the hills and clouds of a summer in laos.
after a very windy bus ride - during which a tiny laos woman continuously vomited so very quietly, so very politely, into a paper bag next to india - bryn & india arrived in luang prabang. knowing very little about the place, they had borrowed a lonely planet guide from a british couple on the bus and had scribbled down some suggestions in to their notebooks. they headed towards the main stretch of street, th sakkarin, and dipped into a few guest houses before finally deciding on one for 40,000 kip (or about five u.s. dollars) owned by a sweet single mother and her three children. retrospectively, bryn & india are still amazed by this: for a mere five dollars a night, they slept in a clean room with a ceiling fan, a strong shower, a television equipped with cnn and bbc, and were greeted each morning by a smiling and fussing family who offered sturdy umbrellas and cheap laundry service. incredible.
luang prabang was the first part of laos that bryn & india were able to truly feel the french influence on the country. the buildings resembled those in the french quarter of new orleans - skinny balconies, bright wooden shutters over every window, tall double doors leading into grand entry ways. the food was seafood with french flair; delicious buttery white fish caught fresh from the mekong river that wound its way around the peninsula city. the wine was warm and fruity. the weather was sticky. and the art was detailed and bright. bryn & india immediately fell in love with luang prabang.
wine and fish on the french boulevard.
their days were spent roaming the tiny town, dipping into dozens of buddhist temples that dotted the emerald and sand colored city. the details of wat xieng thong particularly spoke to them; each hand painted wall showed pictorial stories of the history of both the religion and the city. the open air gardens smelled of the fresh river that flowed around it and smokey incense that was pitched tall in each temple. the mornings were spent in a discovered coffee shop, saffron, founded and owned by a northwest native. he had single handedly replaced the opium fields with coffee fields and was buying exclusively from the laoian plantations he had helped facilitate around luang prabang. the afternoons were spent swimming in waterfalls with new friends, ankles nibbled at by tiny biting fish. bryn was taught how to properly rope swing into the watery abyss while india remained in the sun, nursing her fish bitten feet. evenings, the two ate the most delicious mekong fish they could find - each restaurant grilling butter and herbs on fire fueled grills on the sidewalk. after, full and tipsy, bryn would barter hard for hand painted art and silk bedding in the night market - the best that they found in all of asia.
an interior of a temple in wat xieng thong.
mingling with the locals.
french boules played next to the mekong.
practicing meditation.
bryn learns to rope swing properly.
afternoons at the waterfall.
after a slow week of quiet days, writing and reading and lounging and exploring, practicing their french and avoiding the night monsoons, bryn & india discussed their next move. back to thailand and trek the north? head south to cambodia and find ankor wat? spontaneously, the two booked a flight from the tiny luang prabang airport headed for hanoi, vietnam in hopes of finding hot bowls of pho and some scuba friendly beaches.
the most beautiful airport she'd ever seen.
