Day 11 – Lost among the elephants
Today was a day to be a tourist, of course excepting what
that really means in a remote little Laotian slice of heaven. There are a few
tourism staples here. I wouldn’t necessarily say what I did today is among
those – certainly it isn’t on the firtst page. But after experiencing it, I do
wonder why it wouldn’t be.
One of the ancient names of Laos can be translated to
loosely read ‘the land of a million elephants’ as historically there were over
a million elephants in this little country. Today, as we learned during our
tour of the Elephant Village, there are roughly 800 left in the country – half in
captivity, half still in the wild; though they will go to great lengths to
state how those in the wild are probably worse off.
There doesn’t seem to be a lack of elephant tours around.
Elephant Village is the more budget of the two that were advertised in my
AirBNB hosts very handy guide to Luang Pra bang, a guide that has either run in
parallel with my own research ore opened it up to things like this tour. The
budget version isn’t necessarily cheap – it was 45 USD – but coming with it is
a trip to the Elephant Park, getting a chance to feed, bathe and ride the
elephants, a river sampan to the Tae De waterfall (the lesser of the two
waterfalls in the area) and an hour in the gorgeous Tae De Waterfall. Overall,
a pretty good deal for a tour that doesn’t include any strange hawkerish
heritage stops (I have to say, something that is far less in Vietnam and Laos
than I wouild have expected).
The tour stars early, as it gets you back fairly early,
still ready to enjoy most of the day in Luang Prabang and surrounding areas. Of
course, since I was staying in an AirBNB
that while centrally located included no real distinguishable, shareable
address, there was a mix-up in getting picked up. Luckily, the phone number
they gave me to contact the Central office worked, and I was able to get
rescued and picked up next to the nearby Wat Xieong Thong – probably the only
Wat name worth remembering.
In the end, we left for the Elephant Village around 9am, with
a Chinese woman and her two parents, and a young couple and kid from Spain
joining as well. The rid was fairly quick, if a bit rougher than the one to the
Pak Ou caves the day before, which makes it fortunate to be in a AC-enabled van
instead of an open-air tuk-tuk. While the road quality was poor, it was still quite
cool to pass such lush hills of jungle on either side.
The elephant village is 30 minutes away from the Luang
Prabang city, tightly located on either sides of the other river that runs
through the area, with one side being the welcome center, restaurant, lodge,
feeding area, ‘hospital’, and the other the jungle where the elephants spend
most of their time. This place stresses all over that they are looking to save
and treat these elephants well, and by all accounts they do. They have copious amounts
of food for them, they are allowed basically 75% of the day off, they get daily
health checkups, and they aren’t strapped with overbearing harnesses.
The tour starts with feeding, where we take giant banana tree
trunks and feed them to the 10 or so female elephants that are here for the
day. These things are so strangely regal – my everlasting thought when around
them was how cool is it that these animals exist? We fed them by holding out
the trunk to their, well, trunk and then they used that trunk to maneuver it to
their mouth. It was a beautifully funny process, and quite exhilarating. We
were situated in a terrace where the elephants could come up and almost lean in
with their heads. They were well trained to be around himans, so it was all
just a load of fun.
After the feeding, the elephants took off to the other side
of the river, while we learned a bit about the history of the Laotian elephant
and the work that the Elephant Village was doing. I am not close enough to really
judge if they follow through on their process of ‘saving elephants through
responsible tourism’ that is plastered everywhere.
We then took a quick sampan across the riverbank to reach
the elephants on the other side for about a 30-minute stroll on top of the elephants.
We each got our own elephant, and own elephant rider. The elephants were on a leisurely
stroll thoruhg the jungle, and I have to say, it took a few minutes to get used
to their movements. I put my trust in the rider behind me, and the fact that
these are giant strong animals, but yes I did think a few times I might fall
off into the Laotian jungle.
After a while, the rider jumped off to take photos, which was
all the more unnerving, but again these beautiful creatures were still quite
good and getting us through the 30 minute out and back course. I was a bit sad
to get down, especially since I thought this was the end of the elephant
portion of our tour, but instead there would be a little surprise at the end.
After the elephant walk, we all took a larger sampan for a
15-minute serene ride down to the Tae De Waterfalls – a popular tourist destination
by itself that you can reach independent of the elephant tour. The Tae De
waterfall is a series of cascading pools and waterfalls, all in a serene turquoise.
You can swim in all of them, climb from one to the other, zipline above them
(sadly, didn’t have enough cash on me), and experience all of this beauty. I
had no real expectations of this place because it was by far the second most
talked about waterfall in the Luang Prabang area.
Despite its lesser notice (and, by the way, this makes me
really excited for tomorrow when I go to the main waterfall), it was so
beautiful and unexpected. It was well shaded so it was fairly cool anyway, but
the water was not too cold, and really fresh. You could get right up to the
rocks that separate one level from the next and let the water just run over
you.
The toughest challenge for me was contorting my body and
getting solid enough footing in the pools to be able to take a photo while in
them. I definitely tested my sense of one-armed balance, and also one small
time semi-tested Samsung’s reported waterproof functionality. Outcome: they
might be on to something.
After this we took the sampan back to the Elephant Village
for a lunch – a nice homecooked meal of rice, chicken curry (yellow curry, as
far as I could tell). Following lunch was the ride back to Luang Prabang, first
with the ability to say goodbye to the elephants and feed them one last time,
which was more emotional than I wouild have expected.
I had a few hours to play with in Luang Prabang before my daily
afternoon trio of beer, people watching and R&R. Nicely, the tour dropped me
off right at the steps of the Wat Xiaong Thong, which was a spot on my list of
places to visit anyway. This is probably the largest Wat in Luang Prabang
proper, and the only one to charge an entrance fee (20k Kip). They also were
supposed to require men to cover their legs, and had ready-made clothes to
allow people to do this, but for whatever reason the seemingly dispirited person
at the front let me in in my swimming trunks.
The Wat complex is large, with three or four temples all
worth exploring. I love the fact that they didn’t care too much about people
taking photos, as long as you were quiet and took your shoes off. The painting
on the inside in each one was tunning, as were the regality of how they looked
from the outside. It’s a quick walk and snap (pictures) spot, but well worth
it, even if it is a bit hard to reach from a conventional place.
After a quick stop at the AirBNB I was off again, this time
towards the more conventional areas, to get a quick bite before exploring the
shopping angle of it all. Even the last ‘touristy’ thing on my list – the TAEK museum/arts
center – is more about shopping. That center was in the base of Mt. Phousi –
the large hill smack dab in the middle of Luang Prabang. It is a three room museum,
basically introducing Laos’s four main ethnic groups, and their individual
legacy of arts, handicrafts and music. It s avery quick visit, but still quite
interesting to learn the complex history of such a small country.
Of course, right after you leave the final room (the music
one), you enter a room where they sell you modern creations based on these four
ethnic tribes. The wares are nice, and as I would alter learn, not surprisingly
marked up here compared to the stores in the town. It did serve as a natural
lead in to my shopping. After pre-booking an extra bag for my flight back to
Hanoi (I already get two on the way back to Newark) I thought to myself fully
that I would need to fill said bag, and so far I have bought nothing. That
changed.
There are many crafts, textiles, curios and art stores around
the main walks for Luang Prabang, ranging for normal tourist bargain basement
stuff to fairly ornate handcrafted stuff. I played for the middle – first trying
to fill my desire of getting coasters. In Laos coasters are mainly cloth, which
makes them a bit more exciting than getting the standard carved stuff I
normally do. What I also got was a bottle of Laotian Rice Whiskey, a few face
cloths, bamboo straws, and of course still awaiting the right set of coasters –
an item that is surprisingly expensive (relative to other stuff) than I would
have expected.
After a bit of shopping, I went back for my usual R&R at
the AirBNB. I also got a nice gift from the hosts as they didn’t have anyone
coming in tomorrow so they told me I could check out at 5pm when I have to
leave for my flight – something I terribly do not want to think about let alone
do as leaving this slice of heaven will be tough.
After a bit, I strolled down the main plank to Bamboo Tree,
my dinner destination, enjoying the far cooler Laotian night air – a good 20 degrees
F cooler than in the day. Bamboo Tree is known as one of the best authentic
Laotian restaurants that is still modern and western enough for a lot of tourists
to go there. Basically, it isn’t a hole in the wall, but cooks incredibly down
to earth Lao food.
For a starter, I had a Lao take on a regular Thai soup. It
had minced chicken (could have sworn by taste it was pork, but I defintieyl
asked for chicken). It was a bit spicier than the Thai counterpart (for real),
despite me asking for ‘Medium Lao’ spicy, which was 2nd highest of four
(with Lao spicy as the spiciest, and standard medium as the lowest). It was
plated great on a large bamboo platter with a collection of sauces you can pour
into the soup. My main was a ginger pork, with more real ginger than I ever
could have imagined. Overall, Lao food is quite incredible.
After dinner, I went to the Night Market to see if I can get
a last bit of hawkering on, which I did to the tune of coasters (!), which were
unsurprisingly cheaper (and likely poorer quality) in the night market, and
also some tea to take back home. Then I went back to Tangor, which is probably
the best people watching spot on the main drag, and just has an incredible vibe
in the place. I chatted a bit with the French owner who moved to Luang Prabang
five years ago and hasn’t left. He seemed thrill someone complimented him on
the plating, and told me to send all my friends here. After two full days in
Laotian paradise, I will take him up, if not come back myself.
