Restful Luang Prabang

---

Luang Prabang is a restful, former capital city in the north of Laos. It is a wonderful combination of tourist services without the pressure or scams normally associated with lots of tourists. In addition, it has several low key but fun activities available. This great combination results in a lovely place to visit. We decided to take advantage of such a great synergy and spent five full days partaking of the amusements.

Day Zero

We traveled from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang on a minivan. It was a curvy, twisty two-lane road for the entire eight hour trip. We had several stops but the first one was at a market which was just a line of about 30 women along the road selling stuff mostly for locals’ consumption. What was interesting were all the live wild animals for sale and the unpleasant ways they were confined. The lucky animals were inside small baskets or already dead. One poor guinea pig had two straps around him like a suitcase and was tied up to a post. Worst off were the bats that were hung by one wing in a bundle. I think they were slowly suffocating like being crucified.

Day One

We spent the day relaxing and planning the rest of our stay. In the afternoon we decided to stop for a BeerLao (the local beer) in the shade to rest. The restaurant was also a massage parlor and since we had planned on getting a massage we decided to do it there. John got a shoulder massage and I got a Khmu massage with oil. We were escorted to a back room where we got undressed and laid down on side by side tables. Two ladies in their twenties came in and began to work on us. It was a relaxing massage, not a therapeutic one and felt very good. The big difference between these massages and ones we received in the states is the masseuse was up on the table using her weight to gain leverage. At one point I looked over and John had a pretty young Asian woman walking on his back. I wished I had my camera.

Later, we hiked to the top of the hill called Phu Si in the center of town to join the crowds in watching the sunset. It is a great view and both the sunset and the people watching were great.

The town was hosting the Southeast Asia Film Festival so we got to see a couple of movies sitting in an outdoor theater. The first one we saw was from Malaysia about a friendship becoming a romance between a 12 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. There were several unrelated sub plots that were distracting and the cinematography was nothing to brag about but we had a good time.

Day Two

On our second day we toured several sites in town. Our first stop was the little known Traditional Arts and Ethnology Center. It was a small but well done museum that discussed the various ethnicities in Laos. At the end there was a gift shop and John actually wanted to buy a souvenir (he rarely buys anything but food). They had several pieces of hand woven fabric so John bought a magazine holder and I bought a scarf.

In the afternoon we went to the National Museum located in the former palace. Although the people kicked the Laos royalty out in 1975 they kept the palace in its original state and turned it into a museum. It very much reminded me of the Reunification Palace in HCMC in Vietnam.

Day Three

We pulled ourselves out of bed about 5:30 to witness the Tak Bat. This is a daily ritual where lines of monks in their saffron robes emerge from multiple monasteries to receive gifts of food from donors. It is tradition that in the morning the monks go forth with their begging bowl to beg for food for their one meal that day. In other towns we have seen the monks singly or in pairs walking down streets approaching businesses. In Luang Prabang it has taken on a more formalized process whereby offerors (and tourists) line up on the sidewalks and lines of monks walk past accepting the various offerings which were mostly handfuls of sticky rice. The monks are lined up by age with the 80 year old monk leading the way and the 10 year old bringing up the rear. As with anything associated with tourists, a business has sprung up that sells food to the tourists to give to the monks. The usual is a basket of sticky rice and a plate of bananas. As each monk walks past, the offeror grabs a ball of sticky rice and places it in the begging bowl. This is done with bare hands so imagine all the germs on all that sticky rice. We witnessed three separate events with the first being the most touristic with actual buses of tourists brought in but later ones were almost exclusively local.

After breakfast, we took a two hour boat ride up the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves. Along the way we saw a girl standing next to the river brushing her teeth using river water. That was bad enough but just upstream by about 100 feet were two women washing clothes.

The Pak Ou caves are two medium sized caves where over the years people have put thousands of Buddha statues. The statues range from an inch tall to 20 feet tall. No one seemed to know exactly why this was done but we did learn this was a place of pilgrimage so maybe they left the Buddha statues as an offering to request something from Buddha.

The next stop on our journey was a village where they make lao-lao, the local rice wine. We saw a still making the spirit and it looked very much like stills used to make moonshine in the US.

That night we watched another movie as part of the film festival. This was a musical about Getai singers in Singapore. The main characters names were Big Papaya and Little Papaya and now whenever I say I would like some fruit John asks if I want a big papaya or a little papaya.

Day Four

I wanted to spend some time with elephants but that did not interest John so on day four I visited Elephant Village and John relaxed. There are about five different elephant tourism places in Luang Prabang. I selected EV because the focus is on the elephants not the tourists. They have a total of 13 elephants at EV, all of them female ranging from 25 to 48 years old. We were taught the verbal commands to guide the elephant but we always had a mahout with us so they directed the elephant. They taught us how to mount the elephant by getting it to lift us up on its right leg but the two times I mounted they had the elephant kneel down because I am so short. We got to ride around for a few minutes on the elephants back and that is an experience I will never forget. The neck is big, twice as big as a horse’s back. The head in front of me was the size of an end table and sparsely covered in long (4-6 inches) coarse black hair. It is warm; obviously being a warm-blooded animal it was warm but I had never before ridden an animal bareback so feeling the warmth underneath me was a new experience. It is slow. I know they can move pretty quickly but these ladies were not in a hurry.

Next we got to ride in a howdah, the seat for two people on the back of the elephant. The ride was less than a kilometer but, as I said, these ladies were not in a hurry so it took an hour. The mahouts had them walk down to the river where they walked into the river and walked downstream to an island. We then re-crossed the river and continued back to camp.

Then we got to feed the elephants green bananas. The first time I placed some bananas in her trunk she got the bananas and my hand in there. I had to pull my hand out before she got it in her mouth. But then I learned how to do it and fed her the rest of the bananas. The trunk is an amazing appendage. It works like a hand and is both dexterous and strong. Plus it is a nose…one time in the river I saw the elephant blowing bubbles in the water.

After lunch we changed into our swimsuits then mounted the elephants to ride them down to the river. One elephant trumpeted on the way; they say that is because she was excited about her bath. Once in the river the mahout had the elephant go to the middle and sit down. I was still on its neck so that put my legs in the water. I was handed a brush and worked to clean the elephant’s head but as I was not allowed to get off that is the only spot I could reach. The mahout tried several times to get the elephant to lie down in the water but she refused and started slapping her trunk on the water to show her annoyance. I don’t think she wanted a bath but other elephants were really enjoying it.

After the bath, the elephants walked out the other side and we got off. The tourists in the two-day experience got on and rode them to their overnight location. The elephants work about six hours a day and spend the rest of the time grazing in the jungle. They need to eat over 500 pounds of food a day and their digestive track is so inefficient that they utilize only 40% of that.

Then we rode a motorized canoe to the Tad Sae Waterfalls where we swam and otherwise enjoyed a series of cascades and pretty pools, after which we headed back to town.

John, meanwhile, spent the day wandering the town, sitting in cafes reading and doing a bit of shopping. He bought a pair of sandals and a small package (14 cookies) of Strawberry Oreos and ate them all, ostensibly to keep the ants and the cockroach in our room from getting to them.

Day Five

We awoke to the sound of a downpour outside…it was quite nice to listen to the rain while you are warm and dry. We left the hotel about 8:30 and the rain had stopped. That was a regular occurrence that day…it rained regularly and hard but always stopped when we wanted to go somewhere. Wasn’t that considerate?

We took a tuk-tuk to the Kuang Si waterfall. This is a larger version of the waterfall I saw the day before. The drive was lovely, wending through the countryside full of small villages and terraced rice fields. After less than an hour we were at the falls. First stop was an Asian Bear Rescue Center. Asian bears are endangered by both poaching and habitat loss. In addition, some bears are kept under horrific conditions because some think bear bile is medicinal. The Kuang Si falls themselves were gorgeous. There was one big waterfall plus a series of beautiful cascading pools. We ate lunch then went for a swim. The water was a bit chilly but refreshing.

In the evening we took a cooking class. It was fun to watch and prepare the food and the food was quite good. I do recommend cooking classes as a way to really try the local food.

During most of the cooking lesson it was raining hard but it stopped raining just as we finished eating. We walked down to the market and bought some souvenirs. With only 13KK ($1.80) in our pocket we headed back to the guest house. Shortly after we got back to our guesthouse it started to rain.

The next day we took a flight to Bangkok but that is another blog.

---

Photos

Typical Family Vehicle
Mom and three kids riding on a motorbike.

Beth with Laotian Flag
The communist flag (in the background) is as common as the Laotian flag but it did not feel like a communist country.

Tak Bat
People give the monks food to earn merit.

John Swimming
It was fun but chilly swimming in the pools of the Kuang Si waterfall.

Comments

[Susan Craig]

I was wondering if you blog tells you how many people visit and read your blog? It would be interesting to know how many are reading about your travels! xoxo Susan

[travelingfeet]

Statistics
We can get statistics on our blog hits. For our moost recent entry, we got 49 hits in 36 hours. The top four enties and the number of hits are Colmar, France 322 Bulungula Lodge 165 Lesotho 152 Colorado Trail 134 We are very proud that if you Google "Colmar France" our blog entry is in the first 10 responses!

[Janet]

Gaining Merit
The Monks aren't "begging" but giving people the opportunity to gain merit.