Luang Prabang
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2005
1
13
37
Trip End
Dec 10, 2005
Luang Prabang,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
The town itself was the old capital of Laos before it moved down to Vientiane and the buildings are mostly French Colonial style, most a little run down but oozing character.
We spent 4 full days here mostly walking round and chilling out. It was so good to relax. We managed to bump into a couple of travel buddies off the slowboat everyday somewhere along the way so organised a fun activity when we finally caught up.
First afternoon we hired a tuktuk to go 28km out of Luang Prabang to the 'big' waterfalls called ...... Being wet season these were flowing! Awesome stuff. We took a walk to the very top then walked accross the top of the falls through the water (nowhre near as dangerous as it sounds - it was pretty shallow, slow moving and there was a fence to stop us going over the side) then down the other side again. Coming down we noticed 2 guys with massive guns over their shoulders - not sure what they were hunting but gave a quick prayer that it wasnt forginers! The way back to the tuktuk we just missed a tiger being fed which was a bugger.
We managed to time our stay perfect with a major festival called the Boun Khao Padabdinh or long boat racing fetival. Apparently the day is for celebrating ancestors. The morning started early and we got up to watch the Monks walk the streets accepting food offerings from the towns people. This food is then blessed by the Monks and some offered to the resting place of the ancestors. Quite interesting to watch at 5.40am! The people at our guesthouse spent hours the day before preparing food for offering which was a coconut sticky rice with a slice of banana in the middle then cooked wrapped in a banana leaf. They gave us some to try and it was all good.
The big festival and boat racing was held about 1.5 hours out of Luang Prabang at the Ban Sangkalok Village. We bumped into some others off the slow boat who had arranged a slow boat out to the races via the buddha cave. $250 for the slowboat return to Luang Prabang - a real bargin considering the boat drivers wanted to charge $5 just for the return trip to the buddha cave.
The Buddha Cave or Pakou is 25km from Luang Prabang and is a buddhist site of pilgrimage that houses thousands of buddha statues inside. The buddhas are bought there by the locals and visitors, many buddhas are damaged and taken there as their resting place. It was pretty cool.
From there we (15 tourists) jumped back on the slowboat for the next leg onto the village for the festivities. This was probably the most memorable thing for me in Laos so far. By the time we arrived at 3pm the locals and visitors were well into the celebrations and the Beer Lao was flowing - even though you had to search high and low for a cold one! Mabye it was due to the straw you were give with bottles? We ended up sitting by a group of friendly young Lao lads and ladies who insisted on feeding us more Beer Lao - a sort of i'll fill the cup with my beer for you to drink then you do it for me game. Only 1 guy could speak enough english to communicate but they were all so friendly and willing to interact as much as possible. They even took Jo and I up to the dance floor (a large muddy area under a tarpolin) and taught us traditional Lao dancing which was fairly easy for us as it is similar to how we danced at primary school discos! After a few more Beer Lao, enough for us to want to taste fried chicken feet, and numerous polite declines to drink Laolao the Lao rice whisky all made it back to the slow boat for a merry boat trip home singing most the way. Such a fun day.
The following day was a little slow as we wernt feeling up to much after the excitement of the festival the day before. A lazy day spent milling round the streets and also a climb up the 400 steps to the famous Phousi Mountain in the middle of Luang Prabang to see the Vat Chamsi Stupa. There is a fab night market in Luang Prabang. Mostly crafts, fabrics and Beer Lao tee-shirts. The colours under the night lights just looks awesome. I made a couple of purchases - I couldnt help but buy one of the beautiful pieces of cloth. All hand made by women in the villages and apparently takes about 8-12 hours to make 1 cloth a little longer than me in length! The people with the stalls in Laos are so much more pleasant than the Thai market people. They are not pushy and naggy like the Thai which makes shopping a bit more tolerable and pleasant.
The last day I was there we got back into the sightseeing - again bumped into our travel buddies Jonathon and Diane and this time went out to the small waterfall called the Sai Waterfall. While we were there 1 Monk and his 3 monk novices arrived for a dip and were just so funny to watch. These little guys were crazy, obviously they knew the waterfall well as they walked around for a while then started bombing out of trees into the water and doing flips off 1 level into the water below. Hard case to watch.
The kids in this country are just so lovely. Quite a contrast to all the straight faced kids in Cambodia begging, the kids here are all giggles, smiles and waves to the forigners, friendly and shouting Sabaidi which means hello.
We had a really cool time in Luang Prabang and is probably rated one of my fav places ive been so far.
