Historic Luang Prabang

March 5, 2006

On the ancient bus to Luang Prabang, we noticed a number of plastic bags tied to the ceiling and wondered what they were doing there.  Apparently Southeast Asians have notoriously weak stomachs, and we were in for a long, winding ride at breakneck speeds.  By the end of the trip there were less than half the bags still hanging and no longer any doubts as to their intended use.  As neither of us suffer from motion sickness, we had a spectacular ride.  Wending our way through the mountains, we teetered over edges of steep inclines and leaned around sharp, hairpin curves.  The scenery was beautiful and expansive, as we rose above far off peaks.

Walks, Wats, and Waterfalls

Near sunset we came to a cluster of four buildings perched precariously on the edge of the roadside cliffs.  This was the center of an agricultural township, and we were to carry another bus' worth of goods to Luang Prabang.  While a heavily armed guard, who looked more like a hardened soldier, stood by, four men managed the impressive feat of squeezing every last bundle of coffee, fruit, veggies, and even a moto onto the roof or into the cramped seats.  Now towering about five feet higher than an hour before, we pulled off into the deepening red of the sky ahead.

There was a light haze that hung heavier in places slightly marring our view but increasing the redness of the setting sun.  February through April marks Laos' dry season, and most of the slash and burn agricultural practices take place during these months.  Despite the government's assurances that they are making every effort to discourage these environmentally unfriendly methods, they continue to be almost exclusively used in the mountainous regions.  These steeper slopes are, unfortunately, the areas that stand to be the most damaged by the erosion of fertile soil, as the fires burn on.

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March 6, 2006

Our first day in L.P., we took a walking tour of the charming, old city, which is really much more of a town.  Strolling up the banks of the Mekong on one side and down the smaller shores of the Khan River on the other, we thoroughly enjoyed the quaint ambiance and the French colonial architecture that make this a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We passed riverside restaurants, went through a small food market with the biggest piles of oranges we've ever seen, and came to a prominently situated wat.  The Xieng Thong temple, built in 1560, happened to be the cities oldest and most ornate.  After exploring the grounds and meditating in front of a sedentary Buddha, we resumed our walk back to the center of town.

We watched the first of our sunsets over this section of the Mekong and this became a nightly ritual.  From our special spot nestled in the riverside gardens on the outskirts of town, we stared at the shimmering shaft of orange that was the elongated reflection of the darkening orb as it plummeted towards the mountains on the far bank.  The river flowed ceaselessly past as night began to emerge.

The night market.  We walked towards the giant mouth of vendor carts that was filled with a teeming crowd of people, and it swallowed us whole.  Straight through the teeth of tuk tuks and sawngthews parked along the entrance, we were thoroughly decomposed by the time we emerged on the other end of the main road.  The street is divided down the middle to create a split channel that consumers are funneled into and squeezed along.  As the buildup of people pushed us past one blanket of goods after another, we began to be completely overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and seemingly endless variety of wares.  We sped through in this manner until we reached about halfway down the kilometer long stretch, took two breaths on a side street, and plunged back into the fray.  Our eyes darted constantly across the detailed layouts, with everything blending together by the time we reached the end.  It almost seemed we had left little pieces of ourselves strewn along the way, and we took a break for a banana shake trying to collect ourselves.

This time, a bit more prepared for what was in store, we headed back in the opposite direction.  It slowly became apparent that there were only a limited number of vendor types, though there were many permutations.  It is amazing how many people can sell exactly the same things in the same place and the market becomes just a repeating background of goods on blankets.  We learned to walk through looking at just one of each type of vendor and pause at the only wood bowl craftsman or musical instrument maker.  That way, we knew the general contents of the entire market, or at least where to look for something we wanted.

The way was lit by the naked filaments burning in the dangling, individual bulbs that hung three feet above the ground, with the numerous and wonderful exceptions that glowed from the colorful lantern stands.  These lights illuminated the goods, which consisted mostly of fabrics: scarves, tablecloths, clothes, bags, slippers, sarongs, placemats, table runners, t-shirts, etc.  Rounding out the variety were wooden wares, pipes, knives, coins, Buddha figures, pottery, woodblock prints, incense and holders, and other trinkets.  These goods mostly come from China and are then finished or crafted by the Lao women who sell them every night.

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March 8, 2006

Luang Prabang proved such a nice place that we extended our Laos visa for another three days so that we could explore it at our leisure.

One evening we climbed Phou Si, the hill in the center of town.  The impressive stone stairway started off straight up, then began zig zagging its way up the steeper slopes.  The trees that stuck out horizontally from the vertical embankment were bare and seemed to be made up of fingers pointing towards the top rather than branches reaching for the sun.  The limbs did not taper at the extremities but, instead, were thick to the ends and rounded like too many giant digits.  A giant, golden stupa rose from the midst of the hilltop temple.

We watched a beautiful sunset over the distant Mekong, while overlooking the darkening city.  There was the occasional flutter of wings as a pair of tiny sparrows rushed past, having been just freed from their fist sized cage for luck.  We could almost sense their intense, excited joy mixed with disoriented confusion in the burst of air created by their proximity to our faces.  They disappeared into the air like the swirling plumes of incense, carrying with them the heavy burden of too many hopes and prayers.

On the descent the trees seemed to reach out for us, tickle the air in front of our faces, and beckon us back up to the top with their crooked fingers.  We ignored them and reached the bottom, stepping into the contrasting world of the night market below.

We headed to the vegetarian buffet we had found the night before that is located down a side alley off the market street.  A nice, old couple provide impossibly cheap and delicious meals for just 5,000kip (50 cents), which include a heaping plateful of self-served rice, noodles, vegetables of all kinds, tofu, and fruit all stir fried to your liking.  We both agreed that this filling and delectable meal was monetarily inconceivable but enjoyed our find three out of our five nights in L.P.

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March 9, 2006

A 45 minute drive into the surrounding hills lay the Kuang Si Waterfalls.  We walked down a path leading from the dirt parking lot and were suddenly in the deep woods.  We unexpectedly came upon a rehabilitation facility comprised of a fenced off area housing three sun bear cubs and two adolescents.  Just past the bears, we came to the first trickle of water working its way through fallen leaves and roots leaving only the absence of anything as its trail.  A clearing appeared in front of us and was lit by the glowing turquoise water from a central pool.  A clay shelf continuously emptied water from some hidden upper pool into the luminous basin.  The bottom consisted of the off-white clay that seemed to lie everywhere under the thin layer of dark topsoil.  This lining made light emanate from under the water, lightening the turquoise in the deep to shallows of a robbin's egg blue.  We resisted the urge to jump right in and, instead, continued up the falls and through the forest.  Tiered pool after pool lay stacked like giant tea cups filled and emptied by curtains of water.  The upper falls were by far the grandest with their water leaping from the base of trees over 300 feet above.  We headed for the top.

On the steep ascent we were the only ones clambering up the ladder of roots and mud mixed with clay.  The slope was at such a pitch that we could stand vertically and touch the trail ahead with our bent arm in front.  Carefully flip-flopping our way to the top, we found a denser forest growing out of clear water pools that were darker than brown, but not quite black.  The pools and forest just ended, and the view of distant hills took their place.  We walked to the edge and were shocked to see and suddenly hear the massive waterfall roaring forth from the placid waters at our feet.  The people below were now tiny patches of colorful lichen on the far-off rocks, and the vertical distance we had just climbed through the woods became strikingly apparent.

On our way back down we swam in a couple of deserted pools, and the water was a crisp, cold surprise.  The bottom that had looked like soft clay was, in fact, the texture of fired brick.  The path back to the parking area led past another caged-off area of the woods housing a young tigress named Phet, who was lounging at the base of a large teak tree.  She yawned and demonstrated her calm, indifferent demeanor and flesh-ripping, giant teeth at the same time.  She too was a rescued orphan, whose life had been forever altered by poachers without a conscience.