Luang Prabang

Our final stop in Laos was the city of Luang Prabang, which is designated a UNESCO world heritage site. Legend says that Buddha smiled when he rested there during his travels, prophesying that the site would one day be home to a great and powerful city.

Like many UNESCO sites, the designation is a mixed blessing: it brings tourists and their money and it encourages national and international funding of the are; but the influx of tourists does raise prices to the exclusion of locals. There is also the selfish dichotomy of visitors expecting preservation and rejecting modernisation. 

There is a level of sneeriness in the traveller community against "tourists" and the expectation of "travelling off the beaten path" or "going where the locals go". Our travelling style is to do our own thing, usually under our own steam but we'll mix up the usual tourist sites with the unusual. The problem with not going where tourists go is that it can (unconsciously) project the idea that travellers want places to stay the same and for the locals to live their lives without the impact of globalisation. For locals this can sometimes be felt as western travellers (who can afford not to work for two weeks of their year) wanting to keep the local people from developing and enjoying the benefits of technology and financial gain. I mention all this because a search for commentary on Luang Prabang will reveal a raft of people complaining about tourism now that the town is "discovered".

We were lucky as we drove ourself there. We could gauge the increased prosperity of the local people as we entered the outskirts of the city, compared to the villages we had passed through in the hills. We were also able to see that the main tourist area comprised a small area of the city: only 3 or 4 streets.

UNESCO describes Luang Prabang as "an outstanding example of the fusion of traditional architecture and Lao urban structures with those built by the European colonial authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's unique, remarkably well-preserved townscape illustrates a key stage in the blending of these two distinct cultural traditions."

We loved it. The city has a really laid back atmosphere and it is lovely to walk the streets, admiring all the buildings and confusing ourselves whether we are in Europe or South America or Asia. The place has character and oozes history. Everyone we interacted with in the city was pursuing a goal and in this city, unlike a lot of Laos, it seemed that people had the opportunity to realise their ambitions, albeit requiring more effort and struggle than most of us in the UK. A lot of people were entrepreneurial and utilised the tourist influx to be able to turn their artistic talents into a job. We ate in restaurants and bars which had good service, good food and excellently mixed drinks. We certainly wouldn't do these lovely hardworking people the patronising disservice of saying "good.... for Laos" as we think these would be rated as good places anywhere in the world.

We went a bit left-field and ended up having a nice meal in a tapas bar with very moreish croquettes.

One of the great things about Laos is the bread. Although we have loved the food in SE Asia, the fusion of Asian cuisine with a fresh crusty French loaf is quite something. I was reminded again why sandwiches are my favourite food as I stuffed my chops while people watching.

The night market in the centre of Luang Prabang, like most of the cities in SE Asia is tailored to tourists and is usually an area where the "nicer" goods from the day markets are brought to one central spot. We have visited a number of these markets in our travels and some that are not touristy at all. We really enjoyed the market in LP because we were able to browse the wares without being harassed or pressured or tugged or poked. We were able to take our time and because of that we actually purchased.

There are a number of superb Buddhist temples in the city. A particularly stunning example was Wat Sene.  Gareth says it was nice and all that, but that he is a bit a Watted-out now. 

Luang Prabang is situated along the mighty Mekong river.  We tramped along the river to cross one of the two bamboo bridges, built every dry season by local families who charge a small fee to cross. The bridges are washed away during the rainy season flooding and the families build them back up again when the river lowers.  

Meets regs

We mainly traversed the town by foot, which was for the best as Google Maps kept trying to direct us across motorbike bridges, resulting in Gareth trying to do a 12- point cul-de-sac turn in a two-tonne pickup while being swarmed by endless scooters. 

"Fucksake" - Gareth

I loved Laos. It was my favourite country so far in SE Asia. It is a beautiful country with very nice people and a sense of community. The population is in a very difficult position and effectively trapped in poverty as a result of things that occurred more than a generation ago. On paper the country could be doing ok, but they are stuck and many of them risk their lives every day just trying to feed their families because of the thousands and thousands of bombs left in their country. Whilst visiting as part of our big trip, we felt that all we can do is spend our tourist money in the right places and raise awareness of the situation in Laos, but we were left with an overwhelming sense of unfairness and helplessness about it. However, in Luang Prabang we discovered something we could do to help in a very small way. 

There is a Laotian organisation called Big Brother Mouse(go here and give them all your money), which promotes reading in Laos. Traditionally books have been rare in Laos and so the organisation raises funds to translate books into Laotian such as The Wizard of Oz and also arrange for new books to be written. They train teachers who will be unfamiliar with reading for pleasure. Finally they visit schools where they promote reading, leave a library and ensure that each child has a book of their own. 

Everyday, they gave two drop-in sessions at their offices, where young people come to practise English, and so they ask for English-speaking (normally tourist) volunteers to come and join the sessions. So off we toddled. I ended up working with a group of 3 young men (16, 18 and 21) who certainly kept me on my toes by asking me to explain words like 'sarcastic', 'corruption' and 'impress'. My brain hurt but I had a lot of fun especially teaching them words like whack and mystery. They seemed to benefit from the session. Gareth spent his time babbling away at his usual speed, but did help a Hmong college student with his grammar homework, so that seemed to work out. 

It was only something small but at least we felt like we were doing something to help this "forgotten" country.

Next stop: more Cambodia.

Vientiane

Laos is the poorer, ill-fated and largely forgotten neighbour of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. It has had a hard time of it: after 200 hundred years of being battered by the Siamese (modern Thailand) it was occupied by the French as a 'buffer' region for Vietnam. Occupation by the Japanese in 1945 pre-empted 30 years of fighting with the French in the Indochinese war. Independence in 1953 sparked a civil war between forces loyal to the (French-influenced) Royal Family and the (Chinese and North Vietnamese-influenced) communist Pathet Lao.  As all that was happening, between 1964 and 1973 the Americans were fighting the Vietnam war.

Patuxai - the local Arc de Triomphe

The Yanks took it upon themselves to secretly (and very illegally) drop 1.9 million tonnes of bombs on Laos -a country with which it was not fighting, and over which it had just signed a treaty recognising its neutrality- in order to disrupt the North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh trail in southern Laos,  and to damage the Pathet Lao in the North.  We'll come back to that. 

We flew to the capital, Vientiane, for our first stop.  The comparison to Phnom Penh is stark: where the Cambodian capital is a buzz of vehicles and activity, here it was slow and sedate.  Like Phnom Penh, it is tricky to figure out how to cross the road, as the zebra crossings serve principally as decoration, but then you realise that they drive so languidly here that you just stroll between vehicles - the cars'll slow down and the mopeds will dodge you.

The state museum is idiosyncratically interesting. The ground floor starts off with pre-history and exhibitions of archaeology and geology, including a stone jar from the Plain of Jars in Phonsavan (more on these after we go there).  

As you move upstairs, the museum gradually takes on a more revolutionary tone.  The French do not come out of it looking good:

A literal yoke of oppression

The Americans have had better press days too:

Halfway though, the translations switch from English to French and, post-revolution, the exhibits focus in glorious communist bureaucratic detail on the workings of the modern Laos government. Apparently it's pretty much as corrupt as its counterpart in Cambodia and dealing with all the bribes and nepotism is a daily feature of the Laotian life.  That last part wasn't in the museum, by the way.

We visited the visitor centre and museum of COPE (http://www.copelaos.org/ - give them all your money), an NGO based in Laos which provides medical services, rehabilitation and support for Laotians with physical disabilities, very often caused by UXO (Unexploded ordnance) accidents. 

Most of the incidents with UXOs are related to unexploded cluster munitions - what the locals call "bombies".  Cluster munitions are normally tennis ball-shaped bombs, filled with ball-bearings, which are dropped in canisters and spread over an area in order to thoroughly ruin any people in that area. Thing is, a good 30% of them didn't detonate and are by their nature rather small and unstable. 50,000 people have been killed or maimed by cluster munitions in Laos - 20,000 after all hostilities were notionally over.

The Laotians have shown great inventiveness in re-purposing these and other bombs and their related parts:

A lamp made from a "pineapple"-type cluster munition

Machete sheath made from bomb metal

We all need more cow bell

Mr Singin, in the picture below, lost a leg to a BLU24 cluster bomb.  He then made a prosthetic out of wood and some scavenged metal...from a BLU24 canister casing. He donated his leg to COPE after they fitted him with a polypropylene leg.

And that, Alanis Morissette, is fucking ironic.

Like I said, we'll write more about America's gift-that-keeps-on-giving when we cover Phonsavan. Needless to say though, the US objectively murdered and continues to murder people who're just trying to get though their already pretty difficult day.  I don't need to see too many pictures of disemboweled children to colour my opinion on the matter.  Good job they succeeded in that lofty goal of stopping communism though, eh? Oh. 

On to lighter subject fare: We went for a 'traditional Lao' meal at the Kualao restaurant, where we were presented with a platter of all manner of stuff.  The food in Laos is broadly similar to that of Northern Thailand - spicy and somewhat bitter rather than sweet.  A couple of notable specifically local dishes are Laab Phet- Minced duck salad with spices and lime juice, and Kang Som Pa - a sour fish soup with chunks of lemongrass bobbing about in it.  

They did have steamed wasps on the menu, but I was actually hungry so I wasn't going to drop fifteen quid on bugs for your entertainment.  There were Laos musicians playing the whole time, with occasional bouts of traditional dancing.  Here's who I took to be the frontman shredding a solo on a weird local pan-pipe looking thing:

We picked up a hire car on our last day in the form of a Ford Ranger-  which has the road clearance and grunt that I have been craving for the last three cars or so.   It turned out that this would be very necessary for the roads through the Laos mountains. 

On the way out of town we made sure to stop at Pha That Luang, the building which is the national symbol of Laos.  It's a golden three-layered stupa that dates from the 16th century, despite numerous sackings by whomever was rampaging by.

The Laotian-style reclining Buddha nearby, shows that the local representations have been skipping a few meals compared to the Thai equivalents.

Further out of town is the Buddha park. The park is the work of Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, a mystic/artist/visionary/fruitloop who filled the park with a plethora of Buddhist and Hindu statues or deities, demons and miscellaneous oddness.  When the communists took over, he legged it to Thailand and created an apparently more impressive park on the Thai side of the nearby Friendship Bridge.

It is not somewhere one would walk in a fragile state of mind.

Kurzfassng auf Deutsch: Wir besuchten Vientiane, der Hauptstadt von Laos. Dinge hier sind ganz langsam aber das ist sehr angenehm im Vergleich zu Kambodscha.