The stairs to Phu Si and beyond

The amazing thing about Luang Prabang is the ability of the city to retain with an iron grip a peaceful atmosphere - almost like somebody forcefully holding down a windowshade that keeps wanting to snap back up (or a cone of silence?) - despite the thousands of intruders roaming the streets. Tour groups might clomp through, but any local person will still speak to you in a voice barely above a whisper. Shopkeepers stand in their doorways and tuk-tuk drivers by their vehicles and breathe a request for you to enter their shops or jump in their cars so seductively, so subliminally you almost feel drawn unconsciously towards them.

I, however, was not to be taken in by a myriad of requests to visit waterfalls or caves. I was drawn to the hill of Phu Si.

Like any self-respecting holy city, Luang Prabang not only brags of too many Buddhist temples and stupas, but also of a big hill in the center of town with a big stupa right at the top. And a lot of stairs to climb to get there.

I paused to admire the golden stupa, which apparently is a fairly new construction at the top of the hill, but replaces several centuries of past monuments.

More interesting were the types of offerings people left - the marigold cone with incense is particularly popular in Luang Prabang.

Then I wandered down and around yet a few more stairs:

Peeked in a few windows:

And climbed a few more stairs:

Stepped carefully around the sleeping temple dogs:

And then found a nice, safe corner from which to admire the view of the lazy Mekong and to watch the clouds drift by.

I did eventually come down from the hilltop to poke around at things of a less heady and more earthy and historic nature. Luang Prabang is another of Aisa's UNESCO World Heritage sites, which means all the buildings in the old part of town are preserved for historic purposes and there are several well-organized and well-managed museums and lots of temples to visit. On the downside, almost all the places restricted or outright banned the use of cameras inside - most you weren't even allowed to take your camera in. So not a lot of photographs, but there were still plenty of things on the outside to amuse me.

The grounds of the Royal Palace Museum offered some good shutter fodder:

As the name suggests, it was originally built as a northern palace for the royal family (early 20th century) and has since been turned into a museum displaying the family's life style and ancient relics from the area.

One of the other rules that is strictly enforced in Laos - and which really amuses me, is the "no shoes" rule. It's generally polite anywhere in Asia to remove your shoes before entering a house, but here they even ask you to take off your shoes before entering a hotel, store or in these museums. A lot of disgruntled tourists - but as I happen to love running around barefoot, so it was great for me!

The grounds included a closed theatre, but I had fun photographing the reflections in the doors:

And the detritus of oil lanterns apparently used in some of the performances left outside:

And you just have to love a place that can even make rubbish bins look good:

The temples are the main reason for Luang Prabang's existence. Even the bustling tourist trade and the night market revolve around the life of temples and the Buddhist traditions, festivals and celebrations.

Long a center of pilgrimage and retreat, the numerous Buddhist temples serve as a training ground for novice monks. It is expected that all devout Buddhist men serve as monks at some point in their lives, and many do. Luang Prabang is one of the major cities for young boys (ages 15-20) to go and study as novice monks for a period of three or so months. So one of the major sights in Luang Prabang is the young boys wrapped in shockingly bright orange robes running from temple to temple.

One of the major attractions is the early morning distribution of rice to the young monks by towns people. Every day around six am a family member will emerge with a warmer of sticky rice and a few morsels of food and sit on the road outside the house. A column of young novices will suddenly appear, each carrying a brass begging pot. They will pause, one by one in front of each person offering food and that person will put a small handful of sticky rice into each brass begging pot. The last novice in the column usually brings a small gift of thanks or blessing for those giving offerings.

Monks are only allowed to beg in the morning, and must take only what is given to them and nothing more. What appears in their pot is their single meal for the day.

I did not take any pictures of this - I just didn't feel right in anyway, shape or form. Nonetheless, it is a nice tradition to see, and I think it is a good character building activity for young, growing men. It teaches discipline, self-awareness and communal inter-dependency. Women can do it also, but it is a different and (apparently) less public experience.

So the snap color of washed ropes airing on a line and the sounds of monks chanting in the mornings and evenings and the lively chatter of the young men dashing between temples creates an atmosphere of contemplation, reflection and anticipation of personal growth that saturates the entire city.

Laos by Lao-west

Last week I went in search of Nirvana, Laotian-style. If there is one thing that is starkly different between Vietnam and its ASEAN neighbors, it is the intensity with which other SE Asian people's approach their spiritual life: Vietnam was most effectively "cleansed" of its religious attachments during the communist era while neighboring Laos, Cambodia and Thailand and Burma still hold fast to their complex and intense Buddhist and Taoist religious lifestyles. Last week I jumped on a convenient (if pricey) Lao Air direct flight from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Lao. For all the bright colors, shiny decorations and general gaudiness that defines Thailand, I was still a little taken aback by the interior of the airplane, which seemed to me to sing loudly of Hawaiian beach resort rather than landlocked mountainous jungles. Still, the service was better than I anticipated after warnings and horror stories shared by others who had taken the flight before me. Then again, maybe I'm just immune after how many Air Madagascar horror stories... The flight at two in the afternoon offered fabulous views of the Laotian mountains and villages with terraced rice paddies (now brown and dry after the harvest). The sheer ruggedness of the land was breathtaking for me. I had never had the opportunity to fly over northern Vietnam, so this was in a sense my first arial view of what I had been living in for the last two years. Looks far more intimidating than it felt at the time. Then our plane dropped and circled over a broad valley and a town snuggled into the sharp oxbow formed by the Mekong River - and an hour and a hop, skip and jump later we were in another country applying for another visa. Luang Prabang, for all it's exotic name in and exotic location is actually a fairly "padestrian" stopping point for tourists. The town nestled on the banks of the Mekong first came into existence as a religious site and a northern retreat for the royalty. Lao boys still travel to Luang Prabang to train as novice monks (as is common in Buddhist tradition, almost all men will live as monks for a period of their lives), learning to meditate and chant and studying the teachings of the Lord Buddha in the many temples in Luang Prabang. The architecture, history and culture resulted in the whole area being declared a World Heritage Site, and the tourism industry has almost literally exploded as a result. Yet, unlike in Hoi An, the town retains an amazingly Zen-like feel with none of the Vietnamese agressive and in-your-face marketing. The city almost dares you to try not to relax. The shopkeepers, tuk-tuk drivers and travel guides speak in hushed, almost meditative tones. It is a place where you could potentially go without speaking more than 20 words a day if you wanted (as I managed to do myself). Even the town's night market is subtle and subdued in all of it's riot of colors displayed under dim, incadescent lights. I spent my first evening walking the entire tourist district along the banks of the Mekong River. The architecture here seems a natural blend of northern Thai and northern Vietnamese tradition - but markedly warmer structure than the Vietnamese manage. Night time and morning until about 10 am was quite nippy and I was glad I'd brought both a sweater and a Malagasy silk wrap. My guesthouse was nice and cozy though. Guest houses and restaurants were almost literally a dime a dozen, both out on the main streets and tucked down narrrow lanes such as this one. Even the well-trafficked main street put sleep Cao Bang to shame with its listless business. It was almost as if the mountain valley had never heard a noise louder than the landing of the small planes and couldn't imagine raising it's voice to distrub the surrounding hills. Coffee shops and restaurants also lined the Mekong - and who could be roughing it in a place where you could buy a cup of hot chocolate like the one below? Quite the rough daily routine, I do tell you!!

Loi Krathong - Festival of Lights

You have to hand it to them - the Thai people know how to have a festival! If they're not using fire hoses and water grenade launchers to soak you during Songkran, or chanting monks waking you in the pre-dawn hours with their blocks and gong-ringing, then they're shooting off huge fireworks and sending up thousands of paper lanterns to bedazzle the already star-studded night sky. All with very insightful and deep meaning, mind you.

Loi Krathong, is, as I understanding, the festival of the floating lanterns. The ceremony uses darkness and flame and air to symbolize the releasing yourself from the bonds of your past sins and mistakes as you continue down the path to enlightenment.

I was a little worried about this whole event as the large crowds known to attend and thousands of flaming floating lanterns in a small space didn't exactly sound like and incredibly good combination, but we were all pleasantly surprised to discover that the whole ceremony was very well organized and under excellent control.

We arrived just early enough and found an excellent parking spot within easy walking distance of ground zero. On the temple grounds large metal tiki torches were described a large grid and each group was allowed to choose a square on the field. We had a mat that just fit in the square and the ten of us made ourselves comfortable with the picnic we had brought. The beginning of the ceremony was already underway, amplified on loudspeakers strategically placed around the field. We were still borderline close to one, but the spot we had was dark and the people were very orderly throughout.

We sat and ate and prepared our lanterns for takeoff, while watching a few early releases that just couldn't wait test the winds above.

We were too far back to be able to see most of the procession and ground show in the beginning, but when the ceremony really got underway there was English translation provided to keep us all involved. They gave us instructions for following the chants and we watched quietly as the Thai around us chanted and kowtowed following the head monk's prayers. Then the torches were all lit and blessed.

Chaos broke loose at this point as some people began lighting their lanterns from the torches and ushers with blowhorns shoved through the crowds telling them to put the lanterns down - it wasn't time yet!

Finally we were all invited to stand and light our lanterns and within second the grounds were aglow with a thousand earthbound lampshade struggling for their freedom.

Then we were told to release them. In a moment the sky was absolutely filled with thousands of floating lights.

They rose to the trees, floating steadily north, until they just cleared the treetops and caught the southbound wind, creating a spiraling galaxy effect over our heads. More and more lights rose up (our group had 16 just for ourselves) in succession, filling the sky with thousands of new stars. The effect was breathtaking -

- and amazingly orderly. There were three or four lanterns caught precariously in the surrounding pine trees at any given time, but only one really threatened serious burning, and there were firecrews with trucks on the watch the whole time. The night was perfectly crystal clear and relatively still. Just to keep the adrenaline pumping, occasional fireworks were set off in the midst of the rising lanterns. The quarter-full moon shown down, guiding the lanterns to their heights and the stars seemed to welcome new friends for the evening.

Finally the lantern supplies were exhausted and the crowds began to slip away towards cars. The thousand lanterns followed our hour-long journey back to the city, carrying the memories of mistakes and sins past away on the wind and into the deep night.