sacred and profane

It's ridiculous to be a tourist complaining about tourists, but I'm so thoroughly disgusted right now I just want to hit someone. Hard. And I want that someone to be wearing shorts and a fanny pack, and to be a westerner.

I have to acknowledge first that I was there to watch, too. I was there to witness a ritual about which I know only a little, a ritual that has no personal meaning for me, but one that is moving. The monks' morning alms round in Luang Prabang is a big thing - just google it and you'll see what I mean. Every morning the monks get up at 4am for prayers and their morning business, then they hit the streets. Every morning, Lao women get up and prepare rice and other food, and gather fruit, and bring their mats to the curb to wait for the monks to walk past, so they can earn merit by feeding the monks. It's one of the only ways women can earn merit. On their knees, they put a pinch of rice in each monk's bowl. It's not an unusual ritual, but in Luang Prabang, with 33 temples and all these monks, it's notable. In the early morning gray, the silent monks in orange robes parading past, collecting rice....well, I wanted to see it.

There are women along the path who want to sell you rice or other bits of food to give the monks. There's an urgency to it when they ask, and they say "the monks are coming!" with what sounds like excitement. I loved that, considering this is a 365-day/year activity.

Setting aside the lengthy set of rules that we found in our hotel room, there are just a few rules to follow regarding the monks, and they're easy to learn because they're posted anywhere you might find out about the monks' alms rounds: women do not touch the monks robes, and you stay lower than the monks. Really, that's it.

OK. Now for my disgust and rant. Marc and I got up very early, crossed the bridge in the dark, and made our way to a part of the main street opposite a number of Lao women on their mats, with their offerings arrayed in front of them. We sat on the curb. We saw a few tourists sitting among the Lao, with some kind of cloth draped diagonally across their bodies, and with their purchased offerings in front of them. I wouldn't do that myself, because I'd feel like I was co-opting a ritual just for the tourist sake of it. But at least they were participating in a way that honored the ritual. But the big crowds of old white-haired tourists -- camera-wielding, fanny-packed and tennis-shoed -- were so disgusting I got so mad I just wanted to leave. They walked up to the seated women and got in their faces, flashing flashing taking pictures, as if the women were in the zoo or something. Then, when the monks came, they stood in front of them, barring their way, so they could flash flash flash take pictures of them up close, 'doing their monk thing.' I do think they were Americans, too. (To which the cynic in me wants to add "of course.") There were individual tourists who were doing that too, men with enormous cameras stacked up with so many lenses, as if they were pretending to be war journalists or something, flash flash flash shooting the monks just inches away from them.

I also had my small video camera. I sat on the other side of the street, and did not use flash, and tried to unobtrusively take a short movie of the event -- which turned out to be a different event than I'd hoped.




swine tourists.

eating out in Luang Prabang

Thank heavens Marc remembered that our little video camera can also take still photos. They're not as good as our great camera takes, but they're certainly better than nothing! Last night we ate in the food market and didn't take pictures, so we ran through tonight to get a few shots so we could remember our wonderful time with street food in Luang Prabang:

it's a very crowded scene - tables and food on both sides of the narrow alley. and LOTS of people!

buffet style: you buy a regular plate (about $1) or a large plate (about $1.25), then you help yourself to this huge spread of food. and it's ALL DELICIOUS.

the ever-present Beer Lao, and a groaning board of dishes

all kinds of grilled food - fresh fish from the Mekong, and chicken, and pork

So you get your food, and find an empty spot at a picnic table. On the tables are containers filled with chopsticks, and empty glasses for your Beer Lao, and a roll of toilet paper to use as a napkin. It was really a great experience, and I'm so glad we did it. Eating in Luang Prabang was fabulous.

on the main street are fruit shake vendors. you select your cup with whatever fruit you want (the three times we got shakes, Marc got banana-mango, banana-pineapple, and papaya, and I always got coffee-oreo) and they blend it while you wait. the vendors are all lined up, and we always went back to the same grouchy lady -- not this smiling one in the picture. the shakes are about 60 cents.

I'm really going to miss this town. Tomorrow around 2pm we fly off to Vientiane, but in the morning we plan to get up really early to walk into town to witness the silent alms rounds of the monks.

so surreal

I had one of those moments this morning, the kind where you suddenly can't process anything, you can't believe where you are, what you're doing, what you're seeing. We hired a driver to take us out to the Tad Sae waterfalls, which are these flat limestone tiers with turquoise/aqua-colored water falling over them. Really gorgeous, from what we'd seen and heard. And while yesterday was kind of overcast and slightly cooler - perfect for walking around town, which is what we did - today is cloudless and hot. So the idea of taking an open-air drive up into the mountains to see waterfalls sounded just right.

This is as good a place as any to comment on the sheer beauty of Laos. At least in this part of the country, the landscape is dominated by forested mountains that must be karst, given their shape. I love karst mountains, so this landscape really makes me happy. And there are often clouds clinging to the tops, which make me remember being in the countryside around Machu Picchu, another place that made me so happy. So anyway: gorgeous, gorgeous countryside. The trip was lovely.

When we got there, turns out we had another journey to get to the waterfalls.....by boat. We weren't expecting that, but it was the surreal and amazing part. There we were, in a flat-bottom boat driving up some river in the mountains of Laos, under a sunny sky. There were people tending their gardens on the riverbanks, naked little kids playing at the river's edge (this river wasn't muddy at all), and the breeze was blowing my hair off my face. I was just boating up a river in the mountains of Laos. Me. And Marc. Unbelievable.

The waterfalls were truly lovely, but my camera died so I post someone else's photo and know that it looked exactly like this:

the muddy banks of the muddy Mekong

It really is muddy, the Mekong River - reddish-brown everywhere we've seen it. It's such a vital part of people's lives here; during the rainy season, obviously it swells and stays at a high point. But when it recedes for the rest of the year, guess what the clever Lao do? They plant the river banks. The soil there is incredibly fertile, and all along the banks you see these lush little garden plots. Yesterday we were lying in the sun and heard kids laughing and a lot of splashing. There was an unplanted section that was a big slide-y mud slick, being used by four little boys to slide into the river. Two were naked as little brown jaybirds, and two wore underpants; they had some kind of something, plastic I guess, that they sat on to slide into the river.

The Water Festival that was just celebrated in Phnom Penh has at least partly to do with this most unusual thing that happens with the Mekong.

See that big lake? It's the Tonle Sap, and it connects to the Mekong with a tributary. Well, when the rainy season comes the tributary flows into the Tonle Sap. After the rainy season ends, it reverses direction. So the Water Festival celebrates that reversal of direction. I think that's very cool.

In a spectacular incidence of packing fail, I didn't bring the charger for my camera battery. I've taken it on every other trip we've ever taken and never needed it once, so I decided not to bring it this time. And now, of course, in that way things work, my camera battery has only about 1/4 charge left. We're going to a nearby waterfall today, really gorgeous, and I'm going to take it but I want to save my battery for Vientiane, which is our next stop....tomorrow. For now, though, we're off to hire a tuk-tuk!

Lao food and our hotel

More lemongrass, I guess that's what makes it different. But I'd have a hard time saying that Lao food is x y or z. The only thing I can say is that so far, Lao food is amazing. Last night we ate at Tamarind, this fantastic little out of the way restaurant across the street from a giant temple. As we started eating, the monks were chanting and it was surreal and wonderful. We got the set menu, which was a LOT of food, all described as typical Lao food. (And by the way, once you get to Laos and Cambodia, being here is incredibly cheap. We'll have a huge dinner and it'll be $15...for both our dinners, and that often includes a beer for me! Our hotels are quite reasonable too.) Anyway -- our dinner:

OK, I know this looks gross -- bamboo soup -- but it was AMAZING.

Marc had lemongrass-ginger tea and I had Lao coffee. AMAZING.

OK: at the bottom, lemongrass stuffed with chicken; going up on the left, peanut sauce, then fish cooked in banana leaf, then pumpkin - AMAZING, all.

that stuff on the lower right? A-MA-ZING. It's some kind of seaweed covered in sesame seeds, dried in the sun, then fried. In the spoon, chili paste, on the left side of the plate, dried buffalo (that had marinated in honey, I think); two small pork sausages at the top; in the middle, a couple more dipping sauces, the green one made of eggplant and the red one tomato. I could've eaten my weight in seaweed. It was aMAzing.

we sat on the porch, so that's the inside of the restaurant over Marc's shoulder

I had Lao Beer (the beer of wholehearted people, they say) and Marc had this incredible watermelon chili granita. It really was amazingly delicious, not like anything either of us had ever tasted. Perfectly balanced, sweet and hot.

So we were very happy with that dinner. Afterwards, we had to walk back to our hotel which involves walking on the side of a very tall bridge over the Mekong. It was harrowing in the dark, for someone like me who's afraid of heights and who trips over the design in the carpet, so clumsy. Here it is in daylight:

That's the bridge -- hope it's obvious how high it is. Scooters and bikes go on the bridge (no motorized vehicles), but if you walk, you're relegated to the outside edge:

YIKES. Uneven boards, unevenly spaced, nailheads sticking up, sure there's a rail on the side but sometimes there are just three boards, not four, and some of the boards don't look all that sturdy, and man that's a long way down to the river and don't look down just look straight ahead but I have to look down because I keep tripping if I don't....

Yeah? Here's a video -- walk over the bridge with us:




But it's SO worth it. Here's our beautiful hotel, Le Bel Air Resort, right on the banks of the Mekong River:

the edge of the grounds, at the Mekong

the cabins

and that one's ours! Cozy, right?!

hi honey!

We're loving Luang Prabang. The people could care less about us (we love it that way) - they do their thing, we do ours. Usually, the tuktuk drivers just say in a low voice "tuktuk?" and that's that. When we're in the market, the people running the stalls don't speak unless we ask a question -- no pushing, no putting things on our bodies to try to force us to buy (ahem, *cough*India) -- they're just there if we have a question. After breakfast this morning, we walked over the bridge and wandered around, back to the markets (next post on that!). I bought a small handmade bag from a Hmong* woman, as a birthday gift for a friend, and we stopped and got shakes (smoothies, really; Marc's was fruit, and mine was coffee). We stopped at a little place overlooking the river and had some lunch - fried noodles, and rice and chicken (our lunch was $6, see what I mean?!).

*You know, being an American out in the world can be really hard going because our government has been such an asshole for so long. We were just so horrible to Laos, and to the Hmong, and people are still being killed by all the unexploded bombs left in this beautiful country - bombs we take no responsibility for, because we weren't "really here at war." Quite often, we pass little groups of musicians playing local music, really beautiful, and we see that they're victims of land mines, missing limbs, and collecting money. And I get nauseous walking past them, from shame of my country. And I wanted to apologize to the Hmong woman this morning. But what does that do? Assuage my guilt for a second, not really, nothing.

OH. WOW. LAO.

Laos is AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL. Huge green rolling mountains with jagged tops - valleys - rivers. Our hotel is just wonderful, and I have a lot to say but for now just three quick photos before we head to town. More later, after dinner.

The Luang Prabang airport

Marc enjoying a cold lemongrass tea as we checked in.

among the police department's rules:
5. do not any drugs, crambling or bring both women and men which is not your own husband or wife into the room for making love.
6. do not allow domestic and international tourist bring prostate and others into your accommodation to make sex movies in our room, it is restriction.

I do wonder about that "prostate;" perhaps they mean to say "prostitute." Otherwise it would be an all ladies country.

Wow. Laos, really something. I can't wait to see more.

Luang Prabang: Le Bel Air Resort

Luang Prabang (pronounce the 'a' sounds like ah...luong prabong) is apparently an amazing place, filled with temples and monks, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. Here's where we'll be staying: Le Bel Air Resort.

That's the hotel in the background; to go anywhere, we'll have to cross this bridge.

Breathtaking Luang Prabang

the rooms

And with this, our hotel reservations are all completed. Our flights there and back are settled. All that's left is setting up the interior flights, then we'll be done.