4 Waterfalls and 4,000 Buddhas

Posted on June 27, 2013 by lisafindley

After I moved out of my first guesthouse in Laos (we don’t need to get into details, but suffice it to say, always pay the extra $3 because the cheapest room is far worse than the next-to-cheapest room), I lucked into meeting up with some slow boat friends at the night market. They were planning to go to the Kuang Si Waterfalls the next day and invited me to join them, which I was happy to do.

Kuang Si Waterfall

We bounced along the mostly well-maintained road out of town, through small villages, past children in school uniform bicycling home for lunch. Our driver told us what time we had to be back by, and then he set up his hammock in the back of the songthaew for a late morning nap. I bought a sandwich and an entrance ticket, and we went inside the park.

Lunchtime traffic on the road to Kuang Si

The first thing we saw were signs to a bear sanctuary. Asiatic Black bears and Malaysian Sun bears are threatened native species in Laos, and the center shelters bears confiscated by government authorities from wildlife smugglers. Probably the bears were going to end up in cages, having bile sucked from their bodies for traditional medicines, and now they hang out on tire swings and forage for food the center’s workers hide around the enclosure to keep them stimulated.

Naptime for bears

Hangin’ with bears

A short walk away, we came to the first of the waterfalls. I said in the title of this post that there were four waterfalls, but really I made four stops along the path of many little and some large waterfalls. The water was the bright green of jade, and the pools were calm, stacked on layers of brown limestone, until they suddenly tumbled over steeper rocks in a rush of white foam.

Looked like Turtle Falls to me

We passed a swimming hole, its main attraction being the rope swing you got to by edging along a tree branch and using a pole to hook it, after which you grabbed the rope and flung yourself into space, letting go before you swung back too far toward the tree. It looked fun, and scary, and I did not do it.

At the swimming hole

The path was one of the cleanest I’d encountered in Southeast Asia; signs in Laotian and English reminded visitors to refrain from littering, and woven baskets dotting the path served as trash cans. The water also looked clean, which was gratifying. It was so clear and beautiful, I’d hate to see it polluted.

The final waterfall was huge and hugely impressive. We carefully made our way through over the slick rocks to take pictures more or less in the middle of the pool, which was cool. I wanted to linger, maybe write in my journal or read a book with the water rushing past, but other women wanted to make sure we weren’t late for our driver, which is fair, so off we went. It was a pleasant morning, and the only change I’d make if I went back is I’d stay longer.

***

Another popular day trip from Luang Prabang is a river cruise to the Pak Ou Caves. I bought a ticket from a travel agent in town, as did most other people on my boat. I think you can just show up the day of and get on a boat, but I didn’t want to wake up early only to find all spots taken. It was slightly organized chaos at the dock. I gave my ticket to the woman in charge, and she gave me a number. Later, she stood at the top of the stairs down to the boats and yelled out numbers, which I realized when we got down to the dock corresponded to different captains, so that each captain had roughly the same number of passengers. (Communism at work, for equal pay and equal distribution of weight!)

Tiny boats

Unfortunately, I got The Unlucky Boat. We were the last group to leave because it took the captain ages to get his boat untangled from the others and move it around toward the floating dock we waited on. Finally, we boarded the tiny, narrow boat, only to have to shift around to accommodate the guy in the back, who was obliviously moving from side to side, apparently unaware that he could sink us if he weighed us down on one side more than the other. We got underway and stopped after only 30 minutes, at an island populated with incurious cows, so two girls on the boat could pee in the bushes. Restless dude in the back took the opportunity to share a cigarette with the captain. Finally, we arrived at our first stop, the whisky village.

The cutest kid ever to feed herself

Ban Xang Hai is a village specializing in the production of lao lao, a strong whisky fermented in jars. We spent an awkward 30 minutes wandering around the streets, which were lined with tables piled high with scarves for sale. I stopped near the whisky distillery and made googly eyes at a toddler learning how to feed herself. Her mother okayed me taking a picture of this beautiful baby, and everyone smiled as she shoved noodles in her face.

Blurry shot of the caves, as seen from the river

Now it was time to go to the caves, so we set off again… only to stop ten minutes later, beached on another small island in the middle of the Mekong. Our captain went in the back and tinkered with the engine, but after a few minutes it was apparent it wasn’t coming back to life any time soon. Another boat puttered by, and after a little conversation between the captains, all the passengers in ours shifted over to the other one. We left The Unlucky Boat behind, the captain taking a drag on his cigarette and contemplating the engine.

The lower cave

All these delays meant we had a much shorter time at the caves than other visitors, so I had to hoof it to get to the upper cave. The buddhas in the Pak Ou Caves are either damaged beyond repair or no longer in use, and in recent years tourists have brought their own buddhas to add, although I don’t know what the official stance is on that. The upper cave is lit by a few candles and what sunlight drifts in from outside, so I brought my headlamp in case I found myself in the dark, but enough people were up there with the same that I never did. The lower cave is well-lit, but there’s less exploring to do.

Fallen embrace

I liked poking around the upper cave, looking at the buddhas of all sizes and poses, made of different materials, ranged about the caves on long concrete shelves. During the Laotian New Year, people flock here to wash the buddhas, but the rest of the year, the statues sit under thin layers of dust, their limbs wearing away or broken off, their Mona Lisa smiles undisturbed by the dark. It must’ve been the luck of all those buddhas that followed me back to town, because the boat didn’t stop once.

The upper cave of Pak Ou

Where in the World Wednesday

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Rector’s Palace, Dubrovnik, Croatia; June 5, 2013

The Temples and Night Markets of Luang Prabang

Posted on June 25, 2013 by lisafindley

UNESCO put Luang Prabang on its World Heritage Sites list because it’s a town with a well-preserved mix of Laotian and French colonial architecture. After the jumble of rowhouses and tiny shops of Chiang Mai, it is striking to see the long, broad buildings of Luang Prabang, painted a colonial yellow and set at a dignified distance from the brightly decorated Buddhist temples.

Colonial architecture

Colonial yellow

Dignified, stately, slow-moving: these are the words I kept coming up with as I wandered the streets of Luang Prabang. A little in keeping with that stately feeling (and certainly in keeping with its colonial history), there were a lot of fences and walls; more space is cordoned off in this small town than I saw walled away in all of Thailand.

Every evening, vendors set up outside those walls for the night market. In Thailand, the markets are set up on card tables, but in Laos, the goods are laid out on tarps and blankets on the ground. If you want to inspect the goods at a particular booth, you have to squat down, or use one of the tiny plastic stools the vendor whips out for you. I would gingerly lower myself onto these unstable pieces of plastic and smile genially as all the women selling quilts and table runners laughed. Just about every stall has a woman holding a baby, and some stalls are staffed by men or teenagers. I saw one little boy playing on an iPad while his parents sold handicrafts–it’s a shrinking world, indeed!

The tents of the night market

Bombs to bracelets

I picked out wedding presents and souvenirs from various stalls, but my favorite spot was the bombs-to-bracelets stall. The US waged a secret bombing campaign on Cambodia and Laos in the late ’60s and early ’70s, as part of its campaign against the Communist bogeyman. The villagers of Ban Napia in eastern Laos took the aluminum from the thousands of bombs dropped on their homes and, in their words, turned it from “something that kills into something that feeds,” producing spoons. They later added bracelets and charms to their collection, and the number of bombs dropped can be guessed at by the fact that they’re still making jewelry today, nearly 40 years after the bombs stopped falling. I chose to support the artisans, although there is some controversy in doing so, because villagers have to collect scrap metal to make them, and there are a lot of accidents and sometimes deaths with the UXOs (unexploded ordnances). As with so many potential purchases, it’s complicated.

Meat on a stick–a lot of it

The much-lauded buffet (I never tried it)

Of course, there’s food. One woman sliced watermelon with a machete while another flipped sweet potatoes on a small woodfire grill. A narrow alley of food vendors included pork and fish on sticks, dumplings, grilled sticky rice, and two giant all-you-can-eat buffets. I had really good veggie and pork dumplings, and a non-spicy lemongrass sausage (a specialty of the area).

Wat Xieng Thong

Gold painting everywhere

Luang Prabang has dozens of Buddhist temples, and a high concentration of monks and novices (those under age 25 are called novices). The temples, or wats, are painted in elaborate, intricate scenes, sometimes both inside and outside. The grounds are spare, with just a little greenery carefully confined to a few areas, and the rest tiled courtyards between buildings. Monks and novices move around on the edges, running errands, doing homework (many boys enter the monastery to get a good education), making adjustments in the temples.

Seriously impressive

Probably the most famous wat in Luang Prabang is Wat Xieng Thong, sometimes called The Temple of the Golden City. Since Luang Prabang is on the World Heritage list, there’s a lot of upkeep work going on at various temples, funded by various countries–and this temple is no exception. The US Embassy is supporting efforts to reinforce the structural elements of the temple, and scaffolding was set up around the buddha when I visited.

Unfinished renovations

The main building was painted a maroon color inside, and then gold leaf designs were painted on top of that, on every available surface–ceiling, columns, walls. Inside, a long wooden pipe sat along one wall, and at the end of it sat a small buddha in a glass box. During a water-based festival, water blessed by monks travels through the wooden pipe and washes the buddha. My favorite part of this temple was a separate building, which housed a giant dragon boat. The back wall was red, covered in intricate, colorful mosaic scenes and accented with sparkly glitter. There was no way to get a decent picture to show just how big and full of life it was, but I tried. Exteriors of some other buildings were dotted with similar mosaics.

View from Mount Phousi

Buddhas in various positions

Mount Phousi rises above the center of town, and a small temple sits atop it, with various buddha statues and shrines scattered below it, so each step of the climb to the top takes you past a holy site. At the top, if you can balance yourself between the edge and the dozens of fellow tourists, you can see a beautiful sunset over the Mekong. On the walk up, off to the side is the Imprint of the Buddha’s Foot; it’s a large, vaguely foot-shaped indentation in the rock that someone decided was a holy sign. (In that way, it reminds me of the Virgin Mary water spot under the bridge on Fullerton in Chicago.)

Indentation of the Buddha’s Foot

The foot is just past a pavilion with a view of the Nam Khan River to the east, and on this pavilion stood a young novice. His name was Tip, and he was doing homework. He clearly stations himself here most nights in hopes of practicing English, because he was eager to ask and answer questions with me. He was 17, he’d been a novice for many years, his wat was across the river, America sounded interesting… I didn’t have time to ask for a photo or chat with him further, because a couple teenage Laotian boys entered the pavilion, and Buddhist monks aren’t supposed to be alone with women. I didn’t want him getting in trouble, so I said goodbye and he said, “I hope you have many happinesses in your travels in Laos.”

The Wheels of Tempelhof

Posted on June 24, 2013 by lisafindley

I’m in Berlin for a few days, staying with my future sister-in-law and enjoying the lazy summer days spent at Pride parties and giant airport parks. Yes, airport parks. Berlin used to have an airport called Tempelhof, but in 2008 it was shut down. Now they stage marathons and festivals here, and it’s been a park since 2010. Lizzie and I spent a Sunday afternoon picnicking and chatting on the grass next to the runway, watching people play. After awhile, we realized we were seeing the biggest variety of things on wheels we’d ever seen before. Rollerblades and bikes, sure, but also kitesurfers, moving ellipticals, and dry land skis. The Berliners love finding new ways to zoom around their parks! Check out the many wheels of Tempelhof.

Not on wheels, but adorable

Lake Bled: The World’s Nicest 5K

Posted on June 21, 2013 by lisafindley

Everyone’s running marathons and jogging in fun runs, and, never one to let travel impede my recreational activities, I decided to do a walk here in Slovenia: The First Annual Lisa Findley Lazy Lake Day 5K. I finished in the top five and even got a prize for it. I can definitely recommend this approximately 5 kilometer trail to you if you’re ever in the Lake Bled area.

First, I made sure I was in the right gear.

Skirt, floppy hat, large bag (but not backpack)… that’s normal 5K gear, right? (Photo taken in road mirror, so it’s not the best quality.)

Then, I took a look at the competition.

I could take the babies, but the mom would give me a run for my money.

And I was off!

I got this.

Practically no hills–a real smooth track

Soon it was time for a lunch break while contemplating the rest of the course.

Lunch view

At about the halfway mark, everyone took a dip to incorporate some light triathlon training.

You can’t NOT swim in that.

Europeans in all their speedo glory.

I admit I got a little distracted by the views.

The monastery on the only island in Slovenia.

Still life with castle

After only one lunch break, one swim break, and one reading break, I easily made my target time of 4 hours. Time for a prize!

Victory is sweet.

Literally.
(Cream cakes are the Thing To Eat while at Lake Bled.)

If all 5Ks were like this, I’d be a champion.

Sunrise, Sunset

Posted on June 20, 2013 by lisafindley

Sunset, Sibenik, Croatia

Where in the World Wednesday

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Hay-on-Wye, United Kingdom; May 21, 2013

A Break from the Heat: The Last Two Weeks in Cool, Cool Water

Posted on June 18, 2013 by lisafindley

How’s your back sweat situation right now? Probably pretty bad. Don’t tell me about it, I already know. Here in Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia), it’s in the upper 80s and we’re all sweltering. So I’m getting a visual break from the heat by compiling shots of the wonderfully cold water I’ve swum in or been near in the last two weeks, in Croatia. Warning: Serious envy possibilities here. I envy my past self as I sweat my way through the afternoon here.

Lopud, near Dubrovnik

Bol Beach, island of Brac

Brac

Krka National Park

Zadar

Seaside saltwater pool in Zadar

Plitvice National Park

Feeling refreshed?

Running the Numbers: Getting Ripped Off vs. The Bigger Picture

Posted on June 17, 2013 by lisafindley

“Oh, you know they’re always trying to rip you off.” “They’re always looking for a way to scam you.” “You have to be really firm with them.” I heard variations on this theme so many times in Southeast Asia that I started to wonder what I was missing, because I didn’t feel that way. How much of this attitude comes from personal attitude, and how much from the many, many guidebook warnings on scams and ripoffs in Southeast Asia? Probably a mix. A not very pleasant mix of reality, stereotypes, and suspicion.

In the 40,000 kip tuk-tuk

Guidebooks and websites list the various scams you can fall prey to–the gem scam, the tuk-tuk scam, the travel agency scam, to name just a few. I even knowingly went into one of the well-known scams, to see what it was like. There are a lot of setups to separate you from your money, and the more serious ones have legal repercussions if you don’t cooperate (see: anything involving drugs). Being wary of any deal that seems too good to be true is a smart move for avoiding scams anywhere you go, including SEA. That’s pretty straightforward.

It’s the ripoffs that are a murkier area. Traveling in SEA from a Western country means encountering new currencies, new modes of transport, new foods, and a new bar of “normal” prices for it all. I got pork satay for $1 and thought I’d got a bargain, until further up the street I saw someone selling it for 50 cents. Did I feel cheated out of those extra 50 cents? Slightly. Did it affect my budget or my mood? Not at all.

I met some women on the slow boat to Laos, and when we arrived in Luang Prabang we decided to share a tuk-tuk to the Kuang Si Waterfalls, 40 minutes outside of town. We found a couple tuk-tuks and asked how much to take us there and back. (You never have meters with tuk-tuks; you always negotiate price upfront.) The drivers wanted 50,000 kip per person, round trip. What a ripoff! That’s much more than it should be! We’re going to find someone else! And then they did start walking off to find someone else. The drivers let us get pretty far; this wasn’t a haggling technique, you could tell, they really didn’t want to drop their price. But finally they consented to 40,000 kip each, which was deemed acceptable. (I should say here that I really enjoyed hanging out with these women, as we did over the next several days, but we just disagreed on this point.)

We passed a checkpoint (all the tuk-tuks in Luang Prabang belong to a group that they report rides to and presumably pool some money for), and I saw a sign saying trips to the waterfalls are 200,000 per tuk-tuk. There were four of us, which meant the 50,000 was just basic math, not a ripoff at all. But when I mentioned this, the women said no, they’d read online that it shouldn’t be more than 40,000 per person, and it’s a matter of principle, not being ripped off. And “they” will rip you off any chance you get, I was reminded; hadn’t the price of a dress been slashed in half at the market yesterday when one of the women simply started walking away after hearing the opening figure? That proves that they’re always asking for way more than it’s worth.

How much, how much?

But I think it’s not that simple. The dress, yes, that was a funny piece of haggling, because clearly the woman would have settled for much less than her opening price, but why shouldn’t she give it a shot? It wasn’t out of line with prices in other stalls, and it was still only $10. It’s frustrating when you’re not sure what the normal price is, but markets here are meant for bartering, so make up your own normal, or what feels comfortable for you without leaving the seller with no profit.

The tuk-tuk, though, is much easier to avoid being ripped off. They’d gone online to see what the norm was–40,000–so if the driver had said 100,000, we would have known straight away that we were being ripped off. But 50,000 isn’t unreasonable, and according to the tuk-tuk company sign, it was in fact appropriate for the size of our group.

And in the end, it’s a $1 difference. Yes, it was the difference between a $7 or an $8 ride–for 40 minutes out, waiting several hours, and 40 minutes back to town. That $1 means so much more to the driver than it does to me, so why begrudge him that slight boost in his pay for the day? It’s going to go a lot farther in his pocket than in mine. Sure, they countered, but if you keep saying, “oh it’s only one dollar” everywhere, those dollars are going to add up, and you’ll lose a lot of money that way. Yep, I replied, and I’m okay with that.

I complain about how much I’m spending on this trip more often than I should, but I’m still acutely aware of how fortunate I am. I’m far more upset about the ATM fees I pay every time just to access my own damn money than I am about the couple hundred dollars I’ve probably overpaid to people trying to send their kids to school or get dental care.

Finally, this kind of thinking can get dangerously racially based. There’s way too much “they” and “them” in the talk surrounding scams and ripoffs. If you’re always thinking that a certain group of people is always out to get you, you’re not allowing them any individuality, and you’re closing the door on opportunities for understanding each other. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t look out for ripoffs–I had to bail on a taxi in Hanoi with a super-fast meter, for example. But try not to make it the first thing you see in a person.

If you see someone as a scam artist solely based on his race, that’s racist. If you see someone as out for your money, that’s one more friend you haven’t made. That’s a lonely way to travel, and it doesn’t fit in my budget.