A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang is a fabulous place, an amazing combination of culture, scenery and traveler amenities (by which I mean food and shopping). It's a small town, less than 20,000 residents, situated in the mountainous confluence of the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers. Despite its small size, it features an amazing number of temples -- though centuries of war have ravaged the temples and Buddhist art and architecture throughout Laos, 32 pre-French temples remain intact in Luang Prabang, including some examples more than 500 years old.

These featues led UNESCO to declare the city a "World Heritage" site, calling it "the best preserved city in Southeast Asia." It's a delightful place to just wander around, and it's impossible to stick to a schedule as there are distractions around every corner. The main shopping and tourist areas are full of ornate textiles, handmade paper and lamps, and carved wooden items, along with innumerable restaurants where you can sit at a sidewalk table sipping a mango smoothie and watching the tourists and locals go by. The buildings are mostly in French colonial style, but once off the main thoroughfares Lao styles filter in, with clapboard, stucco and woven mat houses alongside brightly gilded temples with intricately carved doors and walls.

The temples, or "wats", are in a variety of styles, reflecting the shifts in ruling influence over the centuries. The Luang Prabang Style, similar to Northern Siamese, is the most beautiful in my opinion. The roofs are designed with many curving overlapping layers, sloping almost to the ground. Doors are carved, gilded reliefs, and sometimes the exterior walls are covered with glittering mosaic scenes. The whole thing is rather overwhelming, as each individual element is beautiful in its own right.

With all this beauty and variety around, you'd think I would have spent loads of time touring wats, but in fact I keep getting distracted. My first day here I ended up visiting paradise -- the Khuong Si Falls, about 25 km down a dirt road from Luang Prabang. My companion Nomi, a 30 year old fabric designer from New York City, and I had heard through the traveler grapevine of a hidden pool with a rope swing that you could climb to. In fact, I had run into Stee the night before (English guy I traveled with in southern Laos) and he refused to tell me how to get there. The jerk told me that part of the fun is trying to find it. Curse him.

So Nomi and I set off up the hill, having absolutely no idea where we were going. Even from the bottom the falls were stunning, spilling down off the rocks from all different angles and flowing into pools of a surreal shade of pale green-blue. No time to enjoy at that moment, however -- we were on a mission.

Naturally, as I was involved and my instincts cannot be trusted, we took the longest route possible. And this place was not easy to find. We hiked all the way to the top, waded across the river, and peering over, could see the pool -- clearly we had walked up the wrong side of the falls. The question was, how the hell could we get to it? We began hiking down the other side, but there didn't seem to be any side trails that might lead to the pool or even to the edge of the falls. After we felt we'd gone too far, we turned around and headed back up, determined to examine every trailside plant for signs of recent human passage. In the end, a more hardy explorer found it for us, and a good thing too. Turns out the "trail" to the pool was up a gradual rocky waterfall, or very steep stream, however you wish to look at it. No wonder we didn't spot it. We scrambled through the rushing water, up the rocks, and under fallen trees until we reached paradise -- two staggered pools with water raining down all around. At the lip of the lower pool you could dangle your legs over the sheer falls and look out on the tropical valley. We swam, talked to other adventurous souls who had successfully located the promised land, and played on the rope swing all afternoon.

On my second day in Luang Prabang, I discovered my new favorite way to travel -- motorbike. Nomi, also a motorbike neophyte, and I decided we really ought to learn to ride one while in Asia, so we wandered down the main street, handed over $7 apiece and were given the keys to two 110 horsepower mopeds.

We had, of course, hoped to get some useful instruction on how to operate the vehicle. We were quite up front about never having done it before. The motorbike owner used his 25 words of English to show us how to find the gas tank, how to switch gears, and how to start the damn thing (harder than you think). As Nomi was unable to do the kick start, I was assigned the older, more decrepit bike -- no speedometer, broken fuel gauge, odometer permanently set on 71,361.9. After watching Nomi do a short test drive down the man street, the owner turned to me and said "very slow, OK?" So the two of us set off, lurching down the stret in the manner of nursing home residents taking their walkers out for a run down the hallway.

I must admit things didn't begin auspiciously. When we reached the end of the street we stopped to discuss our progress and exchange tips (my progress would have been better had I mastered the "stop" -- I tended to try the Fred Flintstone method before I found the proper pedal). Roadwork was in progress near where we were loitering, and a large truck began to back up toward us, accompanied by a number of workers yelling at us to move out of the way. I had already decided that I wasn't competent enough to do anything speedy with witnesses involved, so would coast the motorbike out of the way. Nomi accidently started hers in gear, revved the engine and went screaming toward the back of the truck, fortunately tipping over onto the gravel before she slammed into the back. All was well, however, as several laughing Laos pulled her and the bike from under the truck. After that little learning experience, we were on our way. Slowly.

It's really not that difficult, driving a motorbike. In fact, you have nothing whatsoever to do with your left hand, which explains why so many Lao girls use that hand to carry their parasol while driving. The best part, though, was that we could go and stop wherever we wanted. We got delightfully lost on our way to Pak Ou, a cave full of Buddha statues, but eventually meandered down a long dirt road with lovely views of the Mekong and found the "ferry," otherwise known as a guy with a rickety boat. The cave was OK -- not damp and it did indeed boast thousands of Buddhas, many of them sadly headless. Post-cave we luxuriated at a thatch-roofed restaurant with a view of the Mekong, eating fried fish and sticky rice and sipping pineapple juice. This is the life, I tell you.

Today, Day 3, I actually have visited some wats, though my schedule was shot to hell when I ended up chatting with a monk for an hour and a half at my first stop. Those monks really like to chat. I also got sidetracked by some shopping -- I really can't be expected to resist the call of the tourist goods forever. Anyway, my visit to Luang Prabang has pretty much come to a close, and tomorrow morning I head north on my way to the Golden Triangle. Yet another local bus -- sigh.


Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 6:25 AM