C’est La Vie Say the Old Folks

It goes to show you never can tell. It still amazes me that in just 1 hour’s time, we can be in a completely new country. And so we boarded the tiny Lao Airlines jet from Chiang Mai and landed 60 short minutes later in the newly rebuilt Luang Prabang, Laos airport. The visa-on-arrival line was long, but the process was structured. In as much time as it took to fly there, we had our Laotian visas.

Before planning our trip here, Luang Prabang had come highly recommended to us from several different people. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So we had a lot of high expectations coming into this city. Our shared taxi minibus dropped us off at our hotel, Villa Mahasok, for $7 USD. We oriented ourselves with the city and set out to see what the fuss was all about.

The city is situated between two rivers: the famous Mekong and the Nam Khan. In this century alone, Luang Prabang has been occupied by the Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and most recently by the French. And it’s the French influence that you can really see in this oh-so-quaint little town. After traveling throughout Southeast Asia, we have become quite accustomed to the normal sights. But Luang Prabang threw us off a little because it didn’t look like Southeast Asia, and for all intents and purposes, it didn’t feel like it either. Sure there are many wats to visit and you’ll see the monks in their orange robes, but by and large, the town is four lanes of French colonial-style housing all in a perfectly-pleasing golden color to accent the honey-tone wooden shutters and doors. This place even has sidewalks – a downright novelty for this corner of the world.

And so we strolled along the picturesque streets until we arrived at our chosen dinner restaurant, The Apsara. There we treated ourselves to a feast of a giant, freshly-grilled fish with all sorts of yummy herbs and spices piled on top and two tall, refreshing Beer Laos (because they are so hard to find in Thailand!) The Americans in us, however, couldn’t resist a side of french fries. After dinner, we strolled around a bit more, but discovered that Luang Prabang is one of those sleepy towns that shuts down before midnight.

The next day, we discovered the other little leave-behind from the French: bread! For over a month, we’ve been filling our tummies with so much rice and noodleage that we kind of sort of forgot about this stuff called bread. The bread in Luang Prabang comes in so many, delicious forms: baguettes, cakes, muffins, donuts, and loaves. As we ate our savory sandwiches and relished our sweet desserts, we couldn’t help but laugh because we forgot just how good bread is.

And then it happened.

It was only a matter of time, mind you, before it did. I was actually surprised I had gone this long without it happening. I think 39 days in a foreign land is a new record for me. Alas, I got sick.

We call it the Bombaci curse on my Mom’s side of the family. Our stomachs and digestive systems are sensitive little bastards, and I’ve spent the greater part of my adulthood catering to its bitching, moaning, and complaining operation. Meanwhile, Shiv’s system is like a steel trap. In all of our travels throughout our six years together, he’s never had a problem – not once, not never. This particular bug put me down for the count for a whole day. A whole day inside our hotel room! Such torture when there are things to see and do. Shiv nicely went out and got me rice and bread for sustenance. We had to play it safe because I had signed us up for some fun activities the next day.

I forget where I discovered it, but I came across the Backstreet Academy website through some research. It’s a company that sets you up with experiences vis-à-vis a local. I signed up for weaving and Shiv signed up for knife making. The company arranges for transportation to and from your hotel to the local village for a half or full day.

Weaving

Luang Prabang is known for its beautiful and rich textiles. I was absolutely mesmerized by all the beautiful colors, textures, and patterns. So, when the opportunity to learn how to weave presented itself, I sprang for it.

I was taken to a local village by my tour guide, Oun, via tuk tuk. Oun is a super chatty guy who is paying his way through college. He has two years of English under his belt and wants to work for the government someday (job security, he says). The weaving teacher spoke minimal, broken English – this is why Backstreet provides guides. And Oun was a great one to have. I think I learned as much about Laos from our conversations together as I did about weaving!

My weaving teacher came from generations of weavers and was very patient with me. I got to choose my two colors and then had to wind them onto the spool using this absolutely rustic winding machine made of twigs and bamboo. She then set my colors up on the loom. The white threads run vertically and then you physically run the colored spool horizontally through the white threads, separating every other thread using bamboo foot pedals. Back and forth, back and forth you weave. When you want to insert a pattern, you change the separation of the white threads. This is a highly complicated task, so you don’t learn how to do it during this course. I witnessed my weaver move twigs up and down, all by rote memorization, to make these ever so exquisite patterns. I was simply amazed. It felt like magic.

I walked away from that experience with not only an awesome souvenir, but an incredible amount of appreciation for the art of weaving. It’s back-breaking work and requires a lot of concentration and creativity, but the output is so satisfying.

Knife Making

Since I was not there with Shiv, this portion of the post is written by the man himself:

As I watched Michele fade away into the distance in her relatively luxurious tuk tuk, I wondered how different my experience would be this day. There was no tuk tuk waiting for me. Instead, my day started by hopping on the back seat of my guide’s worn-down scooter sans helmet as we made our way to a different village famous for its artisanal knife makers.

My guide was much younger than Michele’s. He’s in his final years of high school (or the Laos equivalent of it), aspiring to be the first member of his agrarian family to earn a college degree. Unlike Michele’s guide, he didn’t talk much. He was somewhat shy and his English was still improving, but that was fine with me. I generally prefer to observe other cultures passively, only asking for information when appropriate.

About 30 minutes later, I stepped down from the scooter and walked bow-legged towards the shack where I would craft my very own knife. Knife-making isn’t rocket science. You take a slab of metal, heat it up in a scorching-hot fire, and then pound at it with a hammer until you reach your desired shiv. See what I did there? While simple in theory, it’s anything but that in practice. Like weaving, it’s back-breaking work and the skills are inherited. My local knife maker learned everything he knows from his father, who learned from his father, and so on. His sons were even standing by to fix my (several) mistakes, not even attempting to hold back their laughter as they did so.

One of my favorite moments during the day came when a tour group of 5-10 caucasian Americans strolled by the shack where I was making my knife. I can’t imagine what they were thinking when they saw me. There I was having one of the most authentic experiences of my life. Meanwhile, they observe a dark-skinned Indian man with an unruly beard and a backwards trucker hat amongst several Laotians helplessly pounding away at flame-orange metal, effectively destroying the authenticity of their experience. 1 point for me, 0 points for them. Thanks, Backstreet Academy!

Lao BBQ

Back from our fun activities, I was feeling pretty confident that my stomach issues were just about gone. We decided to hit up an authentic Lao barbecue joint we had spotted on the river. Whenever you see a bunch of locals gathered around tiny tables with tiny, plastic chairs, you know the place is good. So we got ourselves a table and then proceeded to the area where they have table upon table full of things to grill. We didn’t really know what we were doing nor what type of meat we were putting on our plates, but we were raring for the experience. As we did that, our waiter set up the grill, which is conveniently nestled in the middle of the table. The metal grill is dome-shaped but has a reservoir at the edge, sort of like a moat for your meat. You put a piece of fat at the top and broth in the reservoir and cook the meat on the dome sides. As the fat melts, it drips onto your grilling meat, which then siphons into your broth, transforming it into a tasty soup. You can place vegetables in the soup, too.

Of course, there are yummy sauces to accompany your meats, and what Asian meal isn’t complete without rice? They had both plain and fried rice. It was a delicious and fun dinner, especially since it was riverside. Highly recommend you give this a whirl if you find yourself in LP.

But then it happened again.

The stomach issues returned and I stayed in another day, nursing my freakishly bloated abdomen, afraid to go any further than 3 feet from a bathroom. We found an Indian restaurant and I ate some naan and rice.

Mount Phousi

When I couldn’t stand being holed up any longer, we decided to go catch the sunset from Mount Phousi, a hill in the center of town that houses many Buddhist shrines and wats, as well as being a popular place for sunset. We scaled the 355 steps to the summit and were met with a lovely view of Luang Prabang.

However, it was apparent that this idea was not unique and the place soon became overrun with people. It was during this moment in time when I had two epiphanies:

1. We have become sunset monkeys. I know it makes for such a good photograph, but when you are constantly being pushed and shoved by rude people in the sweltering heat, it lessens the impact of the moment. Shiv agreed.
2. The baby boomers’ camera of choice is an iPad. I don’t get it. Are these people walking around with that giant thing all day long? Seems uncomfortable and cumbersome. What’s wrong with a phone camera? The camera on the iPad isn’t superior to, let’s say, the iPhone’s camera. What is it with the iPads? Someone help me to understand!

As people started to disperse, we spotted a little rock area where we could take a scenic picture. I actually like this one better than the sunset photos, even though it’s a little darker. It made all those blocked views from the iPads worth it.

Night Market

After beelining it from Mount Phousi, we ventured into the Night Market for some shopping that night. It seems like every SE Asian city has its own version of a night market. But I haven’t, to date, found a better one than Luang Prabang’s. I already mentioned the beautiful textiles, but they also seemed to have the least amount of crap and chotchskies. I found it to be better quality, and with the kip (currency) being so low, we scored some bargains.

Kuang Si Waterfalls

It pained me that we couldn’t see all that we wanted to in Luang Prabang due to my annoying stomach issues. Our flight back to Chiang Mai didn’t leave until the afternoon and Shiv had a crazy idea to go to the Kuang Si waterfalls in the morning, a place that I really wanted to see. I agreed to the idea, hopeful that my stomach would cooperate by morning. So, we arranged for a tuk tuk to take us out to the waterfalls, which are about 45 minutes away from the city.

Though my stomach didn’t really behave itself, I made do and slogged through. And boy was it worth it! These waterfalls are definitely the most beautiful I’ve ever seen – mostly because of that almost unbelievable radiant turquoise color. The waterfalls are made of limestone. When the limestone mixes with the minerals in the water, the water turns this wonderfully-calming aqua color.

There are multiple levels of small, shallow pools that lead up to the big waterfall at 200 feet. Shiv and I hiked our bodies up to the top, daring to peek over the edge, but also enjoying the unexpected tranquility of the top. Soon we made our way back down to the roaring bottom and Shiv took a quick, refreshing dip. We then raced back to our tuk tuk driver so we could grab our stuff at the hotel and head straight to the airport, happy that we successfully managed to get in one last fun thing in Luang Prabang before take off!

All in all, we enjoyed Luang Prabang, but it didn’t live up to all of the expectations we kept hearing about it. It’s lovely and cute, and the waterfalls will blow your mind, but we felt that it didn’t have enough ‘grit’ for us. And maybe that’s because our experience was unfortunately overshadowed by my stomach issues. What if we’d had more time to explore and find places we loved? What if we met some cool folks who made the days we spent there that much more fun? What if we had a full day to spend at the waterfalls relaxing, drinking, and making friends? We might have come away with a different impression.

But for this time around,  we both agreed that we would have had a better time had we been a retired French couple. Ah, c’est la vie.