After 19 hours of travel from Luang Prabang by plane, bus, boat and tuk tuk we finally arrived in Don Khon – an island in Si Phan Don, in Southern Laos. The island is a small piece of paradise dotted with bungalows and restaurants by the Mekong River, featuring amazing sunsets. The island only has electricity for a few hours during the day. It is quiet beyond belief and for the first time in what feels like years-we can see a sky full of stars.
At 6a.m. this morning, dozens of cell phone alarms clocks could be heard around the backpackers’ area, it was time to get up and see the Buddhist monks. Every morning, hundreds of monks dressed in a traditional orange outfit roam the silent streets of Luang Prabang collecting alms from the locals (Tak Bat in Lao). All along the main road of town, people set up mats on the floor with pots of sticky rice and wait for their turn to give food to the monks. The monks walk silently in a long never ending line, gazing at the floor while accepting those small portions of rice. The people of Luang Prabang seem grateful for their chance to perform a Buddhist “Mitzvah†and bow their head down as they serve the rice. This surreal daily ritual is filled with early morning’s haze and complete silence, the only thing that can be heard is the tourists’ cameras clicking.
Britney Spears may think she has it hard but the monks of Luang Prabang are shot from every possible angle. Some tourists even go as far as walking right up to the young monks and taking their photo. From a spiritual and humbling experience, it was transformed into a circus, or at least that’s how it felt to me. Tourists position themselves in good “photo worthy†angles and are even given the option to buy some crackers so they can give to the monks (feeding time at the zoo?). After snapping a couple of photos I realized I am simply not able to be part of this paparazzi show and opted to just stand back and look at the wonderful symbiosis of the monks and the Luang Prabangis.
The charm of this amazing place takes over you immediately and you are forced to walk slow, talk softly and think happy thoughts (no, no interesting brownies served for breakfast). It is simply gorgeous here, the combination of stunning Wats, beautiful French Lao buildings, enchanting Mekong river and breath taking views all make it a very special place. Luang Prabang is a gay friendly cat friendly place where people are smiley, relaxed and kind. It feels like an island but is actually a small town in the mountains. We have been trying to think of what this place reminds us of and so far we’ve come up with a mix of Sapa (Vietnam), Colon (Panama), Sinai (Egypt) and Zichron (Israel), I guess it is just like nothing we’ve ever seen.
Route Map for Our Day Trip Outside Hanoi
Hanoi feels like combination of several different cities all rolled into one: The Old Quarter and the Hoan Kiem Lake, the business district with its new high-rises, the beautifully scenic and residential West Lake area as well as several major avenues and circles with major landmarks, for example, Hanoi’s opera house or the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.
Many tourists who visit Hanoi don’t realize how drastically everything changes as soon as one ventures just outside of Hanoi. Our friend, Aryeh, took me out on an informal bike tour (motorbike) during my brief visit to Hanoi last year. I enjoyed it so much that I really wanted to do it again but this time with Tamar. Aryeh was kind enough to hook us up with his friend Marc, who lives in Hanoi. Marc is an avid mountain biker who’s been living in Hanoi for 4 years and is very familiar with all of the trails surrounding the city. He also thought it would be fun to take a trip, with a motorbike for a change, to see a site or two that he’d wanted to check out for some time.
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Today is Christmas and it feels like any other day here in Laos with the exception of a few trimmings. Xmas music is played everywhere and Lao waiters and waitresses are almost all wearing Santa Claus hats. Otherwise, it’s sunny, in the 70’s, and not much else is going on in the way that it does in back in New York on Xmas.
After a very nice breakfast by the Nam Khan River, we checked out of our guest house. We then climbed the small Phousi mountain to get a good view over the city around noon. The rest of the day has been spent in several cafes with wi-fi where we alternate between blogging and doing Internet research for the trip while the other person goes and gets massage. It’s so hard to share one computer between the two of us!
In a couple of hours we fly to Vientiane where we’ll stay for a night and then fly to Pakse in Southern Laos. From Pakse we’ll be on the move to Si Phan Don (4,000 islands in the Mekong River). Since we’ll be in transit, it’s hard to know when or where the next Internet access will be.
We’ll really miss Luang Prabang for sure but we feel like we’ve just discovered something new to come back to again. Hopefully it will retain its charm in the years to come.
Starting today, December 25, we will be adding a new feature to AsiaSteps, the Journal. This is simply a way for us to post a quick review of our daily activities to the blog in keeping with the chronology of our travels. Other more extensive blog posts, photos and video will continue to provide more in-depth information about our discoveries and will not necessarily be published in the order in which they happen. Journal entries will be labeled as such in the title of the post. To view all Journal entries, click on the category entitled, Journal, in the list in the right-hand column. We hope you will enjoy this new feature as you follow our journeys through Asia.
Kevin and Tamar on Christmas Eve 2007 in Luang Prabang
We’re celebrating Christmas in magical Luang Prabang and in very warm weather! The last 4 days in Laos have been so filled with beautiful and interesting experiences and we’ll be posting more about that soon. Merry Christmas everybody!
Kevin and Tamar Riding in the Countryside (with helmets)
If watching a typical rush hour scene in a major Vietnamese city such as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City is like looking over a sea of motorbikes then it can now be described as a sea of helmets as well. As of just last week on December 15th a new national law went into effect whereby it is now mandatory for all people riding a motorbike to wear a helmet!
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One of my favorite things to do in this world is riding a motorbike in Vietnam, especially in the beautiful countryside. The first time I ever drove a bike in Vietnam was back in 2001 when I extended my tourist visa and made Hanoi my base for month. I rented a Honda Wave in the Old Quarter for about $75 (for the month) and used it to get between the West Lake where I was staying and the rest of the city.
Life in Vietnam starts very early and people are out and about having breakfast by 6am. Sometimes it looks as if they never went to sleep but just took a quick nap between evening/late night eating and the morning pho. On Wed morning we went to Hanoi market which is just a few blocks from our hotel in the old quarter. The market is a wonderful celebration of colors, smells and smiley people. You can find every kind of shrimp, crab, squid and spices alongside a roasted dog (tail and teeth attached…) and frogs. We decided to skip the roasted dog and sat down at the Banh Cuon table. After fitting our larger-than-local butts on the little plastic stools we ordered 2 dishes of Banh Cuon – a rice flour crepe filled with pork and mushroom pate topped with crispy fried shallots. As soon as we finished our dishes and had a chance to chat with the locals, we got a third plate but still, somehow that breakfast wasn’t enough for us and we both had the same thought-Banh Mi! It was time for the Vietnamese sandwich (baguette with pork, cilantro, carrot, fish sauce and pate). Yum!