Shallow Trenches

According to Martin, a German tourist I met last year on a boat in Halong Bay, the Lao city of Luang Prabang is one of the most spiritual places in the world.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect based this passing comment, as I do not consider myself particularly attuned to the spiritual world. I think the mental image I formed was of a town blanketed with an atmosphere of reverential silence. I was expecting to join quiet queues of tourists filing through ancient temples and pagodas. I was expecting a soothing and salutary two days spent amidst relics of Buddist history.

Instead I was reminded again of why it’s best to travel without expectations.

That’s not to say that Luang Prabang is not a peaceful place: compared to Hanoi it’s a veritable woodland clearing.  But the streets are full of tourists, the markets bustle with activity (though, mercifully, not with high-pressure sales pitches), and there are plenty of ways to exhaust yourself.

We started by kayaking out to the elephants.  I had pushed our group to take an elephant ride, not so much for the ride itself as to enable us to later make the claim that we had ridden elephants in Laos.  Our walk through the woods was slow, with the animals seeming to begrudge us their every step.  Our young elephant drivers kicked behind the ears of their charges to spur them on, occasionally resorting to beatings with a small stick, or plunging a sharpened hook into the skin of the elephants’ foreheads.  I can now say that I’ve ridden an elephant in Laos, and have the pictures to prove it, but I would neither repeat nor recommend the experience.

Our four-hour kayak trip down a river through the countryside, however, was majestic.  As we propelled ourselves forward beneath torrential rains, we passed scenes of such staggering natural beauty that I felt compelled to refuse their subjugation by camera.  (It was also pouring rain, and the dry bag seemed to be the best place for my camera.)  People from local ethnic groups cast nets in the river for fish as we passed, and we went miles without seeing any signs of the modernity that is slowly making inroads into the underdeveloped country.  That experience I would both repeat and recommend unreservedly.

The following day we hiked to the top of a waterfall, swam in the turquoise water at its base, and pulled leeches from our feet and legs, leaving trails of blood trickling down between our toes.

My German friend Martin’s comment about spirituality must have been made in reference to the very active Buddhism of Luang Prabang.

The temples in the city are not historical relics — they are home to dozens of young monks in saffron-coloured robes.  Rather than maintaining a distance, as I might have expected, the monks could be seen mingling with tourists in the evening market.

This posed an ethical dilemma for me: I wanted photographs of the monks, but I did not want to play the role of the culturally insensitive, obnoxious tourist with a camera.  A telephoto lens might have helped.  In the end, I cowardly shot them from behind.

We spent almost a full day in each direction travelling by bus between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, and only spent two full days there.

Still, while I didn’t rediscover my latent spirituality as Martin’s comment led me to believe I might, and while I suffered from a head cold for most of the time we were in Luang Prabang, the trip was worth it.

Next time, though, I’d take the plane.