On the Mekong

We arrived in Luang Prabang yesterday afternoon via prop plane, which was surprisingly smooth. The interesting thing was that we asked for seats up front in the plane, and we boarded through the rear, and first class seats are in the back! Who knew? The terrain changed from the flat of Vientiane to rolling hills and actual mountains. Luang Prabang is right on the Mekong River where it converges with the smaller Nam Khan River. This town is very old and definitely has more of a French feel about it.

We were so happy to be greeted by Von, the innkeeper at our guest house, Chitdara, right on the Mekong. He is so warm and friendly with the most lovely accent that we feel quite at home, and all the beautiful, rich wood paneling adds to the charm.

In the afternoon we walked around the main part of town, did a little shopping, and climbed, according to Melody's count, 328 steps to That Phousy, a hilltop shrine/stupa. While at the top we just relaxed on the steps and watched the sun sinking beyond the mountains.

Below - the night market! Abuzz with people of so many nationalities and locals selling handicrafts. So many beautiful fabrics and colors - scarves, linens, bags, clothing. Sometimes you want to buy something just to give the sellers money as they seem to need it so desperately. It doesn't seem worth the bother to haggle a price down a dollar or two, I'd just as soon give it to the them.

Today we took a boat excursion up the Mekong to Pak Ou Caves, which are set into limestone cliffs and crammed with supposedly over a thousand images of Buddha. These big steps made the ones yesterday seem like a walk in the park! We also make a stop at Whiskey Village where we sampled Laos Whiskey, a sweetish kind of rice wine/liquor not much to my liking.

But more fun than the stops was the boat ride itself and the nice young captain who took our party of five, me, Melody, Laurie, and two German women. Turns out they were both traveling solo and had just met here in Laos and decided to stay together for a while. They were so delightful. One was about our age, lives in Munich and works for a large corporation that checks out hotels and rental cars for tourists. She just got back from nine months in Israel and decided it was time she did a trip on her own and she was having a blast. The other younger woman was actually Austrian and on her way to meet her boyfriend in India. As the ride was two hours there and one hour back we had time for several interesting discussions about national guilt, relative to a German in Israel and Americans in SE Asia. Also talked about families and kids, etc etc. A very enjoyable day, a lovely, lush river. (Couldnt' help but think about Apacolypse Now and the Ride of the Valkyries.) But seriously, it is so hard to imagine what it must have been like for those soldiers, not to mention the villagers, back in the time of the war.

This morning I got up early before we caught our boat to go to the cash machine and was fortunate enough to see the monks walking through town asking for alms. The locals give them rice and food and pray at the temple. Tomorrow morning we'll go back and watch the whole ritual, then in the afternoon we fly to Hanoi. From Hanoi we will go to Halong Bay for two nights on a boat, so no internet or blog for a while.

Could write more about the wonderful dinner we had, the rickety bamboo bridge we walked over to cross the river, or the fabulous foot massages we had, but need to post this and get packed and get ready for another adventure tomorrow!