Hmong village & Tat Kuang Si

Actually the variety of tours you can undertake here in Luang Prabang is not very big. All Tuk Tuk drivers want to take you to the waterfalls so I did it one day with Alison, Julie and Dino. On the way our driver stopped at a native Hmong village. The Hmong are one of the many ethnic minorities in Laos. Most of their villages are in the mountains of northern Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, but pressures for land has driven some villages down to the valley floor. The Hmong are traditionally farmers, growing sticky rice in the wet season and corn, garlic and other hardy crops in the cool, dry season from November to March. Their main cash crop government was, until recently, opium, mostly used for the production of heroin. Officially outlawed by the Laotian government in the last decade, it's suppression is not yet complete. They would clear an area of forest by controlled burning and plant their crop. This is actually happening at the moment, see the pic of the fire in one of the last posts. They practice the oldest religion in the world, animism, a belief in sentient spirits in all things. Their priests, or shaman, can communicate with this spirit world and with the ancestor spirits of the Hmong, to ensure a harmonious existence through sacrifices and prayers. I bought a package of Mentos candies before we went there and I gave them to the crowd of kids that was suddenly around me. It was most remarkable how they were pushing me for more candies.
After this we took off to the waterfalls that are located 32 km south of Luang Prabang. It features a wide, multitiered waterfall tumbling over limestone formations into a series of cool, turquoise-green pools. For us a great opportunity to jump into the cool water after being heated up by the hot weather.

Luang Prabang

It is quite amazing how much french influence you can still see in Luang Prabang. There are lots of bakeries with nice baguette bread and lots of pastries. Also many signs are still written in French language. Yesterday early morning I went to visit the monch ceremony at 6:00 when the collect their food from local people who donate sticky rice, fruits etc to them. As you can see on the pics they walk along the main road and the locals put the food into the monchs pot. The women are not allowed to look at them. There were also some of the poor street children who were waiting for some food which the monchs gave to them in return. It is a very interesting procedure though the locals already started to comercialize it.
Then I rented a bike as I wanted to explore the small city. It cost me USD 1.00 for an entire day. So off I went with my funny bike. Unfortunately my trip only last approx. 2 hours since the bike was stolen after I returned from a temple back to the pavement. Bad Luck or bad Karma? I do not know, the only thing is that I was talking to an Australian couple this morning and they confirmed me that it is a common scam here. People give bikes for rental and once the tourists are on their way they would follow them and take the bikes back to some place. So they make people pay for the "stolen" bike. As I did not want to give them money, I replaced the bike with a new one for USD 50.00!

History of Laos and Luang Prabang

The nation of Laos, including Luang Prabang in the north and Vientiane in the south, was united in the second half of the 17th century under a king who reigned for 55 years. This was the peak of Laotian civilisation. In 1707, a war of succession led to Laos splitting into two kingdoms, one king in Vientiane, the other in Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang fell in the Burmese in 1753 by this time the Burmese had also conquered large parts of Siam (Thailand). In 1770, the Burmese were repulsed by the combined armies of Luang Prabang and Siam. This led to Luang Prabang becoming a dependency of Siam. Vientiane and Luang Prabang were still bitter enemies, and an attempt by the king of Vientiane to defeat Luang Prabang led to a massacre in the 1790's. The Siamese intervened to protect the city, and were the effective overlords of the whole of Laos until the French arrived at the end of the 19th century. In 1904 Siam handed over sovereignty of Luang Prabang to France, and it became part of the French Indo-China, along with Vietnam and Cambodia.
It is ironic that in the 1950's Laos received more American aid per person than any other country. In the 60's and early 70's it received more bombs from America than any other country. They flew 580'344 missions over Laos and dropping two million tons of bombs. Around 30% of the bombs failed to detonate, leaving the country littered with unexploded ordnance!!
Luang Prabang is the cultural and religious capital of Laos and was also the Royal capital until 1975 when the Pathet Lao forced King Sisavang to abdicate.
Luang Prabang is now the only city in Laos where ethnic people make up the majority rather than Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai. In 1995 UNESCO made the ancient and exquisite city of Luang Prabang a world heritage.