January 31, 2011 Touring Phonsavahn

Today we toured Phonsavahn in central Laos.  It's not a DIY area so we set up a tour at the hotel.  We were escorted by a driver and a guide, who spoke wonderful English and was able to answer questions that had been building up for weeks.
Stop 1 Plain of Jars - exactly what it sounds like.  Open plains filled with jars of varrying sizes.  The biggest is 6 tons.  They are a bit of a mystery - archaeologists and legends don't agree.  They were likely used as storage for grains, which then fermented into whisky.  Then if someone in the family died, they'd burry them in it.  The area of the main tourst sites are mostly cleared of bombies (from cluster bombs) but they're very insistent that one stays within the markers.  There are also several large craters in the area where large bombs were dropped.

Me and the big one.  (It was quite cold and windy.)

Stop 2 Bombed temple from the Secret War
The building blew away, but Buddha remains.  Even before the bombing miracle, this was considered a magical Buddha.  People would travel long distances to visit it.  It's hard not to feel someone awed by how untouched it was.  There's a part of his left arm that was injured by a bullet.

Stop 3 Bombed French Hospital (no photo)
Stop 4 Lunch  This nice old man came over to practice his English.  He wasn't interested in listening, only talking.  He kept talking about various American presidents so I asked Xn to list them in order.  The man was so delighted he asked Xn to write out a list of all of them in order, which is what he's doing here.

Stop 4 Hmong Village  Our guide is Hmong but not from this village.  We did a very quick walk through - it felt weird to walk through someone's place like that.  We stopped to watch the kids play, said hello to a woman sewing.  They have a grind stone for making flour that's made out of an old bomb casing.
Little video of me trying it out:

Just trying to stay warm

January 30, 2011 Phonsavan

On our way to Phonsavan in a minivan.  Met a nice guy from Duluth - a Vietnam War vet who recently had his house foreclosed on and took it as a liberating event.  Now he's traveling through SE Asia and loving it.

Stopped at a market for lunch.  I got oranges and some freaky tasting potato chips that I think were swiss cheese and BBQ sauce.  Blech!  The colors on this photo are a bit washed out but only a bit.

January 29, 2011 Last day in Luang Prabang, Laos

Decided to do some things on our list since it was our last day in Luang Prabang.
First, though, breakfast - I was kind of crabby.

One thing I wanted to do was to go over the long bamboo bridge.  It cost 4,000 kip to go (round trip).  There was a nice sign explaining that the bridge has to be rebuilt every year after the rainy season and the money helps pay for that, for the time of the people who build it.  It also reminded people that 4,000 kip was only $.50 - something I think travelers lose sight of.  Was worth every kip.

The bridge made me happier.

Can't stop loving the animals.  Triple kitten cuteness.  For non-cat people, you can just notice the planters, the lovely brick sidewalk, the gate on the store front.

January 28, 2011 Back in Luang Prabang, Laos

I took only one photo today.  We went back to Luang Prabang to plan our time heading south.  This is us back in LP at our favorite restaurant down by the Mekong.

January 27, 2011 Stomping around Nong Khiew

Began the day with breakfast with a view of the river.  This little guy was running around the restaurant melting our hearts.  He had pooped under a table nearby but that's OK since he's so cute!

Headed 3 kilometers up the road to Tham Pha Tok, enormous caves where people hid during the Secret War.  There were markers in various rooms of what governmental administrative functions were done there.  Example - the banker's room.  Our guide didn't speak a word of English but was awesome showing us all the little nooks and crannies.

Bridge to the caves

Very nice steps up to cave 1

An administrative room in a cave

Spent the rest of the day just reading and enjoying the porch.  This little kitty feel completely in love with Christian, spent as much time as she could on his lap.

On our porch at night.  Those are orchids hanging in the boxes.

January 26, 2011 Nong Khiaw, Laos

Welcoming Committee, not so much
The kids kept asking for pens for some reason.

Motivated to get out of Luang Prabang to see more north and more remote Laos.  So stunningly beautiful!  This tiny town had good food, friendly people and a few things to see.

Our bungalow - electricity, hot shower, porch for $7.50

River runs through town - the view from bridge.
I wonder what it's like in the wet season.

Evenings women and kids would walk
down to the river to bathe.  They had to descend
from the height of the bridge down steep slope without stairs

January 25, 2011 The View from the Top

I realize this is turning more into a travel blog than a photo-a-day thing.  I'm going to try to pull it back to the photo(s)-a-day.  Less text

One of the things everyone does in Luang Prabang is climb to the temple on the hill in the middle of town and watch the sunset.  Here we are stopping for a photo 1/2 way up.  Though really we were stopping for a rest.  Definitely worth the climb up the 350+ steps to get this kind of a view of the city!

Overhead view of the night market that sets up every afternoon and breaks down every night early enough for the villagers to get back before curfew.

January 24, 2011 Legacies

UXO = unexploded ordnance from the Secret War

The UXO Lao visitor center was open today.  A complex of offices ringed a courtyard filled with bomb casings dropped by the United States during the Secret War, the war in Laos in parallel to the Vietnam War.  The visitor's center was only one room filled with a variety of the kinds of bombs and weapons used.  The country is still covered in bombies, the small bombs released from large cluster bombs.  Almost every day people are still injured or killed, most of them children, by these bombies from over 30 years ago.  The Lao government in conjunction with many world governments and NGOs are working on clearing the country, but it'll take a long time.  The United States has given money to this effort.  The amount spent by the US since in helping with the effort to clear Laos of the bombs we dropped is equivalent to what the US spent in THREE DAYS of the bombing of Laos.  Sobering... sickening.

no segue 

Much later in the day we had sin dat, Lao BBQ.  It's similar to Korean BBQ but instead of making lettuce wraps of grilled meat and veggies, you filled the edge of the grill with broth and veggies, grill the meat and make a soup of the whole thing.  It was tasty and has limitless possibilities of flavors and ingredients.  Fun dinner.

January 23, 2011 Meandering on a Sunday

Christian and I went wandering through the city again.  We were actually trying to get to the UXO visitor center to look at their information on unexploded ordnance from the Secret War, but it was Sunday (we forgot) so it was closed.  We came upon this large plaza for a culture-gathering area of some kind.  In the middle was this giant statue of someone we don't know and whose name we couldn't read.  He looks very happy and is clapping as though he's just seen a great performance.  I hope he was a good guy because I really like the statue.

Later in the day as we were heading to the guest house, I saw this little girl playing and it caught me off guard.

It's just a toy.

Laos doesn't have a social safety net.  I'm not sure what, if any, services would be available to people with mental illness.  The man behind Christian was freaky and nuts.  He is definitely not a monk.  He walked down the street with an angry energy sometimes kicking random things and then would stop, thrust the bowl tightly against his groin and close his eyes tightly just hoping to get some food or money.  There were two young children somehow connected with him, I'm guessing because they're homeless.

January 22, 2011 Book and Tea... and HAIR

So much hair!!

Right next to our guest house was a sweet book shop called Book and Tea run by a Quebecoise who knows how important it is to make good hot chocolate. (Thank goodness!) They have wi-fi but barely.  I didn't have the patience to wait for pages to load so I sat outside and read Douglas Coupland's Generation A and a Wooster and Jeeves novel.  They showed a movie every night in the 2nd floor lounge.  I watched Please Give, which felt way too close for comfort but was quite good.  On our last night in town we had a great chat with a few guys who work there - wish it had been on our first night so we could have developed the relationships more.  But any connection is a good connection.
Oh, and I did buy a book there, too.  A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong - haven't started it yet.

This is what was above me.

January 21, 2011 A Lovely Day

After haggling our price down and then geniously back up again (don't ask), we set up a trip to the Buddha caves and the waterfalls outside Luang Prabang.  We got picked up at 9 AM by a man and his ~5 year old son.  We climbed in the back of the tuk-tuk and I donned my mask.  Hey, lots of folks wear them around here.  It's so dusty on the roads and the exhaust systems in the cars aren't the greatest.  Placebo or not, I felt better having worn it.  

Most people take boats to the Buddha caves but that takes 2 hours whereas the tuk-tuk takes only one.  What no one told us was that the final 45 minutes are on incredibly rough road.  

We had to hop across the river in a little boat ($5 round trip for a 2 minute crossing - Laos isn't as cheap as I hoped).  I love rivers and delighted in the open boat crossing.  

 The Buddha caves have been used for a mighty long time (hundreds of years).  The entrance is on the riverside.  Inside are a bunch of Buddha statues.  There used to be more but people stole them through the years.  Some are old, many look newish.
You can see the steep steps behind us - someone's taking a photo up there.  The steps are painted white so it looks really cool from the river.  The strong and determined can then walk up a million other steps to the upper cave where there are even more statues, many set in the dark back of the cave.  Good thing always-prepared-me had a flashlight in her bag.

After the caves we drove for approximately 1.5 - 2 hours to the waterfalls. Forgive me for not knowing the name offhand. They were lovely, well maintained and designed for tourists. Swimming was allowed but we didn't have our suits. The water actually is the color you can see behind me. Warm sun, lots of happy people, moving water - perfect.

This is me, the driver and his son.  The driver didn't have any particular affection for us, but the son and I smiled and teased each other a lot so I think he liked me.  I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have touched them, but in the joy of the day I reacted automatically.

We finished the day with dinner down by the Mekong.  There are a number of places to choose from, some expensive and some ridiculously cheap. Really no reason to pay a lot since the cheap ones are just as beautiful and have delicous food.  

I'm petting a little puppy under the table.  I know, I know - shouldn't touch the animals but he was sooooo cute and still had fuzzy puppy hair.  How could I resist?  He tried following us home, but we insisted he go back to the restaurant where he stood a chance of being fed enough to live a happy street dog life.  Sorry I don't have a photo of the little guy.  Use your imagination (he was brown and vaguely German Shepherd like).

January 20, 2011 Utopia

Ran into someone from the boat who suggested we check out a place called Utopia.  And why would anyone not want to see Utopia.  We headed down a windy alley and came upon these large gate doors, headed into the sprawling area.  First part was very bar like but towards the back there's a terrace overlooking the Nam Ou (river).  Bamboo floor and roof, open sides, mats on the floor, interesting menu.  It was an excellent place to chill.  On our way out we noticed that the landscaping had incorporated a bunch of bomb casings, the first time we'd seen it in Laos.  It's actually really common to see once you get out of the UNESCO World Heritage town of Luang Prabang.  You can't really see any here, but you can see how lovely the landscaping is.  We went back a few more times before we settled on the Book and Tea as our preferred hangout.

January 19, 2011 Stomping around Luang Prabang, Laos

On our first day in town, we decided to do the usual and check out some wats.  We found this one - kind of old and rundown.  Unlike in Thailand where all but the biggest temples are free (donations accepted), all the temples in Laos cost money.  They range from 10,000 kip ($1.25) to 20,000 kip ($2.50).  This one was 20K kip.  We went in and it was kind of sad.  The next one we went to right next to this one (we thought we were getting access to both) was one of the bigger ones in the area.  We weren't up for spending a ton of bucks so only I went in.  It was OK.  The wats in Laos are much more... humble.  Laos is poorer than Thailand so it's no surprise.  We didn't visit any more temples except for one at the top of a hill where people watch the sunset.  But that was only for the view.  Didn't even go into the temple proper at that one.  It's interesting how different the Buddhism feels in the different countries.  The temples in Laos just don't feel as sacred and I've not really seen anyone praying in them unlike in Thailand where there's nearly always at least one person praying.  But it's all good.

January 18, 2011 Slow Boat Day 2

Slow boat to Luang Prabang, Laos day 2.  Not sure if you can tell, but we're significantly more bundled up today, which is good since the sun didn't come out nearly as much and it was a bit colder.  There were 2 boats filled with tourists on day 1 but on day 2 they decided to shove us ALL onto one boat.  Mind you, the first day we were cozy but not on top of each other.  It wasn't horrible - the guys ahead of us chatted with us a bit, we had some munchies, books, headphones and the Mekong to keep us company.  By the time we arrived in LP, I was ready to be done w/the slow boat.  Despite what you may read online, I would definitely recommend the trip.

January 17, 2011 Slow boat day 1

As most travelers do, we crossed into Laos at Huay Xai and then caught the slow boat (2 day trip) to beautiful Luang Prabang.  There were so many warnings about how awful the trip can be but we found it to be completely tolerable.  We had food, beverages, books, patience.  Watching the scenery pass along the Mekong was great.  There's almost no development along it.  I don't recall seeing a single factory or anything.  The most we saw were small villages.  Tiny villages.  Because of the steep hills all around us it reminded me a bit of the fjords at times.  Put me on a boat on a river anytime.  (My one complaint about day 1 was I was underdressed - why did no one warn me about that?)

January 16, 2011 Chaing Rai to the Mekong

We spent the morning walking around Chaing Rai a little bit.  Checked out one of the wats (temples).  They had a big Buddha and lots of little ones.  Just like all the other wats we've seen.  I've seen a LOT of wats lately.  We grabbed some food then headed off to Chaing Khong just one the Thai side of the Mekong.  We spent a night there and then got up early to do the official crossover into Laos.

The place we stayed at was right on the Mekong and they had lovely areas with windows wide open overlooking the river.  I was awed and delighted at staring out at the mighty river and seeing another country.  It was one of those WOW moments.

January 15, 2011 Leaving Thailand

Today we got ready to leave Chaing Mai and Thailand.  We stopped into a Kodak store to print off the passport photos for our Lao visa.  The store had this amazing orchid plant unlike anything I've ever seen.  Yes, they're real.

January 14, 2011 ELEPHANTS!!

Today we visited the Elephant Nature Park outside Chaing Mai and it was amazing!  The elephants were rescued from all sorts of horrible situations.  Some were abandoned once logging was banned, some were being abused, one had been hit by a car in the city while being used to beg, one had been an amphetamine addict because they were feeding her them to make her work 24 hours a day.  Each of the 32 elephants had a story.

In the morning they picked us up from our hotel then drove us out to the sanctuary.  We were introduced to the animals, given instructions how to feed them, allowed to wash them in the river.  They fed us lunch, told us the elephants' stories, let us hang out at the wonderful facility.  There were dogs everywhere, one horse in a separate field, a herd of cattle, at least one cat, a bear (we didn't see) and a pair of sloths that only come down at night.  It was so amazing to see the elephants just walking around, doing whatever they want.  One of them wandered into the field where the cattle were even.    This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip! 

January 13, 2011 All around Pai

Sometimes the brochure looks better.  Well, usually.  Today we stopped at a resort called the Tree House a little bit outside of town.  The ride there on the backs of motorbike taxis was excellent.  We got some great views looking out over the green valley where Pai sits.  We had a meal at the Tree House restaurant then walked the grounds.  There were, indeed, a few buildings in a tree that are available to rent - very cool.  An elephant walked by with her mahout and 2 people on top.  The elephant stopped and sniffed my hand then walked on.  After checking out Tree House, we walked up the road about a kilometer to soak in the hot spring.  Had to do this at a "spa" since at the actual spring you can only dip a toe.  The "spa" was completely past its prime.  The grounds were unkempt, the fixtures rundown.  The pool for soaking wasn't very clean, but the water was warm and we were the only people there.  It was quite lovely, despite being overcharged.  A lovely ride on motorbikes back to town topped the lovely day.

January 12, 2011 Another slice of Pai

Started the day having breakfast at a place with hash browns on the menu.  I was quite excited at the prospect.  Unfortunately, they are quite loose with the terminology on menus so what I got were big potato chunks.  All was well, however, since they had TABASCO!  Now, Thailand knows spicy, to be sure.  But there's something so specific and delicious about Tabasco.  It was like a little piece of home.

Then we headed out to do some touristy things in the area.  We went to a waterfall and a temple.  Took motorbike 'taxis' which means that official people wearing bright yellow vests that said TAXI on them gave us rides up on the backs of their bikes.  It was AWESOME!  I like motorbikes, it turns out.

The waterfalls were small since we're in the dry season.  From the look of the rocks, in the high wet season they must be truly awe inspiring.  There were groups of Thai and Western young folks lounging about and sitting on the rocks soaking up the sun so Christian and I found a spot and joined in the sunning.

We stopped at a temple on the way back down where there was a Buddha statue that has a hollow head that makes/made holy water in it.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details.

On the way back to the bungalow, we stopped to look at the menu of a place called Mama Falafel.  This little doggie lives there and for some reason came immediately up to me and flopped down on my foot.  She amused me greatly.  I scratched her a little then pulled my foot away.  Didn't impact her posture one single bit.

The animals have meant a lot to me on this trip.  They're comforting and grounding and take me out of myself for a few minutes (especially the sweet black kitten I hugged at breakfast).

Despite the look of shock on this guy's face,

he purred and rubbed my face and was digging

the love.