More on Laos

Vat Sisaket
In the capital of Laos, Vientiane, there is the Vat Sisaket temple. Built in the in the early 1800s; it contains over 6800 Buddha statues and figures. According to the local traditions this is where the Lao lords and nobles came to swear allegiance to the king. Pictures inside the temple were prohibited, but below are some of the 6800 Buddha statues that surround the temple.

Pak Ou Caves 
We took a cruise on the Mekong river to go visit the Pak Ou Caves. Below are a few of snapshots of the scenery.

The Pak Ou Caves are revered throughout Laos and a very popular place for pilgrims. In the caves there are some 4000 statues and statuettes of Buddha. 

At this point we are deeper in one of the caves and we have torchlight to help us see what is around us.

Mulberries Silk Farm
During our stay in Laos we visited a silk farm where they “raise” silkworms and make different products out of the silk.

The silkworm cocoons are boiled and small filaments are taken from the cocoons to form a thread. You can see the thread accumulating in the basket next to the Laos lady. On a sad note, the silkworms are still in the cocoon at that stage; not what I had in mind at all! I had conflicting feelings about buying something from the farm. My reasoning being that if I buy a scarf, I am directly preventing many little worms to transform into winged critters. Also, on top of having contributed to their death, I am wearing what used to be their blanky!!! But if I buy something, I am contributing to the local economy and livelihood of many people.

The treads are dyed at the farm with only natural ingredients coming from plants, fruits and the soil. This is a pot of dye currently boiling

Weaving at the farm is done manually and can take up to a couple of months for a scarf depending on how intricate the pattern is. 

Laos

Laos is a beautiful country with green everywhere and almost untouched by humans. Agriculture is still the major source of income of Laos people and the main crop being rice.

When travelling from one part of the country to another, one can see absolutely stunning landscapes. There are mountains after mountains of green lush foliage with clouds hanging out at the top of the mountains. 

Laos cities are still fairly small (Laos population is under 6.5 M) and usually everything (restaurants, bars, etc.) are closed by 11:30pm. In some smaller towns it is even earlier than that – so better not feel like a midnight snack because ain’t gonna happen!

Roosters
Laotian have roosters and chickens everywhere and chances are that you will have at least one living next to your hotel – we did in each city we visited. The roosters start a conversation with their pal a few kilometers away and chit chat back and forth for hours. I witnessed a conversation starting as early as 3:30am by the rooster living next to our hotel, but I didn’t get why because it was still dark. The neighbor rooster had the decency to ignore “our” rooster until at least 4:00am. Pheww, thank god for this courtesy for the human sleepers; a well brought up rooster! 

However, Alain was getting seriously annoyed with them and kept wondered how come none of the Laotian restaurants had roosters on their menu. Lucky for any of the roosters that Alain never caught one because it would definitely have been BBQ’d; I’m sure Alain was secretly...well let's be honest here, openly dreaming about it!

Traveling
When we went to Laos it was during the rainy season, and while attempting to travel by minivan from one city to the next, we got stopped because of a landslide. A landslide, how cool right? Well it was quite something at the beginning but after waiting for at least five hours for a “backo” to show up and clear it up, I was quite ready to leave the sight. We still had 4-5 hours of driving left to do and had not eaten since six O’clock in the morning and it was 4:00pm by the time we started moving again. The leaving was a real capharnaum as both sides wanted to go at the same time but only one side of the road was cleared and there were vehicles in both lanes on each side of the mudslides! Really smart, and no authorities in sight to direct the traffic!! Hahaha!

 

A few vehicles have tempted their luck to cross the mud, all except maybe one or two got stuck and needed substantial help and digging to get unstuck.

Food
The food in Laos was good, lots of meat everywhere though, but I managed to find vegetarian options. The first dish below was something totally different than what I ever had before in Asia, typical Laotian food apparently. It was a fried mixture of cashews, garlic, chilies and other leaves; very flavorful and crunchy (and no, there were no insects in it I guarantee it).

Money

The money used in Laos is the Laotian Kip (LAK), and $1 CAD = $8,150 LAK, so you can imagine that in no time you end up working with hundred of thousands and millions of LAK when purchasing certain things. Since in Canada we are so rich and we deal with millions all the time, needless to say that we had to pay extra attention the number of zeros in the numbers to do the conversion in Canadian dollars. Ohh, and it felt good and scary at the same time to be withdrawing millions out of your account from the ATM.

Construction

And if you need structural support while constructing something, leave it to the good old bamboo stick to come to the rescue!

Plains of Jars - Phonsavan, Laos

Plain of Jars refers to mysterious antique stone jars scattered across the countryside. There are more than 400 sites across the whole Plain of Jars which centers on the area of Xieng Khouang, a province of Laos; but apparently you can also see such jars in the southern part of Thailand and the northern part of India.  The jars appear to be laid in a linear path that was probably a trade route, but their real nature is still a mystery.

The jars are made of sedimentary rock, usually sandstones, but also granite, conglomerate or calcified coral. They are angular or round and some have disks that could be lids. They can weigh up to 13 tons and range from one to three meters in height.

This is most likely a lid, but I have no idea how one would be able to lift it up…pure slab of rock

Water that accumulates in the jars is sometime creating a micro-cosmos for water plants and bugs.

It is not very clear but there is a white-yellow-black spider in the middle of this picture.

One “interesting” thing from our visit to the Plains of Jars is that you are asked to stay on the marked path as there are still unexploded ordinance dating from the secret war in Laos…yep, that made me feel really comfortable.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat and an exterior wall measuring 1300 meters x 1500 meters. The temple itself is 1 km square and consists of three levels surmounted by a central tower.

A view from the exterior wall.

Reaching the inside walls.

 A distant view of the third level of Angkor Wat.

The walls of the temple are covered inside and out with bas-relief and carvings depicting stories and characters from Hindu mythology and historical wars of Cambodia’s king Suryavarman II.

Angkor Wat was initially constructed as a Hindu temple and later on served as a Buddhist temple when Buddhism became Cambodia’s dominant religion. The temple has always been used as a site of prayers and nothing else.

Of all the temples that we visited Angkor Wat was definitely the most majestic of them.