An Oasis!

My god! Is there any place as so serenely peaceful, clam and surreal as this city of Luang Prabang? I'd heard nothing but good things about Luang Prabang from many people but I never quite expected this. It's simply an oasis in SE Asia - far removed from the images one conjures up when they think of Laos (or SE Asia). The city resembles Malacca in Malaysia in many ways. It's more true in Malacca, but these cities have a far more colonial or European air than they do Malay or Lao. There are hints of it. And maybe it's because we tend pick out what's different - and from my perspective what is different is the colonial/European influence while for others (who have only just come to SE Asia) it's far more Asian than what meets my eye. Anyway, beautiful city. Anyone in Laos must travel here.

The company I've kept while in Luang Prabang has been on par with the city itself - stellar. Back in Vientiane, I had chatted with various people in the group that I had spent roughly 24 hours with in transit from Chiang Mai. The group of us had become close – closer than most normal traveling companions. There was a family from Australia traveling for holiday and a family (and friend) from the US (and the mother was from Finland). Then there was the Japanese woman and her mother. She was studying in Thailand and had to come to Laos for her visa. She is going to start the sustainable development masters program at CMU in October. We started talking and she was actually more comfortable talking in Thai than in English so we talked in Thai. It must have been a strange site for any native Thai – an American and a Japanese conversing in Thai. And she kept translating for her mom. Our conversation continued and I’ve exchanged phone numbers with her and hope to see her again in CM. And then there is Yuuka, a woman from Burma who is now living and studying English in Chiang Mai and the man from Korea, Piachang. Yuuka and I hit it off and spent most of the time in Luang Prabang traveling together along with Piachang and Peter (I'll get to him). Yuuka is from Burma, born in Shan State. Her father is Japanese, currently living in Malaysia. She speaks Burmese, Shan and Thai fluently and can converse in Lao and English very easily. There are a few other languages she speaks, but only a few sentences. She’s currently studying in Chiang Mai at AUA and has come to Laos for a visa. At the airport, I met Peter. Peter, who is from Sweden, is working in Laos for two weeks and now has a few days off to travel before he goes back to Sweden. We were trying to figure out how to get into town and he proposed that I join him to share the costs and it’s all history after that. We got into town and since it was raining, we decided to get a bite to eat first. He was also waiting for a friend of his to call and tell him if he had a place to stay or not. We ate along the Mekong and chatted. He’s a wonderful and intelligent guy, and I’ve really enjoyed spending time with him. He works for an environmental consultancy firm, who is contracted by the Swedish government who then sent them to Laos as a part of their equivalent of the USAID program. He’s an engineer of sorts working on hydroelectric power plants. Fascinating to here him talk about some of the things he has worked on. Anyway, we finished lunch and he didn’t have a place to stay so we went and found a place.

We then started wandering around town. It was still rainy, but only slightly so we kept opening and closing our umbrellas as the rains changed. We ended up running into Yuuka and Piachang on the street as the rain started coming down harder. The streets turned into rivers – somewhat like Mexico where there only flood control system was the streets. People raised their businesses a foot or so off the main street and when it rained everyone had riverfront property. In our wanderings, Peter and I had seen a sauna and decided that a hot steam seemed like a really appealing rainy day activity. And so it was that on this day in October, I had my first Laotian Steam. It was quite the experience. It was in a very classic, wooden house. The sauna was upstairs and underneath was a huge wood-fed boiler. There were piles of wood and this giant barrel which has smoke coming from it, which I assume was the boiler. We changed into our sarongs (little pieces of fabric that you wrap around your waist) and hit the sauna. We were lead up the stairs, all of us careful how we walked – afraid we might reveal too much of ourselves. The owner opens a door, throws back a curtain and ushers us into the sauna. We can hardly see. Groping along the bench and wall we file in. Sitting down, we can’t help but start to laugh. Here we are, this hodgepodge group of travelers whom we'd only just met, sitting in a little wooden room half-naked while it rained outside. Plus, the smell was terrible. It smelled more like smoke than anything. There was a slight reprieve when the owner threw in some herbs or something but that faded quickly. After several breaks and the obligatory pictures, we called it quits. But the whole time, we enjoyed each others company and the steam. Over tea, we would chat and then hit the steam again. We finished up and were all sweaty and stinky so a quick shower was in order (Laos style - throwing buckets of water over yourself) and changed. It was dark and time for dinner after we finished. We found a neat little restaurant settled on the bank of the Mekong and had dinner. At dinner, we were joined by Peter’s friend, Eric, who works along the same lines as Peter in Luang Prabang. He joined us for dinner, and over a few Beer Lao, we had a fantastic time. It was great to chat with some very intelligent people and converse with them about different things. It was good to meet people who weren’t on the backpackers circuit and were here for a different reason. The conversation would change from a round table conversation, in English, to different smaller conversations between Peter and Eric in Swedish and Yuuka and I in Thai and of course everyone would stop to listen to Piachang when he spoke. I’ve loved this man. He is so quite because he can’t speak English and so he sits and so whenever he speaks people listen (and half the time is doesn't even make sense). His sentences are jumbled but we understand, if not the first time, but some time. We had a blast and after several Beers later we called it a night (since they were trying to close up the restaurant). Yuuka and Piachang headed home and Peter, Eric and I headed out for another beer and a walk around town. We walked and talked, with Eric explaining a bit about the town as we went. We wandered outside the tourist center and found ourselves alone on these dark roads. He took us through a temple, and in the light rain, it was very serene and peaceful. We continued to chat and learn more about each other, walking slowly through the town at night by the light of the street lamps and the moon. We ended at a pub, had a beer, and were ushered out of the pub as they closed a few minutes later. It was then time for bed.