Post Christmas post

Boxing Day

Order is restored – peace can resume. The electricity is on today, Christmas is passed, Ben has regained entrance to the house, my digestion has recovered. All is well.

Trevann - with his BeerLao tee-shirt.

It’s been a while. The novelty of writing wears off, just as the novelty of the sights and sounds around us soften into familiarity. I no longer feel the urge to tell friends, family or my future self about the amazing new things I’ve seen. We’re now revisiting favourite restaurants and find ourselves wondering whether we should be doing something more active than sitting around reading and drawing. This is the distinction between travelling and just living somewhere.

This buffalo cart caught my eye. We haven't seen any in use. Indeed no cattle. Handcarts, bicycle-drawn, but most of all motorbike-powered carts.

We still walk a lot every day – either into the hills or around town, depending on how the day goes. Yesterday, determined to avoid anything Christmasy, we went over the old bridge to the other side of the Nam Khan. It’s a quiet area of town with noticeably more flowers in the roadside gardens. We found a little silk weaving workshop with a couple of girls working at looms. I felt more inclined to spend 200,000 kip on a scarf from there than from the Night Market. At least I could see that they really had been made there and weren’t cheap Chinese imports.

On Christmas Day, crossing the Nam Khan.

One of the temples there had wonderful murals depicting the life of Buddha around its walls. At first all the temples look very samey – seen one, seen ‘em all – but as you get used to them you start to pick out their special characteristics. Each has its special emphasis with particular deities. Some are more Hindu or Animist than Buddhist, especially the Hmong temples.

A few of the temples have these murals depicting the life of the Buddha  around their outside walls. Strange scenes of heaven and hell - more than 50 shades!

This is a watery wat. The goddess with the hair is Phra Mae Thorani, who washes away the forces of evil with the water wrung from her hair.

Love these geckos. Just like Alf and Ralph

A pity this is out of focus. It's one of my favourite temples, right in the centre of Luang Prabang, opposite the post office, with fabulous mountain backdrop. I'll try again.

Last Thursday Khone invited us to have “nam leung” with the family. These are pancakes made of rice flour cooked over an open fire and filled with watercress, bean sprouts and “morning Gloria” (no, not the same as our morning glory; it’s like a young spinach, which grows very fast, from seed to harvest in 8 days). Each person waits patiently for their turn as the pancakes are cooked one at a time and served with a chilli and peanut sauce. Unfortunately photos didn’t turn out well.

Khone cooking pancakes for all the family and us (about 12 people) over an open wood fire.

Walking down to the village the other day we were passed by a lorry carrying a vast tree – so sad to see. It stopped by the side of the road, I think because it was too heavy to cross the bridge, and I was a bit nervous about taking photos because I suspect this was illegal logging.

Massive hardwood tree ripped from the forest. I gather the roots are taken as well as the trunk these days. They fetch a high price in China.

And yesterday I was upset to hear a chainsaw felling trees on the other side of the valley from the bungalows. It was awful to hear the crash as each tree died. There’s an Australian bar owner in town called Rob I’ve heard about who is keen to set up a permaculture project on the other side of the Mekong. I’d like to get in touch. Forest gardening instead of slash and burn please...

We met some boys throwing sticks up at a tree the other day, much as kids in the UK do to get conkers. We were not sure what they were aiming at but as we approached they urged us to “See, see – show, show” look at what they had in their bag. It was a very dusty creature the size and shape of a large guinea-pig but with a tail. It was only later I thought I could’ve offered a few dollars for its life, to save it from the pot. I found out later that these bamboo rats are considered very good to eat.

Sadly, much of the wildlife in Laos comes into that category. The cranes I saw the other day, for example, are migratory. But although about 10,000 arrive, only about 5000 leave the country.

Khone says she wouldn’t mind if it were the only source of protein, but in most cases the rural tribes have plenty of chickens and pigs available these days. Often the hunters are relatively wealthy Lao folk wanting to recreate the things they remember from childhood seeing their grandparents doing. I don’t know.

The only way I can photograph these butterflies is to pick a squashed one up from the road! The live blighters won't stop still to pose!

So we managed to get through Christmas without hankering after turkey and tinsel (although there is a bit of that around!). On Christmas Eve we met up with Tony and Fi for a beer and a meal in town, then on Boxing Day they came out to Khoun and Khone’s in a tuk tuk for lunch and a walk up the road. We had Luang Prabang soup with wild banana flowers and delicious real free range chicken legs with a sweet tamarind sauce. Lovely. And good company too!

Tony, Fi and German friend, Connie, with Trevann outside our bungalow.

Oh – and joy! I discovered I could get all 8 Colin Cotterill novels on my kindle! Woohoo.

We haven't yet encountered any live snakes in Laos. This one was well and truly squished in the road.

I don't think they've heard of Bob Flowerdew here - but they've had the same idea about growing in tyres.  

It amused me to notice that Topics have become Top in monosyllabic Lao!

Ahhh - sunset from our pad. Night all!