Luang Prabang: The Adventure Continues

Luang Prabang

(Blogger seems to be messing with its photo function and it has a few bugs. I'll add some later.)

Luang Prabang ranks as one of the most beautiful cities we've seen, right up there with Salvador, Brazil. And like Salvador, Luang Prabang has a staff of foreign and local architects constantly working to preserve the city's historical resources, thanks to its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cities architectural riches include over 30 functioning Buddhist temples - golden towers with graceful swooping eaves - nestled among historic French colonial buildings. The city's pedestrian-friendly layout is the stuff of city planners' wet dreams.

The streets are active, but not noisy, with a steady stream of motorcabs and bicycles. Orange-robed monks stroll alongside tourists in Tevas, school children, and Lao women in colorful native skirts. Tree-lined brick alleys weave among quiet temples, and open air restaurants line the Mekong River, selling fruit shakes, curries, beer, and barbecue.

Luang Prabang's highlight, however, is its night market. This three block long handicraft fair appears on the main street every evening, with people selling handwoven fabrics, local food, wood carvings, knickknacks, and the ubiquitous Beerlao t-shirts. The vendors lounge on colorful rugs, lit by strings of yellow lightbulbs. Unlike many night markets, a strange hush hangs over the street. People speak in low murmurs, as if in a library. A "saba dee" here and there, some quiet bargaining, but no radios or salespeople trying to push anything on you. The loudest noise is the chanting of the monks in the surrounding temples at sundown.

In fact, this peacefulness is Luang Prabang's defining characteristic. Unlike Bahia, Brazil, which prides itself on its "traquilo" beach vibe, the feeling here is more Zen calm than afternoon siesta.

Shared Encounters

Over the last two days, we did an overnight trek to some native villages outside of the city. The landscape was "more interesting than beautiful," as described by an Aussie girl we met. Villagers have decimated the local flora and fauna through heavy slash and burn agriculture, and the hillsides are a checkerboard of bare spots and new growth.

Laos is made up of several distinct ethnic groups, with the Lao, Hmong, and Khmu the most widely recognized in the Luang Prabang region. These cultures vary significantly in terms of religion and language, as well as more obscure characteristics like the number of doors in their houses, the altitude they live at, and how they carry firewood. Our trek took us through each of these communities, and ended at a Hmong village where we spent the night at an elder's house.

The poverty in these villages is harsh, though folks seem to manage pretty well with subsistence agriculture. Clothes and flashlight batteries seem to be the major supplies they need from town. However, you can see major problems on the horizon, as the Lao government continues to urge villages to move down the hillsides and consolidate closer to roads, utilities, schools, and other infrastructure. This process will inevitably lead to conflicts as villages become more crowded and resources scarce. God only knows how their distinct cultures will be affected over time. Understandably, the government hopes to promote education and economic development in these rural areas, but you have to wonder if folks would be better off just living the same way they have for hundreds of years.

Derek, the cheezy French Canadian manager of our trekking service insists on referring to the village visits as "sharing an encounter."* Though appallingly PC, I think it accurately describes the bizarre cultural exchange that occurs on these treks. We ogle the dirt floors, native dress, babies crawling unsupervised through rocks, and livestock everywhere, while they marvel at our digital cameras, inflatable matresses, clunky hiking boots, and IPods. (One of the guys on our tour discovered the kids could get down to SnoopDogg, bopping up and down while sharing the headphones, but got bored with Miles Davis. Good beats are universal, apparently.) While the villagers see a relatively steady stream of trekkers, tourists still remain somewhat of a novelty, as evidenced by the children that gathered to stare everywhere we went.**

Throughout these shared encounters, I felt creepy and voyeuristic. You can't help it, particularly when you step into a smelly hot dark hut and think, "I'm in for a grim night." The fact that you paid more money than this family will see this year to have this experience only makes it worse ($50 each, for the record). That being said, playing with the children, letting the local men take a few hammy karate pose photos of each other with the camera, learning local vocab with the help of a phrase book - anything besides sitting in a corner, quietly observing, helps to ease this tension for me. By morning, I even felt more comfortable in the hut and with the villagers.

How the West Has Won

I don't know why SE Asia seems so much more vulnerable to Western culture than South America. The catering to tourists is even more pronounced than in Cuzco, Peru, probably the most touristy town we've seen thus far. (Ushuaia, Argentina is touristy, but in the same way Times Square is touristy. You know what I mean.) Whole towns, like Vang Vieng, our current location, are overwhelmed by tourists. Vang Vieng is infamous for the Friends Bars, three open air bars right next to one another showing a constant stream of Friends episodes to stoned or drunk backpackers. (Aighhh! There is no God!!) Somehow, even the most touristy South American destination appears less compromised than this. It's not just a question of size, either, as much of Bangkok, a huge city, is just as ready to lay itself prostate to the tourist dollar.

To its credit, Luang Prabang has made efforts to protect itself from tourists. Posters are everywhere explaining how to behave yourself at the monks' daily alms ritual. Another poster gives tips on how to conduct yourself as a tourist, my favorite being "Maintain good hygiene, or prepare to be laughed at." There's a little cartoon of nasty barefoot hippes with torn clothes and locals pointing and laughing. Priceless. Even Vang Vieng guesthouses have handwritten signs pleading tourists to maintain a neat appearance.

Lao Disco

Last night we went to the local disco, upon recommendation from Derek. It was excellent. When we came in, people were dancing to standard club technopop, albeit with a little more restraint than Westerners would. The action realy picked up, though, when the live music came on. The act, which looked like a wedding band with 40-year old men in suits, played what can only be described as "adult contemporary" Lao music, which fired the crowd up into a series of complex line dances. The people broke it down in a reserved, yet strangely charming way, never touching, never making any sharp or aggressive movements. As is typical in Laos, the place shut down at 11:30pm sharp.

I Can't Stop Eating

The other day I rented a tiny pink girl's bike with a basket and biked around Luang Prabang, stopping whenever I saw a food vendor.

Between the street food bike trip and just walking around, I've tried:
A fried empanada filled with sweet corn
Fresh sugar cane juice on ice (served in a plastic bag)
A sweet waffle, possibly made with taro
Mystery meat on a stick, grilled over coals
Salty sticky rice cooked on a stick (the one thing I haven't really liked thus far)
Grab bag of savory and sweet pastries and cookies
Orange cake
Sugar coated fried dough (i.e., a donut)
Dinner several times at a street buffet at the night market. You pick veggies, rice, and noodles, toss them into a bowl, and the lady heats it all up in a wok. You pour on various sauces at the table. $0.50 for this.
Noodles.

All in all, I'd say the food is similar to Thai, but generally less vibrant and tasty. It's good, but not amazing.

* One of Derek's clients came into the office while we were there, and complained that his motorcab driver had brought him to a handicraft store on the way to the trailhead. Derek, equally pissed, exclaimed, "But that's not a shared encounter!"

** Between our time in Iquitos, a random bike trip Jen and I made to a village across the Mekong from Luang Prabang, and this 2-day trek, I've become pretty adept at entertaining the kids. Digital cameras are especially great for this.