Month: May 2012

Day 124, Monday 7 May 2012, Luang Prabang

I woke rather pensively this morning, elephant tour today and I was not sure how my insides were going to be after yesterday’s bout of belly issues. I had a small tester breakfast and felt Ok, but still popped an Imodium before getting on the van for the elephant park.

I am in two minds about the whole elephant riding thing, one part says its cruel and should be banned and another says it would be great to spend some close up time with these lovely giants. I had chosen one of the supposedly ethical elephant parks for my ride and bathing session. Elephant Village was started in 2003 by a German guy and only uses rescued elephants, often ones that have been injured working in the logging camps – which is what elephants are mainly used for in Laos, and it is a hard life for them. Being used in tourist villages means that the elephants can pay their way as they are expensive to keep. The only other realistic options for them is being destroyed or released into the wild where they starve to death.

There were four of us in the group and soon after we arrived at the village we were being shown some basic commands for controlling an elephant, mainly stop, go, left and right. Though I am 99% sure the elephant will just do what she wants…. The elephant driver is called a mahout and a mahout will stay with the elephant for many years, a mahout only has one elephant so they do form a bond and understand each other. The mahout and the elephant train on up to 150 commands.

Climbing up on the elephant is quite tricky, its a long way up, and obviously you cannot use her ear as a lever, though they are incredibly tough. Her name is Mae Uck and she is 36 years old.

It is actually quite hard to stay balanced on their necks, her skin is very thick around the head and neck, and she has short bristle like hair. Elephants give out a lot of their body heat through their ears, and flapping ears generally means they are happy !

After a bit of a wait while other groups had rides we were off for an elephant walk for about thirty minutes, Bryan and I shared an elephant. The mahout sat on the neck and we were in a seat, we stopped for a few snacks on the way.

When we got down to the river we each had a go sitting on the neck and trying to give the elephant instructions – not very successfully either… The mahout was taking photos for me.

After the ride we each bought a bunch of bananas and got to feed the elephant. It was hilarious, trying to walk from one end of the shed to the other to feed my elephant with all these trunks weaving and poking and sniffing out food just had me in stitches. They are very gentle creatures and have incredible small motion control with their trunks.

After the feeding we had what was probably a pretty good lunch, though I only had small amount of rice and some vegetables, I feel Ok, but definitely not 100% so wasn’t going to take any risks.

After lunch it was the highlight of the day, we got to choose an elephant, and then ride her down to the river for bathing time. I chose first and picked the biggest : ) probably a mistake as she barely listened to any instruction from the mahout, and was a bit of a trouble maker ! Her name is Kham Khoun, she is 46 years old and has been in the village for a year. She stood on a mine while working as a logging elephant and was bought by the village, an injured elephant is no use to a logging company and would possibly have been pushed out into the jungle where should would likely have died. She is lovely.

The ride down to the river was challenging to say the least, it is quite steep in parts and balancing on an elephants head is no easy task – especially for a clot like me !

Once in the river, we were given scrubbing brushes and scrubbed away, the elephants appeared to enjoy it.

Once we rode back to the village the elephants job was done for the day and they were led away to be properly fed. I was pretty happy with it all.

We all had a swim in the resort pool, Bryan and I got talking to this great couple from Australia, and was recommended this cocktail – though I cannot remember its name.

And then the trip was over and it was back to the guesthouse. I arrived just as Bettina was leaving for her flight and she has told me to look her up when I to get to Brussels – thanks 🙂

After a wee lie down I wandered back to Utopia bar and lay down with my book and my headphones and drank cocktails for a couple of hours.

Once it was too dark to read I got up to leave and ran into the Aussies from this afternoon, who invited me to join them, so I did – and drank three more long island iced teas. I was very wobbly when I left….

Another good day !

Day 123, Sunday 6 May 2012, Luang Prabang

Grrr, another lousy sleep, feeling quite tired now, will have to medicate if I don’t sleep tonight. It rained quite heavily a couple of times during the night so it was significantly cooler this morning. I was up, packed and checked out by 8.00 am, as it was still raining lightly I took a tuk tuk the couple of kilometres to the new guest house.

It appears Bettina and I are the only people staying here. It is past the end of the peak season in LP and there are very few tourists around. A lot of the accommodation is family run guest houses where the family also live, so they remain open whether guests are there or not. I was very grateful to be offered breakfast when I arrived, an unexpected bonus – that I accepted. As I was finishing Bettina arrived for breakfast so we arranged to rent bicycles together (and get a better deal) do our own thing in the morning and meet up late afternoon and try to get to the temples on the other side of the Mekong.

I needed to do a supermarket trip as I had just about run out of toiletries and the very helpful young guy in the guesthouse – he lived in California for fifteen years, told me where to get the best deal. With that as my first goal i set off on my trusty rented mountain bike.

After the market, where I found everything in one stall! I resumed my tour of the local Vats. With the first stop Ban That Luang. A lot of things were closed today, I am assuming because it is a Sunday – though of course being a Buddhist country Sunday has less traditional relevance than Christian ones. Yes, the stupa is at an angle !

I really liked the slowly fading designs on the doors and shutters.

It was then on to Vat Aham, I paid the 20000 kip to enter but was a bit disappointed!

I did like this bike though.

I stopped for an iced coffee at the food stalls at the end of town, though ended up rushing it down as there was some annoying young Irish “hippies”,who for some reason felt they had a right to sit and play a guitar and sing their bloody awful songs while the rest of us suffered, no one seemed to stay longer than necessary.

I then visited Vat Pah Ouak, which has some lovely murals from the 1870’s inside. This is one of the very few of the vats that were not sacked by the Chinese in the late 1880s. I loved the murals.

The museum

A random building, but I do like the steps.

And some random doors.

I stopped for an early lunch as it was getting hot and it was time to head back to the GH and get out of the sun for a couple of hours. I’m not sure if it was the lunch or the iced coffee, but a few minutes later – as I was at my final vat for the morning I had to quickly jump on the bike and ride back to the GH to get to the loo. Where i pretty much spent the next four hours.

I ran into Bettina at the GH and she invited me to join her and two American women she had met for dinner at Utopia bar. I said if I was able to walk far from the loo I would join them!

I was feeling OK by 5.00 so returned the bike and walked to Mt Phou Si a hundred metre high hill in the centre of LP so I could visit Vat Chom Si on the top, this time before it closed !

The view from the top overlooking LP.

At the top visitors can buy these small bamboo cages containing two tiny birds which can then be BBQ’d released back into the wild carrying your wish.

I was still having minor stomach cramps but didn’t feel an urgent need to rush to the loo so decided to carry on to Utopia bar and meet up with Bettina, Jane an Kirsten for at least a drink, and then if all was well, dinner. Utopia sits above the Nam Khan river and has all these cushions and things to lounge on at small tables out in the open, it was a really nice spot with reasonably prices for food and drink. I felt pretty good so had three beers and a very nice chicken laap, which is one of the local specialities. We stayed there a few hours, watched the “super” moon rise spectacularily through the scattered cloud and then moved onto a wine bar in town to share a bottle of NZ Cab. Merlot. We are all wine drinkers who have been on the road for a while and missed a decent red. It was very nice !

Being a bit sick in the middle of the day was a shame as I had a good day, and still really like Luang Prabang. I have two more full days here and have booked a flight to Pakse for Wednesday morning.