Luang Prabang

The monks pass and the pace is fast and furious for about fifteen minutes.
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The weather gods are shining on us. We’re in this most lovely of towns and have the weather that people suffer crowds and pay high prices for. The heat wave has broken, or perhaps this is an unusual summer cold snap. Either way, it enhances the scrumptious experience we’re having in this gracious and gentle locale.

Our guest house, featured in the coffee table book, Hip Hotels, is run by a mild-mannered Englishman and has a languid, slightly unkempt, homey energy about it, enhanced by full-sized bars of Imperial Leather soap and a conspicuous absence of waffle robes and complimentary shower caps. The staff is warm and funny, hanging about being amused by the comings and goings of us as individuals and “our child.” Henry has free rein and a budget of $5 a meal, which easily gets a full-sized pizza and drink, and ample change to negotiate for tchotchkes in the night market, which is set up along the main drag each day around 5pm, and made truly magical when dark descends and each stall is strung and lit by bare light bulbs. For Andy, the magic is by the vegan stand where he can eat all he wants for 50c. For Henry, it’s the ubiquitous “swirlies” sewn on patches, bags, and pants which is, apparently, the symbol of the town. Make your way into the centre – and stay.

I got lots of sticky rice. How about you?

Theres a way to hold the bocce ball and this master has it down.
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The former Royal Palace is now the National Museum. It has an imposing entrance and the wrought iron gates are almost always shut. Even when they’re not, and one can wander down the palm-lined driveway, one hits a CLOSED sign at the open door. What gives? Four days in Luang Prabang and I never find it open. And I so wanted to see the Prabang after which this Luang is named, ever since the guide told us that its partner, the Emerald Buddha, was stolen by the Thais and presides still, despite its diminutive size, raking in the baht as Bangkok’s greatest tourist attraction. The Thais are regarded by both the Laos and the Cambodians as real thieves. Many recognized artifacts from both countries reside in Thailand and there seems to be no plan to repatriate them. I wonder about the Thai version of this story.

Dont eat it all at once.
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As for the Laos, its royal family was dispatched and nobody seems to know – or talk about -- what happened to them. They were dethroned by the Communists and “died a few years later.” Dear me. Ah, the vicious tyranny of the Asian power struggles. But these are peaceful, spiritually awake countries, right? Yezzz.

We don’t even have to leave our hotel to eat extraordinarily. The restaurant offers the best Lao-French fusion fare. I tentatively order steak frites as my memory holds to a high standard. I receive the juiciest, most tender medium rare cut, accompanied by hand cut, perfectly dry-fried chips. Luscious! Andy’s pumpkin coconut soup is savored, teaspoon by teaspoon.

I got lots of sticky rice. How about you?
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We rise at 5.15 to participate in a Luang Prabang tradition. By 5.30, we’re climbing the steps of the alley next to the hotel. The rooster opposite has heralded the dawn and is already gathering his feathery female companions about his skinny frame. As Henry observes, each cock in town has at least one loyal groupie. To a pullet though, they’re a scrawny bunch and many spend the day tethered to a stick or in the ubiquitous bamboo cages that look way too much like food covers.

The languid Lao way to get around town.
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Each of us carries a big warm bamboo container of sticky rice. As we pass open windows, we hear water bubbling, doubtless preparing breakfast noodle soup or perhaps more sticky rice. We reach the main street and opposite, on bamboo mats, kneel several women, also with sticky rice and bags of small green mangoes. We join them and I wish I had a bamboo mat. The pavement is harsh and the gravel bites my knees.

Nobody else is around. This is the wonderful thing about low season. Bad for the locals, brilliant for us.

Andy makes lots of friends peeling garlic in the Apsara kitchen.
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A gong begins slowly and picks up speed till it’s ringing just one tone, then stops. In the distance, we see a tiny moving speck of brilliant orange.  Five hundred monks are walking the streets with alms bowls, giving the lowly a chance to make merit. They are as young as seven, as cheeky as fifteen, as venerable as seventy.  The monks do not speak. Women kneel before them; men stand. We have a hard time keeping up. One pulls at the rice, making a little ball, then placing it in the alms bowl as the monk passes. I can see why some people just give them mangoes. Perhaps that’s better for everyone. Who wants to eat sticky rice that has been mauled by a stranger, anyway? Some monks just look at us and pass on by. Henry muses about mornings back at the monastery. “What did you get?” “I got lots of sticky rice. How about you?” He hears that monk life means an early rising, meditation and prayers, alms rounds, breakfast, sweeping, more prayers, lunch, more prayers and an early bed with no dinner. School is squeezed in for the young ones, many of whom become novices simply for the schooling. Henry decides even his crummy life is better than this one.

Yet another new use for bamboo.
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The monks are there, and we’re feeding furiously, and then they’re gone. The roosters give a final crow and the town begins to wake up.

Mt. Phousi, a little peak smack in the middle of the mian street, is not attractive. Women at the foot sell cages the size of coffee mugs, containing a pair of birds. “Free them for good luck” they say, which reminds me of the old advertising adage, “Buy this product or we shoot this dog.” Did they earn bad luck when they caged the birds? Halfway up is a ticket table for maintenance of one of the shrines. The entire human interface with the mountain needs maintenance, yet the ticket takers choose to send their time attaching frangipani flowers, by needle and thread, to aloes, azaleas and palms in the compound.  This is beyond strange. And it is so Lao. As they say, the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, the Lao listen to it grow.

Theres an awful lot of Buddhas in Luang
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We’re so grateful for the opportunity to cool our heels in this time-warped town. We watch the bocce players opposite the hotel. We sample street food like sticky rice, peanuts and coconut cream, wrapped in a betel life triangle – 6 for $1,000 kip – about a dime. We’re not in the least bit tempted to leave town for adventures elsewhere. Luang Prabang is all it’s cracked up to be. For now.