Bird’s Nest Bevarage – 25% bird’s nest

For days we debated what to do. Visit the Plain of Jars or not.
Should i visit another archeological site of world importance or take the stunning journey back to Vientiane. It’s not often in life that one is faced with such choices every day. These are the stresses i am faced with while travelling. How awful i’m sure you’ll agree.

The Plain of Jars is a large group of historic, cultural sites consisting of thousands of ancient stone jars, some two metres tall, scattered over large fields. Archeological authorities are still unsure of their raison d’etre, but it has been hypothesised they once contained the cremated human remains.

Sounded fascinating. Unfortunately this mysterious site was situated eight hours east of Luang Prubang and required backtracking that eight hours to Luang Prubang when we were already travelling 12 hours back from LP to Vientiane to reach the south of the country – all because the road from the Plain of Jars (Phonsovan) down south is a notoriously dangerous Special Military Zone where a low level insurgency and secretive counter operations are being waged.

Moreover, the Plain of Jars remains a dangerous site of unexploded bombs which still cause injuries every week. I did not trust my feet.

So we spent another day in Luang Prubang and visited the Royal Palace Museum. Originally, as the name suggests this building was the royal palace, residence of King Si Savanguang. Since the revolution it has been converted into a museum.

The museum pieces were a mixture of Laos art and Buddhist relics including the Phra Bang (from which the town takes its name), a Buddha cast of a gold, silver and bronze alloy. The secretary’s reception room is filled with diplomatic gifts from a variety of countries grouped into “socialist” and “capitalist” countries.

The palace, a museum piece in itself, surprised me. Built in 1904 and reflecting the dominant newer styles of the time the buildings is a hybrid structure commissioned by the French colonial administration, mixing French and Lao architecture. Fleur-de-ly emblems and french mirrors, three headed elephants and Lao embroidered silk; a deliberate synthesis to cement the (unequal) relationship.

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Walking around Luang Prubang we came across a sign – 10 things to do in town.

High up the list was a visit to one of the three waterfall in the surrounding countryside. Originally we planned to combine elephant riding with a trip to see Kuang Si (the most spectacular of the falls) but that entailed a tour groups and timetables which i try and avoid as much as possible.

Instead we hired a tuk tuk. Ten dollars to rent the entire vehicle for the 32 km trip along a bumpy, dusty dirt track, across rickety bridges and through the rolling green scenery which is standard in Laos.

Kuang Si waterfall is the archetypal tropical waterfall. It was straight out of a Herbal Essences shampoo ad. Yelling out, “Yes, YES, OH YES” and mimicing an intense, organic experience took up most of my energy for the rest of the day.

Surrounded by lush verdant rainforest Kuang Si is a many-tiered, multi streamed waterfall cascading in large frothy volumes, across mossy rocks, through shrubs and trees, and down into clear turqoise pools.

We stood on the bridge linking the two banks of the main pool for ages admiring this cliched paradise. Ruth and I suddenly found ourselves repeating the same words. Our vocabulary had shrunk.

“Amazing”.

“Beautiful”.

“So amazing”.

“So beautiful”.

“Really amazing”…and so on.

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Wats are peppered liberally throughout Luang Prubang. Down every alley, side street, hidden behind small walls and gardens of frangipan and palm lie small, rustic temples. The wats house a large number of monks who are heavily present thoughout town ... [Continue reading this entry]