Luang Prabang – The City of ultimate Zen
Crossing the border into Laos from Hanoi, one feels the pulse begins to drop as your body relaxes into a new level of chill.
With its mix of traditional tribal houses, colonial mansions, and Buddhist temples, Luang Prabang is a palimpsest of seven centuries of history, much of it miraculously intact. No cough-inducing fumes, traffic jams or fast food franchises to ruin the landscape, just a lot of French style architecture and tons of monks. While most Southeast Asian cities sweep you up with a frantic pace, Luang Prabang urges you to slow down. Lao people are very peaceful, they have a special existential silence and living close to nature seems to have borrowed some of her composure. No hassles, no rush.
In the center of it all is the Buddhism as an integral part of everyday life and the famed morning alms ceremony encapsulates this. Every morning at the crack of dawn, groups of monks and novices roam the town carrying little containers. In a straight line, they receive offerings of rice and fruits from the local Buddhist faithful.
A ride on the Mekong River revealed some poor villages, completely torn from the world. Many of them are usually specialized villages in manufacturing a single product. The first stop was at what they call “Whiskey Village”. The “Whisky Village” is famous for its “Lao Lao”, the local brewed whisky. The next was at Ban Chan – a pottery-making village where I watched pots being hand-thrown and fired in clay ovens. A little further, along the river, I reached paper-villagers where the locals are adept at making traditional “Saa” paper: a special kind of paper made from mulberry bark.
Times change, but hopefully not too quickly in Luang Prabang.
Luang Prabang – The City of ultimate Zen
Crossing the border into Laos from Hanoi, one feels the pulse begins to drop as your body relaxes into a new level of chill.
With its mix of traditional tribal houses, colonial mansions, and Buddhist temples, Luang Prabang is a palimpsest of seven centuries of history, much of it miraculously intact. No cough-inducing fumes, traffic jams or fast food franchises to ruin the landscape, just a lot of French style architecture and tons of monks. While most Southeast Asian cities sweep you up with a frantic pace, Luang Prabang urges you to slow down. Lao people are very peaceful, they have a special existential silence and living close to nature seems to have borrowed some of her composure. No hassles, no rush.
In the center of it all is the Buddhism as an integral part of everyday life and the famed morning alms ceremony encapsulates this. Every morning at the crack of dawn, groups of monks and novices roam the town carrying little containers. In a straight line, they receive offerings of rice and fruits from the local Buddhist faithful.
A ride on the Mekong River revealed some poor villages, completely torn from the world. Many of them are usually specialized villages in manufacturing a single product. The first stop was at what they call “Whiskey Village”. The “Whisky Village” is famous for its “Lao Lao”, the local brewed whisky. The next was at Ban Chan – a pottery-making village where I watched pots being hand-thrown and fired in clay ovens. A little further, along the river, I reached paper-villagers where the locals are adept at making traditional “Saa” paper: a special kind of paper made from mulberry bark.
Times change, but hopefully not too quickly in Luang Prabang.
