Luong Prabang

We are now in Luang Prabang, Laos. Before we arrived I had heard that Luong Phrabang had been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Centre in part because of the blend of traditional Lao and French colonial architecture and that, until the Communist takeover in 1975, Luang Prabang was the royal capital of Laos. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting but I was surprised by just how undeveloped the city was. It was as though it had suffered from decades of neglect and tropical decay which is, I suppose, what follows in the wake of decades of colonial rule followed by decades of Communism. However, from our perspective, we found ourselves in an incredibly charming, laid-back town that time forgot. There are numerous Wats and a royal palace and many French-colonial buildings but the European-built buildings are struggling against decay and sit cheek by jowl with old wooden houses with canted floors and rusted metal roofs. Poverty and charm all wrapped up in one.

The cuisine was a bit of polyglot as well. We enjoyed Lao salads, fruit shakes, a Mekong seaweed dish, small cooked "bird," water buffalo, and other exotic dishes as well as incredible French baguettes, baked goods, and coffee. We ate baguette-sandwiches at primitive restaurants overlooking the Mekong, fine cuisine at fancy, but reasonably-priced restaurants, and particularly enjoyed dining at the bustling food stalls on the side streets of the night market. Each evening, the main street was made over into a lively street market selling handicrafts and cheap T-shirts to the tourist while the addition of small kitchens, tables, and chairs transformed the side streets into good, cheap eateries. Periodically the lights of the entire downtown area would cut out, but the vendors were clearly used to this state of affairs and had candles ready again, decay and charm in one. In keeping with the theme, we all ended up with upset tummies to some degree. Maya has the constitution and digestion of a dog; nothing seems to bother her that eating a little grass won’t cure. Mary, on the other hand, spent an entire day moving between the Reclining Buddha pose on the bed and the Praying to the Porcelain Buddha pose in the bathroom.

In the morning we would get up to watch long lines of saffron-robed monks walk down the street with their offering bowls. The good people of the city sit on the sidewalks and make offerings of rice, bananas, and other food to the monks as they walk by. The Lao women looked particularly exotic in their brilliantly-patterned long straight silk skirts and sarongs and the orange robes of the many monks shone brightly in the early morning light.

One morning, after doing our own part to gain merit by making offerings to the monks, we walked to the top of the Phou Si hill in the middle of the old city to watch the sunrise over the mountains. The city is bordered by two big rivers (the Mekong and the Nam Kahn) and from the top of the hill, it almost looks like the whole city is floating. The entire peninsular area is easily traveled by foot although we rented a bicycle to help get us all around.

On two different nights we enjoyed a great Lao Massage (about 46,000 Lao Kip/hour or about $5) and a session in a Lao herbal steam sauna. For the sauna they burn wood to fire up a big boiler of water and herbs, the steam from which is piped directly above to two small dark wood sauna closets, one for men and one for women. The key is to sit in the sauna for a bit, then get out and have some special herb tea, then back in the sauna, etc. On our last full day in town we, along with some others, hired a small truck to take us to the waterfalls outside of town. The water of the rivers was a milky-blue and the water provided a welcome relief from the tropical heat. Zak and I had fun jumping off of rope swings and down waterfalls; he is quite the water boy. Of course, on the way back, the little truck broke down but after a bit of tinkering and a little assistance, we were back on our way.