Luang Prabang: Spirituality Up Close

We arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos, late on Wednesday night to what we thought was a strange and sleepy town.  Our drive from the airport left us anxiously seeking out our guest house in the hopes that it wasn’t too rough, even for the likes of us, because the unusual empty feeling the streets gave us seemed a bit unnerving.  We soon discovered, however, that not only was our room magnificently large by Asian standards (and only $12 a night!) but the desolation of the nearby streets was because most of the locals were spending their evening packed in tightly under lighted tents along a strip of road in the middle of town, trying to make an honest living at the Hmong Night Market.  While this bazaar of local goods bustles with energy, it ends peacefully at 11:30pm when the government curfew is enforced.  While we both enjoyed the sights, Nick hurried through as he was constantly bending down to avoid and/or bumping his head on the ridiculously short tent roofs.

The next morning we bargained for a guide book and had some breakfast from a delightful French woman, giving us the energy we needed for our walking tour of Luang Prabang.  The city sits at the intersection of the Me Kong and Nam Khan rivers, which weave their muddy way through the forest and provide the local villages with a connection to this main settlement.  We toured through the swelteringly hot and humid day around the Royal Palace as well as plenty of  temples, and the pictures are posted here!  

Luang Prabang, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has well preserved buildings but its deeply spiritual culture, which has withstood the test of time and permeates through the city’s identity, was one of the most apparent features of our visit.  One of the most pure examples of traditional Lao culture is the Almsgiving Ceremony, in which all the local monks make a walking trip through town to accept donations of sticky rice from Laotians and tourists alike.  The monks are only allowed to eat that which is given to them, and thus this daily ritual is of great importance for their subsistence.  We arose at dawn to take part in the ceremony, buying sticky rice from a vendor down the street, and then waited outside our hotel (with our extremely helpful night guard friend) for the monks to arrive.  They came in small lines of 5-10, sometimes stopping to chant prayers of thanks and other times continuing silently on their way.  We just about scalded our fingertips off on the piping hot sticky rice, and it was certainly an early wake up, but becoming a part of Lao culture for the morning was well worth the pains of getting there.

Later we traveled to Kuang Si Falls, about 32 km outside of Chiang Mai.  Sorry parents, motorbike was the only way to get there!  We wore helmets, we swear.   What awaited us after our journey were tiers of statuesque limestone formations peeking through the dense  jungle, with water gushing forth violently from the largest of the falls.  While there were several swimming areas (and several “do not swimming areas”) we opted for the hike up the mountainside to where the falls begin their…fall.  Take a look!

From here it’s on to Hanoi!