Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 121

The Royal Palace was built in 1904 during the French colonial era for King Sisavang Vong and his family. The location was chosen so that official visitors to Luang Prabang could reach the palace directly from the river. After the death of the King, the Crown Prince Savang Vatthana and his family were the last to occupy the grounds. In 1975, the monarchy was overthrown by the communists and the Royal Family were taken to re-education camps. The palace was then converted into a national museum.

On the grounds of the Royal Palace Museum is the Haw Pha Bang, one of Luang Prabang's most attractive monuments. A very ornate temple, the Haw Pha Bang (which translates to "Royal temple") is also known as the Wat Ho Pha Bang. It was built to house Laos's most sacred Buddha image. The very ornate wooden front facade is carved with Buddhist depictions in green and gold colors.

The architecture of the building has a mixed of traditional Lao motifs and French Beaux Arts styles, and has been laid out in a double-cruciform shape with the entrance on one side of the lower crossbar. The steps to the entrance are made of Italian marble. There are a variety of Royal religious objects on display in the large Entrance Hall. Above the entrance is a three-headed elephant sheltered by the sacred white parasol, the symbol of the Lao monarchy.

Statue of Sisavang Vong on the palace grounds.

Built in 1513, Wat Visoun or Wisunalat is the oldest and perhaps the most beautiful temple of Luang Prabang. The temple strikes visitors with its huge stupa called That Makmo, or Watermelon Stupa (because of its odd shape) instead of its official name That Pathum (Lotus Stupa). The stupa originally housed many ancient Buddha images, including the Luang Prabang sacred Emerald Buddha. Many were destroyed during Chinese invasion in 1887 and a number of them are now preserved in the Royal Palace Museum.

We happened to be there around Lao New Year, and so we were able to see the sand stupas. Sand is brought to the temple grounds and is made into stupas or mounds, then decorated before being given to the monks as a way of making merit. There are two ways to make the sand stupas. Sand stupas are decorated with flags, flowers, white lines, and splashed with perfumed water. Sand stupas symbolize the mountain, Phoukhao Kailat, where King Kabinlaphrom's head was kept by his seven daughters.

A little blurry on the first two pictures, but inside the main template are these HUGE Buddha statues along with alot of smaller ones.

So this one is actually not blurry even though it looks a little blurry. This is another picture of washing the Buddha. If you look at the top-middle, you can see the white umbrella and the woman's head. She is actually pouring water in, which goes own the naga-shaped trough, and now if you look at the Buddha statue, you can see water is coming down on top of it .. washing the Buddha!

This is the Lotus Stupa, although due to the shape, referred to as the Watermelon Stupa.

Now comes the adventure part of the trip...Tom and Susan on bikes yet again! We rode out of town into the fields and stopped at this one little house and got a chance to walk around. They had a bunch of little duckies!!

This is rice (I'm pretty sure if I remember right).

It was a little weird walking around their yard and fields, but I'm guessing they got a little kickback from our tour costs.

We also got alot of views of various trees and fruits, like these banana trees.

And then we finally arrived at the Kuang Si Waterfalls. It is a 3-tier waterfall about 20 miles south of Luang Prabang. They start at shallow pools up on a hillside and lead to the main 200 ft waterfall. There are a few small turquoise pools as it flows downstream which you can swim in.

Us in front of the waterfall ... ooo .... bad bike helmet hair!

We too quite a few pictures here and you are actually able to walk about on the rocks into the water pools

They brought us a picnic lunch on the tables overlooking the waterfall area. The food was great although they brought way too much of it. I really can't even tell you what all they were, although there were hard-boiled eggs, some curry chicken, and things with noodles and vegetables. But everything was quite good.

Then we started working our ways down the other tiers of the falls to the swimming areas. We changed into suits and made our way out into the water. Mind you, we didn't take flipflops/water shoes which was a major problem. There are very slippery and sharp rocks in the water that you try to walk across (well, crawl across is probably more accurate) to get out into the pools. It was NOT easy and at least I didn't feel too bad slipping around and looking stupid, as I wasn't the only one!

Next to the waterfalls is the Tat Kuang Si Rescue Centre. The Rescue Center was established by Free The Bears Fund Inc. in 2003 after local authorities confiscated three bear cubs and asked for assistance to help look after them. The center has continued to provide care for these bears and also accepted additional bears that have been confiscated by the Lao authorities. Most of the bears are Asiatic Black Bears (Moon Bears) that were illegally captured from the wild as young cubs, most likely destined for use in the traditional medicine trade.

The bears enjoy large forested enclosures, cool fresh water streams and pools (fed by the nearby waterfall) and, of course, lots of play and enrichment items to keep them fully occupied!

If you are interested, you can like them on Facebook as well as providing financial aid via donations (http://www.freethebears.org.au/web/Projects/Laos/)

On the way back, we stopped at a few small villages along the way, just to walk around. In most of the villages, the women and small kids are out with tables setup to sell things (I assume mainly to tourists who are stopping by). We bought a few things to support the local villagers.

After a bit of relaxation, we caught a tuk-tuk over to Joy's Restaurant, which was on the far-side of the Old Town. It is a very small little restaurant in what looks like used to be a normal house. Inside were only 4 or 5 tables and was decorated much like you would your living room.

Again, we went with fresh juices.

There were lots of little lizards running around on the walls and ceiling .. they were quite cute!

Again, our little basket with a lid, which contains our sticky rice.

Lots of sauteed fresh vegetables with local herbs and spices. Then noodes, vegetables and thin beef in a broth, which (again) seems to be very traditional. And finishing .... (yea, this will be funny to my colleagues in China) ... a whole fish that came looking at me!

He headed back to the hotel to grab dessert and thought we'd grab a couple pictures of the lights around the little restaurant/breakfast area. We ordered a dessert platter with a bunch of things, although not sure what they all were. Fruit, bananas, sweet stuff.

Next blog will be fairly short, but will cover the giving of alms to the monks!