A couple of days in Luang Prabang: Let's eat!

December 2, 2014

Once upon a time Luang Prabang was the capital city of Laos and the seat of the royal family, until all that monarchy business came to an end in 1975 at the climax of the Second Indochina War, and it therefore represents probably the most important location in the history of the country. Nowadays it is more like the tourist capital of the country, with foreigners flocking to check out the mixture of Buddhist temples and colonial buildings in the surprisingly small town. Us hungry cyclists had our priorities straight though, and, recognising that the presence of so many tourists meant that western food was readily available, we first flocked to see the pizza and the french bread and the whatnot and whathaveyou.

Pizza and panda pictures! Does life get any better than this? I think not!

Who would have thought bread could bring a man so much happiness?

This is a silly photo but I like it because there is so much joy in it

Apologies for the camera work. Can't get the staff these days

I think they got the name wrong. It's white isn't it?

'Hmmm... that's not a real KFC though is it?'

Once our stomachs were thoroughly satisfied we thought it a good idea to do a bit of sightseeing and so we went to the most famous of the temples, the Wat Xieng Thong. At our arrival the ticket woman declared Dea's shorts to be a little too short and her shoulders a little too bare and, as she was at risk of setting monk's pulses racing, she was asked to cover up with rented shawls. Had we felt the need to object I should have pointed out that the monks themselves were allowed to bare their shoulders, well, one at least, and that perhaps this might set Dea's pulse racing, and be just as likely to end in unholy behaviour, but none of us did feel the need to object, and so I pointed out nothing. Instead I followed the others over to the main temple where I removed my shoes and cap, hoped this wouldn't set anyone's pulse racing, and went inside.

The temple was not very large inside and the eye was immediately drawn to a large golden Buddha at the far end. Below this was a display of many other smaller Buddhas, candles, lights, and offerings. At first the four of us were the only ones there, but as we walked around admiring the intricate drawings on the pillars and walls a small procession of people entered. There were two monks wearing the traditional orange robes, but there was also a young boy wearing the same outfit in white. He was walking with a man that appeared to be his father, and they were followed by a few others, and then, completing the ensemble, came a group of French tourists lead by a rather loud speaking tour guide. He appeared to be explaining that the boy would today become a fully-fledged monk and that his father was here to 'give him away' to the monastery.

Dino and I took a seat on the floor at the back of the temple to watch the ceremony. The girls preferred to leave, perhaps not wanting to intrude, perhaps not wishing to set pulses racing, perhaps still humming 'respect the monk, respect the monk' to themselves. But I felt Dino and I were doing our best to be respectful. The two monks took their places in front of the Buddha and faced the others, the boy and his father were directly opposite, facing the Buddha, and behind them the other people, most likely other family members. Behind the other family members there was a long-haired Maori man and a filthy urchin. But when everybody else took a seat, me and the long-haired Maori man followed suit, tucking our feet under us in the mermaid position. We knew this was basic etiquette - not to stand higher than the monks, or to show our feet. Unfortunately not all of the other tourists that also wanted to see the show quite understood this.

But it was certainly worth watching. One of the monks held up a shield of some sort and chanted some mantras for quite a long time. Prayers were said, gifts were offered, and the young boy, who was only nine or ten, was taken behind a screen where his father exchanged his white robes for orange ones. All of this was very special to witness. What unfortunately spoiled it were the idiot foreigners that kept coming in and, without showing the least courtesy, remained standing, talked loudly, and snapped photos, very often with the flash. One particularly obnoxious Frenchman leaned over some of the family with a video camera to get a good close up of the proceedings, whilst a Chinese woman squawked loudly at the back. It was all rather sad and it made me reflect a little on our world, and in particular I questioned what it was about our silly modern society that makes us so desperate to record everything that we do. I knew most of the people that came in and took those photos would publish them on Facebook with narcissistic intentions to show the world how very interesting their own lives are. Look how great I am, look what I saw today! And yet, how many of them actually really saw it and why did they feel the need to show such little respect to a small boy during a ceremony that probably represented the biggest moment of his young life? How many noticed the apprehension in his eyes when he glanced behind him and saw the cameras and I-phones pointed at him? And I'm ashamed to say I wanted to take a photo of it all myself and I wondered why I couldn't just appreciate the moment without having the urge to do that. And, anyway, I'm as narcissistic as they come aren't I? Not content just to photograph my life but feeling the additional need to write all about it too! But I did, at least this time, resist the urge to take a photo, and Dino and I slipped out quietly. Don't worry though, Dino took one:

Photo taken by the long-haired Maori man at the back

On another building it was interesting to see this man applying fresh gold leaf. He was doing it by applying one small square at a time from peelable paper

There were quite a few buildings at the monastery

A litte known fact - the figures on the outside of this building inspired the annoying classic hit single 'It's raining men'

"I told you this elephant was too heavy for us!"

That evening by chance we met up with Michael and Jocelyn again and another touring cyclist that they had picked up somewhere, and we all went for dinner. The new cyclist was a 22-year-old German kid named Robin who had cycled most of the way from Europe, although in a sensible move he'd taken a flight across most of China. I sat next to Robin and I was very glad that I did, for he soon proved himself a most interesting character. Having spent a few weeks cycling with a couple of Swedish magicians he had picked up a few card tricks which he offered to show me. I agreed, and said I'd show him my one and only card trick. Well, this guy just blew my mind. His tricks were amazing. I'd never seen anything like it before. I was very impressed and lost all interest in showing him my trick, feeble as it was in comparison.

The other interesting thing about Robin was that he had just bought a boat. Apparently he'd had enough of cycling and had decided that he'd rather take a boat the rest of the way along the Mekong. There weren't any boats taking passengers downstream this year though, because there wasn't enough water, and so Robin had just gone out and bought himself a boat, and evidently he'd decided that there was plenty enough water for him, because he planned to take it all the way downstream to the Mekong delta in Vietnam. Had he ever boated before? Never. Did he know anything about boats? No. Did he know anything about the currents? No. The dams? No. Was he going to die? Probably, but you had to admire his guts. His sense of adventure was an inspiring and refreshing blend of bravery and stupidity. We all wished him the best and, after he almost cycled straight out in front of a tuk-tuk immediately after saying goodbye to us, I think we all said a little prayer for him too.

Robin just before he nearly got run over

The Mekong river runs straight through Luang Prabang and provided nice sunsets. Perhaps one of those belonged to Robin

A return to the night market and yet more food

Suzy applauding the burgers, but none of us had any more space in our stomachs by this stage

After two relaxed days in Luang Prabang eating pizza and drinking coconut juice it was time for us to leave but, fearful that we hadn't soaked up enough of the culture, we decided that we wanted to get up early on our final morning to see the alms giving ceremony. Well Dino, Dea and I did. Suzy had read the reviews of the alms giving ceremony and was suitably put off not to want anything to do with it. She'd also read them out loud to us, but we're all quite stupid, so we went anyway.

Traditionally the alms giving ceremony involves monks walking around their local area and being given food by the people. This is because the monks are not supposed to work, or to have money, and so the community feeds them in this way. Unfortunately, in Luang Prabang this great tradition has been rather hijacked by the tourist industry and we found that Suzy's predictions proved to be correct. In essence what we witnessed was a bunch of tourists kneeling on the pavement and giving food to these monks, while other tourists stood right in their faces taking photos. Apparently this whole thing has now become such a farce that even the monks don't want to do it anymore, but the tourism industry says that they have to, otherwise they'll replace them with lay people in monk outfits in order to keep up appearances. The three of us watched from a distance, we had no desire to partake in this sorry situation. It was another rather sad reflection on how the influx of tourism to Laos was not necessarily in the best interest of everyone. ♪ ♫ 'Respect the monks, respect the monks...' ♪ ♫

We should have just stayed in bed.

Tourists photographing other tourists giving monks food, and everyone is happy so long as it looks good on Facebook

Team Chilled well rested and ready to roll on out of Luang Prabang. By the way, if it looks like we ate too much and are all holding in our stomachs so as not to look fat, it is only because we did, and we are

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