Sadly I’m getting a
little behind with the blog and we’ve in fact already left Laos. But nevertheless I shall continue as if we
were still on schedule
Our hotel here is some 4 kms out of the city, lovely rooms
in 6/bedroom blocks set in beautiful gardens with wonderful views.
We got up first morning at 5:15 to go and watch the locals
give the many monks in the city food for the day. The monks walk along with a big metal bowl
and into it goes anything you want to give them but mostly it would seem sticky
rice (a special variety of rice popular to grow here as it needs far less
irrigation than other forms).
After that we walked through the local market and again
marvelled at the sheer variety of food on offer. We were also amazed at the good natured way
the locals tolerated us tourists getting in the way of their daily life. We 4 were of course as considerate as
possible but when 30+ Korean tourists come barging though you certainly know
it.
Sticky Rice being wrapped in banana leaves for selling.
Then it was back for a quick breakfast before visiting the
National Museum.
You can't really seem them, but there are little birds in these cages. The idea is you buy them and release them which will bring good karma on you. Presumably the hawkers just go out and re-capture the poor birds, still I suppose it's preferable to eating them as they would do in Viet Nam and Cambodia!
And paper making in a village
After that we took a boat up the Mekong River (once again
just us on a boat built for about 16), it was quite grey and overcast when we
started and not a great deal to look at but as the time went on it got warmer
and sunnier. We stopped at a local
village which made its own whisky out of rice, not quite to our taste but we
did buy a small bottle of red sticky rice wine which tasted rather like sloe
gin.
We stopped later for a delicious lunch and then visited a couple of caves which had been filled over the years with statues of the Buddha.
After a gentle trip back along the river we returned to our hotel for a traditional Baci ceremony where the local sharma blessed us (!?!) and then various villagers tied pieces of string around our wrists and wished us long life, health etc. and some children performed some traditional dances - all for the expectation of a small payment !!!!! The children turned out to be waitresses from the hotel so small yes, but not that young. I didn't keep any of the photos, quite frankly it was all too cringe-worthy, us 4 sitting on dining chairs whilst the locals sat on the floor etc
More soon ...........................