Luang Prabang, Laos

When we vis­ited Luang Pra­bang in 2002, this small town, sit­ting on the Mekong River and home to at least 34 wats, or Bud­dhist tem­ples, still felt a lit­tle undis­cov­ered. While walk­ing along the main drag, though, I some­times felt as though I was in a Euro­pean city with the French colo­nial build­ings lin­ing the street. There were more dogs than vehi­cles on the quiet streets with scat­tered back­pack­ers going into pizza par­lors and inter­net cafes.

Fast for­ward to 2008 and from what I am read­ing and learn­ing from peo­ple vis­it­ing today, this small river town is becom­ing much more tourist laden.

I sup­pose I am partly to blame sim­ply due to the fact that I vis­ited there 6 years ago and put up pic­tures of its beauty and splen­dor on my web site. And, ok, I was also a tourist. And sure, as much as I’d like it to be so, I know that 60 – 70,000 peo­ple who vis­ited Luang Pra­bang in the last year have not vis­ited my web­site, so I guess I can’t take even a lit­tle bit of the credit, or blame, as the case may be.

Truth be told, Luang Pra­bang is a beau­ti­ful lit­tle city nom­i­nated as a UNESCO her­itage site in 1995. Once this hap­pened, the tourists came in larger num­bers. Sit­ting on the bal­cony of Villa Santi drink­ing a cold Beer Lao under a warm sun, watch­ing the city pass by is hard to beat, I’ll admit. I wish I was there right now!

How­ever, once I got off the main street and onto the side roads, I saw almost no tourists. Even though I am one, I like being apart and find­ing areas where I can see and feel, although briefly and surely not as authen­ti­cally as I would like, daily liv­ing in a cul­ture so unlike my own.

How do I know what’s real and what isn’t? This is prob­a­bly a uniquely Amer­i­can question.

Every­thing felt real beyond any expe­ri­ence of real I get at home. I walked past houses where grand­mas were out­side cook­ing din­ner or kids were play­ing in the school­yard or monks were walk­ing along the road or sausages were hang­ing out to dry or any num­ber of things that couldn’t pos­si­bly have all been staged for my ben­e­fit. It’s truly a ridicu­lous notion.

This is my dilemma as a tourist and a vis­i­tor to another’s home city, though. Being an Amer­i­can I stand out. In some places, although not in Luang Pra­bang in 2002, I am, ohhh, how to say this nicely, begged upon. The locals see me as a wealthy indi­vid­ual and com­pared to them I am wealthy. Some­times I just want to give every­thing I have, but at the same time I don’t want to per­pe­trate beg­ging and low-brow mar­ket­ing (i.e., pay­ing $50 for some­thing that cost some­one $0.25 to man­u­fac­ture because I am com­pletely clue­less). This hap­pens all the time and it’s hap­pened to me because I am a sucker and because I hate say­ing no to peo­ple who look like they really need the money.

Any­way, I digress. While we were there a favorite activ­ity was vis­it­ing the wats. And even though we were there for 6 days and vis­ited a cou­ple or more wats a day, we did not get to them all. Along the way we met young monks, some join­ing for the long term and some doing their 3 month ser­vice as Bud­dhists. They were all delight­ful and curi­ous and respect­ful, as we were in return. Nor­mally, monks do not talk with women but these were young ini­ti­ates and I guess it was ok. Besides, we were prac­ti­cally old enough to be their grand­moth­ers. The other rea­son that we saw so few older monks is that many of them who would have been our age or even a lit­tle younger had were lost to the Pathet Lao re-education camps, as was the royal fam­ily in 1975.

I did my best to describe each wat with the enor­mous help of Ancient Luang Pra­bang by Denise Hey­wood. I wish I’d had this book while I was there. I hope you enjoy my series. If you ever visit Luang Pra­bang, know that you will be a tourist but also remem­ber that we are really all one fam­ily. The world gets smaller every day and I per­son­ally hope that is a good thing.

Wat Xieng Thong

Wat Sop

Wat Sene

Wat Siri Moung Khoung

Wat Si Boun Houang

Wat Khili

Wat Suwan­na­phuma­ham

Wat Nong Sikhunmuang

Wat Thakmo and Wat Aham

Wat Tham Phousi

Wat Pa Khe and Wat Paphane

Peace­ful­ness Temple

Pak Ou Caves

Royal Palace

Tagged as: Buddhist Temples, Buddhist wats, Laos, Luang Prabang, SE Asia, tourism, UNESCO