Luang Prabang

The entire city of Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, brimming with temples and monasteries.  We had five days to spend in this town, and three of them were heavily compromised (I’ll get to that later), meaning I didn’t make it to all of the beautiful temples – or wats as they are called here – that I wanted to see.  Nevertheless, I think I saw enough Buddha statues to satisfy my needs.  At least for a little while.

The city is set in a peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers.  The area is surrounded by green hills, but there is only one hill in town, Phou Si.  If you climb the staircase to the top there are several statues, a temple, and what is reported to be Buddha’s footprint.
A reclining Buddha.This Buddha is very tall….…and appears to have Dutch style footwear…The view from the top of the hill is supposed to be spectacular, but because it is burning season in Northern Laos most of what you can see is smoke and haze.  Locals are burning farm land and underbrush to prepare for the upcoming farming season.  It smells like a nice campfire when you wake up every morning and the air is still chilly, but when the heat of the day hits it becomes a bit oppressive.Elsewhere around town you can’t walk two blocks without seeing a temple.  Literally.  And every one of them is ornate and beautiful.There is such detail on the doors, and inside the temples the walls are completely covered with painted murals.  Seeing as there are several monasteries in town, there are also hundreds of monks.  They do much of the upkeep on these temples themselves.  On more than one occasion I witnessed monks painting temples, climbing on roofs to make repairs, and working with power tools on various projects.Wat Xieng Thong, the oldest and one of the most important Laos monasteries.  Inside there are hundreds of Buddha statues and ornate paintings.  The outside of other buildings on the grounds have beautiful tile work.We’ve become familiar with a few variations of tuk tuks from various parts of the world, but this is a new one for us.  It is driven like a motorcycle while passengers sit in what is essentially the flat bed of a truck.  Not as bumpy as you might imagine.
I don’t think I’d be willing to sit in this old school side car, though.More temples…seriously they are practically everywhere.I love seeing the bright saffron robes hanging out to dry outside the monks quarters.  Such colorful laundry.Boats on the Mekong River.
We walked across a bamboo bridge similar to the one below at night, and it did not feel very stable.  But the locals walked across them fearlessly.  I guess we’re just wusses.