15th April -17th April 2010 Luang Prabang – Laos

We flew in Luang Prabang on a small prop plane. Poor Travis, he is an ex- Lakers basket ball player who is travelling with April. He is only 7 foot tall and keeps a lot of attention wherever he goes especially in Vietnam where everybody including men are only 5 foot tall. Travis usually books the bulkhead seats on planes. Well in this case that was a BIG mistake. The first seats in the plane are only 4 inches from the bulkhead , absolutely no way for Travis' legs to fit. He curled up on top of 2 seats and offered the guy in the aisle seat of the emergency aisle $20.00 for his seat. He would not switch ( we later discovered that the guy himself did not have an emergency seat either). Long story. We worked it out.

Luang Prabang is translates to "The Sleeping Beauty" and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 and has a serene and gentle atmosphere. It has a very French flair as it was ruled by them at one time. At the airport we discovered that it is the year 2553 here not 2010 like in the western world and it was The Festival of Pimai or the Lao New Year. This occurs every year form 13 April – 15 April. The entire country comes to a grinding halt. April 13^th is officially the last day of the old year. The 14 April is empty, belonging to neither the old or the new year. The 15^th is the official start of the New Year, or Pi Mai Lao. This is the time to "wash " away the past and wish for a good future. Lao people symbolize this by throwing water at each other. –Lots and lots of water ( I will come back to this) for mutual purification and blessing. One again we checked in and were given our challenge book. We were allowed to only do the eating challenge that night and we were NOT allowed to leave the hotel before 6.00am next morning.

So off we set to find one of the eating challenges. We hit our first road bump as most restaurants close by 11.00 and the one we were looking for was very illusive. Finally we stopped at the Coconut Garden and ordered Jaew bong and a Beer Lao. Well Jaew Bong is a condiment kind of like a "hot chutney", which tasted great with my spring rolls.. And the Beer Lao came in super big size. It was late and we took a Tuk Tuk back home.
One of the challenges was to rent a bike and ride to 4 scavenges. Once again we arranged to meet at 6.00am downstairs. When we went down to rent bikes, Zoe, Rainy, Lily and myself we could only get 3. So Zoe sent Lily and I along to get started and we would meet up in town somewhere, it is too small a town not to bump into each other ALL the time.

The challenge stated:- Participate in the sacred Tak Bat ceremony at dawn discreetly. Note b be respectful : don't offer substandard offerings

This was so amazing. Tak Bak is the parade of the monks, all the monks walk through town with their ""begging bowls" and the people of the town line the streets with their offerings to put in the bowls. The monks varied in age from men to quite small boys, ad they wear bright orange robes. One lady called Lily and I over, put us on a plastic sheet and handed each of us a plate of something that looked like miniature "conkies",( inside had a purple looking paste). You have to sit on your heels and as the monks pass place one of these banana leaf wrapped packs in each bowl. The monks in turn give back some of the offerings to the kids and the poor as they pass. It was quite a sight to see. All along the roads there are offerings that you can buy, from tiny little birds in cages that once you purchase, they are freed and they fly away, to beautiful cone shaped flower arrangements. Then morning pray took place in a big monastery on the street.

Next we did this challenge:- Visit the morning fresh market Ban Pakam and see how many types of live creatures are for sale.

This was a bustling market full of fresh food for sale. Everything from rice, to dead ducks, to fish, vegetables, fruit etc. Most things were not alive. We saw a variety of smaller fish swimming around, some live beetles and bugs, and the small birds in cages for sale but mostly everything was ready to cook.

As expected almost at the end of the market we butt up with Zoe and Rainy and we set off to a travel agency to try and arrange to do the bonus tours. We arrange for a TAXI to come and take us to the first venue. While we were doing the negations "Team Camel" arrived and we agreed to scavenge with them. With that arranged we went to take care of one of our mandatory eating challenges. Find and enjoy a typical French Breakfast. Had to do this challenge before we left because breakfast has to be eaten at breakfast time. The six of us had breakfast at Café de Artes. Quaint! Lovely croissants and café con leche. The TAXI picked us up and we were off on our exciting Bonus.
Bonus question:- Make a pilgrimage upriver to gain merit by ritually bathing the Buddha's at Pak Ou caves. Note: It will be busy during this festival.
Pac Ou Caves are located about 25 km from town where the river Nam Ou meets the Mekong River. We set off in the TAXI for the tiny poor village of Pac Ou on the other side of the river from the Pac Ou Caves, suddenly we come around a curve in the road and we find a "Road Block" literally a tree had fallen across the road and the car could not pass. So out all these "crazy white people" scramble out of the car and start to try and move this tree. Thank goodness that a few minutes later another car arrived on the other side with 2 men and they actually had a small cutlass in their car so between them chopping and us pulling we finally managed to clear the road. The process took about 20 minutes. When we got back in the car Brain proceeded to tell us stories about men who deliberately block roads to rob you. Thank goodness that was not the case here.

Pac Ou village is very poor. The houses are small, they have small vegetable gardens, they sell souvenirs and we saw some pigs and chickens. It is very poor. We could see inside some of the houses and here in Laos furniture definitely does not seem necessary. The house have NO furniture inside. Most of them have a TV, a mat on the floor for sleeping and some stools and a table outside. The cooking seems to be done outside as well. A furniture shop would not do well here.

We slipped slided our way through the mud to the river's edge where we rented a pirogue to take us to the other side. These boats are long and thin. You sit on short stools in the centre. They are very "tippy". It was absolutely gorgeous. The scenery is very undisturbed and serene. Once again it was lots and lots of steps. They are 2 caves , the first is reached by a steep staircase but the special Pac Ou cave is much higher up lots more stairs and this cave is much deeper and absolutely dark. We had to use our flash lights to see anything. Between the 2 caves there are over 4000 Buddhas, most are covered in gold leaf. When you make this pilgrimage you have to do the ritual bathing of the Buddha's. to accomplish this we bought a bottle of "holy" water and you pour some over the Buddha and wash off the dust.

First we were given 3 sticks of incense to light, then you had to "stick" the small candles on to the rock. More difficult than you think because everything is covered inn dust and candles don't stick to dust easily and then you "wash"" a Buddha of your choice. We were lucky because we got there early evidently it got quite crowded later.

Next it was on to our next challenge. Take a trek through a teak groove at Nam Kham atop a gentle giant.
Yup time to go elephant riding!! Yipeee!!!! On the way we stopped through a small village where they make whiskey. Yup in each bottle they decorate the inside with either a real scorpion, a green snake or a cobra. Yes before they pour in the whiskey they arrange these creatures inside the bottles and fill it up with whiskey. We tasted the rice wine but "not I said the fly when it came to the added flavor of the dead animals".

While we were sitting there waiting on the guys to have a drink a "gentle giant" just plodded by with a young boy sitting on his neck. It was so surreal!.

We stopped and bought 3 big water guns so that we armed for the forces for when we were "blessed by the locals" with buckets of water. We are still in the TAXi but we hyave to change to a Tuk tuk at the elephants and we know that we will be sitting ducks so we were getting prepared. Lily is so excited about this. Infact I don't know who is more excited Lily or Brian and Rainy.

Time to ride an elephant. This was so amazing. 2 people ride one elephant with a mahout or driver. We wondered about lazily in the teak forest as the elephants tore up leaves and leisurely ate them. Lily and my elephant was 27 years old. She was so gentle. Part of this experience is the elephants go down into a pool at the bottom of some small waterfalls. I think this would have been magnificent but Laos has been suffering like Barbados with drought and there was not ONE drop of water all the waterfalls are dry. Great experience. Lils thinks we should get an elephant for a pet!!!!

Now on to the Kuang – Si Waterfalls. These were gorgeous. It is many many different waterfalls. So beautiful, it was full of people because of the New Year. Lily went swimming and she also swung on a rope and dropped into the water. Very pretty. I don't know if I can actually do justice with words to the experience of "water washing" for the New Year. Basically we were riding in the back of a Tuktuk and everyone throws water on you, buckets and buckets of water. Or perhaps they will wash you with a hose or better still through red dyed water at you. Both Lily and my clothes are permanently stained with red dye. We got many back too with our water guns. It was like playing war on a big time scale. We laughed until we cried. Lily is planning on coming back "every year" to do this again. By the time we got home we were very wet. Very cold and Very hungry that croissant at 8.00am was a very long time ago.

What a wonderful place. Very friendly people and we did great challenges. I loved the elephants.
Lily and I have place 2^nd in both of the last 2 countries- Hong Kong and Vietnam but I am expecting to fall back to 6 place after yesterday. We had lots and lots of fun but we did not do very many of the challenges. Many of the places were closed because f the holiday. When we got home at 6.00pm we were cold and my main concern was to get Lily warm and dry. We have many more days on this trip and I don't want her sick. We got bathed, dry and dressed. It started to rain harder, with thunder and lightning. We waited around a bit and decided to take the trek into town and see if we could accomplish a couple more points. The town was in darkness because the storm had knocked out a transformer. We were tired and hungry and made a team decision to head back to the warmth and the light. We had the post fun in this town and we will take the memories with us forever, regardless of how many points we accrued in challenges.
Today is also my 22nd anniversary and I was a little homesick for Drew and Savs, and missing Clo in Miami. Happy Anniversary, my love. Am so sorry that I couldn't tell you in person. I am also not sure how long it will take to get tis blog posted as the storm also knocked out the internet. I will keep trying . At 10.00pm was our deadline for turning in our scavenge sheets. And we now know that we are off to Chiang Mai – in Thailand. I am so excited as I have always wanted to go to Bangkok and never got there. I never expected we would go to Thailand on this trip because they went to Thailand last year but we are going to a different city. Can't wait to get there!!!!
We never got to do the visit the orphanage scavenge yesterday and I was so disappointed in that. April and Travis had travelled with a bunch of Beanue babies and kids T- shirts and she wanted to take them to an orphanage so Lily and I went with her. It was so overwhelming how well behaved thos kids where. It was an SOS Orphanages, which means that a Scandinavian company owns, and operates these orphanages all over the world. They are beautiful and if I had enough time I would explain about it in detail. Either Google it or ask me when I get back. Every time you give the kids something they put their hands together in the praying position and bow. There is no pushing or shoving or begging or complaining about who got what. They were so disciplined. They loved having their photo taken with a digital camera because they can see themselves on the screen, so I took lots and lots of photos.

We went back to the hotel, packed up and left for our next destination, thank goodness that the storm is nover because them we would have had to do a 12 hours bus, train and boat ride instead we took the easy way a bus ride. We arrived safely in Chang Mai, Thailand and we are staying in the world famous Shangri-la Hotel. We are so spoilt when it comes to hotels…. I am going to put in the pictures and post this blog. The pictures take forever but I think they tell the story better. Miss all of you. Thanks for the comments. I can't comment back because I just don't have the time. If I ever get a day off I will try….