Farewell, Luang Prabang

Ever since I published my post discussing how I hadn’t taken time yet to think about farewelling Luang Prabang, Mike has been bugging encouraging me to write a goodbye post on things I’ll miss about this little fairytale town. He even wrote his own list to show me how it’s done, titled the document “I like LPB”, and put it in our shared Dropbox folder.

Mike’s list has 36 items on it. I haven’t read them yet, because I figured that might be cheating.

I thought briefly about just posting his list and being done with it, but regretfully decided that was also probably cheating.

So here we go. Things I will miss about Luang Prabang .

Those magical months after the rains have come and gone. The rivers are swollen, the mountains are dense jungle green, and palm trees rustle in air that is improbably, bewilderingly, crisp.

Walking around town in the evenings. We’re only a ten to thirty minute walk from pretty much wherever we want to go. We can stroll into town beside one river, home along another, and debrief the day while Dominic chills out in his stroller. For the most part, I’ve actually enjoyed not owning a car for these past three years.

The night market. It is a riot of colour and craft, and (again, improbably for Asia) you don’t get aggressively hassled to buy.

The cost of living. We can buy a dozen bananas for sixty cents, and pick up fresh mangosteens, mangoes, dragonfruit and pineapples during much of the year.  At one of our favorite tasty local joints we can order three mains, three fresh fruit shakes, and a nutella crepe all for under $10.

And food. There is a lot about Lao food to love. Steaming sticky rice in bamboo baskets. Minced chicken in lemongrass with peanut dipping sauce. Char-grilled pork with tamarind and coconut (you must dine at Tamarind if you visit). Whole roasted fish. Fried pork spring rolls. Tangy sweet noodles packaged in coconut leaves. Apple pastries at the real-thing French bakery in town. Fresh lime sodas. Icy mango and pineapple fruit shakes. There’s more, but I’ll stop.

Our wonderful housekeeper who does all our laundry, cleaning, dishes, and also plays with Dominic for an hour in the morning. I really wish we could take her with us.

Our patient afternoon babysitter who comes between 3 and 5ish every weekday (a great luxury for which we pay her slightly less than $20 a week). The sound of Peak’s motorcycle coming in the gate at 3pm is always one of the highlights of my day. Some days I am so happy to see her it’s all I can do not to kiss her the minute she walks in the door. This same babysitter, incidentally, has taken it upon herself to clip Dominic’s nails regularly. How she gets him to sit still while she does it is a complete mystery to me, as it is a task I can never accomplish while he is awake.

The lantern festival. We were here in Luang Prabang for this festival this year and it was mystically beautiful. The sight of the whole town turning out to release the burdens and wrongs of the past as they set their lanterns loose to the sky and on the rivers was visually and figuratively stunning.

Our house. Four bedrooms and a silly number of bathrooms. Tile and hardwood floors. Teak ceilings. Wooden shutters on the many, many windows. Mike and I joke that it’s the nicest house we’ll ever live in.

Time with Mike. We live a five minute bike ride from Mike’s office. When he’s not out in the field, he’s usually home from the office by 5:15, and he comes home between noon and one for lunch most days.  

That’s a pretty good list, huh? It’s probably not cheating now for me to jump over to Dropbox and see what Mike’s written down. Please hold …

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of overlap in our lists, but Mike did put down some things I didn’t name.

1. Sunset on the Mekong River.
2. The colors. Monks in bright orange and saffron robes, bougainvillea, frangipani.
3. UNESCO World Heritage protection that means guest houses and hotels have classy wooden architecture and décor, which all equals … charming.
4. Elegance. Silk tapestries. Women wearing colorful sinhs (skirts adorned with woven silk patterns).
5. The morning market.
6. Sunrise bike rides and runs. Fog lifting from the rivers. Gentle morning sunlight at the start of a scorching hot day.
7. Sunrise morning alms procession of the monks. Standing at a corner listening to the monks chant while a line of kneeling women pour out the symbolic blessing water.
8. Rainy season storms.
9. The gentleness of the Lao people, and how often you see Lao men carrying babies and taking care of them.
10. Kuang Xi waterfall.  Swimming in the light blue water with all the tropical foliage surrounding.
11. Tad Se Waterfall. Another virtual Eden.
12. The feeling of safety. Walking around town at night with no fear of violent crime. Safe place for kids to play.
13. Moon dust at the National Museum.

The moon dust is, in my opinion, way over-rated (I mean, dust is dust whether it comes from the moon or from the garden) but I totally agree with the rest of his highlights, especially Kuang Xi.  

Because I am a balanced individual (and also because I need to remind myself that there are going to be some benefits to leaving this small town Mekong paradise) I feel I must also mention several things I most decidedly will not miss.

Construction noise. It’s endemic to any growing town, and this town is growing. If I never heard another planer or metal grinder, I’d be a very happy girl.

The heat. About seven to eight months of the year it’s just too hot here for me to be comfortable.

No hot running water downstairs, and an external kitchen. External kitchens make sense from a tropical-design standpoint, but they’re hard work with young kids in tow.

Lao music. I love and admire many things about Lao culture, but their music is not on that list. Lao karaoke, in particular, is frightful. It is also played at ridiculous volumes and can go until all hours. 

Lack of good medical care. We’ve had too many medical dramas (broken bones, herniated discs, nasty food poisoning episodes, and recurrent ear infections) for me to rest comfortably knowing that we are a two hour plane ride away from the nearest good hospital.

Big spiders and tropico-cockroaches. There is at least one big specimen of each of these creatures in our bedroom right now, but I don’t exactly know where. They keep disappearing on me right before I find a lethal weapon. I don’t enjoy getting up in the middle of the night and wondering if I’m going to step on something live and … icky.

Also, while I’m on the topic of creatures … ants. Tiny red biting buggers. They get in everything. Once I picked 54 ants out of one of Dominic’s diapers (before I put it on him, not after I’d taken it off, in case you were wondering). There was an ant in bed last night that left two welts on my leg before I found it.

And mosquitoes. They’re annoying. Also, some of them pass on undesirable presents like dengue fever.

The entire month of March, when the farmers are slash-and-burning their rice fields. The air is so smoky you can’t see the mountains some days, it gets hard to breath, and ash falls from the sky and coats everything a filmy dark grey.

I could write thousands more words on all the memories we’ve made here, but I’ll stop. By the time this post goes up tomorrow we’ll be on our way to Bangkok, and there’s still plenty to organize and do before then. I need to take advantage of my remaining babysitter time this afternoon (right now Dominic is sitting happily on the front step while Peak carefully hand-feeds him a fresh chocolate chip cookie bite by bite – I’m not the only one who’s in for a jolt with this upcoming change). Catch you from Thailand with (we all desperately hope) a good progress update after Mike’s surgery.