Another Mountain to Climb

Today we woke up early to get started on a fun filled day in Luang Prabang. Breakfast was included in the price of our guesthouses, so I ate warmed baguette with butter and fresh fruit. After our quick start, we set out to explore the sights of Luang Prabang. We began our day at the Royal Palace Museum that was conveniently located directly across the road from our Villa. We walked around the block to the entrance, paid the 30,000 kip fee to enter and went inside.

The Royal Palace at Luang Prabang is probably the least ostentatious palace I have ever visited. It is a relatively new building, built in the early 1900s for some of the last royalty of Laos (I think the last royal died in the 1970s). The compound that houses the Palace also holds a wat, a garage for the royal cars, and a theater center. In the 1970s the Palace was converted to a National Museum and now features historical objects from around Laos, with special focus on items from Luang Prabang. The exhibits were interesting; particularly a series of cases featuring various gifts from foreign countries. On the shelf of US gifts there was a small Laos flag that had been transported to the moon on Apollo 11 and a few small pieces of the moon encased in glass. (Nicely done, America!) Other exhibits included Buddha statues from all over Laos, bronze drums, and golden daises for monks and royalty. We toured the entire Museum in under an hour and a half, not a difficult feat as the Palace is quite small by even Museum standards, let alone palace standards, and moved outside.

We meandered around the Palace grounds after our tour of the Palace, taking a look at the royal cars (mostly Fords that were gifted by the US) and the wat. By the time we were finished with the Royal Palace National Museum grounds it was quite hot and we were ready for a change of clothes. In Laos and many other regions of SE Asia there are very conservative dress codes for major buildings and centers that you may want to visit. When visiting any Wat or temple it is important for the knees and shoulders to be covered and best for women to wear long pants. While some falang do not respect these rules and show up to the wats in shorts and tank tops, it is important to be respectful of the Buddhist culture and conform to their rules when viewing their temples. This is particularly true in these countries where all of the wats are still in use today and are places of worship for the local people, rather than simply being tourist locations. In national buildings, such as museums, the government asks that you also follow these rules of respectful dress in other places as well. Therefore, at the Museum I was dressed in a t-shirt and long skirt. Not an outfit that would immediately make you think, “Wow, she must be dying from the heat,” but in the humidity of SE Asia, any additional length of cloth is too much and I was ready to change into shorts and a tank top for the rest of our day.

We headed back out to visit some more wats (I had changed into longish shorts and a shoulder covering tank top) around the city. We strolled along the riverfront, enjoying the midmorning and the view of the Mekong River. We stopped at any shop that caught our eye, bought some fruit smoothies and made our way to one of the two main wats in the Old City of Luang Prabang. Wat Xieng Thong is located near the end of the peninsula and is quite different from other wats around Laos. Most wats sport a three tiered roofline, nagas (serpent figures that mythology says could turn into humans) on each eave, gold gilding everywhere and scenes from Buddhist writings on every available surface on the interior of the wat. Wat Xieng Thong lived up to this tradition, but added a few quirks that make it particularly unique. The front of the Wat was not gilded with the traditional gold, but covered in beautiful mosaic tiles that glittered like jewels in the sun. Deep blues, greens and reds wink out from every surface, dazzling the eye and enticing the viewer closer. The rest of the Wat appears to conform to the traditional Wat motif, but walking around the Wat reveals more unique sights. Each Wat consists of the main building, several smaller mini-shrines/temples, and a few spires or stupas. In this case, one of the other buildings was painted a brilliant red and was covered in small tiles that depicted various scenes and images. Most wats are not decorated in this manner, featuring either unadorned stone siding or gold gilding. The time and effort it must have taken to mosaic these immense buildings is astounding to ponder and it made the 20,000 kip entrance fee to the wat well worth the price.

We meandered our way away from Wat Xieng Thong and the end of the peninsula, heading back toward our Villa and then turning up a side street to reach the other main road of Luang Prabang (there are three and we had just walked down two). We stopped at a small café we found after a search for another café recommended by Lonely Planet turned up nothing (we suspect the Coulour Café has closed). We ended up choosing Daofa Café, which was delicious. I actually ordered a pasta dish – fresh fettuccini noodles with a Bolognese sauce. Yum! I think that, food wise at the very least, the interns in Laos have it the best. While I adore Laos food and am enjoying my foray into this very secret cuisine (“very secret” as it hasn’t traveled abroad yet and it’s hard to find as a falang even while in this country since they assume you won’t like and therefore order you Thai food instead of Laos food if you ask for a recommendation), it is nice to have a break. In many of the other countries, looking for other types of food can be quite tricky and usually produces very strange results (if you’ve never had a blend of Mexican and Asian cuisines…count yourself lucky and don’t ever try it! Imagine fried rice with red beans thrown in being labeled “Mexican Fried Rice” and you haven’t even scratched the surface of the horrors that await). Here in Laos there are myriad types of food, any food you could possibly want including, Indian, Turkish, American, Thai, French, Italian, and, of course, Laos. When I originally heard I was traveling to Laos I was a little concerned about the food. After all, this is a country that only opened its borders in the 90s, so how much outside influence in food could it possibly have? And, I had never eaten Lao food, so there was no guarantee I would like it. Luckily, Laos has blown me away and each night I go to bed full and happy after having tried a new restaurant and a new type of food.

Our lunch concluded, we needed something to do with our afternoon and while we had originally thought to hire a tuk-tuk to take us outside the city to visit some waterfalls nearby, the day was simply too hot to even consider this plan. Instead, our eyes were caught by a spa sign hanging up across the road from Doafa featuring 40,000 kip ($5) foot massages. Intrigued, we went over for a closer look. In front of the shop was a stand with a binder on it. This binder was the “menu” of massages offered by the spa. We looked closer. A wide array of massages were available for our pleasure: foot massages, head massages, full body massages, back massages, neck massages, etc. We stood in front of the menu, each absorbed in our own thoughts about the possibility of getting a massage during our afternoon. My thoughts went something like this: “Wow. It’s hot. I’m dying. Literally, dying. How can one country be so hot? They’re looking at massages. I’ve never had one. Hot. I don’t know that I want one now. Sweat is so gross. Ooo. Misters inside and reclining chairs. Heat stroke is coming! I’m in! I want a foot massage!” And so, we agreed. The afternoon would be best spent getting a one hour foot massage (although Zenia opted for ½ foot massage and ½ neck/shoulder massage). We went inside.

For those of you who have never seen me receive a foot massage, it is quite a sight and even I must admit it is quite funny to watch. Years of torture from my older sister (not to name names…Raelin!) left me with extremely ticklish feet. Any time Jana, another sister, gives me a pedicure my feet jerk and twitch at even the slightest contact. I sit stiff as a board in my chair, trying not to move a muscle as pain at suppressing my ticklish tendencies fills me. This reaction has gotten slightly better with time – my left eye no longer twitches. :)

As you can see, I was understandably nervous about my imminent HOUR long foot massage. But, that massage was…bliss. I am sitting here, remembering it and I can’t help but feel a little kernel of joy deep within at the thought of my massage. It was incredible! Twenty minutes into the massage I knew that one hour was a perfect length of time. My feet were rubbed, scrubbed, prodded, poked, rotated, etc. It was the most thorough massage I have ever had, with specific pressure points pressed to release tension and stress. The entire massage ended with a brief back, neck, and head massage and a final spinal twist. I left the massage feeling like a puddle of goo. My feet felt reinvented and ready to walk for days, an incredibly welcome feeling as before the massage they were starting to hurt and I had been worried about the amount of walking left to do that day. We were so relaxed by this experience we decided to go back to our Villa for a rest during the hottest part of the day (I know…that heat after lunch wasn’t even the worst of it) and to get a little more energy for hike up the mountain, That Phu Si, to Wat Tham Phu Si.

As I have previously mentioned, Luang Prabang is settled in a basin at the junction of the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, surrounded by mountains. While the city itself is quite flat, there is one mountain in the very center of town. It springs up out of nowhere, a single mountain rising out of the ground in the middle of the basin. At the top of this mountain, called That Phu Si, a wat was built…well, more of just a spire than a wat, but they call it a wat and who am I to say different? The only way to reach the wat is to climb a long set of stairs to the top. You start your journey up the mountain feeling pretty good. After all, it’s a good workout and how hard can it be to walk up a few stairs? The answer…pretty hard. We walked up about 130 steps and reached a small plateau where a building had been erected on our left and a tree that had been a gift from India had been planted on the right. By the time we reached this point our thighs were burning and we were huffing and puffing at the exertion. After sever photos of the tree, we were told by the little man sitting in the building that we now needed to pay an entrance fee to see the wat and continue on our journey. At this point I was already tired of the stairs, but I thought it couldn’t be much further and I had already climbed quite a ways and that sort of effort should not be put to waste by climbing down without seeing the actual wat. We paid our fee and turned toward the second set of stairs. As I neared the stairs I stopped in shock. Written on the two short pillars on either side of the stairs were four pithy words and some numbers. On the right, “138 steps down” and on the left, “Still 190 steps up.” What?! 190 steps to go?! I couldn’t believe it. Stairs are horrific and I had 190 left. Nothing was going to stop me from reaching the top, however. I had paid 20,000 kip to see that wat and I would see it! I continued on my journey, therefore, and soon made it up to Wat Tham Phu Si.

It was a beautiful sight from the top of the mountain. Walking around the golden spire at the top you could see every bit of the city and surrounding countryside with a view only occasionally impeded by large trees growing out of the stone top of the mountain (an incredible sight all on its own). We sat at the top of the mountain for a while, simply enjoying the view, and reflecting on the beauty of the land. As you sat and looked out, you could see the Rivers meet and meander away from Luang Prabang and the mountains rising around the city in every direction, seeming to protect the city from anything outside. All too soon it was time to climb back down the mountain so that we could visit the Night Market once again to finish picking up some souvenirs and to enjoy our last Night Market in Luang Prabang.

Before our final shopping/bargaining extravaganza, we bought some smoothies as a refresher after our long and arduous hike (although looking back on it, it is hard to say that was arduous, especially since I hiked Doi Suthep in Thailand, but at the time it seemed quite difficult). Our shakes were as delicious as always, but were presented to us in a new and unusual form. Instead of being poured into a plastic cup, they were deposited into a plastic bag! Yes, our smoothies were poured into a small clear plastic bag and then put into another plastic bag with handles for easy carrying. A straw was inserted into the mixture and voila! One smoothie in a bag! It was a bit of a shock when I was first handed the bag, but it was a lot of fun, walking around with a blue bag full of pineapple goodness. :)

We had an equally good time at the Market on Saturday as we did on Friday, although we shopped with more purpose, having each made a list of items that needed to be bought. We left the Market a bit after 7:30 pm and headed out to the bar district to get some food, a couple cocktails, and watch the football game (Saem wanted to watch badly as it was Korea’s final match). We ate dinner at the Lau Lau Garden, which, it turns out, has abysmal food. (Good cocktails, but terrible food.) We moved on quickly after our meal, of which I didn’t eat much, and went two doors down to the Hive, a more modern, edgy bar where the game was projected onto a large screen. I ordered some bruschetta there, continuing my Italian food trend, which was delicious, and a Hivecocktail, which was less delicious. We had a lovely, relaxing evening, watching the game, sipping cocktails, and enjoying our evening. As we watched, clouds rolled over the moon and lightening began illuminating the sky in quick bursts every 45 seconds or so. It was beautiful and after the game we headed home under the flashes of light. We ended our evening early as we had plans to wake up at 5:30 am for a special activity in the morning, but we’ll talk more about that tomorrow…