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Sun, Jan 20, 5 p.m, 84 F, sunny and clear: Luang Prabang airport

I’m exhausted as we wait in this modern airport (only 6 years old) for our hour-long flight (on a prop plane!) to Hanoi. Don and I had another early wake-up (5:30) so that we could sit next to the street and put sticky rice and cookies in the baskets of a line of monks (over 100) who came by bus from another village to gather alms; 2,000 monks live in the city itself. Today was a holy holiday, so the monks were newly shaved and dressed in laundered saffron robes. I’m also feeling tender. I know I need to write about our stay and our guide before we encounter the next kaleidoscope of impressions in Vietnam. I am quite sad to leave Luang Prabang. It is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. At the same time, I am so grateful for this sweet man beside me, who handles all the complicated tipping, carries my bags when I’m tired, and keeps all our passports and important letters of entry/visa applications organized and easy to find.

Our guide first. Vong is a walking encyclopedia, with knowledge of his country’s customs, different ethnic groups (there are 49 “tribes”), and Buddhist practices. He is the first educated person I have met (I believe) who appears to be entirely without cynicism, sarcasm, or guile. He is middle-class in a poor country, yet he shows no signs of class consciousness. When he tells us about the people who live farther up the mountains, he speaks with deep respect for their animist cultural practices and self-sufficiency.* As we got to know each other better, Vong showed photos of his wife and 5-year-old daughter; his wife grew up in a small village and carries some of those traditions with her. For example, she eats squirrel, which Vong does not (there is also cooked bat, snake, and rat at the market, if you’re hungry); she also is not comfortable in restaurants, but is herself an accomplished cook. Vong’s brother works at the Tamarind (restaurant) and is just as friendly, bringing us sweet rice cakes after we told him we were stuffed and telling us funny stories about his calm older brother, “Mr. Vong.”

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Warning! Literary Allusion. In The Last Battle (the final book in the Narnia series), the Narnians are fighting the Calormen in front of a barn. Every night the Calormen bring out an ape out to scare them and convince them that Aslan is angry. In the final battle, the Narnians are thrown into the barn, together with the dwarves, who have fought both for and against them, and a young Calorman, who believes in the pagan god, Tash. Once inside, the dwarves sit in darkness. But the Narnians and the young Calorman realize they are in Narnia itself, the Calorman, too, because, although he never knew Aslan, he is noble and pure. Aslan shows up and invites those who can see Him to go farther in and higher up. Before they leave, the Narnians plead with Aslan to do something for the poor dwarves, who are sitting on what they think is dirty straw. In response, Aslan lays out a splendid feast, but again, the dwarves see nothing but rotting food and start fighting among themselves. Being in Luang Prabang has been a bit like getting a glimpse of Narnia. There is a feast here for those who welcome it, and thanks to Vong, we have moved through our days experiencing the spiritual power of his ancient, beautiful city.  

Today, we walked the standard 300 steps up a steep hill to the ancient temple, and Vong stopped us every couple of minutes to share some meaningful truth. What follows is taken from our conversation and told in his voice:

The Mother of Earth often appears alongside the Buddha and always with her hands wringing out her long hair. This is because she has two jobs – to drown the demons that threaten the Buddha and to bring water to the Buddha. In many temples, a wooden gutter in the shape of a dragon carries scented water down a slight slope to the Buddha, where it bathes him before it runs out a drain in the floor. Buddhism, according to Vong, is quite simply, Karma and the cycle of reincarnation. In Vong’s family, one couple was struggling with infertility, but then was asked by a shaman if anyone had died recently in their family. They finally became pregnant, and guess what? – the baby came out looking exactly like the 105-year-old grandfather who had died 2 years earlier.

            Typical conversation: The tail of Trump’s plane is 14 meters tall, higher than a palm tree (we all laugh).

            When we found a natural “footprint”of the Buddha  – five toes carved out of rock and painted gold – Vong said, with no hint of irony, this is “unbelievable.”

            Vong is quite upset about a recent spate of thefts by bandits who break into temples to steal the ancient bronze or gold Buddhas (probably to sell to wealthy Chinese people). But woe be to these people, because if you do something bad inside a temple, soon you will have bad luck. Following the Buddha is all about not fighting, meeting bad people with calm. The hardest thing to learn is the gift of forgiveness. Your enemy is needed to check how good you are, and your friend comes to promote you. Ordinary people pray for prosperity and health, because enlightenment is too lofty a goal; it’s too many lifetimes away (there are, after all, 7 layers of heaven). Vong told us a story of a rich businessman in Luang Prabang who had been a monk as a young man, grew his fortune and his family, and then left his children in charge of his wealth, to return to the monastery. His faithful wife meets him every morning at 6 a.m. with alms. They can laugh and talk, but they do not touch each other.

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            At the end of each of these mini-sermons, Vong lets go an infectious laugh. As we walk down the mountain, we hear the monks chanting from the Golden Temple we can see in the far distance, which is close to his home.

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Luang Prabang means “capital of the royal Buddha.” It was the original seat of the monarchy before the king moved to Vientiane (capital of Laos). It sits at the confluence of two rivers: the Mekong and Nam Khan (“winding current river”) and the heart of the city, including the charming old city, is a UNESCO world heritage site. True to its location, Luang Prabang is where Lao and French architecture meet in a unique combined style and all these tribes live together peacefully. [At the Villa Maly hotel, one of the staff is a young French woman who first came to the city as a volunteer with a French organization. When she flew back to Paris after her few weeks’ stay, she quickly realized that her heart was in Luang Prabang; she has lived here four years. She pointed out to me at breakfast that we were being served by 3 young men who say “Good morning” in 3 different languages. I believe they were Hmong, Tai, and Khmu-the original tribe here, who immigrated from India].

*The ethnic diversity here has perhaps saved Luang Prabang from conforming to a single set of Communist standards. When the State was created 43 years ago, it kept the rules of inheritance whereby a piece of land is privately owned and passed down from one generation to the next. FYI, Laos is a land-locked country slightly smaller in size than the United Kingdom. It has 7 million people, most of them farmers, compared to 68 million in Thailand and 94 million in Vietnam. Today, more Chinese and Vietnamese are moving to Luang Prabang for work. Vong says they are undercutting businesses with lower prices and taking jobs away from the Laos people (I don’t say “Laotian” because nobody here does).