Luang Prabang, Laos
Luang Prabang, Laos.
We’ve been in Luang Prabang now for a week, and lately we’ve been so busy that I haven’t had any time to blog (or upload pictures which takes forever here since the internet connection is pretty slow). I feel like whenever I go a long time without writing I forget to write about things or everything just gets all rushed and blurred together. This probably won’t be any exception since we’ve done so much the past week, but I’ll do my best.
We left Muang Ngoi on Steve’s birthday last Friday (December 5th). He turned 24, and we wanted to do something special for the day, but since we’d underestimated the amount of kip we’d need for being stranded without banks or ATMs for a while we had to hit the road or not eat. So for Steve’s birthday we traveled, which seems pretty appropriate for the trip. The boat ride out from Muang Ngoi was pretty and nice. The bus trip to Luang Prabang wasn’t bad, but it was long and not as pretty as the bus ride from Odomxai to the river. We were also a little scrunched since the seat we chose in the minivan was meant for three people but they shoved us and two other local people back there, so it was a lot of trying to rearrange limbs and butts and general discomfort. But we arrived safely, got our first tuk tuk into town and managed to eat lunch with our last few thousand kip.
Luang Prabang turned out to be a pleasantly small and beautiful place. The main touristy area of the city is on a little peninsula that’s formed between the Mekong and some other river. There’s one main street that runs the length of the peninsula that’s covered in internet cafes, restaurants, guesthouses, shops, and little stands selling baguette sandwiches, smoothies, and crepes. We pretty quickly found a cheap crepe/smoothie place that’s really just a convenience store with three tables on the sidewalk, but we’ve ended up eating there just about every day.
It took us a little while to find a guest house. All of the under $10 guest houses both in the Lonely Planet guidebook and in our TravelFish printouts had all greatly inflated their prices. So we just kept plugging along until we found a nice little place on a quiet alley that had hot water and a soft bed for just about $10 a night. Once we’d both showered and relaxed a little we went in search of chocolate cake for Steve’s birthday. We went into one of the most expensive looking restaurants where there were linen tablecloths (which isn’t that fancy for Laos. In China all restaurants, even fancy ones, had plastic chairs and tables, but in Laos even the very cheap places have solid wood furniture and tablecloths) and a big dessert display. I picked a beautiful looking piece of chocolate cake and they even put a candle in it for us, and I sang happy birthday and Steve made a wish and we both pigged out. The cake was a little on the stale side and not as yummy tasting as yummy looking, but it was fun all the same.
I don’t really remember what we did the first couple of days in Luang Prabang. There was lots of sleeping and eating yummy food and just sort of wandering around. There are tons of temples and saffron-robed monks around this city (which I somehow haven’t managed to take any photos of yet. Today is the day to do it). Every day has been sunny and beautiful in the afternoons with it getting cool or even a little chilly at night.
Because of all of the civil unrest in Thailand right now we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to make it there or not. And since we were planning on splurging a little and doing an elephant ride/training thing while we were there (and I’ve been ridiculously excited about it since the trip was still in the planning stages), we decided to go ahead and do a similar elephant day in Laos so we wouldn’t regret missing it if we couldn’t go to Thailand in a couple of months. So, Monday morning we got up bright and early to go have a full day of mahout (elephant trainer) training. We were picked up in a tuk tuk and were joined by four other people (two Australians and two French Canadians who spoke perfect English–a nice surprise after our experience in Peru). The Canadians were doing a two day thing, so we didn’t see them much after the tuk tuk ride and for lunch. But we stuck with the Australians for most of the day even though they were only doing a half day (they ended up just relaxing a lot by the river for our extra activities). The first order of business was a little boat ride across the river. Every time I get in a boat I get so nervous for my camera! It’s so funny. I grew up on the water and I’m comfortable in boats, but if we tip there goes my camera and probably my memory cards. I have a little wateproof bag (supposedly) but I never remember to use it. So it’s my own fault if something happens. But we got to the camp and saw all the elephants hanging out (really tied to trees). They were a lot smaller than I expected, but it turns out that Asian elephants are a lot smaller than African elephants (which I think of when I think elephant) and the females don’t have tusks. These were two nice surprises since I was worried about being really high up and about the possibility of being gored by an angry elephant. We were quickly ushered up onto a high platform where we sat on a big seat (in pairs) on the elephants back. We got a piece of bamboo across the front to keep us from falling out and off we went with a mahout on our elephant’s neck directing her. We went for an hour ride through the forest and the river and at first it was a little strange and rocky and I was nervous, but eventually I got used to it and it was just nice. Steve was pretty calm the whole time, being in general better at these sorts of things than I am. After our elephant ride we sat around a bit and learned some about the different elephants’ histories. They all used to work in the logging industry, and most of them had various injuries–cut-off tail, blind–as a result of their mistreatment when they worked there. After our lesson we crossed the river again for a buffet lunch that was delicious and beautiful with a view of the river. Then it was into our bathing suits and across the river again for our mahout training! Steve and I each got our own elephant and we rode directly on their necks with their real mahout on their back. I watched Steve jump onto his elephant–which it literally was like jumping. The elephant lifted up its right front leg, Steve grabbed onto the top of the elephant’s ear and sort of stepped on its leg and jumped with a little help from the mahout and a guy on the ground. When it came to my turn I was a little suspicious about my ability to jump onto a giant elephant’s neck. And I failed miserably. I stepped onto her leg, grabbed her ear, and jumped just like Steve did (I thought) but I ended up lying across her neck on my belly! Definitely not the position I wanted to stay in for the duration of our journey to the river for a bath. But with a bunch of pulling and pushing from top and bottom and a lot of very worried and nervous sounds from me, I ended up right-side up and on my way! For the first little bit the mahout sat right behind me on my elephant’s neck, but eventually he sort of scooted onto her back and just kind of perched there completely at ease. I was pretty nervous for most of the time and since there was nothing to hold onto, I just sort of rested my hands on my elephant’s head (they have really bristly short hairs!) and tried to stay calm. Steve was in front of me on his elephant and it was comforting to see him up there, so I knew I wasn’t all alone. My elephant was a little naughty. She didn’t really want a bath and prefered to just snack along the side of the trail. At one point she was reaching pretty far over a barbed wire fence and I was a little afraid that I’d slide down over her head and off her trunk, but it turned out okay.
When we got down to the water, Steve’s elephant plunged right in and obediently laid down to be washed and scrubbed with a brush, but my elephant wasn’t having anything to do with it and ended up getting yelled at and wacked a little by some of the mahouts. I really didn’t want them to yell and smack my elephant since I was still on her back and being on an angry elephant’s back didn’t seem like a good idea, but eventually she got in the water and then was pretty happy for a little bit with the bathing and scrubbing.
After our baths (I got one too) both Steve and my mahouts jumped off the elephants and we were on our own. I stayed pretty calm even though I was in the lead. But I bonded with my elephant over butterflies (which she tried to catch one with her trunk!) and generally chatting and scratching her head. It made me feel better and hopefully she liked it too. I got nervous again when we got back to camp because how the hell was I getting down? But they had her lay down and I just slid off so it was all together more successful than getting on. It was such a nice experience and I was sad to say goodbye to the elephants (I also walked a little funny for a few minutes). But we ended up seeing more later on when we went to some beautiful waterfalls. But before the waterfalls we were invited into a farmer’s hut where they were eating snake stew and offered us some lao lao (illegal rice whiskey that everyone drinks). It was very strong to the taste, but didn’t have any effect on us which was surprising since I had two shots of it and one glass of wine makes me a little tipsy.
The whole day was really wonderful and we got along really well with the two Australian girls who we ended up having dinner with and hanging out with later on. We were all absolutely exhausted and after showers and dinner Steve and I slept great.
The next two days were filled with me taking a weaving course and Steve lazing around. Unfortunately my two day class also coincided with two days of the electricity being off in all of Luang Prabang during the day while they worked on the power lines. Steve got a lot of reading done, but none of the internet stuff he’d planned to do. I slaved away at the class which was amazing and really fun but absolutely exhausting. The first day I learned about how silk is made and got to make natural dyes from plants in their garden and dye three bundles of silk for myself (which I’m going to make into braceletes one of these days). Then I learned how to weave and spent the next day and a half plugging away. It was really neat to see how the whole thing was done and to get the coordination down–it’s very much a whole body experience with your feet working peddles and your arms doing a lot of the grunt work. But in the end I got a beautiful scarf that I made myself and I still can’t really believe that I did. It’s definitely something I’d be interested in doing again but I don’t think I’d do it all day long again!
Yesterday we went with the Australian girls for an afternoon of kayaking. It was pretty and fun but hard on my back and shoulders that were already exhausted from the weaving. I’d only been kayaking once before and that was in sea kayaks in Baja with Stephen a couple of years ago. We both really loved it so I was excited to do it again. But these kayaks were open and so completely different from the sea kayaks. It was all arms where the ones in Baja were mostly powered by your legs and hips (even though your arms were still swinging around). I had a hard time in these with being generally uncomfortable, but Steve and I started singing silly songs and entertaining ourselves (and the Aussies) which made things a lot nicer. It was pretty to see more of the river and get wet and be out in the sun for the day after two days under a pretty dark awning slaving away. We had a yummy dinner of speghetti and red wine which was great and comforting after the workout.
Tomorrow we leave Luang Prabang. We have an 8-hour bus ride starting in the morning over what we’ve heard is a really bad road to Ventienne, Laos’ capital. We were originally planning on going to Phonsavan, but our visa runs out on December 28th and we want to see about possibly extending it or maybe getting our Vietnam visa in Ventienne instead of having to do it so close to the end of our visa when we’re in Savanakhet. We’re still thinking about doing a motor bike trip around a bit of Southern Laos, but we still have to look into it. All tasks for when we’re in Ventienne waiting for our next visa.
Well, we’re off now to meet one of the Australian girls for lunch (the other one had to leave today to go back home. How sad!). And hopefully I’ll get some photos of the town since I’ve been slacking. We’ve bought a few things we want to mail back to the States today and we’re doing laundry, so it’s just going to be a lazy day with some errands thrown in for good measure. Hopefully I’ll have better luck uploading photos in Ventienne! They’re starting to pile up.
Tags: Laos, Luang Prabang, Ock Pop Tok weaving class, XL elephant camp
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