Food and Buddha in Luang Phabang

The bus journey to Luang Phabang was horrible for me. The road was at least as twisty as the road to Phonsavan and the lao-lao hangover would not abate. After far longer than expected we arrived and found a reasonably cheap hotel not far from the centre of town. As Luang Phabang is a UNESCO city we were expecting prices to be a bit higher and there certainly were options for spending more money.

Not wanting to set our ambitions too high for the first day there, we just took a wander down to the night market to try and find some cheap food. There we bumped into the Australian guy [actually he is from New Zealand - ed (Joanne)] who had given me such terrible advice for the first Tubing flying fox, from which my voice had still not yet recovered completely and my entire chest was still covered with a fading yellow bruise. Clearly not ones to learn from my mistakes, we listened to him again when he told us of an "excellent" vegetarian buffet for only 5000 kip (less than 50p) at the end of the street. It was just awful, by far the worst food we'd eaten since Cambodia (in fact possibly China): it was extremely plain, almost completely flavourless, and not in least Lao. The bizarre thing is that the stall was quite busy and all around us were young people raving about how great it was. I just can't understand, when the Lao food is so interesting and delicious, why you would want to eat anything so bland. Then I realised that nearly all of the people raving about the food were underweight, almost to the point of malnourished, and it hit me: they were all vegetarians, and vegetarians are very easily pleased; as long as the food is vegetarian, they don't actually care what it tastes like. At least that was the only sense I could make of the situation. For all that vegetarian food can be delicious, and it's undoubtedly an ethically admirable position, food aimed specifically at vegetarians seems to be universally awful. The food was so disgusting that we left it almost untouched and went off to get food from a place that they sell meat as well as vegetables.

Wat Choumkhong

The following day we decided to follow the Lonely Planet walking tour to enjoy all of the wats for which Luang Phabang is so renowned.

Wat Xieng Muan

Sure enough the temples are very impressive, and the town certainly has a different class of visitor from anywhere we'd been in Laos so far: lots of smartly dressed middle-aged people, and there were lots of smarter bars and restaurants to entertain them. As we walked from temple to temple I decided that my dad would love this place; lots of lovely buildings to look at and lots of lovely restaurants to eat in, many with views over the Mekong River. We witnessed a lovely moment about halfway round the tour, when we decided to stray slightly from the route just to go right to the end of the peninsula the historical centre is on.

Restaurant overlooking Mekong

The old, pretty part of Luang Phabang is at the junction between the Mekong and the Nam Khan, so we wanted to see how it ended. As we approached the end of the road, two young monks were walking very sombrely in front of us. The town has loads of monks, presumably in order to fill the many temples, and it seems most of them are young. Just as we reached the end of the road, the monks ahead of us reached the path leading down from the road, and as soon as they were slightly out of sight behind some long grasses growing next to the path, they started running and unfurling their long saffron robes, a complete contrast in their demeanour. We followed the path down a little, Joanne unsure whether we should follow them when they were clearly “off duty”, and saw that just before the intersection between the two rivers, in the smaller Nam Khan, there were loads of young monks splashing around, playing with footballs, and generally behaving like the kids they are, while the bank of the river was littered with saffron robes.

Frolicking monks

Local specialities

As I mentioned the town has more of the upmarket tourist feel than anywhere we'd been for a while, so of course we looked a bit scruffy wandering around the historical centre, but at lunch we really felt like this place was a bit posh for us. We investigated the Lonely Planet's recommendation for a mid-tour lunch stop, Tamarind, and discovered it wasn't too much over our budget and the food looked very nice.

Purple sticky rice with coconut and banana

When the food came it was fantastic, worth every penny: loads of local specialities, which is of course my favourite, including Jeow Bawng, a dip made with chillies and dried buffalo skin; some dried Mekong weed, toasted with sesame seeds, tomato, and garlic; and some dried buffalo meat. Buffalo seems to be used instead of beef in much of Lao cuisine and we'd certainly seen enough buffaloes for that to make sense. I was a little disappointed that their description of the Jeow Bawng did not mention the buffalo skin and there was no sign of it, but I suppose UNESO-driver tourism needs to be sanitised a bit for all the posh people. When it came to pay the bill we really showed ourselves up.

Watermelon and chili granita and nam mak tour (iced cinnamon bael fruit tea)

In Asia we have become accustomed to not tipping. Nobody seems to expect it and we can't really afford it anyway, but here when we left no tip, our waitress looked visibly shocked and upset. We left with our tails between our legs, but soon became indignant: why should a place that clearly sees more rich tourists already, benefit from our custom more than a better value place more used to serving backpackers? We decided we were right not to tip! Why should they get a tip just because they expect one? However, we resolved to start being a bit more generous in cheaper places when they really do deserve it (but don't expect it).

Murals at Wat Pa Huak

We finished off our walking tour by climbing up the hill in the middle of town: Phou Si, which has a couple of temples on it. Just at the bottom of the hill is Wat Pa Huak, which is one of the oldest temples in Luang Phabang. The temple is in quite a state of disrepair, but the murals inside are still in excellent condition and a totally different style of art from anything in the more modern temples: some of it is quite graphic and horrific, more like something Christian from the Middle Ages than the serene beauty that normally seems to be associated with Buddhism. On the way up the hill we were repeatedly harassed by old women trying to sell us little birds trapped in bamboo cages, which we were supposed to take to the top and set free “for good luck”.

View from Phou Si

Joanne had read that the whole thing is a scam, and the little birds are trained to return to the women, who re-cage them for the following day. I wondered how that would be possible until I noticed that the cages of birds were sitting on top of a small mountain of grain. It must be a pretty easy choice for the birds to make once they are released: fly around for a while and enjoy some freedom then return home to unlimited food at no effort. From the top I was struck by how green the city is: from above it seems to be mostly coconut palms and temples. We finished our lovely day off having yet another meal on the Mekong, watching yet another sunset over it. On the way home we passed a stall selling scorpion wine and snake wine “for power”, which we'd read about in the guidebook but not yet seen. I declined to partake, remembering that the consumption thereof encourages trade in some endangered creatures. And the whole idea was pretty horrible anyway!

Just next to the horrible vegetarian stall!

The following day I sat in the office of a tour company called Green Discovery that several people had recommended to us. They are more expensive than their competitors, but they have a major emphasis on an ethical approach and the treks and reputedly very good. They quite quickly guided me in the direction of the trek a couple people had already signed up for, which would make it cheaper for us. Without this incentive I'm not sure how I would have decided as they have quite an extensive range of options. Meanwhile Joanne collected the laundry we had dropped off the previous day. Shock, horror!! One of my shirts was not returned and in its place was some horrible t-shirt with a beer brand on it. Not that I am opposed to t-shirts like that, but after sending things home from Vientiane, my shirt was now one of the few really cool 100% cotton garments I had to wear. I had retained a t-shirt each from Laos and Vietnam which had turned out to be unwearable in hot weather, although they both (obviously falsely) claim to be 100% cotton, and as a result I was a bit low in cool tops. We went back to try and swap the t-shirt for my shirt, hoping that the t-shirt owner had realised the mistake and missed his Michelob (or whatever) shirt. The woman who did the washing claimed that it was all impossible because ours was the only washing she had done recently, but her daughter was a bit more diplomatic and suggested we should come to an arrangement “good for you and good for me” which is a bit of a catch phrase in the region, most often used by vendors when bartering. We agreed to return later to sort it out, hoping that Mr Redstripe was not yet on a bus to Thailand.

More Buddhas at Pak Ou

Door to Tham Phum, the upper cave at Pak Ou

In the meantime we wanted to see Pak Ou Caves and a waterfall which seem to be the main attractions other than the town itself, so we hired a moped. The price was massively inflated over anything we'd paid previously but we had heard that it was not possible to hire bikes at all, which would have meant signing up for an even more expensive tuktuk tour, so we were happy(ish) to pay the exorbitant fee. Trying to learn from previous experience where I'd consistently overfilled the tank and returned it half-full, I made sure I only took the correct amount of fuel. When we reached the turn-off it seemed like I'd judged it quite well, but by the time we'd been bumping along the muddy path the turn-off was, for a few miles, dodging boulders and bulldozers, the fuel gauge started to look a bit low.

Buddha

By the time we arrived at the little village of Pak Ou, it was showing nearly empty. Most people see the caves by taking a boat trip up the river, so don't have to worry about how to cross the river like we did, since the village is on the other side from the caves. There are boats waiting to take you across, but they prices were again inflated. I skillfully managed to get the boatman to lower his fee, but then rather stupidly handed over the entire lot up-front. We were pretty convinced we were now going to have to find a different ferry to bring us back, so I decided that he definitely a tip if he hung around (in the new spirit of tipping where due). There are two natural caves, stuff full of “used” Buddhas, left by the villagers for centuries. The upper cave itself was a bit of disappointment inside, but the entrance was covered with a huge ornate wooden door.

The big collection in Tham Ting, the lower cave

There were a lot of really poor looking children trying to sell trinkets and crisps to a rather small number of tourists. This was the first time we'd seen any sign of serious poverty since leaving Cambodia, so there is obviously still a problem in Laos, but maybe only in suburban areas. At first we thought the children should be in school, but then realised it was Sunday, so it probably isn't as bad as Cambodia. Anyway, the lower cave is much more impressive inside, with hundreds of different kinds of Buddha images scattered throughout. Our boatman had waited for us, which made me think the Lao people are very honest, and we did not encounter anything to contradict that the whole time we were there. Back in the village we managed to find someone selling petrol in plastic bottles, so bought a litre to take us as far as a petrol station. On the way back along the dirt road we stopped off at Ban Xang Hai (Jar Maker Village) where now they just fill the jars with lao-lao and rice wine.

Scorpion and snake wine

We ended up buying a small bottle of rice wine for more than I had bought the full litre of lao-lao from Phonsavan, and more than we could buy a bottle of lao-lao from a supermarket, just because we felt obligated after tasting so many samples (again declining the scorpion and snake wine). The rice wine did taste really nice, so we didn't feel too ripped-off!

Tat Kuang Si

The guy who rented the bike to us assured us that it was good value because we could see the caves and the waterfall in one day, but the time seemed to be getting on a bit, however I was determined so I really got into swooping around the corners of the twisty road up to the waterfall. We arrived only half an hour before the “closing” time. It wasn't quite what I was expecting: here was a park with a bear enclosure, woodland walks, and all sorts of distractions apart from the waterfall. I was expecting to get off the bike, see the waterfall and leave, but this one turned out to be layers and layers of cascade, each with a swimming pool of cobalt-blue water below.

Another pool at Tat Kuang Si

The park was absolutely gorgeous, but we were now so short of time, all we were able to do was rush up to the biggest falls, take some photos, go for a quick swim in the nicest pool, then rush back to the bike to zoom back in time to return it. It was a real shame, because it seemed like it would have been a nice place to relax and spend half a day, not half an hour. On the return journey we were accosted several times by groups of children throwing buckets of water over us. Songkan (Lao New Year) seemed to have arrived a week early! We were not expecting to be soaked until we arrived in Thailand. Luckily our cameras and phones escaped undamaged, but we realised we were going to have to be careful from then on. We got the bike back just in time, shorts still wet. On the way back to town I got really itchy all over, and by the time we arrived I was starting to feel really ill with almost flu-like symptoms.

Mekong Weed

That evening we found a very recently opened restaurant, Sunset Restaurant, overlooking the Mekong, where the owner was trying really hard to get customers to come in, and they were selling some of the local specialities I'm so fond of. The food was absolutely delicious again, what of it I could taste through my rapidly worsening flu, but this time much cheaper, so of course we left a generous tip.

O-laam

Food and Buddha in Luang Phabang

Luang Prabang, Laos