So I ended up staying about a week in Luang
Prabang taking it easy and slowly doing a few activities. I visited a few of
the temples and ate at the night market one night. I had two excursions that I
went on. First, visiting the Elephant Village to learn how to be a mahout
(elephant caretaker & driver).
The Elephant Village is a sanctuary for elephants that are no longer
being used in the logging industry. Elephants are on the extinct list and as
logging becomes illegal in certain countries they don’t know what to do with
the elephants that are no longer needed. They have been domesticated so chances
are they will not survive in the wild, so hence tourist elephant camps are
popping up to give the elephants a home and a way to earn their keep by working
a few hours a day giving rides. Of course, some camps take better care of their
elephants than others. I had the chance to spend a day and a half with the
elephants. First, we had the opportunity to ride the elephant in the chair for
about an hour thru the jungle and river.
Then we learned the commands for the elephant, (go right, go left, stop,
forward, backwards, lift leg for mounting) and had the chance to ride on the elephant’s
neck. This was a bit scary at first but once you learn how to keep your balance
you feel like a pro. About 2:00, the elephant’s day is finished and we were
able to ride them out to the jungle where they stay for the night. In the afternoon, we got to relax and
swim in a nice pool. As I was waiting for dinner, I was watching all the
activity along the river. There was a boy about 10 years old that was fishing
with a net and his little 3-year-old sister was falling him around, just
playing, splashing, and swimming in the river. I don’t think he ever caught
anything. Oh yeah, this river where they swim, bathe, and wash their clothes is
also a place where the elephants piss & poo. Uuck! I tried not to think
about it the next morning when I was in that same river giving the elephant
it’s bath. I spent the night there
in a lodge and early the next morning walked out to pick up my elephant and
rode him back to the river for its morning bath. By the end, I was riding my elephant on the neck all by
myself. I’m a quick learner! J
My other excursion was to Kuangsi
waterfalls. It was very beautiful. When you look at the pictures, you will see
many different pools. These are
the pools that were created from the falls as I walked up to the top. There
were about 4 levels altogether.
The water was pretty cold but not as cold as the one I swam in at
Yosemite a few years ago.
One morning I woke up early to greet the
monks out on the street during their morning procession for alms. About 5:30
am, it is a custom for the monks to walk around town to gather their food for
the day from the lay Buddhists.
Since the monks have taken a vow of poverty, the lay Buddhists provide
food for them each morning. Each
monk carries a pot and the locals will throw a little bit of rice in each pot
or give him some fruit.
On to Vang Vieng, it was about an 8-hour bus
ride thru very beautiful countryside and mountains. The road was nothing but
twists and turns; up and down the mountain the whole way. Luckily, our bus
driver was driving slowly. We had
a very big double decker bus that took the whole road when he went around the
curves. I really didn’t get nervous until we saw one bus that literally just
laid down on one side along the mountain. Luckily, there was just a small
gulley between the road and the mountain where it just laid down. But then we
actually had to wait an hour stopped on the road for another big truck to be
pulled off the side of the mountain where he ended up instead of the road after
going around a curve. Vang Vieng is popular for its tubing down the river and
it’s a big party place for young adults. It almost seems like the town only
exists for this reason. All the restaurants in town cater to the young Western
population of partying with lots of loud music and selling cheap buckets of
alcohol. Also some of the bars have TV showing reruns of Friends and The
Simpsons. Then along the river right on the water they have bar after bar with
huge trapeze type swings that you use to swing out and jump in the river. To me
it’s quite a dangerous mixture, all these people partying, getting extremely
drunk, and jumping in the river. There are reports of several deaths and
accidents each year. And keep in
mind, there are no emergency facilities anywhere close. I am little embarrassed
how the young Western adult is portrayed here. However, I took a very nice tour
of trekking, caving, and kayaking.
We hiked out to Elephant cave, which is a water cave. We sat in
intertubes and floated thru the cave holding on to a rope. We also had
headlamps as our only light. It was pretty cool! Quite a different experience
from walking thru a cave. After lunch, we were able to kayak down the river for
about two hours. We actually even had a few rapids! I was excited this was only
my second time kayaking (first being in Halong Bay). The scenery was breathtaking!
Just a couple hours to Vientiane (capital of
Laos) and visit more temples. The main attraction here is about a 45-minute
local bus ride out of town to Buddha Park. It is a collection of massive
sculptures of Buddha and different Hindu deities.
