Here's the next installment of my recent Laos travel journal. This is part one of my stay in Luang Prabang. I'll post the second half of it tomorrow. -ac
Thursday, November 13
Luang Prabang Pilgrimage
After grabbing a baguette at the Scandinavian bakery down the road, we checked out of the Lao Paris Hotel and caught a jumbo to Wattay Airport, about 15 minutes away. Wattay reminded me of a small community airport that had been closed for a few years and then reopened without warning: it was in bad need of a shave. After some wandering we found a check-in counter, a wooden table with a sign above saying Luang Prabang. I gave an official our tickets, but after a few minutes of him fondling the papers, he told me they were only good for the 11am flight. So for four hours we waited, observing a Swedish tour group munching on crackers and Lao women hoisting carry-ons of live chickens and eels in wicker baskets, slithering around like some Jim Henson animatronic characters.
At 11:15 we boarded a rickety Soviet-era Tupelov prop plane that read "Lao Aviation" in stencil block letters on the side. There was barely enough room for a dwarf's legs to fit behind each seat and the only in-flight reading was a blank air sickness bag. The plane managed to get off the ground without falling to pieces, and soon we were on our way to northern Laos and the city of Luang Prabang, the former royal capital and the center of Lao Buddhism. Susanne dozed most of the flight as I stared out the window, observing the Lao landscape as it transformed from Florida flatland to Scottish moor country to karst mountains from a Chinese watercolor scene. The texture of the land was stunning, with shards of rock and forested hillocks rising farther and farther upward. We then descended through the hills - we must be near Luang Prabang, I thought. The plane touched down with a violent certainty and I was ecstatic to get off of that Cold War antique. We paused briefly for immigration - all foreigners must register with the local police every city they visit - and then hired a jumbo to take us to the Hotel Phousy, an affordable three-star in the middle of town.
We crossed a quaint old wooden bridge wide enough only for one-way traffic and curved through the local market area, busy with more shoppers and vendors than one might expect in a town of only 16,000 residents. We soon reached our hotel, a turn-of-the-century villa that served as the French secretariat during colonial times. The jumbo drove through a wrought iron gate and past a tranquil garden cafe until we reached the hotel carport. A French family ate sandwiches in the teakwood verandah as we entered and checked into our room. The Hotel Phousy certainly seemed like a fine place to relax for a few days.
Luang Prabang is known mainly for its royal heritage and its many monasteries - over 30 wats, at least 20 of them maintained since pre-colonial times - and every street, every alley seemed to possess an intangible, regal and old-world character. Older children bicycled to and fro while younger kids played tag along the side of the road. Street vendors sold soup and noodles to passing customers (probably their neighbors). Everything had a small town feel to it; people would smile and say "Sabai dee" to us when we walked by. It was early afternoon and the sun had just passed its peak - I'd guess it was about 90 degrees outside. But that didn't deter us as we strolled along the Mekong for the first time. About 15 feet to our left, just off the street, the earth took a steep 100 foot drop down to the river valley floor. Along the Mekong families tended crops in small, neatly aligned vegetable gardens as boatman plied the shoreline in their motorized sampans.
The historic part of Luang Prabang is a thin peninsula surrounded on three sides by water: the Mekong and the Nam Khan (a minor tributary) cover the city's left and right banks respectively, meeting at a promontory point at the northeastern tip of the city. The Nam Khan side of the peninsula is lined mostly with farm plots, but here along the Mekong side there are small riverside cafes and intimate guesthouses with flower covered terraces. There's a silversmith shop with its doors wide open - a handful of apprentices delicately pound out their precious crafts. I read in the Lonely Planet book that the shop's owner was once the royal silversmith, but with the abolition of the monarchy, he's had to find new patronage with the royal family in Thailand.
Despite the outward friendliness and laid back atmosphere, I still sensed a subtle, unconscious sadness here - a residual sadness left over from the destruction of the royal family. For over 600 years this city was associated with the Lao Monarchy, from the early days of the Luang Prabang fiefdom to the unified Laos of French colonial times. Even through most of this century, the Lao monarchy received strong public support. But soon after the Pathet Lao's consolidation of power in 1975, the communists abolished the royal court, despite promises to keep the new Lao People's Democratic Republic as a constitutional monarchy. The royal family was labeled as traitors and eventually assigned to "re-education camps" near the Plaines des Jarres near the border with Vietnam. It is believed that the king and queen died some time in the mid 1980s of starvation, malnutrition and neglect, banished to a damp cave for their final years. No one knows exactly what happened to them - they just evaporated from official public memory, without any outcry or questioning from the international community. So now some 20 years after the death of the monarchy, Luang Prabang remains a town of prosperity and vitality, yet with an important piece of its soul left for dead in some unknown northern cave.
Despite its sad, unspoken history, Luang Prabang certainly overcomes the past by putting its best foot forward. We turned right away from the Mekong and found Wat Nong Sikhonmeuang glistening gold in the sunlight. It's a minor wat by Luang Prabang standards, not to mention a young one - originally built in 1729, rebuilt in 1804 after being sacked by the Thais in 1774. But it's our first wat here and the sun reflecting so powerfully off of the west side of the sim made this small wat seem so grand.
As we continued past Wat Nong Sikhonmeuang I noticed a group of kids playing in the open doorway of a house. I quietly approached them, trying to get a candid photograph. But one of the boys looked up at me and blew my cover, causing the girls to giggle and scurry behind the door, peeking their heads out from behind the teak wood frame as if to tease me and my camera. I playfully charged them, holding my camera to my face. Again they laughed and let out a playful scream, running behind a wooden pole. The boys taunted the girls for not being brave enough to mug for the camera; eventually, some of the girls relented. An older man, perhaps one of their grandfathers, stood inside a garage just across the street, smoking his pipe and laughing while gesturing at the kids to pose for a picture. I got a few decent shots and thanked the kids: "Khop Jai, lai lai," thank you very much. "Sabai dee," they shouted back. I figured we had stumbled onto an unusually gregarious bunch of Lao children, but as we walked the streets of Luang Prabang Susanne and I concluded that outgoingness and joie de vivre was par for the course for the people of this lovely town. I knew I was going to like this town.
A block up the road we reached Wat Saen, the 100,000 Wat, so named for the 100,000 kip endowment that helped found it in 1718. Wat Saen had been refurbished in the late 1950s so it felt quite recent, with its many small sims looking freshly gilded, each sporting fine bronze Buddha statues inside. Behind an open-air boat house, two young novice monks at a water pump washed themselves in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Their heads appeared freshly shaven. Susanne approached them slowly - clearly this was an intimate moment for them, but oh, what a photo op. Then one of the novices noticed her, smiled and said, "Shiny hair." A reference to Susanne's blondeness or their baldness, who's to say. Susanne smiled back and soon they were introducing themselves to each other. I had stood back for much of the conversation - I wasn't as bold of a photojournalist as she was - but when I saw them talking, I joined in the conversation and introduced myself. We talked for a bit and then left them to their washing. They, like many of the other young novices of Luang Prabang, were eager to practice their English. We didn't get beyond the basic smalltalk with these two but they could say more in English than I could ever say in Lao, so I was quite impressed.
Near the end of the peninsula we found the southeast gate to Wat Xieng Thong, the most venerated wat in Luang Prabang. Built around 1560 by King Saisetthathirat, Xieng Thong remained under royal patronage for the next 415 years. Its main sim is also one of the finest examples of the Luang Prabang style of architecture. Unlike the sims of Vientiane, which tend to be built tall and thin, Luang Prabang's sims are low to the ground, with three levels of sweeping tiled roofs on each side, giving it the shape of a stubby triangle from the front. The Luang Prabang style is one of the only living remnants of Laos' golden age kingdom of Lane Xang - the Land of One Million Elephants - that reigned proudly from the 16th to 18th centuries. Unlike other wats we had seen, which were centered around the sim, Wat Xieng Thong appeared to be an ensemble of 12 minor stupas, small temples, the sim itself, and a carriage house that held the processional carts used for royal funerals. While other wats crowded many buildings in whatever space was available, Xieng Thong had room to spread out and fall into place naturally like a Japanese garden, with ample space left to accentuate each building.
The main sim of Xieng Thong shone with the light of a thousand little suns as small tiles of colored mirrors enveloped the western wall, forming a mural of a large tree, two peacocks and numerous mystical figures. We stood around in the heat marveling the wat and its mural when a novice leaned out of the window across from the sim and said hello. He asked us where we were from and how long we had been in Laos. He introduced himself as well, but with his accent I had a hard time telling what his name was. Bu-Wong of Zhuong, perhaps. I felt bad, but didn't want to pester him to repeat it so many times. He was 17 years old and from northern Sanyabuli province, "Not far from China," he said. Despite his thick Lao accent - he couldn't pronounce Susanne's name very well- his English vocabulary and grammar were quite good. He said he had only studied English for a few months, which I found shocking, but I guess that a bright young guy could pick up a lot in two or three months of intensive study. He then invited us to a concert at Wat That Luang that night, which caught us off guard, but we eagerly accepted, despite having no idea what the concert would be like or about. He told us to meet him in front of the monastery at 8pm, which I thought would work well since I wanted to try a particular Lao restaurant not far from there. We talked a little while longer and then said goodbye, looking forward to see him at the concert that night.
On the northern side of Xieng Thong we found a high row of stone steps leading down to the Mekong river. I walked down to the shore, where a group of four teenage girls in blue school uniforms sat on a sand bar and tossed rocks into the water. One of them turned and saw me. She quickly pulled her friends into a huddle and started to whisper and giggle. One of them started to talk rather loudly, saying "mon cheri, je t'aime," and then "Oh yes, I love you, yes," while the others laughed hysterically. They looked back at me to see if I was embarrassed. I blew them a kiss instead. They screamed in surprise and started to laugh even more. A minute or two later some boys pulled up on a large sampan. The entire group then climbed back to the road and headed into town.
Back up top I met Susanne, who was sitting on a marble banister admiring the view. A thin, middle aged Lao man approached us and asked me in perfect French, "Parlez-vous Francais, monsieur?" "Un peu," I responded, "but I prefer English. "If you prefer English, that's fine," he said, switching languages with ease. "Would you like to go to Pak Ou caves? 25,000 kip." That was about 15 dollars, not a bad price. Younger boatmen had pestered us before about visiting these famous Buddhist shrines 25 miles upriver, but I liked this man's laid back nature, so we accepted his offer. 9am Saturday sounded good at the time, so we planned to meet him then.
Back along the boulevard along the Mekong we stopped at a small wooden cafe for a short rest. We ordered some Cokes and enjoyed the view over the river, watching sampans going by and naked children joyously prancing at the water's edge as the sun sank lower in the southwestern sky. One of the waitresses there was having a few drinks with two men. The three of them had already put away six one-liter bottles of BeerLao, the national drink, and they seemed deeply engrossed in discussing the day's gossip. I stepped down to the balcony to admire the view over the river. Every time I looked back at the table, I caught sight of one of the two Lao men in the corner of my eye. He was smiling brightly at me, as if to say "I'm so glad you're enjoying my home town." In all of my travels I'd never felt that kind of genuine welcoming presence before, and it made me feel all the more comfortable in this distant, unknown land.
After polishing off our Cokes we returned to the hotel for a much needed shower and change of clothes. Everything we had to wear smelled terribly so we committed to doing laundry the next day, no matter the inconvenience of having to buy some t-shirts just so we'd have some clean clothes to wear. We then caught a jumbo to Malee Lao Food, a friendly Lao restaurant just southwest of old town. Even though it was an open air restaurant, the tables and walls were free of pests, not including the ever present geckos that we always took as signs of good luck. In the back corner of the restaurant Malee's children huddled around a television watching a Chinese import soap opera Kung Fu adventure flick. I felt like we were eating in Malee's Living Room, but that was okay.
Susanne and I split a large bottle of BeerLao - surprisingly tasty and refreshing, we thought - as we snacked on a couple of small bananas while waiting for the main course. For dinner we had a plate of ginger chicken, thick chunks of ginger and bony dark meat chicken that was flavorful but somewhat disappointing; chicken laab, a Lao specialty of ground meat, watercress and mint, lightly sauteed but practically raw- very good but risky from a gastrointestinal point of view; and sticky rice, the ever present, super glutinous Lao rice served in steam baskets. I noshed on the laab and peeled off fingerfuls of rice, rolling it into a ball with one hand and dipping it into the entrees, as is the Lao custom, while Susanne pragmatically used her fork with much more success. We also ordered a backup of tam yam gai, spicy chicken soup with lemongrass that's usually a safe bet. This time the soup contained a pasta- like substance that fanned out in the shape of a poppy flower - I couldn't tell if it was a plant, a piece of chicken skin, or what - but it was really delicious.
After dinner we walked down the road to That Luang monastery to find Bo-Wong or whatever his name was - boy, I really felt bad about not knowing his name. Maybe I'd find a polite way to ask him again or even write it down for us. It was dark and the monastery was hidden deep behind a large field which we approached cautiously. As we navigated the compound I felt my left foot sink deep into the ground - I had stepped into a swamp- and my hiking boots, socks and the only clean trousers I had were enveloped in thick, warm, gooey mud. "Jesus Christ!" I started to yell, almost ready to throw my camera into the ground. I saw a young monk rinsing his plastic sandals and feet under a water pump. He looked at me and gave me a classic Asian giggle of embarrassment, shaking his head back and forth. In that singular moment of clarity, I understood the wisdom of wearing sandals instead of Nikes. The monk continued to smile in humorous disappointment. I could feel my socks drip with warm dampness - there was no way I could handle a concert in this condition.
Upset for my troubles, we caught a jumbo back to the hotel. I washed off my shoes and trousers in the shower, hoping that the brave hotel laundry staff could repair the damage done. And I hoped that our young monk friend would forgive us for standing him up, if we could only find him the next day. And if I could only remember his name...
Friday, November 14 A Bicycle Tour of Town
Today was Wat Day in Luang Prabang - not that anyone had declared it as such, of course. As I mentioned earlier, Susanne had worried at Angkor that she wouldn't see enough monks. Luang Prabang, with its 32 monasteries, I promised, would essentially be One Big Monk. And today was the day we would go out in search of that Monk.
Breakfast at the hotel wasn't very satisfying - the sliced baguettes were so stale they scratched the roof of my mouth. At 8:30am a heavy fog hung over Luang Prabang, with only the Mekong valley visible in full. Until there was more sun than this, picture taking would be a questionable task. So, I suggested we visit the royal palace, which was open precisely from 8:30am to 10:30am each day - two hours for the Lao government would allow its people a peak into its glorious, yet all-too-recent monarchical past.
I received a permission slip from the hotel for 1000 kip; without it, we wouldn't be allowed into the palace. We then walked down the street to the palace, past a row of Hmong women selling patches of woven fabric. From the side the palace looked like a flat, one-story college campus building. But as we crossed to the front of the palace, it began to show off the regal splendour that I had expected. A wat-like spire reached upward from its center as marbled steps led way to the entrance, where we were requested payment of another 1000 kip each, the stowage of our bags and cameras, and the removal our shoes.
Before actually going through the front door of the palace, we were ushered off to the far right side, where we could see a collection of royal Buddha images through an iron gate. Among these relics sat the Pha Bang, the 83 centimeter solid gold Buddha that gives Luang Prabang its name, City of the Great Pha Bang. According to legend, the Pha Bang is almost 2000 years old, having made its way over the centuries from its birthplace in Sri Lanka to Laos, where it was given to Fa Ngum, the Lao warrior who used his connections in the Khmer empire to wrestle northern Laos from the Thai kingdom of La Na (Lanna). With the Pha Bang is his possession, Fa Ngum declared himself the first king of Lane Xang Hom Khao, A Million Elephants and a White Parasol. Along with the famed Emerald Buddha, the Pha Bang served as the legitimator of Lao sovereignty. Over the years, though, the Thais managed to capture both the Emerald Buddha and the Pha Bang. Though the Thais kept the Emerald Buddha for themselves, Thai King Rama IV returned the Pha Bang to Luang Prabang in the 1860s, where it has remained ever since.
Or has it? Many Lao believe that the Pha Bang on display is actually a gold plated replica, while the original statue is kept in Vientiane or (even worse) Moscow. Lao officials deny this, of course. The Great Pha Bang was truly a marvelous statue, but in all honesty, if I hadn't known the history behind it, I might have easily overlooked it. The Pha Bang's unusual display on the outside right of the museum and its lack of fanfare was a far cry from the near- idolatrous homage paid to the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, or even the simple dignity of the Gold and Emerald Buddhas in Phnom Penh's Silver Pagoda. This Buddha inspired no holy awe. I wondered if that's exactly what the current communist government intended.
Susanne and I entered the royal audience chamber, with its splendid tile murals and grand throne. The other rooms of the house, equally regal in their arrangement, were more scaled back, at times seeming utilitarian. The King's and Queen's bedrooms appeared as they were left in 1975 - empty rooms apart from basic sets of teak beds, chairs, and tables. A small dining room was decorated in a 1950s art deco style - more tasteful than Graceland, but a distance Asian cousin nonetheless. The final rooms displayed gifts from other nations to the Lao PDR, including a moon rock given by President Nixon. According to the Lonely Planet guide, gifts were labeled as being either from socialist or capitalist nations, but since all of these labels were in Lao I couldn't tell the difference.
We stepped outside and put our shoes on. The sky was opening up, the fog beginning to clear. We were still a bit hungry due to our poor breakfast, so we walked to a bakery on Luang Prabang's main road. It was crowded with farangs eating muesli and baguettes, so we got comfortable and enjoyed an order of banana bread and coffee. We talked about renting motor scooters that day, but next door the asking price was $20 a bike, much more than we wanted to spend. On the other side of the bakery a bicycle shop rented bikes at 2000 kip a day - about $1.20. We rented two of them and went on our merry way.
We didn't have a particular itinerary for our bike ride so we started by heading up to the tip of the peninsula and then to the left along the quiet boulevard along the Mekong. There was a slight decline in the road so we coasted along as other bicyclists and the occasional motor scooter rider passed us in the other direction. The road curved away from the Mekong eventually, so our view was no longer as attractive. Upon reaching the perimeter of town we cut left, past the town's lone Shell station and the Malee Lao Food restaurant where we had eaten the night before.
There wasn't much of interest in this part of town, so we took another left and soon reached the quaint wooden bridge over the Nam Khan that we had crossed yesterday. Because it was a single lane bridge, we waited for a stoplight to signal our turn to cross the river. I looked to the right as we rode over the bridge and saw a wat perched over a hill beyond the river. We parked our bikes on the far side of the bridge and doubled back by foot to get a better view. If it weren't for the wat I could have pictured this bridge, stream and valley scene to be at home in New Hampshire rather than Lao PDR.
I knew there were some minor wats on this side of the bridge, so we continued past a market and hung a right along a dirt road until we reached Wat Tao Hai. We found a small sim decorated with scenes from the Buddha's life, apparently designed by children judging from the painting style. Inside the monastery buildings surrounding the sim several young novices peered out at us and smiled, mouthing the words "Sabai dee." I thought it was pretty cool I could actually read lips in Lao, even if it only was one phrase that every visitor here knew. Susanne got a nice picture at the back of the sim with her wide angle lens while I walked back around it, where I met several young kids on their way to school beyond the monastery. I gave them my best Lao small talk - hello, how are you, what is your name, how old are you, I'm from America - and they giggled with each feeble attempt. Meanwhile, I noticed Susanne was now sitting next to a novice, about 16 years old, which I thought was odd since novices and monks aren't allowed to come in direct contact with women. I went over and said hello, just to see what was up. The novice spoke a little English, but I surmised he was most interested in sitting so close to a young American woman. Several of his novice friends sat on a porch nearby, watching intently to see how close he would get. Susanne didn't seem to mind; it was harmless enough.
We returned to our bikes after pausing to say hello to some more children who were on their way to school. Then we headed back down the dirt path, over the main road and onward down another semi-paved road where more wats awaited us. After 200 yards or so we reached a fork in the road by a small wat. Our Lonely Planet map didn't show a fork at this particular point, so we took a guess and went right. Numerous schoolchildren passed us on foot, yelling "Hello!" in English. There was a very small wat at the end of the street, but we figured we had gone in the wrong direction, so we turned around and continued past the earlier fork in the road.
There was a residential neighborhood with houses ranging from small shacks to shiny teak cottages with fresh flowers on every window sill. Scores of butterflies hovered over rows of rose bushes. So many butterflies in this country, I thought; I had never seen anything like this before. Land of one million elephants? Land of one million butterflies seemed much more appropriate.
Just beyond another wooden bridge we found Wat Sa-At, another minor monastery, this one with a beautiful view of Luang Prabang and the Nam Khan river. Three old monks sat in a wooden hut, apparently in the midst of a reading, but they paused to smile at us and say hello. I sat for a while on a bench near the river, contemplating the serenity of the scene before me. It was now around 12:30pm and the heat of the mid day would soon be upon us, so we decided to head back to the center of town. But a young novice approached us and said hello, then asked if we spoke any Lao. Naively, I responded with "Phom phoot phasaah Thai nitnoi, khap," I know a little Thai. The young novice grinned and called out something in Lao to a friend, but I knew exactly he was saying: "Hey, come over here! This farang says he speaks Thai!" His friend, another novice, approached us and said to me, "Sawatdee khap, khun phoot phasaah Thai, chai mai khap?" I timidly responded, "Phoot Phasaah nitnoi, mai mahk, khap" - I speak a little, not very well, though. We then began a difficult dialogue (difficult for both of us, I imagine):
"Khun cheu arai khap?" "Phom cheu Andy, khap." "Khun Andy, khun maa chaak tee nai khap?" "Maa chaak Washington DC, khap. Pen khon American." "Khun chohp PahtLao, chai mai?" "Huh?" "PahtLao. Khun.. Chohp... PahtLao... chai mai?"
I was stumped by this one, and responding "huh?" again and again probably didn't give him the answer he wanted. The novice repeated it one more time, smiling patiently and gesturing to the air around him with his hand. "Oh!" I exclaimed. "Do I like Laos?" Duh, I should have expected that question. "Chohp khap! Phom chohp Pathet Lao mahk mahk!" Both he and the other novice understood my response and grinned, nodding their heads approvingly. With each new question, though, my comprehension got worse. I knew he was asking me how long we had been in Laos, when we planned to leave and the like, but I didn't know how to say the answers in Thai, apart from throwing out a few numbers. So I started to spew out a laundry list of simple Thai sentences, just enough to cover any potential questions he might still want to ask. He smiled as I talked, nodding in comprehension with each comment. Eventually we said goodbye, as I gave a quiet sigh of relief that I had survived my first real dialogue in Thai - a chat with a nice young Lao who didn't speak a word of English. I just wondered if I'd ever get a similar opportunity in Thailand. Perhaps I should have studied Lao instead.
Susanne and I returned to our bikes and crossed back over the wooden bridge to the Luang Prabang peninsula. We caught some shade at another minor wat and then continued right to Wat Wisunalat, also known as Thaat Makmo - the Watermelon Stupa. Originally constructed in the early 1500s, Thaat Makmo was one of the oldest wats in Luang Prabang. Though its sim is nothing unusual, Wisunalat is best known for the large stupa in front of it, a hemispherical structure built in 1513 that looks like a half of a watermelon jutting out of a white stone base. Just next to the stupa was Wat Aham, a quiet monastery best known for two large Bodhi trees and its former role as the residence of the Sangkhalat, the Supreme Patriarch of Lao Buddhism. Outside of the sim an old monk showed us around and into the sim, where he offered to sell us "wats in a bottle" - glass bottles with wooden sims inside, not unlike a ship in a bottle. He then sat in a small gilded booth, barely bigger than he was, and invited us to take pictures. We smiled, took some shots and thanked him, eventually leaving the sim as he remained quite comfortably inside his booth. As we crossed through the compound, a group of boys played with a bicycle. They laughed and mugged for pictures enthusiastically.
Back at our own bikes, I looked up the road and saw a splendid view of Phu Si, the 100 meter hill that sits at the center of the Luang Prabang peninsula. At its summit I could see Thaat Chomsi, the 80 foot stupa that dates back to the early 1800s. I had a momentary flashback to the stupa of Swayumbunath near Kathmandu, its mystical eyes peering out in four directions from its hilltop perch. There were no eyes looking down at me from the top of Phu Si, but yet I felt the same serenity here that I had last felt in the Kathmandu Valley. Luang Prabang was truly a special place.
We dropped off the bicycles at the shop around 1pm and grabbed some more banana bread at the bakery. There were two Americans inside, a man from New York and a woman who happened to be from DC, as well as a tall, mysterious Englishwoman. The man was on a round-the-world meditative trek, while the American woman had taken six months off from the World Bank to travel across Asia. I'm not exactly sure what the Brit's itinerary was, though she did talk about how she thought bald men were very attractive. Susanne and I finished our snack, so we retreated to our air-conditioned room at the Hotel Phousy for a couple of hours - we were sweaty and in dire need of showers at this point.
By mid afternoon we decided to visit the two wats just behind the hotel, Wat Ho Siang and Wat That. A group of novices horsed around near Wat That's drum house, tossing a ball at each other and occasionally banging on some large cymbals. Susanne was looking a bit tuckered out - she had been suffering from insomnia for a few nights - so we decided to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon and focus our efforts on souvenir hunting. Most of the shops carried similar items - carved teak, cymbals and gongs, opium scales, and above all, a wide selection of beautifully embroidered textiles, a specialty of many of the local hilltribes. The workmanship was both complex and delicate, yet most pieces sold for less than 10,000 kip - about seven dollars. Susanne wanted to buy some cloth even though we couldn't figured out what to do with linen shaped in a 2"x7" rectangle. Hang it, I guess. At one shop run by a severely hunched over old woman, Susanne found a gorgeous red woven cloth for 6000 kip - four dollars. The old woman even appeared ready to settle for 5000 kip until her husband arrived, at which point she steadfastly stuck to 6000 kip. Either way it was a great bargain, so Susanne bought the cloth.
Down the road we could hear drumming from Wat Mai, one of the largest wats in town. Novice monks were hammering out a fast rhythm in the drum house, using the main drum, two gongs and some large cymbals. Some tourists crowded around the drum house trying to get pictures, and the monks managed to ignore them. We eventually joined in the intrusion and got some nice pictures up close. We then headed further down the street in search of my own souvenirs. I settled on a piece of carvedvarnished teak - a profile of a menacing Lao demon mask.
At 5pm we opted for an early dinner at the Villa Santi, commonly known as the Villa de la Princesse. This 120-year-old colonial mansion was the home of Crown Princess Khampa, the highest ranking member of the Lao royal family to survive the Pathet Lao takeover in 1975. The villa was confiscated in 1976 but returned to the princess in the early 1990s. She has since renovated the place into a luxury inn and Lao-French restaurant, whose chef is the daughter of the last King's private chef. The inside of the villa glistened with varnished teak, but we opted to sit on the balcony overlooking the town.
Susanne and I decided to splurge that night, ordering our meal course by course. We started with bowls of soup - a buttery vegetable soup called Soupe de la Princesse, which was too oily for my taste, and a marvelous onion and wild mushroom soup. The mushrooms, I realized, were those delicate pasta-like fans I had enjoyed the night before in my soup at Malee's restaurant. Next, we ordered a plate of seven small spring rolls, each packed with cellophane noodles and ground meat. The soup and spring rolls could have been a meal in itself but we continued with entrees of a lemongrass stuffed chicken baked in banana leaves - white meat, finally! - and traditional Lao sausage which tasted not unlike a hearty German sausage, though I dared not ponder its ingredients. Steaming hot rice complimented the entrees - the waiter would scoop fresh heaps of the stuff each time we came close to clearing the plate. Feeling as if we would burst, we arrogantly pushed forth, ordering a dessert of fresh pineapple and papaya and the best creme caramel I've ever had. Fully engorged, we slumped over in satisfaction, smiling intently. It was the most expensive meal of our trip - a little over 20,000 kip total, around 12 dollars. We promised ourselves we'd be back tomorrow.
We enjoyed a slow walk back to the hotel, passing the many wats and streetside shops we had come to know so well. Out in front of the old woman's shop where Susanne had purchased her cloth, her two grandchildren played with one of the neighbor's children. We had seen these two kids before - a two year old boy and a three year old girl - in our previous walks, and even managed to get some pictures of them. This time, though, upon seeing us they charged along side, putting their hands together in a prayer-like wai and said "Sabai dee!" in a quick and cute way that only a small child could. I greeted them back and they repeated the gesture. "Sabai dee!" they yelled. This went back and forth as the boy explored my camera and even gave me a small vanilla cookie, about the size of a dime.
I then jokingly held out my hand, palm up, and said "Gimme five," to which Susanne responded by slapping her hand onto mine. I did the same to her and we repeated the process as the two kids gazed in wondrous fascination. I then put out my hand to the boy and said "gimme five" to him. He stared back blankly for a second, but his sister, apparently a quick study, slapped down her hand into mine. Getting her to turn her hand over in reciprocation took some coaxing but she soon got the hang of it. Eventually the little boy caught on and slapped my hand while letting out a joyful "Gaa!" noise. The kids now had their first taste of inane American culture. Within a few minutes, the little girl had graduated to doing both hands at once, while the boy did his best to keep up. Their mother and grandmother sat by and laughed as we played together, but I could see it was getting well past their bedtime - ours too, for that matter. So we waved bye-bye to them, and the little boy gave us a valedictory "Sabai dee" as we parted.
Not far from the hotel, three monks walked past us from behind. They all said "sabai dee" and "excuse me," but one of them, a tall, headshaven young man with a huge orange wool cap sitting on the top of his head, said "Excuse me for yesterday" as he walked on by. At first I attributed his comment to developing English skills but I then wondered if he could be the novice who had invited us to the concert. There was no way I would have recognized him in the orange cap and freshly shaven head. I hoped he had simply misspoken.
Another group of novices caught up with us from behind. One of them, a lanky fellow with a confident smile and an easygoing gait, strode right next to us and said, "So where are you going?" which is a common form of hello in Thai and Lao. "Hotel Phousy," I said. "Long day." "We're going to a concert. All the local monks will be there," he replied proudly, as if it were his official duty to keep us informed of community events. We chatted with him and eventually asked if we could go to the concert, but he pointedly said "No." He paused for a moment and then continued, "Village people only. Special religious festival." It was a Buddhist full moon event and it probably would have been inappropriate for nonbelievers to stroll in with cameras in hand. That's OK. We talked about his shaved head for a while. "Shaved today, for the full moon," he said. Apparently the novices would shave their heads again for each full moon. The tall novice had a street-wise air to him that I hadn't noticed in any of the other young Lao men we had met. Clearly this kid was the leader of the pack. We parted company across the road, just by the hotel gate. "Good luck," he said to us, smiling. "Shohk dee," I said back, translating it back into Lao. "Shohk dee!" he laughed. "Ah, very good, very good..." he said as he waved and walked down the road, his band of younger novices trailing his footsteps.
Susanne and I returned to the hotel and got ready for bed. As I shut off the lights, I thought of the little boy and his sister shouting "Sabai dee" to us. I went to sleep with a smile on my face.
Posted by acarvin at December 23, 1997 01:56 PM | TrackBack