Flutes and monks

Friday 19^th February

There’s a wonderful outfit called “Backstreet Academy” that we've come across in SE Asia in the last couple of years. It puts falang (foreign visitors) who want to learn traditional crafts such as weaving, fishing or basket-making in touch with local traditional craftsmen and women. The visitors get to learn from makers in their own homes and to find out more about their lives and culture. The makers get a modest fee.

Trevann and I signed up to do flute-making with Backstreet Academy this week. We were taken along by our young translator Tuo to the home of Xiengxoing, 63-year-old Hmong master craftsman, instrument maker and musician, for an afternoon of instruction using sharp knives and bamboo. We chatted while we whittled and came away with two fine-sounding flutes and an increased knowledge and appreciation of the past and present lives of Hmong hill tribe families settled in town.

Xengxoing (Song-Vaa) gave us a tune on the kheng (kane), a reeded 6-piped instrument primarily used for traditional Hmong funerals. 

The bamboo flute was apparently used by young Hmong men to communicate their love when courting.

Song-Vaa checks the two bamboo sticks we're to use for our flutes.

The knives were very sharp but wrapped in towels apart from the tip.

The family's cooking fire was used to heat a metal rod to make the finger holes.

A thin pliable strip of special bark, a bit like birch but copper-coloured, was wound round the mouthpiece end.

And glued in place using "traditional Hmong" superglue!

What a great idea - Backstreet Academy. Check it out if you're in Laos, Cambodia or Nepal.

Today I managed for the first time to get up out of bed early enough to witness the tak bak – alms giving ceremony – for which Luang Prabang is famed.

Groups of women wait patiently by the side of the road every morning from 6:00. 

The monks eventually arrive with their lidded alms bowls. A little chanting happens first but then silence.

As the monks file past, each woman drops a small portion of cooked sticky rice in each bowl.

This is the road outside our house.

Bamboo weaving and snake watching

Tuesday 16^th February

Luang Prabang is still an incredibly beautiful and chilled place to be. This is our fourth time here and there are still new spots to discover, favourite haunts to revisit and new things to learn.

This temple has a particularly regal dog guarding the entrance.

One of many picturesque alleyways

One of the temporary dry-season bamboo bridges across the Nam Khan, with the Mekong in the distance.

When we walk up to the Peaceful Chedi on a nearby hilltop and look back at the town it's amazing to see how green Luang Prabang really is.

OK so it's hazy but you can still see Mount Phousi, the hill that forms the centre of LP

The Peacefulness Chedi

 A couple of days ago I went on a day's bamboo weaving course at Ock Pop Tok, a lovely weaving centre in a stunning spot on the banks of the Mekong. I completed a place mat (which can go alongside the silk one I wove 2 years ago!) and a small basket.

My ever patient teacher, Dao.

View over the dry season Mekong.

Meanwhile Trevann's been producing some very beautiful artwork. The garden at Thongbay bungalows, where we stayed for 3 days, made a great studio to work in.

Our bungalow overlooked the Nam Khan river so we could watch the local fishermen going to and fro.

Back at the Greenhouse Studio, our AirBnB room, which we have for the final two weeks of our stay, we were surprised to find the shed skin of a snake on the balcony wall.

 And the next day we spotted its owner, peaking out from a hole in the retaining wall.

We watched as he slithered off into the next door garden.

 This week we went on a trip to local popular beauty spot Kuang Si waterfall and the nearby Butterfly Park. The falls are spectacular, dropping in stages through a series of azure pools.

A chilled out moon bear in the nearby Bear Rescue centre.

They have a natural fish spa - the fish are free to come and go as they wish.

And finally, on a slightly sombre note, on the way back from Kuang Si we called in at Khoun & Khone's bungalows. It was sad to see them now abandoned and derelict.

Our old bungalow being overtaken by the jungle.

Shivering in V Vieng

Sunday 31^st January 2016 to Tuesday 2^nd February

So we survived the coldest days in SE Asia on record, as bitter winds swept down from Siberia, giving us single-figure temperatures and pouring rain for 4 days. I really felt for the Lao families, not equipped for the cold, huddling over wood fires by the side of the road, wearing all the jackets they possessed. As for us, well Nouth sent for more blankets from her sister in Vientiane and we disappeared under double duvets for a day or crowded round a charcoal hotpot in the (open-sided) restaurant with the other guests. But it really was no joke for locals and visitors in northern Laos, experiencing frost for the first time.

Riverside bars under water after 4 days of heavy rain

The little dog had been whimpering on the bridge, unwilling to risk the floodwater until a kind bystander took pity on it and helped it over.

The dry riverbed - no longer dry.

One of the great things about travelling is all the eccentric characters you come across. Some encounters are fleeting, others develop into good friendships (often with the assistance of Facebook for staying in touch these days). There’s usually a big turnover of guests at Lao Valhalla because most stay just one or two nights so we get to meet a lot of people over 3 weeks. This week there was the young man from Manchester who claimed to have got so drunk one night in England that he woke up in Bangkok! Then there was the retired couple from Liverpool who had “done” Asia in 2 months (Nepal, Bhutan, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines). Plus Bert from Holland who was teaching himself Moroccan and Thai while he travelled; Gunit who hated her home town Delhi and spoke better English than us; Torsen from Germany who organised us into a last-night barbecue which two young, slightly bewildered, passing Aussie rock-climbers found themselves drawn into, etc.

Then one weekend we were visited en masse by Nouth’s family. Three car-loads drew up: her mum and dad, sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews and nieces, probably about 20 people. All very friendly but not a lot of English so plenty of smiling and “Sabaidee”-ing!

Our favourite sunset beer spot overlooking the river in Vang Vieng.

We had a couple of minor dramas in our last days at Valhalla. There were histrionics one morning when Nouth’s sister-cousin and chief cleaner/cook/waitress/laundrywoman Ahn announced she wanted to take time off and visit family for Vietnamese New Year. She packed her bags there and then, but Nouth said that if she walked out she wouldn’t have a job to come back to! Much shrieking ensued. In the end peace was made and we hope that Ahn will return in a couple of weeks.

Ahn and Kiss.

Then one morning we were woken by an extraordinary roaring noise. We thought a lorry must’ve come off the road. People were shouting and running down the road. I leapt out of bed in time to see that it was a hot air balloon threatening to come down on the trees and power lines. Like the opening scene from Ian McEwan’s “Enduring Love”, the pilot threw down a rope to some passing farmers. They managed to drag the balloon away from danger into the open rice fields. All was well, but it did rather put me off the idea of balloon rides in Vang Vieng!

Another occasion, the balloon almost dunked in the river.

On Saturday we said our fond farewells to the wonderful Nouth, promising to return, and set off on the bus to Luang Prabang.

Karst formation mountains behind Lao Valhalla.

Route 13 – the only main road in Laos – passes through some pretty wild and woolly scenery in the 230 km between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. In the recent past (1980s) it was also home to gangs of armed Hmong bandits. Fortunately it’s safe from those nowadays although the hairpin bends, falling rocks and steep drops are alarming enough. It’s a single-lane highway of course and there are places where the road has been washed away, leaving deep potholes and landslides to be negotiated, while avoiding collisions with ancient trucks and vans coming the other way. All good fun!

No, we hadn't run someone over! This was the driver checking the brakes and clutch at the top of the pass.

Difficult to capture the views and drops!

Our driver buying oranges.

Arriving safely in Luang Prabang six hours later we grabbed a tuktuk and headed off to our new abode, the Greenhouse Studio on the far side of the Nam Khan.

This is the villa at the front. At the moment it has two couples staying there - French and English.

This is a bit of an adventure for us – an AirBnB apartment where we’ll be looking after ourselves rather than being in a guesthouse. Four years ago foreign visitors were not allowed to rent houses privately in Laos so it’s a sign of the huge changes in the country that it’s now become possible.

Our place here is a “granny annexe” type apartment with all mod-cons, tucked away at the back of a modern villa in a quiet area. It’s got everything we could possible want – a single room with kitchen area, bed, dining area and seating, tiled bathroom plus a terrace overlooking a big garden with trees. Just down the road is a local market and just across the bamboo bridge a five-minute  walk takes us to the centre of town with restaurants, night market, bars etc.

Our front door

Simple but functional.

The view.

I don't know what these trees are in the garden

Here's one of the fruit/flowers?

Oh joy! There's a pair of Asian barred owlets in the garden!

Today we’re planning to cook our first proper meal – stir fry veg and rice. Will we succeed in buying the right ingredients from the market! What could possibly go wrong? Frogs, bats, locusts and chillis anyone?