Luang Prabang Again (sorry, couldn't resist)

After our little sojurn up the river to Nong Kiau, we spent a few more days in Luang Prabang enjoying the place while waiting for our flight to Siem Riep in Cambodia.  One day we rented some bikes and drove around the town and into some of the outlying villages.  We went across bridges only suitable for bicycles and pedestrians with their eyes closed, went to places where they make the fine Laos Silk Weavings that Jen eventually bought up the town's supply of, and visited some more Wats and Museums.  Every night the girls (and occasionally Shawn and even less occasionally, me) would tramp into the Night Market which were a series of stalls that would be setup on the main street of Luang Prabang and would try their luck at negotiating extremely good deals on various hand made items.  Rachel as usual, was the best negotiator.  The poor Laos market women had no defenses against her little smile and claims that she only had XX to spend on that item.

The confluence of the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers.  We stopped at a little shack here and had a cool drink with the bikes.  Luang Prabang is on the bank on the left hand side.  Its on a peninsula that is formed by the Nam Ou paralleling the Mekong before turning 90 degrees to join it.  You are looking at the tip of the Luang Prabang peninsula.  

The mighty Mekong

A fairly newborn calf that was at the restaurant/aka shack we stopped at.

One of the weavers busy at her loom.  They can make a 2 metre table runner in 1-4 days depending upon the complexity of the pattern.  

She only had 2 frames running here so she'd do it in a couple of days. 

The bridge over the River Nsm Ou

We aent the kids across first... they made it OK

Monks working on the new roof - capital funds provided by the US Embassy - perhaps to make up for the 2.2 Million tons of bombs dropped on Laos in the 10 year "Secret War" (only 1.9 Million dropped by ALL sides in WW2).  Interestingly enough MOST of the land mines and U|XO (unexploded ordanance) is from the Eastern Bloc/China.

Hand painting the gold trim

The royal crypt

And heres... Budda (again)

On another day, we watched the Monks collect Alms (food mostly) from the locals and tourists.  They get up at 4:30 and march around the town (hitting the tourists about 7:00am) with big pots that they take back to the Wats and then feed themselves (after feeding any poor that are looking for food).

A street vendor showing us how to ball up the rice and bananas/cookies/biscuits for the Monks.  Jen wasn't allowed to touch the food or present to the Monks although we did see women doing it and the Monks seemed OK with it (from tourists at least).

Here comes the first batch... there were about 50 in total

They don't smile or acknowledge the alms... and no the dog didn't get any.  

The Wat at the Royal Palace

They like their gold!

And their dragons

Shawn just before his haircut - drinking an Ovaltine "fruit" shake.

Jen knows how to polish off a real fruit shake... note the granny glasses (so she can read the menu)

After the hard work of lifting the shake, its time for a massage!  Note the borrowed clothes.  I had one beside her and the kids got to watch.  Mine pounded on me after the massage and I ended up with the worst Migraine I've ever had...  1000 mg of Ibuprofen didn't touch it and I was literally in tears.  Moral of the story is enjoy the massage but don't let them hit you (she only did it once).  

Chinese lanterns we would have loved to be able to send back home

On our last day in Luang Prabang, we booked another kayak, hiking and elephant riding tour up the Nam Ou river.  This time, we got dropped off and had to hike across the river on one of those rickety old bridges, then toured a local village with three different tribes (Khmu, Hmong and Lao) and learned how to tell their homes apart.

The Hmong are the mountain people and build their stick homes right on the earth but with only two doors (the front and back) and no windows.  The back door is only used by the house holders (the new bride enters through the back door) and the dead - they carry the body out the back door. The Khmu on the other hand, build their homes on stilts.  The area under the home is used for storage and hammocks to while away the hot portion of the day.  The Lao are more practical and cover in the stilts and will actually live on both floors.  From what we could tell, the Lao were the most modern, followed by the Khmu and then way back were the Hmong.

The other Bridge Across the River Nam Ou

Its fairly wide here

An example of a Khmu house... lots of storage space underneath.  We'd later see that the Khmer (the Lao call the former Khmer people Khmu) houses all look like this.  Gives them a place in the shade to hang out when its 43 in the rice paddies.

Jen flipped out when she discovered the girls were playing "Jumpie" with a series of elastic bands

A Hmong house.  That's the front door.

She's got me hiking up another mountain... for no good reason other than to get to the top.  I'm still not losing all the rolls despite sweating out buckets.  I guess the beer isn't helping (but it's SO good at $0.75 for 2 bottles! They did point out a nasty plant that leaves a bad rash so we could avoid another Costa Rica type outbreak

After our hike up the mountain and back down through what they haven't yet cut down of the forest we got picked up in some leaky longboats and shuttled across the river to where our Kayak's were waiting for us.  In the 70's Laos was 90% forested... now it's supposed to be about 20% - I don't know that I'd go that low but the logging they are doing primarily for firewood is VERY noticeable.  Then we paddled about 2kms downstream to the Elephant Village at Tonsay waterfalls.  The water levels were quite low so although I imagine it must be as beautiful as the other waterfalls in full flood, they were barely a trickle.  This is where the kids got to ride the elephants.

First they fed them to become friends... they liked the sugar cane sticks and bamboo better than even bananas!

Hopping on.

Shawn says the skin rubs your legs raw.  

The took them on a 20 minute trek through the forest (up the mountain again - where were the damn elephants when I needed them?!).

Somehow they managed to swap places

Then it was back to the stand for lunch... for the kids and the elephants.  The elephants never stop eating... 21 hours a day.  Their digestive system is so poor most of their poop is undigested but the other animals like the dung beetle use that poop and take it all the way.  Seeds the elephants eat, wouldn't be able to survive through a more robust digestive system so its fortunate for those plants (e.g. the Acacia in Africa) that the elephants can distribute their seeds widely.  Isn't nature amazing?

After lunch it was onto big Mama for a ride down to the river to take a bath.  The seat is on the one in the back.  Rachel had only the rope.

Shawn's watching his little sister show him how its done

He figured it out quick enough.  It was cool how the Mahouts (drivers) could get the elephants to put out a leg like that to climb up.  They also had the elephants doing all kinds of circus tricks but I didn't want to encourage that so no pictures of that.

Good thing they have such big ears or you'd slide right off the front of them!  That hill was quite a bit steeper than it looks here.

Right over and around our kayaks.. without disturbing so much as a paddle.  And Jen was worried about Beefy accidentally knocking over our Land Cruiser in Africa.  They know where their feet are (unlike Simba) and are amazingly good with their trunks.

And straight in to the river!

Rachel's elephant like to play submarine!  You'd often see just Rachel's head!  

Rachel's has disappeared again!

Rachel's Mahouts couldn't stay on the little submarine but Rachel could1

Back on the river to paddle out.

As you can no doubt tell, we really enjoyed our time in Laos although it wasn't as relaxing as we'd hoped it would be.  Most of this was due to the fact that we'd probably jammed two more countries into the South East Asia portion of our trip than we should have.  The Laos people are quite friendly but have embraced capitalism with as much fervour as the Indians so they hardly ever leave you alone.  They even sell tee shirts that say "No Tuk-Tuk, No Massage, Not today, Not Tomorrow!".  My favorite were the tee shirts saying "Same, Same" on the front and "But different" on the back.  You hear the touts saying "same, same" all the time (like that Omega Speedmaster they are pedalling really is the $2500 version).

The other noticable characteristic is that the men really don't seem to do a lot of work.  The women are busy in the streets selling things for the market but even they do a lot of sleeping or just standing around talking.  To get something simple done, you may have to ask about 4 different times giving slightly more detailed instructions as you go.  They'll do the bare minimum of work they think they can get away with.  I figure they were never really conquered because the conquerors just gave up on trying to get them to do anything.  I often wish I had their work ethic!  I suspect I'd live longer and have a lot less migraines!

Anyway, on to Cambodia as we had booked our flight out to Siem Riep after taking the little tuk tuk with all our possessions to the airport! If you though this post was long for Luang Prabang, wait until you see what we have for Siem Reip/Angkor Wat!