Laos

Greetings,

It feels wonderful to be in Luang Prabang with new language, music and energies. Very refreshing cool temps.

It is high season. Luang is on the tour circuit for backpackers, lots of French and the odd super anxious German. Lots of elderly folks exploring their planet using canes. Tribes of noisy young white people walk down streets drinking beer and ride bikes without shirts and many foreign women think they're on a beach.

Camera happy snappers. Similar to all those crazy folks at Angkor feeling the experience with their digital.

Hoards of snapping tourists focus on orange rows of meditative monks at dawn receiving alms from locals and the extensive golden and red hued wats or pagodas. Architecture. Soaring wings.  Lines of small alleys and wooden homes. Plentiful gardens. 

Mix in the reserved Japanese and super rude pushy and arrogant Chinese and everyone's happy. Babble tongues. 

It is a small world heritage city surrounded by mountains and bisected with two rivers. The Mekong flows strong. I move like a river.

Initial impressions: the Lao are more laid back than the Cambodians. They don't speak loud or yell. No whining and crying children. They don't hassle visitors. They smile. They are gentle people with a deep spiritual life. Serene. 

Population density: Lao 6 million, Cambodia 14, Vietnam 85.

The night market rolls with lights, merchandise, food, and souvenirs. People watching.

Textiles are huge in Laos; lovely silks with animistic and natural designs - peacocks, birds, fish, rivers, protector dieties, ancestor worship, woven Buddhist prayer flags. Traditional values and motifs. Visual woven stories.

Hand made paper is an integral part of their life. The art of paper, making paper, using paper, honoring paper, community and family paper, painting and writing. Burning paper, making offerings. 

All the Lao girls and women wear a sarong. Delightful and soft. Art, culture and life. 

Metta.

Traditional Arts & Ethnology Center, Luang Prabang, Laos. http://www.taeclaos.org/

This Waking Dream

Greetings,

I've been sitting down and exploring Saigon now for three weeks. Some travelers shared their story.

...The couple from Poland. They recently visited Borneo and camped for four days with an eco-friendly outfit in the jungle. Their operation has been going for 20 years. The couple said they saw orangutans, amazing plumaged birds, scorpions, snakes, and butterflies. Their future travel dreams include Madagascar to see the lemurs, Komodo Island dragons, and the Panda Conservatory in China.

It's refreshing to meet people traveling to experience the natural world, rather than those focusing on museums and cities. Some prefer their comfort zones, others take the road less travelled. 

• The Korean man and his family returning on a vacation. In the 60's he worked in remote areas of Laos constructing roads and airfields for Air America, the secret CIA funded airline from 1950-1976. He also worked in Da Nang.
• The family with two young kids from Darwin, Australia. The mother said, "This is a good experience for my girl and boy. It teaches them tolerance."
• The two girls from Chile and Argentina. They met by chance in Sydney and teamed up. They left their respective homes, much to the dismay and concern of family and friends to travel for a year. It's their first time away from home and they've settled into the routine and joy. They've headed north to explore Ha Noi, the coast and mountains before eventually turning south to Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. They have no time limitations. As one said, "I took the first step."

Metta.

Sculpture at Fine Arts Museum.

  Shirts made of tree bark.

Petrol and tires, Saigon curbside business.