Postcard from Laos
The final leg of my south-east Asian journey
If I went on this trip to satisfy a long-held desire to go to Vietnam in the end it was Laos* I fell in love with.
Or, more precisely, Luang Prabang as, to be honest, the capital Ventiane, to which we made a fleeting visit, is underwhelming, at least in comparison with the other cities we visited.
*Laos or Lao? As with Ho Chi Minh City there are two ways of referring to it. I always assumed it was Laos with an s and the fact that it consisted of more than one kingdom bears this out but most people these days refer to it as Lao.
It’s the most Buddhist of the countries I’ve visited over the last three weeks; reflected in the different style of the temples and the omnipresence of the monks who, I imagine to their discomfort, have become a bit of a spectacle attracting flocks of tourists who sit by the roadside as they pass, offering them fistfuls of the sticky rice that is sold for the purpose by the hawkers on the roadside stalls.
Many of the novices are startlingly young. No more than boys. “It’s a way out of the village” explained our guide who had been a novice monk himself.
If you want to understand their lifestyle visit the Buddhist Heritage Project where we spent a fascinating hour with photographer and writer Hans Georg Berger who co-founded the project with the former abbot of the Vat Saen Sukharam temple, PPha Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thela and has been responsible for the preservation of an extraordinary collection of photographs which you can find online through the British Library’s Endangered Archives programme.
Amazingly, given the chic shops and restaurants, there was practically nothing in the town 30 years ago - just a total of two cars our guide told us. But there’s no high rise and Luang Prabang preserves its largely unspoilt charm.
The area also has two major natural attractions - the spectacular Kuang Si waterfalls although I baulked at climbing the 524 steps to get to the top pool and the Pak Ou caves which house a large collection of Buddhas and are reached by boat along the Mekong river and is worth the visit for the river trip alone.
But it’s the food that really blew me away.