Laos might also win the award for Place I Most Want to Return To – either that or Cambodia. Two days in only one city in each was definitely not enough! In addition to Luang Prabang, interesting places to visit in Laos include Vientiane, the capital, and the Plain of Jars, but one could also take a multi-day slow boat down the Mekong or go trekking to see hill tribes or see other ancient history or other natural beauty! Luang Prabang was the heart of the ancient kingdom for 1000 years and has both red-roofed temples and French-Indochinese architecture. After our cruise, we walked along some of the streets and went to the Night Market – it’s hard to show the scope of the night market, but there was stand after stand of beautiful handiwork and craft items. Then we had Best Dinner of the trip – at L’Elephant, with delicious French cuisine (pumpkin cream soup pictured here; steak au poivre and a bite of Marilee’s buffalo with herb butter not shown but thoroughly enjoyed all the same).
The feeding of the monks is perhaps the main (tourist) attraction of Luang Prabang (I put tourist in parentheses because this is not done for tourists – the monks need to eat). In Bangkok, monks go out individually at dawn to gather their food for the day. In Luang Prabang, the reverent procession of monks in their colorful orange robes is a sight to see. We had no idea we could give out the food, too! The tuk-tuk driver who took us from our hotel to the boat ride was waiting for us after the boat ride – he took us to dinner and back to the hotel and then arranged to pick us up before dawn the next morning to feed the monks. He knew a good place to buy sticky rice (and told us not to buy candy for them) and a premium place to situate ourselves; he brought stools and a mat for us so we were all set.
The ritual was a very spiritual experience, though at times I felt like Lucy in the candy factory, trying to keep up with the line of monks going by and put a bite-sized portion of rice in each alms bowl – no touching the monks (note, the bowls that the monks actually use are much bigger than the tourist-sized ones I bought). It was more fun for me to participate than it would have been just to watch, and our ever-helpful driver took pictures for us!
The winter solstice is hard to notice this close to the equator – it’s sunny almost all year round from about 6:15 am to 5:45 pm – it gets a little longer in the summer, but not a whole lot – so it was neat to be here on the shortest day of the year.
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