Laos

Feb 28

6 min read

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Sabaide, friends and family,

We are terribly behind on updating this sabbatical blog. Sorry! We're happy to now share photos from our winter holiday in Laos.

We first visited Laos in 2017, during our previous sabbatical. We fell in love with Luang Prabang and vowed to return. We kept that promise this trip and also visited Vientianne and Vang Vieng. Here are some highlights of each.

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is the most charming town we have visited on our travels in Southeast Asia. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site due to its well-preserved mix of Lao, Buddhist, and French architecture, food, and culture. We've rarely felt as relaxed as here.

the main drag, filled with cute shops and cafes

Many buildings were dressed up for the Christmas holiday.

So did many schoolkids on Christmas day.

Luang Prabang is also the most mellow of towns, set between two rivers, including the famous Mekong. Long boats inch up and down, offering a magical view of sunsets.

Cultural Workshops

Davina took a class on Hmong-style batik. She followed a traditional design and indigo-dyed a placemat.

We both took a workshop on bamboo. It was much more interesting than the workshops our university makes us take. The Lao hill people use bamboo for all aspects of life: to build homes, to craft weapons for hunting, to design musical instruments or games to play, to make baskets for foraging, or to make bamboo soup. They are so clever!

They also taught us traditional bambook stick dancing. It's their ankle-breaking take on double-dutch jumprope. Its rhythm sounds ominously like the opening to We Will Rock You. Unfortunately, there was no escaping...

Markets

We visited Luang Prabang's famous night market several times to enjoy the textiles and artwork. We filled a suitcase.

classic Lao silk with fun designs, often with elephants or other important animals.

During our fist trip here in 2017, we bought one of this this man's beautiful watercolor paintings of Buddhist life. He's still at the market. We bravely resisted him several times on this trip before succumbing. We bought two more pieces (shown below). Sigh.

Davina posing with the books she bought for local hill tribe children

Our hotel was on a small alley that also hosts the daily morning market. We had fun watching locals bargain for produce, breads, and live chickens.

Luang Prabang's Outskirts

Luang Prabang has plenty of pretty or interesting attractions nearby. We visited tiered waterfalls, bear and elephant sanctuaries, hill villages, and a rice whiskey distillery.

A thieving elephant after Corwin's lunch

The different ethnic groups celebrate New Years on different dates. The Khmu group's occured during our visit, so we went to one of their celebrations, where families join together for traditional drink and dance.

We also visited a Hmong village to learn a little about their way of life.

Laotians ferment rice to make beer, wine, and whiskey. Some of their whiskeys are for medicinal purposes only, prescribed by local shamans. Scorpion whiskey, anyone?

We also went to a traditional dance performance, with musicians playing classic instruments of the region.

Vientiane

This capitol city is the sleepiest we've seen. A few days was plenty to take in its sights and cuisine.

One peculiar attraction was Buddha Park, a sculpture garden devoted to creative (and sometimes morbid) depictions of Buddhist and Hindu teachings. It was all weird and fascinating.

Nothing to see here. Just a demon in shark shoes carrying a woman, that's all.

While there, we were approached by a Chinese family that, bewilderingly, asked to take a photo with us. Maybe we look like a celebrity couple. Or maybe they haven't seen white people before. Maybe both. Regardless, we liked it! We now offer this service wherever we travel.

Another point of interest was Patuxia, or Victory Monument. A clever twist on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, it was created in remembrance of Laos's independence from France. It has a similar arc structure, set in the main boulevard too, but with buddhist imagery. Take that, France!

Vang Vieng

This small town has drawn European backpackers for several decades. They come for the adventure activities -- 4-wheel buggies, rock climbing and hiking, lagoon swimming, river tubing, hot-air ballooning, and so on -- and the cheap booze. A place better suited for recent college graduates than middle-aged professors, in other words. What were we thinking?

We just couldn't resist the views. This place is irresistably photogenic.

One of the local "blue lagoons", mainly for backpakers to zipline into the cool water.

a view of the valley after a vigorous hike

All tall hills seem to need a large statue in Vang Vieng. Here is Corwin with, um, a pegasus.

Temples

Buddhist temples are a major (and unavoidable) attraction in Laos and Thailand. Every town or city has many of them. And although each is unique and beautiful in some way or another, they do start to blend together after visiting about 10. But did that prevent us from visiting every possible one? No ma'am! Remember, we have Davina on our team. We don't do things by half-measures.

So here are many shots showcasing various temple grounds in Laos. (Sorry, no skipping ahead allowed; if I had to visit them, so do you.)

A large "Reclining Buddha', aka Tuesday Buddha for those born on Tuesdays (Buddha positions vary by days of the week). Corwin thinks this is why he is always feels tired.

check out the small Buddha statues in each cubby hole

Classic Lao temple style. Gold and green work well together!

A peacock statue on one temple's grounds. Yes, a peacock. Becuase why not?

All of the Buddha styles together under one sacred tree

showing respect to a national leader, adjacent to a famous temple in Ventiane

shops near major temples sell flower arrangements to give Buddha during prayers

leaning out of one mosaic-covered temple room

Some temples are set dramatically on mountain sides.

And some others are set inside island caves, reached only by boat.

cave temples have hundreds of small Buddha statues

Monks

Where there are temples, there are monks. In Laos, many temples also double as schools and provide job training. They are central to life here.

Throughout the region, you'll see monks offer blessings in exchange for food offerings that they take back to the temple to share with the group. In Luang Prabang, a tourist-friendly town, it's more like a parade of monks winding past tourists who want selfies to go along with their blessing.

We have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. It's fascinating to see an ancient ritual still going, largely unchanged, in modern times. But it's also upsetting to see so many tourists behave poorly (e.g. getting very close for photos, being loud) and offer packaged junk food instead of recommended freshly made food...

Reflections on Laos

A few final observations...

Like its neighbors Vietnam and China, Laos is a communist country ruled by one party. Its national flag and communist flag always always fly together -- even on western multinational businesses like 7-Eleven or this Germany financial services company's building. It takes some getting used to.

Laos has suffered.

Did you know that Laos was the most bombed country, per capita, in the world? It was hit with over 2 million tons of US bombs in the 60's-70's. That's more than all of the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan in WWII.

Many of those bombs failed to detonate during the war. But they are still 'live' and deadly, as many Laotians have discovered since the war.

President Obama visited in 2016 to acknowledge it and apologize, a classy move that was deeply appreciated here; locals still talk about it. Since the mid-1990's, the US has sent funding and assistance to identify and remove those "unexploded ordinances" (UXOs).

We visited the UXO Visitor Center, a museum dedicated to teaching us about how the war and the bombs left behind have affected Laos. It was deeply moving.