29th December 2014 Luang Prabang LAOS

Luang Prabang - Loas  29th Decemebr 2014

Today we explore some of Laos.

Steve and Janette got up at 4.30am to go into town to see the Tak Bat Buddhist monks where at sunrise all the monks (about 500 of them) all proceed up the main street beside the temple and local people give them food which is the only food they get all day. It was quite a sight and for local people to do this every day is pretty impressive.

The Monks at 5.30...not the happiest of looking but not surprising as they probably had to get up at 3 to collect breakfast bare foot and even then its only rice !!

So onwards we went to the Pak Ou caves well outside Luang Prabang which houses a secret temple with thousands of buddah statues in caves in the hillside beside the mighty Mekong. The boat for this trip was at least 5 x larger than the tin bath we went in to the Perfume Pagoda, so Janette was looking much more chipper about this trip, however in the true spirit of travel with the fated four it pays not to count your chickens…..

The boat filling station -  one guy with lit cigarette on board

Well true to form and the joy of travel... the boat engine fails and we are drifting down stream

The clutch on the boat went so we had to wait at the garage while the boatman did some running repairs. Mandy thought about using the loo but decided against it. Off we set again and got about 800m from there only for the clutch to go again. Our boatman then tried to ground us on a sandbank but couldn’t and we were soon heading backwards swept along by the strong Mekong currents. The boatman eventually managed to get us in to the bank on the other side at a farm and we then hijacked a poor Laotian man and his boat (with ventilation) to take us across the river to where our driver would meet us to pick us up. We finally scrambled up the bank at the local transport office to the surprise of the men loading rice sacks for onward distribution!  Not your average tourist trail this….

Well...now what do we do !!!

We drove to the bank opposite the Pak Ou caves and collected our new boat, Janette was checking this one in detail… and set off for the caves. Dismounting onto a pontoon made of bamboo was the days next challenge but the team bounced along and finally made it onto dry land in one piece. The Pak Ou caves while very impressive, paled into insignificance in comparison with the fun getting there !

They are smiling now but they were not like that this morning

A breathtaking 3,800 gold Buddhas inside these caves and nearly as many steps to get up to them - we were all hyper-ventilating when we finally got to the top.
The trip back down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in the afternoon was a real highlight and thankfully uneventful. The scenery was just stunning, Laos is a very pretty, tropical, hilly, fertile country and the sky was bright blue, the sun was hot but not humid a really enjoyable and relaxing afternoon.

Back in Luang Prabang we set off on a walking tour of the town starting with the Royal Palace, a couple more Wat’s and ending up as usual with a rummage through the food market. It is a pretty place with lots of nice little restaurants & bars and cafes, a little more tourist population than we have been used to for the last few weeks, but very sweet.

Back into town across the rickety wooden footbridge in the evening for a wander through the night market which was fun & then sat in one of the bars in the market watching the world go by in the warm balmy evening. Very pleasant end to the day.

After a breakfast outside on a deck overlooking the Khan river (very pleased as our first stop this morning was the Wat Xieng Thong temple which is a beautiful,small complex with the most lovely external and internal decorations. Like the Royal Palace in Bangkok but on a miniature scale which gave it real charm. Our guide "Pon" took Steve to part of the temple where there is a statue of buddah and they say if you can lift it over your head you get good luck. Steve duly managed to lift the buddah so we were assured of good luck from here on (or so we thought..!!).

Gold leaf being applied to the temple although the temple did not have it originally

The unbelievable 13th century wood carvings of all the trades and occupations of day to day life and ceramic wall decorations

Getting across the Mekong is not easy - this woman is carrying shopping

We set off up the Mekong, stopped off at the local Texaco garage for a fill up and at this point the day started to unravel fast. 

Being stranded in what could have easily been the biggest maritime disaster in history was bad enough bit getting Janette back on a replacement vessel was proving difficult without gas and air. Paul was there to record the event in case she fell in !!!
We all believed that this was to do with Steve having raised the statue and got good luck - maybe he misinterpreted the instructions !

"We will get the sand across one way or the other ".  The transporting sand and building materials by transferring from a lorry to a boat and back to a lorry as there are no nearby bridges.  Sometimes the lorry or the boat gets stuck and require a bit of village muscle.