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Published: April 25th 2013
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Luang Prabang
These monks taking part in the procession were prepared with umbrellas Sabaai-dii from Laos ! After the 15 hour slow boat journey down the Mekong and across the border from Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang we have had a hectic few days in this heritage city. Our arrival on the eve of Lao New Year, known as Pii Mai, was met with yet more fun with water but here the whole town seemed to either have a water gun or a hose, no one was escaping a soaking and the streets were flooded. Even the monks taking part in the procession of floats seemed to enjoy being splashed with water. Indeed the significance of the water sprinkling is to cleanse and purify the soul at the start of the New Year; although surely the original tradition involved just a light sprinkling rather than a full bucket of water! Eve enjoyed taking part until water mixed with paint began to be thrown, followed by sprinklings of tapioca flour- and then we retreated.
New Year's Day was suddenly water- free, and clearly a day for worship and family time. Statues of the Buddha were brought out of the Wats for locals to sprinkle with water and to collect and take the 'blessed' water
Luang Prabang
All dressed up for the New Year's Eve procession back to their homes.
Luang Prabang is famed as one of the most sophisticated towns in south-east Asia and it is easy to appreciate why. This former French colony and UNESCO heritage town has a definite french flavour, with beautifully preserved French style buildings, and many many terraced cafes serving tempting French coffee and croissants. Then suddenly a monk walks past and prayer gongs sound as reminders that we are in Laos. Hidden amongst these streets are 33 gilded Wats and monasteries. Equally unsurprising then, is the number of other foreigners here, especially during festival time. We have met more than one other family with young children on world travels; this is reassuring that we are not the only crazy ones!
Big Brother Mouse We visited the offices of Big Brother Mouse in Luang Prabang and saw photos of the book party that was held with the funds that we had raised with the help of St John's School in Jersey. We also bought some more school books to distribute during our travels in Laos. We got the chance to do this when we travelled from Luang Prabang to the
Pavi Village, Muang La province
This tiny school of only 7 children were delighted to receive our donation of books northern province of Muang La. Here we trekked for 3 hours from the nearest road to a small minority village of Khmu people, and gave the books to the village school of only 6 children and one teacher. Despite the language barrier (the teacher spoke no English) and the nervousness of both children and teacher at our arrival, our books were greatly appreciated. We also showed the children on a map wh
Eve's Blog - Our day as MahoutsToday we visited an elephant sanctuary where 9 elephants who used to work dragging logs from the forest are looked after very well. We rode for nearly two hours on a seat on the elephant's back and took turns to sit on the elephant's neck just as the Mahout does. We also learned how to instruct our elephant to go forward (pie), stop (how), go right (khai) and left (sai). The elephant flapped his ears when she was happy and blew her trunk when she wanted to cool down. We rode through primary forest and saw huge rosewood trees and collected some seeds which were
big and heavy. We also helped to wash the elephant sitting on her back in the river, but she squirted water all over us with her trunk !We found out that there are only about 400 Elephants left in the wild in Laos. They are suffering from deforestation and hunting by humans.
We have been on 2 boat trips on the huge Mekong river which starts in China and runs through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia before reaching the sea. I have seen so many activities taking place on the river:
• panning for gold
• passenger ferries big and small
• tiny canoes with fishermen
• water buffalo swimming
• elephants washing
• ladies collecting river weed for cooking
• people washing and cleaning
• children playing
• barges carrying logs down the river
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Leo
non-member comment
Cost rica 2013
To Eve, i hope you are having a great time in Laos. (I think you are in Laos.) I was in Costa rica at half term and it was probably as hot! I saw the picture of you on an Elephant. It was cool! you've travled a lllllllooooonnnnnngggggg way. From Leo.