Excursions from Luang Prabang

One day Monique (who was still putting up with me, unbelievably) and I braved the heat, rented bikes, and struck out towards a temple I had spotted from the top of Phu Si mountain. 

Waaaaay over there. 

It was about a twenty five minute bike ride to Wat Pa Phon Phao, a meditation wat about five miles out of town. It was well worth it- the temple was beautiful and unusual, an octagonal building with two main stories that tapered into five.

The views of the city were lovely.

We went inside and were greeted wordlessly by a nun in white robes with a traditionally shaved head. She urged us to climb the stairs from the first floor to the second. Then there were more stairs leading to the smaller third level, then more to the fourth level, which was even smaller, then to the fifth, a windowless room the size of a closet. There weren't any windows, but there were sort of portholes, just a few inches wide and set six and a half feet off the floor. I reached up with my camera and pressed the viewfinder out.

That's no good- change the focus.

Better.

Much better.

There you are, LPB.

The other little excursion Monique and I took out of the city was to the Kuang Si Waterfalls. About 45 minutes away by tuk-tuk, the water is an unearthy aqua and is shockingly, wonderfully cold.

 

The surrounding jungle features lizards:

...butterflies clustered in the sand, which raise up and flutter in an ethereal cloud around you when you walk near them:

And massive Asians sun bears!

Actually, they're confined to an excellent bear rescue center near the entrance to the falls. But the reserve is in the jungle, so technically the bears are too.

Next: The Plain of Jars

Phu Si: A Mountain in the City

Luang Prabang was sizzlingly, stiflingly hot during the day. Everyone, Lao and foreigner, found shady places to doze in the late morning and early afternoon. But almost every day I was there, the sky would open around 3 or 4 p.m. and it would rain torrentially for about an hour before the clouds rolled away and left the city with a (nearly) cool evening. 

On one such evening I went out wandering without a destination. I strolled in the direction of the Nam Khan River:

And then, on a whim, climbed some steps in that grey wall to the right in the picture above. I was probably standing on the bottom step when I took the photo, actually. I followed the sound of monks chanting and  found myself at this small temple, amused by the dogs sprawled on the steps as if lulled by the monks' prayers:

...wandering behind the temple brought me to these mysterious stairs. A good backpacker always climbs mysterious stairs.

...because there's always something amazing at the top! Like Buddha's footprint:

Riiiiight. 

Impressive, I know. What was nice was the accompanying shrine:

jutting out over this view of the city:

And the Nam Khan:

All framed by flame trees. A few more steps...

To a tiny temple built into a cave.

That massive rock isn't in the way of the photo, it actually cuts into the temple there.

More steps, and my dim self suddenly realized that I was climbing the west slope of Phu Si, the mountain in the middle of Luang Prabang. This was made clear to me by a smiling Laotian insisting that I pay a nominal entrance fee, and by the seven Buddhas appearing near the stairs on the way up:

One for every day of the week.

More steps. Sweating and huffing, I reached the top. And there was greater Luang Prabang, reclining to the east and south, embraced by mountains:

It was breathtaking.

The sun was setting fast over the Mekong to the west:

So I started to clamber down the other set of stairs, which zigs and zags down the west slope. Halfway down was a Bodhi tree given to the city of Luang Prabang by the government of India in 1957 to mark the "2,500th anniversary of Buddha" (his birth, presumably). 

There were offerings at the base of the tree where some passed-on traveler had lit a few candles, which were now just a burning pool of wax. 

So I lit new ones.

And hoped that when those burned down, someone else would too. 

I Love You, Luang Prabang

I'm crazy about Luang Prabang. It's a small, quiet city of only about 50,000.  Things move slowly there; I was repeatedly told by locals that PDR formally stands for "People's Democratic Republic", but is also an anagram of the city's informal motto: "Please Don't Rush". So I didn't. I stayed there for over a week. 

The historic area of the city is sandwiched between the Mekong:

This village and little temple is directly across the river from the city center. That's how small and centralized Luang Prabang is. 

...and the winding Nam Khan River:

You can walk from one river to the other in under twenty minutes.

I spent most of the time just wandering around. The entirety of the historic city is a UNESCO World Heritage site, so there's plenty to see. It's full of graceful European-inspired architecture:

And ornate temples around every corner to remind you that you're in Asia:

This little one was just up the street from my hotel.

Actually the Royal Palace Museum, in case there are any fact checkers out there.

At a leisurely stroll (there was no powerwalking in that heat) one inevitably stumbles on things like antique cars that may have dated from the French occupation:

And trees by the river that were colonized so thoroughly by some kind of grass that they ended up looking like muppets.  

If you haven't been there, you need to put it on your list of places to go. It will not disappoint.

The Boat to Luang Prabang

Nong Khiew was beautiful, but there was really nothing to do there. There are just a few restaurants and bars. One of the bars, run by a Westerner, shows movies every evening. I went there one of the two nights we stayed in Nong Khiew to see "True Romance"; the showing was delayed by almost an hour by one power outage, then given an unplanned half-hour intermission by another. We all lit candles and chatted and played Jenga and drank warm Beer Lao and peered into the absolute darkness.

The day after that, Monique and I got on a long boat to head down the Nam Ou River to Luang Prabang, where the Nam Ou meets the Mekong. Sixteen of us piled into the boat, which only had four actual seats:

We gave those up to the older travelers in the crowd. The rest of us perched or squatted on narrow wooden benches built a few inches off the bottom of the boat.

It was really, really uncomfortable. For seven hours.

But the scenery was worth it.  We coasted along the river gazing at irregular, impressive mountains:

and sheer, towering rock faces, fascinatingly shaped and stained with rain and river: 

one or two of which turned out to be hiding mysterious-looking caves:

I'm fairly sure a wizard lives there. Also, it's hard to take level photos from a boat. 

Initially, the river was pretty much deserted. We stopped once for our driver to change the rudder or something (I'm not an engineer) and found ourselves wading along a soft, sandy shoreline in the serene quiet of water and wilderness.

We only occasionally passed other boaters:

...generally locals fishing or transporting goods. We saw more blissful, bathing buffaloes than people:

...but the closer we got to Luang Prabang the more small villages we saw, perched on the steep river banks.

These "flame trees" come in bright yellow and bright red, and punctuate the jungle of Thailand and Laos. Phenomenal. 

With almost every village were children playing in the shallows, escaping the heat of the day. They waved and grinned at us from the water.

We all piled out of the boat twice when the river got too rough to navigate with passengers, walking a short distance and meeting our driver once he had maneuvered through the rapids. The first time we just hiked along a path the bordered the river:

But the second we trekked through a humble but neat village:

I love that someone's always got a satellite dish. 

People piled out of their houses to see us pass by- it was clearly en event- and when we headed back to the boat some of the kids followed to push the boat into deeper water.

In the last hour or two of the trip we started to see more established structures- buildings that looked as though they might be resorts but were deserted, hopefully just for the low season:

I'm pretty impressed with this photo. 

 And then finally we saw the Pak Ou cave, a cave temple turned tourist trap just north of Luang Prabang.

And we had finally arrived, stiff and cramped from hours of sitting. We nodded to one another and then scattered in search of clean hotel rooms and cold beer.