SLIDESHOW-Laos #2

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Luang Prabang was our next destination where we reacquainted ourselves with the modern conveniences of a larger town. Once the capital of Loas before is was mysteriously abandoned, thus leaving behind the remains of a rich cultural center speckled with temples and permeated by Buddhism. Today there is still a very strong presence of Buddhism in Luang Prabang and with that means there were lots of monks…and where there’s monks…there’s chanting. This was great for us because we had wanted to get recordings of the monks incanting their ancient prayers. It would seem that getting a recording would be pretty easy; just find some monks and a temple and bingo! Not quite that easy. The monks pray several times throughout the morning and into the evening as a part of their daily ritual. The only problem was that during the day there were always motorbikes zipping around, kids yelling, dogs barking and the usual chaotic sounds of daytime. So our only option was to wake up at 4am to catch the first prayers of day during the silence of the early morning hours. Long story short…many mornings were spent walking around for hours from temple to temple hoping to catch the right temple at the right time. Each Wat prays at a different time so you can imagine the goose chase we were on. During one of our interactions with the monks, one of the senior monk invited us to come to his English class to help his students with their pronunciation. We thought this would be a good opportunity to broaden the vocabulary of these monks to include all the necessary English words that we use on a daily basis…check out the video for that! We had a great time hanging out with all of his students, sharing with them as much as we were being given to just by being there. Before class ended the senior monk asked if we would sing one our songs to his class. We obliged and thanked them for letting us turn their English class into our version of School of Rock.
After Luang Prabang it was boats, boats, boats…hours and hours of boat rides along the various rivers that have provided the country with its trade routes with China for centuries. We boarded one tiny boat after the other making our way up the Nam Ou river to the most remote villages reachable only by river, down the majestic Mekong and the Nam Song. These boat rides were where many times we found ourselves paralyzed by the magnitude of the sheer natural beauty we were witnessing. We both experienced a unique feeling of being so overwhelmed with what we were seeing that it seemed no emotional response was fitting for the moment….to laugh, to cry, to feel bewildered, to feel empowered…??? This again is where words seem to fail. Needless to say leaving Laos was sad…like leaving the embrace of a loved one.
The boat ride to the border, however, wasn’t missed nearly as much. The first day was a grueling 14 hours on an overly full boat, using boxes of fruit, fish and god knows what as seats because there was no where to sit. This combined with the 110 decibel growl of the tractor engine being used as the motor, pouring rain and the caustic fumes of the engine because we were sitting in the back of the boat. The second day was just a little less crowded and this time only 10 hours long! Summed up, we had 24 hours of boating fun as we inched down the Mekong river on our way back to Thailand. All traveling discomforts aside, we managed to hang out and talk with a couple of the local Laos people on the boat and met one particularly adorable 7 year old girl who loved being the focus of attention for our cameras.