briandvivgoflashpacking: Saffron and Silk

One of the classic journeys in South East Asia is to take the fourteen hour, two day slow boat from northern Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos, and this was our intention when we planned this part of our trip. However, after hearing the experiences of other travellers who recommended it ("someone had a guitar, we drank beer the whole fourteen hours, it was great"), and who advised against it ("there were no seats, we sat on planks, someone was bitten by a rat"), we chickened out, and in true flashpacker style we jumped on a light aircraft to Chiang Mai, and from there a small jet to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang gets our vote for the most laid-back, totally chilled, quietly appealing tourist destination in South East Asia. Though it's undeniably geared up for visitors, as the centre of Buddhism and former royal city of Laos it has a life and rich history of its own. The people here are gentle and softly spoken and even the traffic is quieter than elsewhere in Asia.

Take a walk down any of the main streets and admire the rows of beautiful shop houses, slip into a quiet temple courtyard and enjoy the serenity, drift back in time while gazing at a gently mouldering pagoda - the options are endless. You can eat authentic Laos food cooked at the roadside, or world-class cuisine at a fancy restaurant (either way you will probably pick up a bug and suffer, sanitation standards being as they are in this part of the world, but that's another story).

Monks in their bright orange robes are very much a part of everyday life in Luang Prabang, and it's hardly possible to walk out of your door without observing them going about their business in time honoured fashion (for example, praying at the temple, gathering alms, making calls on their mobile phones, visiting the ATM).

At night the main street is closed to traffic and becomes transformed with the pavement stalls of the night market. As I wander along under the stars, stroking the beautiful handmade silk scarves and colourful woven bags, Brian breaks the spell by calculating how many thousands of ethnic minority villagers are huddled in the mountains, frantically weaving and cross-stitching to keep the tourist hordes supplied, and concluding that everything comes from one big sweat shop. Regrettably world travel hasn't yet softened his cynicism.

It was very easy to fall under Luang Prabang's spell and totally relax while we looked forward to Boxing Day when our close friends from Norwich, Chris and Enrique, would be arriving for a few days as part of their Indochina tour. After six months it was great to spend time with people we knew well from home - beer and football in the Sports Bar for Brian and Enrique, gossip and shopping for Chris and myself.

Monks going about their daily business on the Mekong.

Buddha images in one of the temples.

Beautiful laquer and glass decoration on a temple building.

Cute temple courtyard.

We stayed in a small bungalow made of tongue and groove wood, rattan panels, and palm-thatched roof on the banks of the Nam Khan river. Our verandah looked over the scene above, where villagers make the most of the fertile silt/soil left behind when the floodwaters recede. From dawn to dusk there was always activity on or around the water; people bathing, catching fish, gathering water weeds to eat (a special delicacy), and endless weeding, digging, planting, and gathering. We found life on the riverbank endlessly diverting, and were often content to sit there for hours at a time making sure the locals weren't slacking.

The daily procession of monks gathering on the main street of Luang Prabang to collect alms, (mainly rice and other food items) from each house in town.

Brian felt that being a monk could be a good life - no real work, free food - and regretted that he wouldn't be able to do it because of all those 4.30am starts. He also offered a theory that no female monks would ever be ordained because there wasn't a woman alive who would wear nothing but the same orange dress every day of her life.

Luang Prabang is a peninsula nestled in the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, which means lots of scenic spots to sit and ponder when you're templed-out.

Clip clop clip clop over the rickety bridge. We crossed this precarious bamboo construction and walked along the Mekong river bank to a village where we could watch ladies weaving beautiful silk garments and fashioning lanterns, cards, books and bags from mulberry leaf paper.