18 December - Here in Laos!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
This morning we tried getting up early (not succeeding very well) and Charles was in a terrible mood with a bad headache until we found a great cafe called JOMA which had some good, strong coffee...Not much of a Lao-style menu- they had tasty spinach quiche, multi-grain bagels, etc. Not bad. Great service and our first break from Asian cuisine!

After this we spent some time in the main drag of town, dodging the ever-present scooters and jumbos (large tuk tuks), exchanged most of our Thai Baht currency and made arrangements from one of the million trek providers to have a elephant ride/bamboo rafting trip tomorrow (Wednesday)...for Thursday we have a half day trip to a waterfall and a visit to some villages where they make textiles, lao whiskey and paper....

After arranging our tours, we decided to check out some of the wats (temples) that Luang Prabang is known for. We started off following a walking tour that was in the Lonely Planet guide, but the map was really hard to follow so we just decided to wander around. We came upon a beautiful wat (temple) with a lovely garden filled with Buddha sculptures and vibrant, magenta bougainvillea. The clouds had lifted at this point and the sky was a beautiful Kodachrome 25 blue.

(Actually Charles was shooting Velvia 50 with his Super-8 and Laura was shooting with her digital camera.) Charles took a picture of a monk chillin' on the steps of a wat, and we watched the monks at this particular wat go about their midday routine (eat, meditate, stay out of the heat?). Our first interaction with another tourist was at this lovely spot--naturally not a US Citizen. A middle-aged Swiss woman struck up a conversation with Charles as we were taking pictures. She was sightseeing with her husband and seemed to know a lot about Buddhist culture so she was fascinating to talk to, explaining the significance of the different Buddha poses.

After we finished up at this wat, we went to the wat next door where monks were being trained in various restoration techniques and fine arts including gilding, metalworking, painting, etc. in order to help with restoration projects. Laura, of course, needed to see what this was all about. We investigated and came upon a shop where you could buy some of the arts and crafts that the monks had made, where we bought some beautiful one-of-kind prints depicting Buddhist iconography (more on the sad fate of these prints later).

We had a tasty lunch of fish and buffalo sausage on the Mekong river in a shady area that had a bit of a breeze (but was still bloody humid!). While looking down at the Mekong we saw an area where you could hire a boat to go across the river. There was a wat in a cave, we had read about, something that was worth checking out. After finishing our tasty lunch (fueled with Beer Lao of course!) we paid a buck for a boat ride across. The boat pilot was the son of the woman taking our "reservation" and he had to be woken up from his midday siesta. Naturally he was a bit irritated but I guess they needed the money!

The boat went across the river and then stopped. There was no dock or landing or anything. Just mud and sand we had to jump into. Definitely not Marina del Rey! We walked up some steps where we saw some people standing at a small stand. You had to buy tickets to proceed further. All the relics to visit were run by a small, dirt-poor village where the locals guide you into these dormant places. After paying a couple bucks we started walking down the path. Halfway there some strange guy began following us. We weren't sure if he was a bandit or what but it turns out he was our tour guide! He showed us an abandoned temple which we took many photos of, then a fifth-century temple built into a cave. It was all very interesting but we had to get back to the boat as it was only docked for one hour.

The intense midday heat was getting to us and we could now understand why so many of the locals were taking their "siestas" at this time. After getting back to the other side of the Mekong we hired a tuk tuk to get back to our hotel for a shower and our own siesta!