Laos

It's Sunday night here, and I hope everyone had a great Halloween last night. I spent Halloween in Luang Prabang, Laos. It was certainly an unusual one.

Last Wednesday I left Thailand. From Chaing Mai I took a bus to the border town of Chaing Kong, and there boarded a slow boat headed south on the Mekong River. I just love saying I took the slow boat :-)

The boat was super crowed and long and made my bottom hurt, but hey, I spent 2 days on a boat on the Mekong River. That's just plain cool. I met a lot of great people too, some of whom will appear below.

Saturday night I arrived in Luang Prabang. I have to say, I really like this city. It's a Unesco World Heritage site, meaning that no buses or large trucks are allowed in town in an attempt to preserve the city. What few vehicles are on the road are motor bikes, some cars, a new (to me) motorcycle version of the ever present tuk-tuk, and bicycles. It's beautifully quiet. Compared to the bustle of Thailand, it's an oasis of peace. The people are lovely here too. They're a very polite, quiet culture. Add in that the main city was once French founded and occupied, leaving behind the most beautiful french colonial buildings, and you've got a great town.

Yesterday I spent the day just wandering around the many beautiful temples that pepper the area.  In the center of the old quarter is a tall hill, Phuo Si, which offers some interesting temples, an amazing view of the city, and a few hundred stairs to climb. I climbed around mid-afternoon, but I've been told that sunrise/sunset is amazing from there. After that I found a few more temples and wats to explore. Here, unlike in Thailand, a temple is only considered a wat if Monks are still in residence.

After the revolution in 1975, many temples fell into disrepair. This is something they are working on changing, and have in the past years begun restoration work. To me, though, I rather appreciated the state of them here. In Thailand, you can find the smallest wat in the most out of the way town and it will still shine with gold and glitter like a gem in the sun. They have the money to keep all of them that way. Here, the temples feel more like houses of worship, used and loved. A little dusty, a little neglected, but still very holy and more natural.

Last night a group of us went out to appreciate the Laos take on Halloween. Of course, it was nothing more than a few restaurants trying to draw in the Western crowd, but it was cute none the less.

Today was great. 5 of us hired a tuk-tuk and headed off to a local waterfall. I can honestly say that I wasn't expecting how beautiful and fun this place would be. It is a huge, multi-tiered waterfall, with level after level of milky blue-green pools. We spent some time swimming in one, sitting under on of the smaller falls, and generally having a great day. There was also an Aisiatic Black Bear preserve within the grounds of the park. It was terrible to hear about the illegal capture and sale of these animals, but great to see that someone is working to help stop it.

Tomorrow I may head off to somewhere else, I haven't decided yet.

I know I'm a day late, but Happy Halloween all!

Note: The internet at the cafe I'm at is just too slow to get any pictures uploaded. Watch for an update to this post containing all of the pictures that should have been here.