Laos, Please Don't Rush

Before flying to Luang Prabang, we had an afternoon to wander around Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Vientiane is just across the Mekong river from Thailand and it actually is pronounced “Wieng Chan”. You’ll have to ask someone who speaks French explain the spelling. Vientiane is the home of Pha That Luang; a stupa that is Laos’ national monument. The grounds surrounding Pha That Luang include two temples and beautifully landscaped parks. We had arrived in the late afternoon and as we walked around we were accompanied many Laotians also enjoying the parks. The stupa itself was closed for the day so we didn’t see any other tourists. A large truck was spraying water out over the gardens and children were playing in the spray. In the empty parking lot, there were some older boys and men were playing soccer. The whole scene was reminiscent of a summer evening in “Small Town U.S.A.”

On the way back to our hotel we passed an interesting monument called Patuxai. It was inspired by the French Arch of Triumph but built with US purchased cement in the 1960s. The cement was supposed to be used to build an airport and this bit of history has earned the monument the nickname “the vertical runway”. It is surrounded by a nice park that seemed to be quite popular.



The morning of March 13 we arrived at the small airport (perhaps they didn’t have enough cement for a larger one) two hours early for our one hour flight. As much as we dislike waiting in airports, it was better than an 11 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang. The wait did give me an opportunity to read the guide book and learn that my expectations for Luang Prabang were off. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage site just like Angkor Wat only the temples in Luang Prabang are not as old. Many of the temple sites date back 500 years but only two temples survived various attacks from neighboring countries. The people of Luang Prabang must be very determined people because they just built the temples again and so the city has retained the “urban plan” it has had for 500 years. This is what has earned it UNESCO World Heritage status.

Upon arriving in Luang Prabang, we learned from our driver that Laos’ official name is Laos People’s Democratic Republic and its nickname is Laos Please Don’t Rush. Apparently, Laotians are very laid back and often late. Karl had made arrangements to take pictures of a young lady in traditional Laotian costume the following afternoon, so Tuesday evening and most of the day Wednesday we went around town looking at temples. Karl’s objective was to find a good location with a nice backdrop to take the pictures. I reluctantly became the stand-in as Karl tried out different locations and worked out his compositions. This can take a bit of time and in many of the pictures I’m quite distracted, even reading our guidebook instead of looking at the camera. Here is one where I actually was paying attention, the rest are not all that flattering so you won’t see any of those here!

Luang Prabang isn’t a very large city so we were able to get around to most of the temples on bicycles. Some of the temples were right next door to each other and we walked from the courtyard of one temple into the courtyard of another. The temples are beautifully gilded; sometimes covering the entire front of the temple. Usually, there is a stupa or two somewhere on the grounds and occasionally they are painted gold. The offerings made with banana leaves and marigolds even resemble gilded stupas. At Luang Prabang’s oldest temple, Xieng Thong, we admired the complex mosaics that cover the temple and a couple of small chapels on the temple grounds. The mosaic on the back wall of the temple is a huge tree of life flanked with peacocks. The mosaics on the small chapels are simple village scenes that seem to tell stories. The reflective tiles are expertly cut and placed to create people, palm trees, elephants and more.

Luang Prabang is built on a peninsula shaped similarly to Florida at the intersection of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. So, as we cycled to the various temples we often caught sight of one of the rivers. The ever-present haze from burning rice fields muted the beauty of the rivers and the lush vegetable gardens on their banks. Besides interfering with Karl’s opportunities for landscape photography the smoke has also been very irritating to our eyes and throats. After scouting locations we learned that the young lady, Min, couldn’t come Wednesday afternoon and would meet us the next morning. She did come the next morning but an hour later than planned and she didn’t have much time before she had to go to class. She agreed to come back between her classes around lunch time. We didn’t mind the delays; we know that is just how things are done. It’s best just to go with the flow and enjoy the journey!

In the mean time, we went to a nearby village that does hand weaving of cotton and silk. We got a demonstration from a lady who was weaving a scarf. It was interesting to see how the pattern of the scarf was created by the way that the threads were arranged on the loom. Nearby another lady wound thread onto spools. The device that she used employed an old bicycle wheel to spin the spool fast enough to get the proper tension. We returned to Luang Prabang, met up with Min and went to two temples that we had picked out the previous day. Our favorite was Wat Chum Khong because the grounds were beautifully landscaped and there were lots of flowers. At Wat Chum Khong a little boy followed us around, sneaking into little hiding places where he could watch these strange foreigners.



Every evening, there is an incredible handicraft market that closes down the main road of Luang Prabang for about a quarter of a mile. Vendors setup on either side of the road and down the middle with bare light bulbs hanging over their little square of the market. I particularly liked how the paper lanterns looked. The market was very atmospheric with many colorful textiles and souvenirs to look at. As we walked around we were greeted with smiling faces and soft voices speaking the little English they knew. Overlooking it all was Phu Si temple from the top of the hill by the same name. We would go every evening and Karl would look for photo opportunities. Just like in Wangpikun, Karl likes to take pictures of people and so we ended up buying quite a few things to get permission! In Laos they use kip and 10,000 kip is approximately equal to one dollar. At first you might think that is a great exchange rate and you are going to make out like a bandit. Then you see the prices of every thing. The prices of most things are given in five digits and the only price that is given with less than 4 digits is the per-minute charge at the internet cafes. We were told by our friends in Thailand that we would need a big purse. That is because the biggest bill that you can get in Laos is 50,000 kip but they mostly use 20,000 kip bills. So, right after a visit to the bank to exchange money we felt like we had a big wad of cash. Our wad never seemed to last as long as we thought it would. When you have 700,000 kip you think it will last a while!