See the gallery Loy Kratong & Luang Prabang for photos from this post.
I think it’s fair to say that once I got back to Chiang Rai after my few days in the mountains, I didn’t really completely throw myself back into the job of directing the Center again. It was a bit like a quiet shift in a restaurant; when you’re flat out, turning table after table doing the busiest service the restaurant has ever done, you’re completely switched on and you somehow get through it with few mistakes and a lot of happy customers….when you’ve got one table in the restaurant you lose focus and your mind wanders; you forget to call away their main course and leave their digestives off the bill…. It was a bit like that. Maybe I felt that I’d given everything I could already and now I was just going through the motions.
Anyway, having help meant that I could take a day off every week, and some weeks I even took two days off. It was a revelation. Every week in October, I cycled out of the Center by 9 or 10 in the morning and checked myself in at a guesthouse in town. I breakfasted like a tourist – late and western style, and spent my days getting a massage, visiting places I hadn’t yet been to, and even having an afternoon nap. It was fabulous. The end of the first week of October heralded the arrival of the mid-term school holidays for the kids, and after a week of having them at home every day, most of them went to their villages to spend the next 3 weeks. It was like a ghost town with only 5 kids at the Center for the first weekend, and a bit of a challenge to find things to entertain them with, with them being different ages, or teenagers who don’t want to do anything….
A few of the kids from the same village come from less than ideal conditions there, so although they wanted to go to their village to visit, this was only to be for a few days; so on the Tuesday morning we went to pick them up. Heading toward Chiang Mai there is a town called Wiang Pa Pao – great name – and a narrow lane off the highway here winds its way through paddy fields and ends up in the village. This is not a journey you would want to make during the wet season, or after dark…. The “road” is little more than a deeply creviced dirt track, requiring more than a little off-road driving skill from our volunteer at the wheel. Constantly (and I mean each and every moment of the alarming hour and a half on this treacherous path), having to make a decision about whether to veer to the left or the right to keep the wheels out of the deep gouges in the red earth that pass for a road; it was a hot and exhausting trip, and I was just a passenger. When we finally arrived, we pulled up in front of a fairly large building, which as it happens is the family house of one of the young girls who had decided to leave the IHF Center a few months ago, and serves as the town brothel. She didn’t come out to say hello. So then it was on with the job of tracking down the kids we’d come to collect. Setting off up a steep and still deeply rutted dirt track, we saw the houses of a few of the children who weren’t going back with us that day, as well as a few of the girls, who were doing what young girls do in these villages – minding the babies while the adults and boys were out working in the fields. There were plenty of mangy-looking dogs around, but in these parts dogs can equal dinner, so I think the multiplying of these sorry creatures is more welcomed than lamented. When we got to the top of the hill we stopped at a bamboo shack much like the rest in the village, and were greeted by a decrepit-looking man of indeterminate age and a limited number of teeth. In response to our enquiries about the young girl we were there to pick up, he motioned us inside, so we climbed up the rickety ladder to the bamboo-floored porch and went inside. A quick scan of the one-room shack revealed that the girl was nowhere to be seen, but there were various young men lying about asleep or passed out on the floor… After looking quizzically at one another for a few moments, we went back out to the porch where the dentally-challenged man, who could have been anywhere from forty to a hundred years old reappeared, offering us each a drink of water from filthy-looking glasses which had possibly had the remnants of the previous night’s (or even that morning’s) whiskey rinsed out for the purpose of serving us. Aware that this was the best he could do and of the likely offence refusal would cause, I accepted and politely drank, all the while wondering what gastrointestinal effects might follow. While we waited, a bunch of people came up the track to look at the visiting farangs, so we just stood there being stared at, and a few minutes later the girl appeared on the dirt path we had arrived by, and without much by the way of acknowledging us, went inside to collect her things. It didn’t seem like much of a good place for a fourteen year old girl to be staying. I had assumed that this man was her father, but I later found out that he wasn’t. As for the rest of the men asleep on the floor….who knows.
Then it was off to find the two boys we had come for. We heard Darid’s distinctive voice before we saw him, and after a bit of shouting for his younger brother, we set off back to the truck with both boys in tow. Along the way another one of our boys appeared and said that he wanted to come back with us, and then we started off back the way we came, sometimes getting up to a top speed of 10kms per hour along the unsealed road more defined by its clefts than its drivable surfaces.
For the previous five nights, another of our boys had been away training for a sporting tournament which would be taking in all of the northern provinces the following week, in which he would be representing his school in petanque. Petanque (or boule) has always seemed to me like an old men’s game, so you would think that there would be a sort of disconnect imagining a twelve year old boy playing (and indeed loving and excelling at) this hundred year old sport. However, Somchai seems like an old man. He’s tiny for a twelve year old and has a voice like a sixty year old, two-packs-a-day smoker…. He has a very outgoing, mischievous personality and after my stint at being the sole disher-outer of discipline for a couple of months, he is not my greatest fan, but it’s impossible not to like him regardless. Anyway, Somchai got back from his training camp the same night we brought the kids back from the village, so our numbers doubled overnight, from five to ten.
In the weeks that followed I was heartened to see the Aussie dollar rallying in the world economy, reaching and holding firm at just over 90 cents to the US dollar. This was great news as I had decided that I would call an end to my time with IHF in Chiang Rai at the beginning of November and take a week’s holiday in Luang Prabang, Laos (I also had to exit Thailand to get a new visa), so I would be needing all the Kips I could get. It didn’t dawn on me until the week before I left that I would be on “holiday” for the coming month, and so would also be needing all the Baht I could get as well. The news continued to be good, with the Aussie dollar back up to around (and sometimes just over) 30Baht, when it had sunk to an abysmal low of 25Baht to the dollar when I arrived in May.
Anyway, the following weekend we had a unique opportunity to take the kids to see a performance by the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra. Who knew that such a thing existed? (They even have a website http://www.chiangrai-youth-orchestra.com/ ). So on Saturday night after our customary 5:30 dinner, we piled into the truck and headed off to a fancy resort out of town for this free concert. It was entirely possible that none of the kids had ever heard classical music before, let alone seen anyone play a violin or cello, so it was a great opportunity to be able to introduce them to something new. Of course this was also a bit of a risk; how the kids would behave was an unknown quantity, but they did us proud, applauding after each piece and being generally well-behaved. Somchai was even sitting forward in his seat for most of the performance (we only stayed until the interval, then everyone had had enough new culture for the night), watching with a keen interest. I later found out that one of his friends from school was part of the orchestra, and this no doubt proved to be a fascinating revelation for him.
Before we knew it, it was the end of October, and one morning without any warning, I awoke to a chill in the air that hadn’t been there the day before. There really are just two seasons here, with no gradual change from one to another. The humidity vanished overnight and sent morning mist and a lingering dawn in its place. The end of October also meant it was time for all the kids to come back to start the new school term. Over a few days the Center filled back up again, and returned to its noisy, chaotic self. I’ll be the first to admit it was good to have some peace and quiet for a few weeks, but it was equally as good to see all their (usually) smiling faces again.
The first day back at school coincided with the Loy Kratong festival, one of the most-loved celebrations in the Thai calendar. Although not an official public holiday, held on the night of twelfth full moon of the traditional Thai lunar calendar, it pays homage to the goddess of rivers and waterways, Mae Nam. Loy literally translates to "float", while Kratong is the Thai word for a sort of tray made out of banana leaves. Loy Kratong is celebrated by floating elaborate kratongs decorated with flowers, candles and incense on just about any waterway in the kingdom. Falling around the same time as Halloween, Loy Kratong is also an excuse to let off fireworks at every given opportunity, so the week leading up to these dual events I was constantly having crackers and bungers lobbed at me, threatening on more than one occasion to unwillingly dismount me from my bike. Being a veteran of two Loy Kratongs already, Caty bought supplies for the kids to make kratongs after school, and after dinner on the night in question we piled into the truck and two motorbikes (this was no mean feat with 26 kids and 6 adults) and headed down to the river to join the party. A strong afternoon wind had filled the sky with clouds, but these obligingly cleared in time for the rising of the full golden moon, which along with the lanterns and candles glowing outside every house and business we passed along the way, made it seem like a very special night indeed. The spot by the river where the Loy Kratong festival is held in Chiang Rai had been transformed into a giant carnival, with rides, stalls selling everything from food to full-size mattresses (I’m not kidding), and a multitude of stages with all sorts of entertainment. One of the smaller satellite stages didn’t have much of a crowd, and the poor girl I saw performing had pulled out all the stops, even going so far as to sport a pair of gold hotpants, a la Kylie Minogue…. The sky was filled with literally thousands of glowing lanterns (khom fai) released in the belief that they will rid the launcher of troubles, sailing across the full moon reminiscent of the famous image from the movie, ET with ET in the basket on front of the bike riding through the night sky. It was brilliant and beautiful. And then, like everyone else in Chiang Rai, we tried to leave. Stuck in barely moving, wall-to-wall bikes, trucks and cars, Caty killed the engine of the bike 3 of us were on and literally walked it (with us on it) over a kilometer until the roads somehow cleared.
I spent the rest of the week tying up loose ends and attempting to hand over to the new director who had arrived to take over from me, and before I knew it I was packing up my few belongings and grabbing my passport to head off to Luang Prabang. Some places you fall in love with the moment you arrive; Luang Prabang is one of those for me. A UNESCO World Heritage site carefully preserving both the traditional Laos and colonial French history is taken very seriously by everyone here, with strict laws about restorations and new buildings, and there is no litter in this immaculate town (and forget about McDonalds or Starbucks; there isn't even a 7-11 in LP...). I wanted to photograph everything. It is a place of impossible beauty. I never thought about that term, “impossible beauty” before, but now I realise that it means it seems impossible that it could be so beautiful. Clearly, tourism is number one here, and it’s a bit of a moral dilemma to find myself so in love with a place so full of foreign, ie Western, tourists, but there, I’ve said it. Arriving in the late afternoon I didn’t have much of a chance to explore too far from my guesthouse before it became dark and I was drawn into the main tourist strip because, once again in Laos without a guidebook or even a map, I didn’t yet have any idea where I was. Searching for an early evening glass of something French, as I so fortuitously stumbled upon in Vientiane, I came up empty-handed, so settled instead for a Beer Lao with a fabulous meal of fresh spring rolls and fish steamed in banana leaves for the grand total of AU$8. You’ve gotta love Asia for that.
On my first morning I rented myself a bicycle for the day so I could case out the town, and stopped for a coffee shake at a place called Utopia perched high above the river. The setting may indeed be idyllic, but the background music is questionable – hits of the ‘70’s including Neil Diamond, Dr Hook, Harry Chapin, but I didn’t notice anyone complaining. By the way, they drive on the right hand side of the road in Laos, which makes it tricky to negotiate corners at intersections on a bike. Anyway, restored after my coffee shake and Dr Hook I set off on the path of further discovery. This led me (not very far), to a pub at lunch time where I employed a Beer Lao to wash down the national dish du jour – laap with sticky rice. Delicious!
Later that day, continuing on my quest for a glass of something French, I thought I may have found success with a wine list serving something called L’Elephante, that purported to be from France. I asked to see the bottle and was dismayed when a five litre cask was produced for my inspection…. I resolved to keep looking, but as my room had a mini-bar, it occurred to me that my shot at getting hold of anything French from a bottle may very well involve buying one at a restaurant and plonking the un-drunk plonk in my room for the next day. After six months of drinking little and rarely, there is no way I could contemplate finishing an entire bottle in one sitting, even over many hours… I’d be passed out face-down in my plate of laap before I got to the bottom.
The biggest drawback of Luang Prabang, which is also its lifeblood, is the number of tourists, which of course I am also one. We’re everywhere and it makes the place feel a bit like a UNESCO world heritage theme park. Everything here, guesthouses, restaurants, internet cafes, tour companies, literally everything (seemingly even the wats and the monks’ morning alms collection, although not really – this has just become a spectacle for gawking, SLR-toting tourists to photograph) is for the tourists. But you’ve gotta love a place where a large espresso costs more than a large bottle of beer.... Oh, and the markets. I’m tempted to buy art, a quilt cover with matching pillow cases, cushion covers lightshades, tablecloths, but I remind myself that I have no walls to hang it on, no quilt nor cushions to cover, lights to shade nor tables to cloth… and it seems pointless; a vision of a future I don’t know if or when I’ll have, to buy these things to adorn a wall, room or table I might never have. This consumerism is harder than I thought to resist. Out of sight is definitely out of mind.
The kid craze of the moment in Luang Prabang is those whacky skateboards with two decks, connected by a central bar, and some investigationing has led me to discover that these are called Waveboards or Ripsticks. It seems like every kid has got one, and they all spend the two hour school break between 11:00-1:00 every day, as well as after school and the whole weekend, hurtling down every street and laneway in Luang Prabang. I wasn’t quick enough to get any action shots (not carrying an SLR camera around my neck at the ready like the majority of my fellow visitors), but there a couple of not great photos in the Luang Prabang photo gallery on this blog.
Much more serene is the beautiful, melodic chanting by the monks in all the wats around the town. Every evening at sundown, they all gather in their respective temples to perform their prayerful duties to the Buddha, and while (once again) this is not a “performance” for anyone, it is an oft-enjoyed feature of a visit to Luang Prabang.
The downside to going to a place without first finding out much about it, are things like not knowing in advance that the ATM’s dispense a maximum of 700,000Kip (just under AU$100) per withdrawal. You can make up to three withdrawals every day, so this in itself isn’t the problem….the problem is that on top of the Laos banks 20,000k (just less than $3) fee, my Australian bank gets their mitts on $4.50 every time, making a one hundred dollar withdrawal quite an expensive exercise. Of course, if you were a twenty year old backpacker you’d probably be budgeting $100 to last a few weeks, so it wouldn’t be so bad, but for those of us who value comfort and cleanliness (and the occasional glass of wine) over the cheapest room you can find, more than one visit to the ATM is called for to get through a week. Especially when most guesthouses below the top end of the scale don’t take credit cards. And more especially when your visa card has been cancelled because somewhere along the line some crafty bugger has nicked your visa card number and has been using it to try to book flights in the USA and unknown things in France, and no one in Luang Prabang accepts American Express… Oh well, at least I brought enough Baht with me to almost cover my accommodation so it’s only spending money that I need. Luckily eating is easy to do on a budget, with, as is usually the case in places like this, some of the most amazing food to be had is at the night market. Whole fish stuffed with lemongrass and cooked over hot coals, ditto chunks of salty pork ensnared in two thin strips of bamboo, or chicken BBQ’d whole and snipped into finger-lickin sized pieces (but don’t actually lick your fingers as this is considered bad manners), any of these can be had for less than $4, and you’ll be lucky if you’ve got enough room for coconut balls stuffed with banana afterwards.
A climb up the 328 steps to the top of Mount Phousi in the middle of town to view the sunset is a must-do on the checklist of the tourists crowding to Luang Prabang. I’m sure it’s very nice, but having timed my ascent about an hour too late (going by the throngs that had already claimed every vantage point, as well as amost every available bit of standing room by the time I got there), I gave up in disgust and promptly took myself back to street level for an hour foot and leg massage. At $5 I figured I’d earned it on the 328 steps….
Apparently "Luang" comes from the word "Leng", which means dragon, and I think it was with this in mind that they came up with the idea for the local "whiskey", Lao Lao. I read somewhere that this dragon fire concoction is aged in a matter of minutes, and from my one encounter with it, this is an estimation with which I wholeheartedly agree.
Having checked out plenty of Buddhist temples in my many visits to Thailand over the years and particularly the last six months in Chiang Rai, I don’t feel compelled to spend my days here beating the very well-worn tourist path trailing in and out of the forty-something wats in Luang Prabang. That’s probably just as well, as they all seem to want to charge 20,000K for the privilege. Fair enough I suppose, this is a poor country and for places like Luang Prabang the tourist coin is what keeps it afloat, but they’ll have to count me out. I guess these admission fees help to support the many hundreds of novice monks, who from a very young age – around ten years old – are sent from their villages in droves by their parents who are too poor to support them, let alone consider an education for them. As novice monks they receive varying degrees of education, which is (kind of) good news for the boys, but what hope is there for the girls for whom no such option for an education exists?
It turns out that there is yet another downside to traveling to a place without knowing much about it, for example, arriving back in Thailand and discovering that nowhere in Thailand will exchange your Lao Kip. Unfortunate when you’ve got 400,000 of them, which now seem only useful for wallpapering a wall that I don’t have…. Sounds of the forest…..
