Playing at Wat Xieng Thong
18.02.2004 
33 °C
Saibadee from beautiful Luang Prabang, a stunning town by the Mekong river in the North of Laos.
After 2 days in crazy Bangkok, getting my visa organised for Laos, catching up with a mate (bumped into a guy I met in Singapore in a second hand book shop on KSR - small small world), eating, sleeping, eating some more, reading, and visiting a couple of temples, I have finally made it to Laos - "The Kingdom of a Thousand Elephants", as it is historically known (waiting for the elephants to appear though!). By the way, in case you're not sure, Laos (pop. approx 6million) is that elongated country that is wedged between Vietnam. Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and China.
After catching a boat across the Mekong into Laos (a grand 50 metres), I stopped overnight in the tiny little town of Huay Xai, in the heart of the Golden Triangle, before taking a slow boat for two days down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, including a stop o'night in the quiant lil town of Pak Beng where we amused ourselves by playing charades and spoof. There was precious little to do on the slow boat but watch the gorgeous scenery pass by and chat with fellow travellers (Saibadee to Simon, Bec, Carolyn and Debs!). There was a good mix of people on the boat -some retirees backpacking the world, a family or two with their ankle biters, and many young folk like myself, going to Laos just for the craic 
. The pleasant but bottom-numbing journey came to a grand total of about 175,000 kip!
Hanging at the back of the slow boat, Mekong River
Me, Simon, Debs, Bec and Carolyn
Crazy money situation here....officially the Lao government only allow transactions to take place in kip, but the USD and Thai baht are used everywhere anyway and you can, in practice, pay your bills in all three currencies, and also receive your change the same way! I seem to have it all down pat by now....10 000 kip = USD$1 = AUD$1.33 = 40Thai Baht. And all the money in my bank at the moment is in Euro!! Nightmares! So i really should be converting into Euro too but it's all too much.....arrrrgghh I could have taken a speed boat in about 6 hrs all the way to Luang Prabang, but apparently the fatality rate is approaching a deathwish so bailed on that option......
Luang Prabang ("The great city of the big Buddha) is a groovy little town in the North of Laos where the Mekong meets up with the Nam Ou (at least I think i've got this right). It only has a population of about 10,000 and is super-chilled out. The riverside is particularly quaint, lined with tall palms, a few fisherfolk draping out their nets, and with cargo boats and long boats resting ashored, waiting to ferry people across the river or out of town. And because of the time of the year (i.e. burn-off season), there is a constant haze of smoke in the air, which coupled with the dust churned up from trucks, tuk-tuks, and motos plying the dirt roads that skirt the town, creates havoc with my contacts.....grrrrr.
The Mekong, Luang Prabang
Local kids in Luang Prabang entertain themselves by playing this funny little game by throwing thongs (aka flip-flops/slip-slops/jandals) and a deck of small cards across the road, or by kicking around a takraew ball (hacky-sack). Others amuse themselves by running along the road with a home-made kite or by wheeling an old bicycle tyre around the grounds of a temple. Stray dogs and skanky (but as always beautiful) cats trot about, chickens (probably infested with avian flu) pecker about everywhere, motos zip up and down the streets, droning constantly. And at night, the main street is lined with ladies selling clothes, bags, and handicrafts. Without even bargaining, the ubiquitous Beer Lao-t-shirts sell for about USD$1.80 each!!
On my first morning in LP I took a bike to slowly cruise about town, exploring many, many temples (was even given a personally guided tour by Monk Khousi!), and having a quick look at the Royal Palace before kicking back at a riverside Wat, where I met some local kiddies who crowded round the funny falang (c'est moi!) to check out what she was up to.....we kinda couldn't get past the Hello, how are you, what's your names business, so i whipped out my photo album for them to peruse.....they were a little taken aback by the number of "darlings" i had in my album. Any guys who happened to be in my photos were either presumed to be boyfriends or brothers......greetz to all! In the late arvo, I (along with the whole foreign entourage) climbed Mt Phousi (the local sacred mountain in the centre of town) to watch the sun go down over the rather hazy town below.
Wat Ho Prabang
Wat Xieng Thong
Mt Phousi
The next day, Bec, Simon (mates from the slow boat trip) and I got up at the crack of dawn to saunter into town to watch the monks from all the different Wats in LP, collecting alms. Of course the dodgemeister of LP, a whacky old man, was out on the town, dressed in his old (very 1977 dark-poo-brown) military garb, holding a gun, and smiling his toothless grin as he asked for some dough (as in money)....dodgy.....(sorry mum, I'm meant to omit all these giblets of info!!) Anyway, back to the alms-collecting....At least a couple hundred monks, in off the shoulder saffron robes (gowns?), wander down the main street of LP, collecting alms from Lao people and travellers alike. We kinda thought the trad banana-leaf wrapped goodies and sticky rice was the standard food, but when Bec noticed some of the young monks (they look maybe 7 or 8, but it's really hard to tell) with chocolate bars in their baskets (?!?!?!), added a few goodies to the stash (e.g. a chocolate bar, originally named, "Tourist Bar"!).
After this, we hired motorbikes to head out to the Pak Ou cave, about 25km out of LP. The caves are set in beautiful limestone cliffs which drop down over the edge of the Mekong and are full of (4000 - give or a take a couple hundred) Buddhas, and the journey there by motorbike was a hoot. We drove through some quaint little villages, passed some delightful countryside, waved to plenty of super-smiley kiddies, stopped or veered around to dodge the odd cow, chook or pedestrian etc etc. At one point our bike ran out of fuel (we had one of those brilliant fuel gauges that still tells you the tank is half full when it's really empty).....a great opportunity for us to meet the local kids riding their bikes home from school. They were tres amused to see two falangs sitting by the roadside, and delighted when Simon whipped out his digi-cam to film them, and subsequently show them the footage he shot. I had my first ever motorbike lesson on the way back to town (I actually thought I'd stuffed up the bike with my dodgy driving when the engine petered out) with only one near tip.....going over a bridge where the main plankage was no more than 3ft wide.....oops...hey it was great fun! Been a while between moto-rides!
Simon hanging out with the kids
On the way home
Yesterday morning we tuk-tukked out to the Khouang Sy waterfalls, about 30km out of town. They are exquisitely beautiful and the pools of water that rest at each tier are filled with lovely turquoise waters....In the afternoon, we visited a local school, just up the road from our guesthouse. Bec had met a teacher and cop at a little soup stall in town, and had been invited along to the teacher's grade 3 (?) class to do a little English teaching. Great fun - Bec tried to teach the kids the hokey-pokey out on the quadrangle, and later we had a go working through their reader with them, as well as a few other basic concepts such as colours, prepositions etc.
Khouang Sy Waterfalls
At school!
Today I cycled a little out of town to the Wat Phone Phao (Wat of Paho tree forest hill), which is modelled on the Shwee (spelling?!?!) Pagoda in Myanmar/Burma. From a distance it looks as though it is heavily gilded, but up close it's not so shimmery....the Wat was surrounded by "kutis" (not cooties), which are little meditation cells, but either the monks were still asleep, collecting alms or on holidays, as not a soul was to be seen. From there I road down to a weaving village nearby, where the women spend much of their time whipping up shawls and Laos sarongs. After downing copious amounts of fluid all day, and a whopping big breakfast/lunch, i went in search of the blood bank, to see if I could donate some blood....no luck finding the place though and after 2 hrs riding round in search of it (stoppng to ask people every 10mins), I was dehydrated... so gave it a miss. Still, I got my exercise for the day, and got to see practically every street in and around town! Of course when I finally made it back into the centre of town, I was greeted by yer man in the poo-brown-military garb (sans gun), cycling about in an S-bend loop, smiling as wildly as ever.
Heading south to Vang Vieng (think pretty pretty caves, loads of backpackers, the occasional crazy man) tomorrow, before a few days in Vientiane, and then flying south.....
Ciao for now
Belinda xoxo
A dinner bill for four people - something crazy like 160 000 kip!
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