Luang Prabang, Laos

My hotel room:

I woke early to watch the alms-giving ceremony, where the 200 local monks walk a daily procession to gather their food for their one meal a day. I was told it could start as early as 5:30 so I was up very early to wait.

http://www.visit-laos.com/luang-prabang/alms-giving-ceremony.htm

And wait. And wait.

There is a time variance of close to 30-45 minutes depending upon how many people come to give to the monks. They arrived at around 6:20, and I almost missed them as I had read that they would chant along the way, so with my door open, I took the silence to mean no activity. I took a quick peek out the door to see a row of orange, and raced out to capture it.

It was quite beautiful and worth seeing this part of the tradition. The monks wore a few different shades of orange (which I learned represents their region or temple) and ranged in age. Some of the boys appeared as young as maybe 7 or 8.

I chose my hotel because it is on the route, and has a second-floor walkway so I could watch the procession and photograph without being disrespectful. I had the fortune of having an English-spoken tour group set up seats below me so I got to hear all of the rules for behavior and the history. The small plastic seats were set up, however, there was someone off a short ways doing the traditional kneeling with feet tucked under the body.

I grabbed breakfast at my hotel of khao soy, the Laos version of the same Khao soy in Thailand. While the name is similar, the dish was nothing alike. In Thailand this dish is a curry soup with egg noodles topped with some friend egg noodles. In Laos, it is a broth-based dish with diced spicy pork with tomatoes and rice noodles. It was really good and reminded me of a play on Vietnamese pho. Soups are often eaten for breakfast and while many restaurants offer egg dishes, it's mostly to appeal to foreigners. I got a coffee and a glass of tamarind juice. It was good but a few sips was enough.

I saw my driver from the airport but a different driver, Tang, took me to the Kuang Si waterfalls. My hotel packed me a bag with a beach towel and a bottled water, which was a nice touch. The drive was close to an hour and wound through the countryside and several villages. We saw some small farms and terraced rice fields. We also saw some of the biggest potholes I have ever seen, so I am really glad I didn't take a scooter or tuk tuk!  There was a lot of trash on the side of the roads and many loose dogs. Some of the houses are brightly colored while some others appear to be just wood. Bananas grow naturally in scattered areas and chickens do cross the road.

http://www.visit-laos.com/luang-prabang/kuang-si-waterfall.htm

There is an area with food stands and where people are selling their wares (of course! SE Asia does a great job of commercializing all of their sites.) The fee is 20k Kip to enter. Once inside, you start off in the woods and quickly come across the Asiatic Black Bear Rescue to assist these endangered animals. There were four main areas. The first is a large area with the largest bears, who were mostly sleeping when we arrived (it was fairly early, at 8:30 am.) The second had very young bears, and the other two seemed to have those aged in between, and were filled with bears playing in twos. One was missing a leg but got around great.

Perhaps I'll bring back a new friend to the US. :) It's tough to decide between a bear and an elephant!

I met a really nice young couple from the Netherlands, Esther and Stijn. They got their Master's degrees and worked for a year, then decided to quit their jobs to travel for a while. They have been gone for around a month so far and have no plans yet to go home.

We enjoyed chatting so walked together through the falls, taking pictures for each other and enjoying the amazing views of the turquoise waters. It's stunning and the same color as the Havasupai trail in Arizona that I hiked last year with my friend, Kim.

I had two hours there and towards the end of my time, it started getting more crowded so I was really glad we went early. We said our goodbyes and I headed back, taking in the gorgeous views.

Next I went to the butterfly park. Tang was laughing at me as it cost 40k Kip to go to see the butterflies, twice what it cost to see the waterfall. I do love butterflies though, and I'm glad I went. There are some small turquoise waterfalls throughout and the place is very well designed and beautiful. I was greeted by two bouncy dogs who very quickly lost interest when it became clear my pockets were not stuffed with food for them.

Newly-"hatched" Monarch

Chrysalis

Closed wings, to look like a dead leaf

Same butterfly as above, with open wings

I met Olaf, who founded the park with his wife and opened it to the public in 2014. They were from the Netherlands, and sold everything they owned to come here to start the place. His passion is flowers and there are extensive gardens on the property, especially in with the butterflies. His true passion is orchids, and there are quite a few. Her passion is children and teaching, and they built a structure to start teaching children biology, which is not taught in the local schools. They are training local school teachers to teach this subject. They also have entomologists, biologists and botanists come to train the locals about caring for the park.

They provided some education about their mission and about butterflies, which was really interesting! A young girl from Colorado is volunteering there. She's maybe in her early 20s and is a self-professed "bug nerd" so loves it there. She told me she's living in a small bungalow for $6 a day and loves it there. She can volunteer for up to a month with her visa and had been there for a little over a week so far.

There were a number of cats and dogs on the property. Two spotted black-and-white dogs that are the owners', and other dogs from the local village that come to visit. The two dogs and cats are the owners' and Olaf said they are fixed. He said they went to the capital city as he doesn't trust the local vets.

The butterflies were beautiful and I saw most of the ones presented. I saw one that was amazing and only a few were there, called the Dead Leaf butterfly. It has gloriously-beautiful wings with blue, orange bands and black and when closed, it truly looks like a dead leaf, stem and all! I saw the colored side and then she closed to show the most amazing camouflage.  They also have a natural fish spa there, where they collected some of the local fish from the river in the butterfly area and have seating. The water was incredibly cold but it was fun to do again (since Hanoi!)

The butterfly enclosure was fairly large, and had a lot of beautiful lush flowers. They had set up feeding stations of fruit and sucrose, I believe. The volunteer showed me a group of chrysalis, the sacks or cocoons. Apparently the sack isn't grown like with mosts but is part of the exoskeleton. There were a couple of monarchs that just hatched, a chrysalis that was clear to show the monarch inside waiting to hatch, and a caterpillar starting the process of becoming a chrysalis. Some of them were gold-colored so I actually didn't know what I was looking at! It was all really interesting.

We drove back and I arranged for him to take me to the airport tomorrow. I walked to the other end of Luang Prabang (only a 5-10 minute walk) to view the Bamboo bridge that crosses the Mekong river to an area where tapestries and fabrics are made by hand and sold in the markets. Some are quite beautiful. I walked around to see the Wats, and there were many more than I expected. The largest one is Wat Xien Thang, which was beautiful.  I also saw Wat Nong Sikhounmuand and probably 6 others during my walk but didn't have all of them documented. They were very similar to those in Chiang Mai, with some gold domes, a lot of gold decorating and pictures.

I stopped at a small restaurant to get a local soup. It was crowded, which is always a great sign. It was a clear broth with wheat noodles, chunks of pork, some greens and dried garlic slices. It was quite good and $1.50 US. There was a funny couple from Korea there that I talked with a bit and a young family with two young children. The baby was being fed the soup brother and it was adorable to watch as she demanded to help.

I went to the Royal Palace Museum, where the last rulers lived. The main building is rather large and guilded, and there are several others on the property. I had planned to do a tour but read mixed reviews and wasn't feeling it, so decided to move on.

I then climbed Mount Phoisi to see the view and the Wat at the top. The steps were quite high, steep and uneven at the bottom part, to where you pay the 20k Kip fee and it almost deterred me. I did it anyways and climbed, which wasn't nearly as bad as that bottom part. I was told there are 300 steps and it didn't seem like so many. The views were nice of the river and some of the town could be seen. Much of it was obscured by trees though, and while I climbed thinking I'd view the sunset, I didn't think the view would be worth waiting there another two hours and the crowds it would draw, so I went back down.

On the way, I met two ladies from Utah who were in Asia for some Thai massage training and decided to explore outside of Thailand as well. I also met two girls from New York earlier, who were really nice. I went to check out the restaurant I chose to dine at and who do I see there, but Paul, my Australian friend I sat near at dinner with last night! I told him I had a reservation at 7 if he cared to join. We caught up a bit and went separate ways.

I decided to get a Lao massage at a place around the corner from my hotel and it was very good. There was a large room with 6 pads on the floor. They provide a loose-fitting cotton shirt and pants and the massage is done with full hands and elbows applying pressure to and stretching the muscles.

I slid back to my hotel for a shower then went to dinner at Kaiphaen. It helps disandantaged youth by providing a school to teach culinary arts. I went to a similar place in Hanoi and really enjoyed it. My server was a cute, very shy girl, and her teacher was by her side to help. I got a traditional dish or lam with pork, eggplant, greens and sticky rice. I decided to have a glass of Chilean red (to help the students!) and surprisingly enjoyed it and had two. I got dessert which was a specialty in their sister restaurant in Cambodia of banana fritters and coconut ice cream. The meal was very good and cost $20 USD. My most expensive so far. :)

Right when I was finishing, Paul arrived so we caught up about our days and our future travels. He is enjoying a year off to travel all around, then will head back to Australia for work. Nice guy and one of the benefits of traveling solo is meeting some great people.

Alright-- time to pack, eat breakfast and head out to my next adventure!


Some randoms from LP:

Mekong

Night Market: