Laos - we love it!

Oh, wow, guys…. Just do yourselves a favour and get here! Green mountains, deep narrow valleys, threads of rivers at the base, a few roads appearing as tracks meandering seemingly without intent: this is the picture of northern/central Laos from the air, as far as the eye can see.


Our little turbo-prop plane with flower (frangipani) decoration had been waved an enthusiastic good-bye by a line-up of Laos Airlines ground-staff at Bangkok airport... did they know something about this flight? It appeared however that this little ceremony was merely an indication of the warm welcome we would receive from the Lao people. There are only about 6 million of these small, fine-boned and slim people and most of them live along the Mekong River. It is remarkable that these folk have retained their relaxed and friendly disposition despite years of French colonial occupation and then being the most bombed country in the world (in a war in which they did not participate) – thanks to USA carpet bombing to try to close the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam / American war. (Interesting that in SE Asia the ‘Vietnam war’ is known as the ‘American war’).

Luang Prabang city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, appears to occupy the only relatively flat area in the region – at the confluence of the Nam Kong (the Mekong) and Nam Khan rivers. What a wonderful city to visit: this French colonial town developed around the 60+ Buddhist temples and monasteries which are all still active. So walking and cycling the streets reveals French provincial-style houses alongside typical SE Asia houses (ground floor of conventional brick and plaster and with upper floors of beautiful timber)... many of which have been converted to guest-houses... situated alongside Buddhist Wats. The three main streets are connected by narrow, cobbled, arcade-type alleys (all clean and safe) with interesting buildings, stalls and people around every turn.

With two river frontages and riverfront streets in the little town plus the maze of quaint cobbled lanes, the French legacy of restaurants providing endless beer, coffee and people watching is perfectly preserved, and diluted only by the proliferation of roadside stalls and massage shops. The local people move their Lao food and souvenir street stalls between open / street market locations... “So you will find me here in the morning, Madame, and there this evening”. The main street turns into a huge night market at 6pm daily: gaily lit, musicians playing, cheap food and wonderful fruit smoothies and a massive number of stalls selling a range of silks, silvers, wooden artefacts etc. We, of course, made full use of absolutely everything on offer… although doing only “window-shopping” at the markets: there is no space to store anything on a boat, so retail therapy, while never big in our lives, is definitely a thing for another life…

There are interesting sights around every corner: on the banks of the clear Nam Khan, local people tending their market gardens of vegetables for the market, children (and novice monks) and pets swimming; on the muddy Mekong the busy river traffic of ferries, tour boats and fishermen, with delightful pictures of goats / crates of beers / lounge chairs all carried on the roofs of the boats... all having a tough time trying to berth in a very strongly-flowing river!

Restaurants on stilts line the river banks – the local ones offering cheap local food and beer (often BeerLao at 2000 Kip where $1 = 8000 Kip … prounced keep) and the ones belonging to the fancy hotels ever ready to offer you western food, at a far greater price - all while watching the sun set over the mighty Mekong river.

Saunter around another corner and you may come upon the sight of many locals congregating at their local Wat to receive a blessings service, or prayer-time for a group of monks where tourists may sit quietly and enjoy the chanting… and the occasional sight of the young novices becoming distracted occasionally and behaving like…. well, youngsters the world over!

Many of the Buddhist temples in and around the town provide facility for the Buddhist practice of every male becoming a novice monk for a period of a couple of weeks to a few months at some time in their lives – generally during their teens or early twenties. This resulted in hundreds of these novice monks in their orange robes in town and provided interesting insights… On the one hand to see the youngsters in their orange robes playing in the river or mock fighting in the corridor…

… and on the other hand participating in the solemn daily ceremony of collecting alms - every morning at sunrise, hundreds of monks from the various monasteries walk through the streets collecting alms from kneeling locals (and tourists) comprising of sticky rice and bananas (and chocolates!) in a process of "making merit": if you give food to others in this life, you will not go hungry in your next life. This is a peaceful, quiet ceremony that, when over, is immediately replaced by busy streets of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians making the most of the relatively small area between the two rivers.

Luang Prabang has several natural and historical sites: renting a motorbike is the best way to get to them, and took us on meandering trips into the countryside (albeit on a dodgy bike on dodgy roads!). One such trip took us to caves with hundreds of donated Buddha images: Tam Ting (Pak Ou) Caves. Unfortunately restoration and maintenance of some historical sites comprises covering the walls with whitewash, a jarring sight in natural caves, and many of the Heritage Sites are uncared for and dirty. In some of the Wats in Laos there appears to be little maintenance, and restoration appears to have stopped (which is a good thing in some cases as often the restoration attempts are crude and obvious and detract largely from the Wat itself. However, general dusting and cleaning would be good as some do not receive even this basic care.)

On our way back from the caves, we came upon a local rice-wine producing village and so invested in two bottles for future consumption, avoiding the wines with hooded cobras or scorpions in them. Apparently the snakes are bottled without being milked of their poison, but after 6 months it is safe to drink, the toxin presumably having been denatured by the alcohol (and having formed a product necessary for ones general potency, we assume!?)

This day also brought us upon a Chinese Buddhist temple the Santi Cheidy (Peace Pagoda), built in 1988, which, below the row of lovely paintings of a life of prayer and good work, has the most extraordinary paintings of violent and usually bloody deaths: a hint of hell?

Our time in Luang Prabang was really wonderful and we could have spent much longer here than the 5 days we had allocated! We are determined to return to this extraordinarily lovely place and extend our visit to adventure activities near Vang Vieng and also in the capital, Vientiane. But we had to leave…. we had a date with Erik and Diana in Hanoi, Vietnam! Those fun ‘n games stories are in the next blog….