monks here are not allowed to touch women and this includes brushing past them too so they have to try to dodge tourist who are in their way. The ceremony that they have come to watch they are destroying. This is particularly bad on the main road in town but we were staying in a back road and so for the most part saw the ritual as it is supposed to be. We had heard that tourist could buy food to give in the ceremony. We asked at our lovely traditional wooden guesthouse and they said that it was not really for tourists but for locals to give the alms and that we could watch and take a few photos as long as we were respectful. The procession came right past the guesthouse and the owner gave alms every morning.

We watched it twice during our stay; the first time we saw the ceremony uninterrupted but the second time we saw to women in about their late 20’s early 30’s running up the road ahead of the monks and then stopping with their backs towards them and trying to take a photo of themselves and the monks walking up behind them. They kept running ahead and stopping and jumping in towards the line for photos. It was really horrible to see especially as the monks had to avoid touching them which meant they were struggling to get to the locals giving the food. Despite this it was fascinating to see such a long established ritual still taking place. An 11 0’clock curfew ensures everybody is in bed ready for the early morning alms.

I was lucky enough to have my birthday whilst in this beautiful place and we had booked a day’s elephant tour for the day. There are many day tours that can be done from L.P including canoeing; hiking, cycling but the most popular by far are the elephant tours. We were driven to an elephant sanctuary which was situated on a river at the foot of the heavily forested mountains. The sanctuary was set up for elephants which use to be used in the logging industry but as this declines so does mans use for elephants. Elephants have amazing hearing and can hear well below the human range but cannot hear high frequency sounds as well. They produce sounds which are undetectable to the human ear. An elephant also uses its ears for balance and fly swatting. An elephant can be aged by the folds in their ears.

First we had an elephant ride with the Mahout controlling the elephant and us sat on seats on the elephants back, which we reached by climbing a platform and stepping onto her back. Our elephant was called Mae Boun Nam and she was blind in both eyes. She uses her trunk as replacement eyes, sniffing, feeling and sensing her way around the jungle and river. Once in the river Jacks noticed some of the others in the group had hopped out of the chair and were riding the elephants neck bareback and so in a blink of an eye she was there too and I was sat in the chair alone holding on tightly as we splashed through the river. Afterwards we fed our elephants at the feeding station. Ours was particularly greedy and would sniff out the bananas before we had even offered her one. She would take it in her trunk wrap her trunk around it and twist it into her mouth. She even began pinching sugar canes from the elephant next door.

Next we had to learn the instructions for actually commanding an elephant like a mahout would. We all decided to learn just two. Go and Stop which were Pie and How. Then a practice ride to see if we could use the commands and to practice getting on and off of the elephant from the ground and straight onto its neck. This is not a task to be underestimated. You had to stand on the elephant’s right leg which it held up for you and then pull on its ear. The elephant’s leg never wobbled or budged under the full weight of a grown (and sometimes overweight) adult. An elephant’s ear is thin ish and it didn’t feel quite right pulling hard on it to launch yourself upon the elephant. Needless to say we did terribly and needed a push up from behind. Ungracefully but eventually we were riding high up on the neck of an elephant directing her with our feet right behind her ears. Jack went first in our group and enjoyed riding and controlling her elephant down to the river and I was a couple of people later having tried 4 times to get on the elephant and this time it was even laying down on the floor. The route down to the river was steep and this time we weren’t in chairs with safety bars we were at the front of the elephants head and it’s very high up. The ride down scared me and the mahout on the back of the elephant kept a hold of me to stop me falling off. Once in the river the elephants swam into the deep part and we were able to scrub and wash them. Jacks Mahout kept instructing his elephant to smack her trunk onto the water so as to splash Jack. All of the mahouts were making their elephants dive into the water which submerged the people sat on the neck. We even got to stand on the elephants back whilst in the river. We had a great time splashing around on the back of the elephants that were nearly fully submerged. When we left the river both the humans and elephants were all soaking wet. We then took a slow boat up the river to some waterfalls where we swam in the cool turquoise clear waters and drunk a beer in the sunshine. It was a fantastic way to spend a birthday.

Back in L.P we went to a pub/restaurant recommended to us by people we met on the elephant tour. It appeared a small place from the street but when you stepped inside the restaurant there was a huge terraced garden with outside fire pits, fairy lights and tables with holes in the middle for your own cooking. We ordered the house special which was a mixed meat BBQ including chicken, pork and water buffalo. The meat came in thin strips on a plate and a bowl of veggies, noodles and 2 eggs. A terracotta pot full of charcoal was slotted into the table and on top a device which enables us to cook the meat and boil the vegetables around the side in the broth. The restaurant was busy and had a great atmosphere. It was a fine finish to a great day. We walked back to our guesthouse via the night market in town.

We spent 5 great days in Luang Prabang and enjoyed a great sunset boat trip on the Mekong just us in the boat, we climbed the mountain/hill with a temple on the top to watch another sunset, followed a sign through some foliage down to the river’s edge to find a man in his underpants with a leaky boat who offered to take us across the river to a weaving village and if we slept with him we could go for free. We decided to pay him instead. We cycled around the town, ate fantastic food and drank the best wine we have ever had anywhere. (It was Chilean and in a very well stocked wine bar) We shopped and bartered in the massive night market, visited the most ornately decorated temples and watched novice monks going about their business all over the town carrying their distinctive monk bags and umbrellas to shade from the intense heat and I nearly forgot we saw a man on fire and tried to tell him despite there being no common language between us but he understood pretty quickly once he got over the fact that 2 white cyclist had just dived off of bikes and ran over to him. All in all it was a fantastic place to visit and easy to see why it has been voted “the top city” in the 2010 travel awards in Wanderlust magazine for the past 2 years. We hope that we have the opportunity to visit again in the future.

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Comments

[les & ann]

happy new year
Wish you both a happy new year.Take care and hope you are having a great time.

[Jo Winnard]

Loving the blog ........... just wanted to wish you both a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Lots of love xxxxx