Day Eight (18/10/2024): Buddhism, nature and the Fireboat Festival (Luang Prabang)

 We all bounded out of bed at 5am this morning ( Well, maybe that's not entirely true as some of us were a little slow at that hour!) in order to be sitting in the street early to provide Alms offerings to the monks. As Buddhist monks they are reliant on the generosity of people to feed them. 

They are not allowed to cook or earn money to buy food. Every morning they walk around the streets in their vibrant saffron robes holding metal alms bowls and hoping for donations of food for their breakfast and lunch. They apparently don't have dinner and so they don't eat from noon to breakfast the next day. Khais, our guide, became a novice monk at the age of fourteen and for the next five years was hungry!!

Many young boys become novice monks , as he did, in order to be educated. Many of them come from rural villages where people marry young and have large families, often outside their capacity to provide education. Many look very young and see little of their families when they come to the temples in the towns.

There are about 2500 novice monks in Luang Prabang and only about 300 monks. 

Last time we were here we lined up and fed the monks, but we gave them wrapped lollies. Apparently in the intervening years many monks have developed a weight problem and teeth problems because of the generosity of tourists! This time the guide had organised traditonal sticky rice baskets for each of us and we used a plastic glove to give each monk a ball of rice. Trying to work out how much to give each monk was tricky as it's impossible to know how many will go past. Luang Prabang has 35 temples all of whom have monks!

Last time we were told to not make eye contact with the monks and defintely to avoid touching them. The young novices were inclined to glance at us and they did smile about the lollies. This year a couple of the monks said 'Sabaidee ' (Hello) to us and they seemed less worried about looking at us. Khais says they are more accustomed to seeing tourists now and are a bit more relaxed.

It took some time as each of us finally ran out of rice. 

So we headed for the van via the local food market: only small but fascinating as usual. Mind you the dead rat and birds, frogs, crabs, eels, bees and insects were a bit off-putting.

And there were weird white strips of buffalo hide which apparently the Lao people dry and eat like jerky. The mushroom varieties were very colourful. And there was Luang Prabang sausages which are famous here apparently. And of course there's lot of rice on sale!!

After breakfast and showers we were all awake and raring to go to Mandalao Elephant Conservation project. It's described as  'an intimate non-riding experience'. And that description is very important. 

Like many tourists we have ridden elephants before, but this project actually saves elephants from tourist camps and circuses. Many have been seriously mistreated and have permanent injuries. During COVID many of these attractions closed so it provided opportunity to save many. 

We arrived and were greeted by  Khamkhoune Khounebouline whose life passion has been to save as many elephants as possible in both Thailand and Laos. He was inspiring, talking about the work he's done over many years. His son was our guide.

But before we saw any elephants we had to change our footwear for very interesting 'elephant trekking' boots. We needed to get them exactly the right size or walking would be difficult as they had soft soles and zipped up to our knees. It was a challenge if you have small feet and well-developed calves as it became impossible to do up the zip (not naming any names here!). 

After donning our glamourous gear we headed for the river and precariously climbed down a rough bank and into a narrow boat which was very low in the water (particularly after we all got in!). We've used many boats on this trip and, much as I would like to say that we have developed excellent boating skills, I think that might be an exaggeration! However none of us have fallen in or ended up in the mud or toppled down a rough bank so that's pretty good.

Off we went to the other side of the river to disembark as elegantly as possible and clamber up yet another bank.

The two elephants we were going to take for a walk were waiting nearby for us to feed them.

Wen (short for watermelon because of her shape) and Dum were both rescued from the same Tourist Camp some years ago. Dum had lost an eye due to mistreatment by the mahout: poles with hooks attached are used to control the elephants and often result in injuries.

They were not tethered and were very calm whilst we fed them bananas. They swallowed the bananas whole so you had to be quick to keep the bananas going into their trunk at speed. Then we just walked alonside them through the forest. We were warned to try not to get in the way of their feet of course! it was a lovely experience to see these stately animals free, and to enjoy the quiet forest environment with them.

After a boat trip back we enjoyed another traditional Lao lunch:  a mix of curries , stirfries, laab, vegetables and, of course, sticky rice. We struggled out of our fabulous footwear and headed back to Villa Maly for a swim, rest and massages.

We've arrived at a very important time in the year: the annual Fireboat Festival. Any time we have ventured out we see bamboo and tissue paper being used to create huge, rather flimsy looking, dragons or fish or animals, often by the novice monks. 

Every building has huge star-shaped lanterns shining in the dark. 

For weeks before lots of temples, villages and community organisations work collaboratively to produce these remarkable creatures, which are then paraded down the main street in a procession like Moomba. The parade and the freeing of the boats into the Mekong River are symbolic for all Buddhist people and are thought to bring good luck and blessings to those involved.

After dark we lined the street with thousands of people to watch the procession of more than 30 of these creatures. behind each float the people who made the creatures walked. Many were school students and sometimes the rest of the village dressed in their tribal clothes walked, sang or played music.Just before the procession started hundreds of candles were lit on each float. We were rather alarmed as the combination of tissue paper, bamboo and naked flames seemed like an OH&S disaster waiting to happen! But when one dragon caught alight there was a flurry of men with a ladder and water bottles spraying madly and the fire went out. They relit the candles and away they went. As you can see from the photos it was a stunnng spectacle.

There was plenty of music, drums and singing to heighten the excitement as they proceeded. 

Khais, our guide, was very pleased to see his Hmong friends dressed in traditional dress and dancing and singing.

We were tempted by some of the street food -particularly the donuts! (Not exactly traditional Lao food!)

Finally we watched the last one pass by and headed for dinner at Gaspard which proved to be authentic french cuisine - their colonialisation of Laos has had some benefits!

Before heading back to the Hotel we walked a block to the Mekong to see several of the fireboats floating downriver. Apparently they end up in pieces quite a distance away where riverside villagers collect the pieces.

It was wonderful that Jenny timed our trip to Luang Prabang to see this festival as we were all thrilled to see it.

your impressed correspondent 

Dianne