Luang Prabang

 

 

After Muong Ngoi we caught the boat down to Nong Khiaw and then the local bus to the former capital, Luang Prabang.

 

For many years Luang Prabang has always held a sort of mystic quality for me: an isolated capital, nestled between mountains and jungle. I remember some years ago one friend describing the selection of French wines to be found in local businesses and the fresh baguettes sold on every street corner. Add to this its position on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, and buildings of tasteful French architecture, I imagined the city to be a miniature European paradise.

 

And this it is. While beautiful and exotic, Luang Prabang is a paradise for western tourists eager to roam the tourist markets of Made in China souvenirs (we were in China, so we recognized much of what is on sale here…), and for the younger generation of travellers to let off some steam while imbibing copious amounts of Beer Lao at one of the city’s many western-run bars. In contrast to what we had witnessed in Muong Sing or on the Nam Ou, Luang Prabang revealed a more positive side of economic development in the form of tourist dollars.

 

We enjoyed the three days spent in the city, especially by focusing on some of the more culturally-oriented exhibitions which are almost non-existante in much of the far north of Laos. We highly recommend The Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre where we explored in more detail the history and traditions of the different peoples we encountered in the Muong Sing area.

 

Another highlight is UXO centre where we learned much more about the American bombs dropped on Laos during the second Indochina war and the enormous effort required to identify and neutralize the remaining cluster bombs scattered around much of the country. In many areas of Laos including Muong Ngoi and Luang Prabang, American bombshells are today used as catchy flower pots and hotel decorations. Prior to visiting the UXO, personally, I had ignored or overlooked the significance of such objects and the story behind them. I have to admit that I now find the use of a bombshell as a flowerpot abhorrent as so doing completely renders the real purpose of a bomb defunct, much like displaying a murder weapon in a showcase without telling anyone the story behind it.

 

The highlight of Luang Prabang was not the hotel (we took the cheapest room we could find, which was lacking in almost every creature comfort), but was enjoying our last few days with the cool people we met while travelling in the North, in what I can describe as a very cool city despite all of the tourists. Hmmmm… I guess using the internet might also fall into this category.

 

Another funny thing that happened in LP was when Bekki bumped into her friend Heike from Essen who happened to be in the night market with her mother! Of all the places to run into someone, who would have guessed it would be in Luang Prabang?

 

 

Xayaboury

 

After LP we made our way down to Xayaboury in order to visit the Elephant Conservation Centre. We had to stay a night in Xayaboury, which had little to offer, other than an amusing (yet sad) encounter with a French couple who had booked a room in a hotel there for a week, expecting to attend the annual elephant festival. Amusing, because the festival would only start one week later (after they left), and sad because they had already paid a whole lot of money to be there.

 

The Elephant Conservation Center was interesting as we did learn quite a bit about elephants; however, we did find it more expensive than it was worth, even if the cause is definitely a good one. We later encountered three more elephants working in tourism and logging who were all three in great shape and healthy. We were able to recognize this because of what we had learned at the Centre.

 

 

Champasak

 

After two days in Xayaboury we hightailed it out of northern Laos and somehow managed to reach Pakse in the far south after a mere 24 hour journey. Our destination: the Full Moon Festival at Champasak.

 

Champasak is actually one of Laos’ most important religious sites, consisting of a pre-Angkorian temple complex of remarkable size and elegant design. Every year for the full moon in February the Lao converge upon this site to celebrate their most important religious holiday. The evening itself was magical as we were free to explore the temples lit by candles while tens of thousands of Lao people listened to live music, danced and played fair games. Delightfully, the Lao outnumbered westerners probably 30 to 1.

 

On a side note, because we had taken the overnight tourist bus from Vientiane to Pakse, we were naturally dropped off the next morning at a tourist stop where locals tried to con us into taking another bus to the 4000 Islands, saying that it would “drop us off” in Champasak (for the more expensive price of going to the 4000 Islands). Luckily Bekki was more awake than I and caught on the the scam. We forced our way out of the area and walk a mere kilometer to a local market, where a truck took us to Champasak for a fraction of the price.

 

 

Pakse and the Bolaven Plateau

 

The next morning we took a local truck back to Pakse where we hired a motorbike and headed off to explore the Bolaven Plateau for three days, leaving our bags behind in the city.

 

The plateau is quite beautiful although not nearly as rugged or wild as the mountains of northern Laos. Joined by our friend Jerome from Bruxelles, we visited many stunning waterfalls, albeit a bit low on water as this was the middle of the dry season, and some interesting ethnic minority villages.

 

On our second day on the bikes we came accross another symbol of Laos’ rapid development in the form of a new road being constructed on eastern slopes of the plateau, through dense, untouched jungle. The road was sandy and very tricky to navigate, but had almost no traffic. However, new roads bring new opportunities, even if these are not always positive. At one point we turned off the road to visit an unnamed waterfall which we had spotted from a distance. The dirt road led to a logging camp at the edge of the jungle. Ahead of us we could see the the side of a mountain from which all of the vegetation had been removed, and a dusty erosion trail proved a blaring eyesore in stark contrast to the patches of green jungle still remaining.

 

Before reaching the slope, a trail veered off the side of the road into a small copse of forest. Here loggers had slung up their hammocks and set up a small camp. They greeted us with smiles and one of them volunteered to take us to see the waterfall. We left the bikes at the camp and followed our guide a short distance into the forest, where we came across his elephant happily munching trees after an afternoon of work. A bit further down the trail we hit the river, crossed it, climbed down some boulders and followed the water to the ledge. We were standing at the top of a forty meter drop, with water gushing over the side by the cubic meter into a deep blue pool surounded by a forest of green.

 

End Part 2