same river, second bridge
Friday, December 12th, 2008by Rach
Luang Prabang, Laos
Remember we took a morning ramble the other day? Well, we did it again today, our last full day in this French/Asian-flavoured UNESCO World Heritage town. Actually, truth be known, we go for a wander somewhere every day. It’s just that today we’ll invite you along too. We’ll be the only falang – not another foreigner in sight. If you’re under five years of age, you’ll be given oranges along the way. And the other *orange* you’ll see will be monks’ robes. Hanging up to dry across bamboo poles, and walking along the road, over the bridge, passing you on a dirt track, sitting on steps and in buildings, walking quickly (but not running, no monks do not run and neither do they jump) across a courtyard……Put your shoes on, we’re going to head up the main street of Luang Prabang, past a few temples and monasteries, a school and a plethora of guest houses….at the very end of the peninsula (formed where the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers meet) is an almost-obscured-from-view dirt track……come on down with us (don’t worry about snakes, I can tell you we won’t be seeing any today, despite the children’s intense desire to come face-to-face with a real live one in the wild)….
Come on, you can do it; it’s not as rickety as it looks, but it does bounce!
We can hear a cheering crowd so we’re going to take the fork in the path that heads towards the sound, OK?
It takes us up a steep hill, but check out those vegetables to admire on the way….and the noise is definitely getting closer!
Ah there it is……
A hand-written sign at the start of the track said there’s a weaving village over here, so let’s go find it….
Now if you turn around, you’ll see another wat compound – yes they’re everywhere.
Let’s go take a closer look at this one…
look again, before we go see the drum….mind those teeth!
Have you had enough? We’re getting peckish, so we’re going to head back for our basket of sticky rice we cooked this morning (we ate half of it for breakfast), and we’re going to pick up some BBQ-ed pork on the way to roll up inside the rice (almost like a sausage roll or hot dog!). Some of us will walk along the river road, and some of the kids are going to zip through the market, probably just for the adventure of going somewhere without adults – who will you come with?
rayres