boopyourface

Luang Prabang is considered the jewel of Laos by many (and I am in complete agreement. the city is incredibly charming, therapeutic even). It is adored by travel writers who dedicate pages and pages to the city sites and activities in travel books abound. And during our six days spent in the city we managed to visit ONE site mentioned in these books.

Yes, that’s right just one.

This ONE site that we visited happened to be the Phu Si Temple sitting at the top of a hill in the middle of the city. Which meant, we had to climb 300+ stairs to get there. We saved this activity until the end of the day so that we could catch the sunset (two for one kinda deal). After huffing and puffing in 90+ degree heat (alright, it may have been a while since I hit the gym too) we arrived at the summit to see a breathtaking view:

For all of two minutes. Because as you can see, the clouds were coming in and shortly after our arrival the sun dipped behind them.

Oh well.

But one of the reasons we didn’t make it to all the wats and other sites around Luang Prabang was because of the 90+ degrees (and that’s at sunset). After around noon, it just gets so hot- sweltering. To walk around in that heat would be the death of you and well, we aren’t morning people. But we managed to have an amazing time in the city without following in lonely planet’s footsteps.

We meet a young guy who worked at our guest house, Mr. Tong. He’s studying tourism at the university in Luang Prabang and offered to take us to his village 40 minutes away and another village to practice his future trade. He also brought along his buddy from school, Mr. Ail. We woke up bright and early and ventured off to the morning market to buy ingredients for lunch. Here’s Mr. Tong bargaining for our buffalo meat:

and here’s a part of the morning market, the meat department (just like Safeway!):

After we got our provisions for lunch we took a water taxi across the Mekong and headed towards Mr. Tong’s village. Upon arrival, Mr. Tong introduced us to his father who offered to cook us lunch while we walked around the village. A picture is worth a thousand words so here you go:

A village store:

The village meeting house:

An old man, making bamboo guns:

The children were shy at first but as we sat and ate lunch they gradually started trickling in, lingering in the doorway and by the end of the meal we had an audience of 15 or 20 sitting on one side of the room:

And speaking of lunch- it was delicious. We had a buffalo and vegetable soup, buffalo laap and sticky rice. Laap is a Laotion specialty where they mix, or rather grind with a mortar and pestle, a meat, bean sprouts, sometimes papaya, spices and of course chili pepper. Our buffalo laap was raw mixed with onions, eggplant, chili and other ingredients I couldn’t make out. But it tasted like a sumptuous ahi poke or tuna tartar with a hell of a lot of kick to it (that would be the chunks of chili pepper). Traditional Laotion food is eaten without utensils and just sticky rice as your dining tools. I’m pretty glad I brought the Purrell.

After our tasty lunch Mr. Tong took us trekking through the forest to see the “lake” where the village gets its water from. It was just about noon when we set off so Will and I were pretty eager to get to the lake to take a dip so we could cool off. Mr. Tong pointed out his father’s teak trees and other flora and fauna of the area. We started going deeper into the forest and a stream trickled past and the ground became progressively muddier. We were trekking along and then….

…..ka PLONK!!

In goes my foot, calf and almost entire leg into a mud hole, like quick sand (quick mud?). I pulled my leg out and had to implore the help of Mr. Ail to find my poor slipper deep at the bottom of the muddy hole. But Mr. Tong assured us “don’t worry we’re almost to the lake”.

A couple minutes later we arrived at a 30×40 foot stagnant body of water, the surface covered with lily pads- ta da! the “lake”.

The pond/lake was definitely not one you could swim in. No matter, our tour guides proceeded to take us to a waterfall.

Only there was no water.

During the dry season they dam the waterfall and irrigate the water to the fields. But Will managed to find a place to take a dip:

Our guides took us to a wat in a neighboring village where they practiced their tour guiding skills by explaining to us what was painted on the murals and then we headed back to Luang Prabang.

And here are our endearing tour guides (Mr. Ail left, Mr. Tong right):

All in all, it was one of the best experiences that I’ve had here in Southeast Asia, to get out of the city and from under the umbrella of the tourism and see a Laotian village.

Another awesome experience that I had while in Luang Prabang- I took a weaving class. I got up bright and early and went to the OckTokPop weaving center and learned about silk worms, silk and weaving. I then proceeded to learn about natural dyes and got to stain my fingers blue (my nails still have a hint of blue on them) making indigo dye:

And after 3 hours on the loom I, yes I, produced this lovely place mat:

I also discovered I’m an awful weaver. I just don’t have the hand/feet coordination on the loom. I’m slow, weave lopsided and broke nearly 30 threads in the process, but I managed to finish my “masterpiece” and I’m pretty proud of it!

So we didn’t get to check out most of the territory covered for Luang Prabang in the lonely planet guide book, but we got to forge a little path of our own with the help of Mr. Tong, Mr. Ail and my teachers at OckTokPop. And that, was pretty memorable.