Luang Prabang

On our last morning in Vang Vieng, the power was out, as usual.  We walked to the bus stop and got on a “VIP” bus to Luang Prabang.  I had to take a Dramamine because the bus was plowing down the windy roads and swaying from side to side like the Knight Bus in one of the Harry Potter movies.  The bus ride was about five hours, and we stopped at a roadside establishment to use the squat toilets and have lunch.  The spicy noodle soup was served with side dishes of lettuce, mint leaves, and cucumbers—cool foods to contrast the spiciness of the soup.  Once in Luang Prabang, we found ourselves a guest house, took out some money (I hadn’t been able to use the ATMs in Vang Vieng and had been borrowing money from Malone the whole time!), had dinner, and went to bed.

After our morning fruit shakes, we set off to explore the city.  The thing that attracted me most about Luang Prabang was the vegetation.  Nestled amongst the wats and French villas were palm trees, banana trees, and trees blooming with all kinds of flowers—magenta, pink, red, purple, white, orange, yellow—and orchids and epiphytic ferns sprouting from tree trunks.  We hadn’t seen flowers like these thus far into the trip, with the exception of the Flower Festival in Chiang Mai, perhaps because it was the dry season.  Nevertheless, I truly felt like I was in a tropical city, and the flowers made the city that much more charming.

Our first stop was at the Royal Palace Museum, where we took off our shoes, locked our things in a locker, and Malone paid 2,000 kip to rent a shirt to cover her shoulders.  Also known as Hawkham or Golden Hall, the Royal Palace was built in 1904 for King Sisavangvong and his family.  The palace was converted to a museum after 1975, when the king’s son, Savang Vathana, who inherited the throne when his father died in 1959, was exiled to the caves of Vieng Xai in Northern Laos following a revolution.  Inside the museum, we saw clothing and ornaments of the king and queen, Buddha statues, gifts from other countries (the US gave a model of a space shuttle?), bronze drums with fish and birds engraved on the surfaces and frogs perched on the edges, portraits of kings, and rooms set up as they were when the palace was a home.  Paintings hung the length of a hallway told the story of a prince who was said to be a reincarnation of Buddha.  The prince left the kingdom, gave away all his possessions and went to live in a cave, then gave away his children as well, and somehow was rewarded in the end by returning to the palace, reuniting with his family, and becoming king.  I’m not sure what the moral of the story is, but it’s a favorite in Luang Prabang and told during religious celebrations.

Also in the palace grounds, we attended a photo exhibit called “The Floating Buddha.”  The photographer went to a retreat with novice monks who were just learning about meditation and photographed them in both black and white and in color.  Some of the pictures were really beautiful—monks meditating on the forest floor with leaves all about, monks crossing an open field, an orange robe hung up and flapping in the breeze.

In the afternoon, we walked to the place where the Nam Khan meets the Mekong River.  We paid 5,000 kip to cross a bamboo foot bridge, from which we had a beautiful view of the Mekong and could see young monks bathing in the river with bright orange cloth wrapped around their waists.  Large boulders were strewn about the confluence of the two rivers and monks tended small gardens along the banks.  We followed a dirt path to the shore of the Mekong, where we walked barefoot on the sandy beach, strewn with lumps of clay, before climbing stairs to a small craft village where colorful fabric hung from porches and banana trees lined the dirt road.  The craft village was filled with stalls selling beautiful fabrics and handmade paper.

 

We visited several wats in Luang Prabang.  Within the palace grounds was an emerald and gold wat with intricate patterns in ruby and gold on the inside.  Wat Xieng Thong, built in 1560 by King Setthathirat, was different from other wats we’d seen because it was built with wooden beams and was very old, but this did not prevent it from being as intricate and ornate as the others.  There were mosaics and murals on the outer walls and flowering trees everywhere.  Wat Pahouak was built in 1860 and covered with murals on the inside.  In that wat, I bought two small pieces of art: one of a gold Buddha painted on a leaf and one of orange-robed monks painted on handmade paper. 

 

We walked a steep staircase to the top of a hill that overlooked the city, where Phu Si stood.  We could see from all directions, both rivers, the mountains, the city.  We walked to the top for the sunset, but it was too cloudy to see it.  Walking down a separate path, we passed more wats and large, gold Buddha statues.  We emerged from the trail near the back of a temple where monks sat, singing.