and on to Luang Prabang

By Bea
13-17/03.2019
After a short bus ride and a un-eventful border crossing, we found ourselves in Lao PDR (aka please don’t rush) which seemed fitting given we were about to undertake the “slow boat” trip to Luang Prabang.
There are two options for the 2 day slow boat... one being the cheap, rickety old boat that jam pack more than 100+ people in like a mass bus trip or the other one that take no more than 40 people, with tables and chairs, lunch provided, a couple of sightseeing stops along the way and accommodation in a hotel at the end of day one. This was one of those times we waived the “taking a bit of luxury” card! Glad we did. We only had 10 of us on the boat, so we had plenty of room to move about, change seats, take a nap on one of the 6 day beds and there was plenty of food. The trip down the mighty Mekong was peaceful. It was pretty amazing to think one side of you is Thailand and one side is Laos. It was a trip I’m glad we did. We stopped at a couple of villages along the way. The first we all felt a little bit intrusive as they stood there staring at us whilst our guide explained the way of life. I kept telling myself though this was a way of getting money into their village as all visitors generally made some sort of donation. This village didn’t have electricity and was currently installing water piping through the village.

Overnight we stayed at Pak Bong in a quaint wooden hotel with a view across the river. Pak Bong is a very local town that began life as the overnight stop for vessels trading between Khlong Saen and Luang Prabang it now it also caters to the backpackers following the same route. After a short walk through the town, stopping at the water front to photograph a bunch of kids washing clothes and motorbikes, fishing, swimming and just having fun, we sat on our river balcony, drinking our BeerLao, eating the spicy sausage (bought from a roadside vendor) and just watching the sun set over the Mekong... quite humbling actually.

The second day started out with a lovely misty vista as we travelled down the river, we soon, sadly, realised the lovely morning mist was actually smoke from the copious amounts of forest burn offs that Northern Thailand and Laos controversially conduct. It was horrendous. Although I can understand the need for regeneration but unfortunately the lack of education, lack of funds and understanding to the local farmers makes these few months in this region of SE Asia hard to breathe. It was this reason that we sadly shortened our stay in Luang Prabang. Despite the smoke the day was still enjoyable and relaxing visiting another village, this one was more accustomed to having visitors as they had laid out their woven products ready for sale. Here we tried the local rice wine and whiskey (aka moonshine!!) and yes Pete bought a mini bottle of the moonshine!
Just before arriving in Luang Prabang we visited the Pak Ao cave that housed over 4,000 Buddha images (and a throng of tourists!).

I had heard so much about Luang Prabang and yes, it is as nice as people say. I was a little disappointed though as I found the town to be just guest houses, restaurants... and many wats. It is purely a tourist town. Although now heritage listed, which what gives it its charm. Lovely wooden shop houses line the main street giving it the charisma it is known for.

With over nine wats in historic LP that has a large number of monks that undertake ‘Sai Bat’ the, now famous, ritual procession for the giving of alms that takes place each morning at sunrise. Despite the fact that most of the alms givers are now tourists rather than locals and some watchers can be a little disrespectful, it was still quite a spectacular sight. Each morning we got up early (the first not early enough) to watch and photograph the tranquil scenes as the monks paraded past the alms givers. Unfortunately this proved difficult not from the low dawn but from the thick smoke haze that hung over LP. The last morning we changed locations and found ourselves in an area that was congested of tourists, both experiencing the actual giving of alms or taking photos, not the tranquility of the first two days!!

Anyone visiting Luang Prabang, then a visit to Utopia is a must. This is a bar / restaurant that is super cool. It opens all day. You can visit for breakfast and partake in a sunrise yoga session (yup... that didn’t happen!). Or lazy lunch and afternoon beers (which we did) or join the party sessions at night. Whilst there we saw a list of things to do and see and one of them was a visit to the UXO information centre.

It is unfortunate that the UXO centre (unexploded ordinance) is just a little bit out of town and I hope they move it closer, as it is a place I strongly feel all westerners need to visit. It is still very accessible, an easy walk which we did, or a short tuk tuk ride, but many tourists do get a bit lazy if things aren’t under their noses. This place really had an impact on me. It upset me, it was quite emotional. You need to watch the short film to really understand this. It irks me that people can be so are so intolerant of other opinions or political ideas or religion, sexual preference, skin colour sex and are willing to inflict their beliefs on others, no matter the cost. The fact that while we were visiting the centre we got news of the horrific attack in New Zealand against Muslims further focused this stupidity. In the immortal words of Monty Python
“lets hope there is intelligent life some where out in space because there is bugger all down here on earth”

Laos is the most the most heavily bombed country in history, and it wasn’t even ‘officially’ involved in the Vietnam war. It happened to have the best access route between North and South Vietnam so the righteous westerners ‘saving the world from communism’ bombed the crap out of it. Because Laos was not part of the ‘war’ there were no rules on what or where bombs could be dropped so everything was a target including villages and anywhere there was a road route.
President Kennedy is filmed, out rightly denying any American involvement in the bombing of Lao, yet in the next clip they film the briefing of the bombers before they take off, then say their prays asking God to look after them and bring their men back safely!! WTF!!??? How about the hundreds of thousands of innocent people your about to kill? What hypocrites. (Sorry I will get off my soap box now).

However the numbers are staggering:

• 2.5 million tons of munitions dropped which is more than all bombs dropped on Europe during WWII and equals-
  

*A plane load of bombs unloaded every 8 minutes 24 hours a day for 9 years or
*7 bombs for every man women and child who lived in Laos

• It is estimated that there were approximately 80 million UXO in Laos. Over the last 20 years they have managed to clear about 65 a day- that is 500 thousand cleared to date- ie now there is only 79.5 million left. On these figures clearing will take another 7000 plus years to clear.
  
• Almost everyday one person dies or is injured from an UXO, that is 300 a year and if the above is correct there are 2,100,000 people still to be injured
  

We had planned on undertaking a three day trekking, biking and kayaking trip. With the continuous burning and smoke we really were undecided what to do. It was a hard decision and toyed back and forth every day but in the end we opted out. Firstly not sure what part of the forest was being burned, but the smoke was impossible for photos and the smoke was making it hard to breathe. We decided that northern Vietnam would be better!


With heavy heart we left the lovely Laos to make our onward journey to Vietnam.