My last day in Luang Prabang proved to be my culture day. Whilst going round the National Museum earlier in the week, I had seen the Royal Ballet Theatre, which is in the grounds of the museum. I had investigated and found there was a performance on my last evening, so I booked it up. I have only been to the ballet once before, and that was the English Royal Ballet - a rather different type of dance. I did not have any idea what to expect.
When I go there, the requested 30 minutes early, they would not allow entry to the theatre for nearly the full thirty minutes. I, and a few other tourists who had followed their instructions sat talking outside the theatre. There were a small group of Australians who had obviously been travel companions on many trips, plus a young French theatre set designer, who though on holiday, was there partly out of professional interest. It proved to be an interesting introduction to the evening.
The format of the evening was a welcome dance to start with, and some general dances to end - a monkey dance, a goodbye dance, and a giants dance. These framed one episode of a continuing saga - The Abduction of Princess Siva. The company runs through one episode per performance, thus the entire saga takes about six performances to see. (This would take about two weeks in total.) The theatre very usefully provide information sheets about all the dances, including the episode of the serial being danced that evening.
The first dance was performed by the women of the ensemble. This was what I think of as typically Siamese/Indian - much of the action was in very small and precise hand movements, combined with small and precise steps. Very interesting, but there are semantic elements that just passed me by.
The rest of the dances were mixed, but all but one of them focussed very heavily on the male dance. This is completely different from the female dance, and like Beijing Opera, owes a lot to martial arts and the stances and movements from such arts. The dance is very slow, with a lot of foot stomping and held postures - very difficult ones. The whole thing was superb and thoroughly enjoyable.
After the ballet, I went to a restaurant just a few hundred yards up the road from where I was staying. I had seen this when I arrived, and thought it somewhat upmarket, so a possible place to have a special meal. As this was my last night it seemed appropriate. When I arrived there the place was packed, but they managed to find space for me in an extension. This is when I found it was not just "somewhat upmarket". It was a gourmet, French-Laos, living food vegan restaurant. Living food is one of the further reaches of veganism - I don't pretend to know all the implications of it, but they do include not heating any food above 115oC, and using "live" vegan ingredients. Again the implications of this are unclear to me.
There was only a fixed menu, at a fixed price. The menu on the day I went:
Elixir
Bee Pollen, Greens & Mint
Soup
Seasonal Lao Mushroom & Coriander Mouse
Starter
Tomato Carpaccio, Lime Zest & Vanilla Dressing
Main
Warm Laksa Curry
with Herbs & Vegetable Noodles
Green Papaya Condiment
Dessert
Chocolate with Coco Bean & Fruit Slice
Herbal Tea
Bael Fruit & Mulberry
The meal was of extraordinary standard - up there with Michelin starred restaurants - as was the price, which was expensive by western standards let alone Laos ones.
So for this evening I was the complete culture vulture.
Leeching
Me, begrimed, bedraggled and soaking wet, after I had climbed right to the top of Kuang Si waterfall, about 24 kilometers from Luang Prabang. This is not the largest waterfall I have ever seen, but it is probably the most spectacular. The sheer volume of water and speed of flow are both very impressive. The waterfall is in a national park, and there is a good path to the point shown in the picture. From here there is a jungle trek on either side of the water fall. I chose to cross the bridge here and then go up the path. This was an interesting scramble - rocks, mud, insects, decay, and fecundity. The top was not very interesting - the path dissolved into a multitude of water sodden slightly clearer areas, with no obvious direction to go in, and all apparently leading into dense jungle. Coming back down was painful - in flip-flops, which are not the ideal footware for this sort of thing. I slipped over four times; and came down much of the way on at least three points of contact - sometimes five. The wildlife was everywhere - centipedes; columns of ants; flies; beetles; butterflies with a wingspan the width of my head; spiders; and a lizard that had gone in for camouflage in a big way - its head and antennae made it look like a large elaborate cricket - spoiled only by the fact that the lizard was about nine inches long; and lots of unidentified movements of other lifeforms in the rotting jungle debris.
Oh - and leeches - I collected my first leech today as I found out when I came to hose off my legs, feet, and arms in the car park at the bottom.
The Buddhist Gaudi?
Outside Vientiane there is a sculpture park. I learnt about it from Wikipedia, and put it on my list of things to do while I am here in Vientiane. The reception desk at my hotel advised me to catch a local bus from the bus station just around the corner. This took me as far as the Friendship Bridge - the border with Thailand. A very local bus took me on from there. Two buses to the park; admission to the park; a can of drink at the entry; a meal and drink once I had finished going round the park; and two buses back - all this and I spent less than £3.50. It is very difficult to spend large amounts of money here.
The park is quite extraordinary. To describe it I can do no better than quote from the article I found.
"The park was started in 1958 by Luang Pu (Venerable Grandfather) Bunleua Sulilat. Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat was a priest-shaman who integrated Hinduism and Buddhism. His unique perspective was influenced by a Hindu rishi under whom he studied in Vietnam.
...........................
The statues are made of reinforced concrete and are ornate, and sometimes bizarre, in design. The statues appear to be centuries old, though they are not. There are sculptures of humans, gods, animals, and demons. There are numerous sculptures of Buddha, characters of Buddhist beliefs like Avalokiteshvara, and characters of Hindu lore, including Shiva, Vishnu, and Arjuna. These sculptures were presumably cast by unskilled workers under the supervision of Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat. One notable sculpture resembles a giant pumpkin. It has three stories representing three levels - Hell, Earth and Heaven. Visitors can enter through an opening which is a mouth of a 3-metre-tall demon head (9.8 ft) and climb staircases from hell to heaven. Each story contains sculptures depicting the level. At the top, there is a vantage point where the entire park is visible. Another sculpture, an enormous 120-metre-long (390 ft) reclining Buddha, is also a park attraction."
So if you have ever wondered what it is like to be in a giant magic pumpkin, then this is the place for you.
(Nearly) Dead Millionaire
Today I became a millionaire, but nearly died in the process.
I returned to Thailand after visiting Siem Reap for Angkor Wat and other Cambodian temple complexes. I then spent a number of days in Bangkok, doing very ordinary things - shopping for replacements for some items of clothing I have worn out; finding and going to the local Buddhist temple; getting a hair cut; getting to recognise and be recognised by a few individuals in the local supermarket; and generally tootling about, writing this blog, and doing ordinary things. Part of this was catching up on my blog postings and I am now back to publishing more or less contemporaneously with my travels, rather than the backlog of postings I had in non-computer form.
I then travelled to Vientiane, Laos by train from Bangkok. This turned out to be a bit of a endurance trial - firstly I got to the railway station very early as I had had to book out of the hostel early. Then the train was just over an hour late in leaving the station - there was evidently some problem that was affecting all the train leaving Bangkok northwards. The train conformed to my view of Thai trains - reliably unreliable. It took about 25% longer to get to the Friendship Bridge into Laos than timetabled, so got to the border at about 11:30. Travelling to my hotel finished off the journey - which had been 24 hours rather than the 13 1/2 hours it should have taken.
Vientiane is a delightful town. French colonial in layout, cuisine and architecture,. The local culture is relaxed to a degree that makes the Cambodian attitude seem frenetic and urgent, which takes some doing. All the major tourist sites are surrounded by formal, tropical gardens which are a riot of colour and are very, very attractive. It is also the only place I have been where one of the major tourist attractions in the city, the Patuxai Monument is described there as: "At the northeastern end of the LaneXang Ave. arises a huge structure resembling the Arc de Triomphe. It is the Patuxay or Victory Gate of Vientiane, built in 1962 (B.E. 2505), but never complete due to the country's turbulent history. From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete."
As for becoming a millionaire - The Laotian kip is the lightest weight currency I have encountered so far. There are approximately 13,000 kip to the £. So I went to the ATM today and drew out about £80 - which makes me a millionaire in the Laos kip. And nearly dying while doing it. Well I had to cross the road to get to the ATM. In Laos there seems to be only one rule of the road/driving technique. This is "if you can't see it, it can't do you any harm. If you don't look you can't see." So you never look out for other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, just go where you need to go. A stranger reacting with this environment needs eyes in the back of their head; high speed vision rotating through 360o; the fortune telling powers of the psychics on Blackpool promenade; the reflexes of a cat; and the luck of the devil.
I returned to Thailand after visiting Siem Reap for Angkor Wat and other Cambodian temple complexes. I then spent a number of days in Bangkok, doing very ordinary things - shopping for replacements for some items of clothing I have worn out; finding and going to the local Buddhist temple; getting a hair cut; getting to recognise and be recognised by a few individuals in the local supermarket; and generally tootling about, writing this blog, and doing ordinary things. Part of this was catching up on my blog postings and I am now back to publishing more or less contemporaneously with my travels, rather than the backlog of postings I had in non-computer form.
I then travelled to Vientiane, Laos by train from Bangkok. This turned out to be a bit of a endurance trial - firstly I got to the railway station very early as I had had to book out of the hostel early. Then the train was just over an hour late in leaving the station - there was evidently some problem that was affecting all the train leaving Bangkok northwards. The train conformed to my view of Thai trains - reliably unreliable. It took about 25% longer to get to the Friendship Bridge into Laos than timetabled, so got to the border at about 11:30. Travelling to my hotel finished off the journey - which had been 24 hours rather than the 13 1/2 hours it should have taken.
Vientiane is a delightful town. French colonial in layout, cuisine and architecture,. The local culture is relaxed to a degree that makes the Cambodian attitude seem frenetic and urgent, which takes some doing. All the major tourist sites are surrounded by formal, tropical gardens which are a riot of colour and are very, very attractive. It is also the only place I have been where one of the major tourist attractions in the city, the Patuxai Monument is described there as: "At the northeastern end of the LaneXang Ave. arises a huge structure resembling the Arc de Triomphe. It is the Patuxay or Victory Gate of Vientiane, built in 1962 (B.E. 2505), but never complete due to the country's turbulent history. From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete."
As for becoming a millionaire - The Laotian kip is the lightest weight currency I have encountered so far. There are approximately 13,000 kip to the £. So I went to the ATM today and drew out about £80 - which makes me a millionaire in the Laos kip. And nearly dying while doing it. Well I had to cross the road to get to the ATM. In Laos there seems to be only one rule of the road/driving technique. This is "if you can't see it, it can't do you any harm. If you don't look you can't see." So you never look out for other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, just go where you need to go. A stranger reacting with this environment needs eyes in the back of their head; high speed vision rotating through 360o; the fortune telling powers of the psychics on Blackpool promenade; the reflexes of a cat; and the luck of the devil.
The Gods' Toybox
The various temple complexes in Cambodia, in and around the Angkor Wat complex are the Gods' toybox of temples. The Gods', not having been brought up very well, don't put their toys back very well, scattering them nearer or further away from the toybox depending on their whim. They also don't look after their toys very well - some have been slammed down; some twisted and broken while being played with; and some more or less whole.
Angkor Wat and other surrounding temple complexes (and they stretch, as far as I could tell, virtually all the way across Cambodia) is like no other place on earth. It is the only place I have been where a painted or drawn picture, even if one of the mass produced tourist souvenirs, is likely to contain more truth than all but the very best of photographs. The place is about atmosphere rather than detail, and even with the millions of tourists that go there, there are resonances of the atmosphere very evident.
Here are less truthful images of some of the contents of the toybox.
Angkor Wat and other surrounding temple complexes (and they stretch, as far as I could tell, virtually all the way across Cambodia) is like no other place on earth. It is the only place I have been where a painted or drawn picture, even if one of the mass produced tourist souvenirs, is likely to contain more truth than all but the very best of photographs. The place is about atmosphere rather than detail, and even with the millions of tourists that go there, there are resonances of the atmosphere very evident.
Here are less truthful images of some of the contents of the toybox.
Cute Unit
The milliHelen is an internationally agreed unit for measuring beauty - the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship, or to topple a single tower.
There is an evident need for a like measure of cuteness. There is only one viable unit for this, the Kitty.
This is defined as the cuteness of a single average, awake kitten, just sitting, in ordinary surroundings. The existence of this unit does make other measures necessary. It is not just the cuteness of something that causes an effect. It also depends on the susceptibility of the observer to cute. There is an obvious measure of this available - the w-number. This is defined as the number of w's that are put on the word aw when encountering a one Kitty degree of cuteness. So a w number of one implies that the observer goes aw when seeing a one Kitty; two and they go aww; and so on. Equally, if someone has a resistance to cute rather than a susceptibility, then their w-number is negative. This represents the number of w's in the reversed word - wa; wwa; ... It is essential that this word is pronounced with vigour, and with a gurning and ferocious face. Then a -1 w-number encountering a one Kitty goes wa.
Siem Reap appears to have no other industry than tourism. In addition with Angkor and the surrounding temple complexes being such a vast, and important site, there are severe restrictions on who can live in and around the various complexes. These limitations ensure that everybody living there is directly involved in the tourist industry. They are also (obviously) native, and they and their families have lived in the area since time immoral. As a result many of the souvenir sellers; the restaurant staff; the people producing souvenirs - mainly paintings and drawings; all live close to their work, and naturally take their small children to work with them. On the evidence of my visit to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes, these children's first words are likely to be in English rather than Thai; and are very likely to be "Ten postcard, one dollar", as they get into the family business from the word go.
These children are undeniably cute - I reckon they rate 10-15 Kitties. They do however meet their match with a few tourists, who, like me, have a w number of -10 to -15. They are not successful in selling their postcards, or pens, or whatever. They do though show a degree of persistence that is greater than that of the adults, who very quickly recognise a determined ignoring of their wares and sales pitch. So today's picture is of belated recognition that the sales pitch didn't work.
[I dislike this name for the unit - my favourite Kitt, Eartha, has a cuteness rating of about -1000. Though there are a lot of adjectives and descriptions that do fit her, cute is not one of them. Indeed calling her cute might lead to shredded skin].
This is defined as the cuteness of a single average, awake kitten, just sitting, in ordinary surroundings. The existence of this unit does make other measures necessary. It is not just the cuteness of something that causes an effect. It also depends on the susceptibility of the observer to cute. There is an obvious measure of this available - the w-number. This is defined as the number of w's that are put on the word aw when encountering a one Kitty degree of cuteness. So a w number of one implies that the observer goes aw when seeing a one Kitty; two and they go aww; and so on. Equally, if someone has a resistance to cute rather than a susceptibility, then their w-number is negative. This represents the number of w's in the reversed word - wa; wwa; ... It is essential that this word is pronounced with vigour, and with a gurning and ferocious face. Then a -1 w-number encountering a one Kitty goes wa.
Siem Reap appears to have no other industry than tourism. In addition with Angkor and the surrounding temple complexes being such a vast, and important site, there are severe restrictions on who can live in and around the various complexes. These limitations ensure that everybody living there is directly involved in the tourist industry. They are also (obviously) native, and they and their families have lived in the area since time immoral. As a result many of the souvenir sellers; the restaurant staff; the people producing souvenirs - mainly paintings and drawings; all live close to their work, and naturally take their small children to work with them. On the evidence of my visit to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes, these children's first words are likely to be in English rather than Thai; and are very likely to be "Ten postcard, one dollar", as they get into the family business from the word go.
These children are undeniably cute - I reckon they rate 10-15 Kitties. They do however meet their match with a few tourists, who, like me, have a w number of -10 to -15. They are not successful in selling their postcards, or pens, or whatever. They do though show a degree of persistence that is greater than that of the adults, who very quickly recognise a determined ignoring of their wares and sales pitch. So today's picture is of belated recognition that the sales pitch didn't work.
