Luang Prabang, Laos

After the heat of Cambodia I decided that I lacked enthusiasm for a long bus ride up through the jungles of southern Laos, so I opted instead for a flight from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang, Laos.

Luang Prabang is one of the nicest cities in SE Asia, a combination of Buddhist temples and French colonial architecture set on the Mekong River. In 2010, I think the New York times chose it as one of it’s top destinations. As one can imagine, it was also more touristy, but that was relative, so still not that busy.

Above is a statue of a warrior on the grounds of a Buddhist wat in Luang Prabang. These are called “dvarapala, “ and are typically placed outside temples or palaces in southern Asia to serve as protectors. They are found in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jaina cultures. The temples also serve as monasteries, and there’s always lots of monks  around. Typically, one son from every family serves at least one year as a monk. If they stay longer, it’s often because they receive an education, sometimes training in English. Most Buddhist monks will not stay for their entire lives. All this I was told by a young monk who spoke fluent English that I met in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

It also was deliciously cool in northern Laos – not cold mind you, but pleasant. This was also the season for slash and burn agriculture so it was also very smoky.

I ended up spending about 10 days here and did a lot of painting. It was also a nice gastronomic change because in Laos they have great coffee and bread, thanks to the French history here.

Highlights are the boats along the Mekong, Wat Xieng Thong and just the general ambience. I met a lot of terrific travelers here and interacted with many young monks.

One of the oddest things that tourists did in Luang Prabang, was to make offerings to a morning procession of Buddhist monks. One would go down to a particular avenue, early in the day, and either bring, or purchase food from the vendors that were there to sell it to you. I did it once, and felt very uncomfortable, and most of the monks refused my offerings.

And they were right, there was no piety, no belief coming from me that day. It occurred to me later that the monks knew what I was giving them from the wrapping, and didn’t like it. Perhaps because the vendor was selling a substandard product? My mistake was perhaps buying from the vendors in the first place. The real idea is to give something that you’ve prepared yourself. The morning I was there. I think I was the only tourist. But apparently in the intervening years, it’s become quite a bit more hectic. An educational experience.

Luang Prabang is the former religious and government capital of Laos, but lost that designation after the takeover by the Pathet Lao (the communists)in 1975. It’s a very lovely city to walk around in, and I spent about 10 days there

The full name of the country is the Lao PDR. Supposedly this means “People’s Democratic Republic”, but the expats will tell you it actually stands for ” please don’t rush.” In comparison to the constant aggressive sales pitches one receives in Thailand and Cambodia, it was truly relaxing.

Luang Prabang is filled with Buddhist Wats and monks. The monks are often teenagers who are only temporarily fulfilling family religious obligations, sometimes for a few years, but also often for just a few weeks. As teenage boys they are often not very monk-like, but smoking or ogling girls, or even poking fun at me as I painted!

Mostly they were very nice and often well educated, speaking English. English as a second language was much more common in Laos and Cambodia then in Thailand. This is probably because of the poverty here – many more NGO’s are here helping out and giving English lessons.

While there, I stopped by the National Museum, which was the old palace for the Laotian royalty. Some very nice murals and mosaic work were in evidence. Especially interesting was some art conservators I met from Japan who were working with locals on the restoration of old wooden Buddha’s. A sad note is that a survey was made in Luang Prabang province about 10 years ago of these Buddha statues. And since then about 100 of the 1100 in the survey have disappeared. Plans were afoot to implant the remainder of them with microchips.

I saw a lot of old religious buildings with art desperately in need of restoration, and wish I had the funds and logistics to help out (some of you may know that I sometimes work in art restoration).

The night market is where I bought my dinner most nights. One night with my guest house co-conspirators, we bought some Lao-Lao there, which is rice whiskey. Very cheap and a serious hangover. But also a bottle full of laughter!

I had fun in the evenings, hanging out at the guest house, drinking beer and meeting people from all over. It was a great time in Luang Prabang, but it got better!

Nong Khiaw

The Town of Luang Prabang is near the intersection of the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers. At several other travelers’ suggestion I took a 7-hour boat ride up the Nam Ou River to the town of Nong Khiaw.

This was in a motor driven longboat with about 10 seats that sat very high in the water. The water is low at this time of year so once we actually had to jump out and push.

The boat ride was extremely scenic with towering cliffs and fisherman at work for the whole trip. The haze you see is actually smoke from slash and burn agriculture.

An unexpected bonus was watching locals pan for gold, which is something they do in the dry season when the rivers are low.

Nong Khiaw is a well-located town amidst beautiful surroundings, but very small. Unfortunately the boat no longer runs, so you have to take a bus to Nong Khiaw, since the building of a dam.

I actually made two stops in Nong Khiaw for a few days each. The first time alone, and then on the way back to Thailand with some new friends.

The second time was with some new friends and we rented bicycles one day.

Muang Ngoi Neua

After a few days I took another short boat ride up the Nam Ou to an even more beautiful and remote town without any road access, Muang Ngoi Neua .

Here I had a really great view of the river from my bungalow balcony. I did a few paintings and there was a nice beach.

A highlight here was a short boat ride I took up to a weaving village with a Laotian tour guide I met. I bought a few textiles and then a woman who also accompanied us bought a live chicken for our dinner. The trip was a free tour, but I had agreed to buy all the beer for a group of young Lao men, and well, those Lao can drink!

On the way back we ran into a few Lao guys on boats, having a party in the middle of this stunning river with giant cliffs all around. They had a big bamboo log made into a bottle filled with Lao-Lao, which is the whiskey the locals make from rice. We tried a little and then were on our way back to the town where we had the chicken cooked by our friends’ sister.

The night ended with a game of spin the chicken head, which is a drinking game. You spin the chicken head and whoever has the beak pointing at them has to do a shot. When the booze is gone the ” winner ” has to eat the chicken head (luckily I lost).

One of the fun things that I did when I was in Muang Ngoi Neua was going on a tubing excursion with a couple friends. This is quite popular in Laos, although much more in the south where it’s a bit of a drunken and dangerous spree. Here it was just a few of us with no alcohol.

We rented our inner tubes and got a lift a few miles up the river where we would be able to head back towards town. It was an amazingly beautiful warm day, the river was like bath water, I was with good people, also beautiful women, and we started to gently float down the river. I don’t know quite how they managed it, but my friends had some pot, and they took it out and started passing around a joint, which I declined (because I don’t like pot). And suddenly as we were floating, a motor powered riverboat came by with huge speakers that was blasting the 1960s American musical band the Doors. My head was spinning with a déjà vu moment from the movie Apocalypse Now! It’s an incredible memory!

I should say something about making friends on the road while traveling. This was easy everywhere (although it didn’t seem to happen much in Thailand). You met fellow travelers at a guest house or tourist attractions. A lot of people would come up to me when I was painting and talk, so it made me popular because I was doing something a little out of the ordinary, a little more interesting.

But of course my new friends, some of whom I hung out with every day for a week, just eventually parted ways. Usually one or the other of us was going somewhere new. And for the most part I don’t even remember their names. But we shared some terrific experiences.

Luan Nam Tha

We left Muang Ngoi for a few days in Nong Khiaw, and then I think the four of us headed up to Luan Nam Tha , a mountain town near the Chinese border in Laos that had a good reputation as a jumping off point for trekking tee hill tribes.

The only thing of note we did was renting bicycles and ride around.

There were some beautiful rustic villages. Although, it was always clear to me the people who lived in these wooden houses up on stilts without electricity or indoor plumbing, would’ve much preferred to be in a modern apartment with all the conveniences that we take for granted in the west.

Laos was definitely the nicest part of this trip. You really felt that the locals were happy to see you. This was not a feeling I got often in other parts of my journey.

Now it was time to return Thailand.