|
  | |  |
Day 4 : Exploring Luang Prabang & Around
Entry 5 of 10 | show all | print this entry |
|
17th June 2008
Luang Prabang & Around
We slept in late today and after having our breakfast, we planned with Khoun to take us to the famous Kwangsi Waterfalls, which is situated near K&K. You could either go with Khoun in his famous jeep or you could rent a motorbike from him and go on your own.
Another Village
We chose to go on his jeep and on our way there, we stopped by another local village for a short visit. We found this village to be more "tourist-oriented" compared to the one we visited yesterday. In this village, the living conditions of the villagers differ from one another - not everyone is poor. We saw some nice comfortable houses
with tvs blaring from inside. We saw some villagers dressed very well and looked really clean while others were in rags and looked like they were really in need of a bath.
Further into the village, we were greeted by children in dirty and old clothes, begging us to buy some souvenirs
from them, mostly crocheted bookmarkers made by them. Curious, we asked Khoun how come there is such a
big gap in the financial standing of the villagers here? And to this, we got a reply linked to the past history of Laos.
Khoun explained to us that this is a Hmong village and during the war, some of these villagers' relatives helped the American soldiers to go against the local communists. When the American soldiers left the country, some of them
took pity on the locals and brought them over to the USA. The more well-to-do villagers whom we saw are relatives or families of the few lucky locals who had since settled down in the USA. Financial aid was given to
them by these relatives who have escaped the country and hence, it is quite easy to distinguish them from the other locals who do not enjoy such privilege.
Upon Khoun's advice, we avoided buying things from these more well-to-do group and ventured deeper into the village to meet the genuinely in-need villagers. But how much can we do, really? There were only 2 of us, we took pity of some villagers and bought things from them and further down the small muddy lane, more children came up to us to beg us to buy from them. And these children spoke a smattering of English - mostly asking us to "please buy from me".
When we tried to ask them simple questions like did they really make the bookmarkers or small purse (all by cloth) themselves, they very confidently answered in the affirmative. We noticed the absence of shyness and timidity which we witnessed in the children from the village yesterday. We hazarded a guess that this village has seen many tourists before us.
When we were picking some of the stuffs set out on the small make-shift table to purchase, one little girl in Hmong traditional costume asked me not to buy those because they were not hers. Khoun explained to us later that she was only selling those for her neighbours and would only get a small commission for the sale.
Of course we didn't need any of the things we purchased from them. We realised later that most of the items were highly overpriced - but we told ourselves that we were essentially making a donation of sort. But deep down, we didn't like the idea that these villagers think that they were making a good profit out of us - we would have preferred to assist them in some other way like giving them the essentials rather than giving them the idea that they could earn "easy money" through tourism this way.
Be that as it may, we did our part and after a short stay, we told Khoun that we wanted to leave. Yesterday, we left the village we visited with a very heavy heart and wished we could stay longer there to play with the children and to communicate with the elders. With this village, we didn't have the same sentiments - this to us is not authentic, early signs of commercialisation can be already seen in the whole make-up of the village. Whatever it is that we felt, we do realise that it was due to no fault of the villagers and it was purely a question of survival for them. Perhaps if we were in the same predicament as theirs, we would be doing exactly the same thing.
Kwangsi Waterfalls
We proceeded to Kwangsi Waterfalls - Khoun parked his jeep at the open air car park which is surrounded by eating places. He told us that he would be waiting for us in one of the stalls while we made our way towards the waterfalls.
We paid the entrance fees and took the steep route which Khoun asked us to take - the one to the right after the entrance instead of the nice path on the left.
There were many pools of waters along the way and we regretted not bringing our swim wear because the water was so amazingly blue and clear and the day was really hot and humid!! It would have been lovely to soak ourselves in the designated pools of water marked as safe for swimming or rather soaking.
We enjoyed the trek along the many tall trees and shrubs. They helped cool down the weather a little and we could hear the waterfalls all along the way.
It was a really beautiful place and there were many tables and chairs built around the place for visitors to have their picnic. It would be a nice half day trip for those who want to get away from the town for a bit.
We took many photographs as we couldn't resist the blue waters. I think our photos turned out quite well now because I have learned the trick to use the fast shutter on Nero to "freeze" the waterfalls!!
Luang Prabang town
After Kwangsi, Khoun sent us to town for us to wander about because since the day of our arrival, we have yet to really see the town itself ! We made a plan with Khoun for him to pick us up again in a few hour's time. It was really hot that afternoon and we walked along the main street just to have a rough idea of the lay-out of the town.
We walked along the Mekong River and Nam Khan River, stopped at a few temples,
had ice-cream and stopped at Spa Village on the main road to have a neck and leg massage to ease the tiredness of our muscles. The massage was quite good and we decided to have a longer whole body massage the next day as a treat for us.
Khone (instead of Khoun) came to pick us up at the designated place and it must be around 5.30pm by this time. We saw the hustle and bustle of a market being set up but we were too tired to explore all the happenings that evening.
We drove through a few lanes around town because Khone has to pick up Little Fly who has spent the whole
afternoon playing with his cousins at his grandma's house. When you stay at K&K, it really felt like you are a family friend or relative of theirs, as they tend to include you, albeit unintentionally in their daily affairs :-)) !! We really liked the feeling.
Along one of the small lanes, Khone pointed out to us the site of their first guesthouse which was burnt to the ground many years ago, which prompted them to move away from town to start afresh at their present K&K Bungalow, with a lot of financial help from their foreign guests who have since become their friends.
It is really amazing to hear the stories of this couple - they have gone through so much in their early years when they first ventured to make a living by running a guesthouse. And we must admit that from our many travels in Asia so far, we have heard touching stories of how European tourists have gone all the way out to help the locals which they have befriended during their stay in Asia in whatever ways they can.
We only hope that one day, we would be able to do something like that. It is our greatest hope to contribute in some direct albeit small ways (given our time and financial constraints) to the local communities who are in need of help.
Feeling exhausted from a long day out, I collapsed in bed after my shower but Argi decided to go for an adventurous run around the nearby area. He came back later with many fascinating stories of the friendly people he saw, about the scorpion which very nearly attacked him and about the beautiful unadulterated landscapes which he ran past.
Sometimes I wish I had the energy like his - I told him to bring his compact camera the next time he goes running, so that I could see what he saw even though I wasn't there with him.
With that, we ended our Fourth Day in Laos - tomorrow, we will be checking out from K&K Bungalows and checking into Lotus Villa in LP Town.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by xuanargi, from Lao Peoples Dem Rep or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
