Postings from my recent travels in southeast Asia, Italy and England. As usual I found that travel reveals more about oneself than about ones destination.

Sunday, March 17, 2002

Wat Spotting in Laid Back Laos

Despite its scenic beauty for me the major attraction of Laos is its vast array of wats (pronounced just like our English word 'what' - it means temple).

A highlight of this wat spotting was the visit to Wat Phu Champasak (Phu is pronounced Poo - as in Winnie the Pooh - what were you thinking about?). This pre-Angkorian site is about 800-1000 years old. It is mostly tumbled down and unrestored but its charm lies in its exquisite carvings and tranquil yet dramatic setting.

Wat Phu is located at the foot of a sacred mountain (accorded its sanctity due to its phallus-shaped peak). Two square buildings - called the north and south palaces - are at the bottom of the site and have fine carvings of Hindu gods above their entrances. Wat Phu was originally a Hindu temple that was converted to a Buddhist place of worship.

Between the two "palaces" (which look to me to be bathing tanks but I am not an archeologist) a set of increasingly steeper stone steps rise to a plateau at the base of the vertical mountainside. The stairway is flanked by frangipani trees (plumeria or dok champa in Lao) that were in bloom during my visit. The dok champa is rather an odd looking tree with no leaves just the waxy, creamy-white blooms bursting forth from finger shaped, dull-grey branchlets.

The plateau is shaded by mango trees and contains a small, half-ruined temple decorated with fine carvings. A sacred spring emerges from a grotto beneath the cliff wall. Buddhas - which are probably of more recent vintage - are scattered around the site and in some of the still-standing buildings and the whole site is popular with Lao pilgrims and picnickers as well as foreign tourists.

Having plenty of time in Vientiane, Lao's capital city, I wandered far and wide in the city looking at many of its wats. That Luang - the holiest site in Lao (not really a wat - temple - but more rightly just a stupa) - was frankly a disappointment, especially in comparison to the wonders of Shwedagon Pagoda - a similarly golden, "national icon" - in Yangon, Myanmar.

Other wats were more rewarding however. The Haysoke Wat in "old Vientiane" - the backpackers area near the Nam Phu fountain - featured beautifully carved window shutters that depicted other Lao monuments such as the Mak Mo (Watermelon) Stupa in Luang Prabang, the Plain of Jars and the That Luang itself. The carving was exquisite and showed a wonderful sense of perspective and artistry - something that is rather lacking from many of the more traditional panels.

Many other wats I visited rendered up nuggets of beauty or interest (or both) - mirror-worked ceilings or stupas, imaginative sculpture, pleasant settings or interesting activities taking place within the compound of the wat itself.

Simuang wat fit the latter category with monks working on wood and stone carving while a heron (perhaps a pet?) stalked around imperiously as if surveying the quality of the work in progress.

Here in Luang Prabang - where I am presently - wats abound. Many are exceedingly beautiful and I have enjoyed myself very much and taken (what I hope are) good photos. Here are someone else's photos (until I get the time to put mine up on the net).

As in other places wats off the beaten path have provided some of the best experiences and most memorable photographic compositions. At the Wat That Luang there is an unusually shaped stupa behind the temple with a kneeling statue at each corner and glazed green tiles - reminiscent of Bagan - around its base.

At the otherwise unremarkable Wat Sa-at I sat (just a coincidence the name of the Wat and my activity I think :-) ) on a rickety bench for half an hour gazing at the Nam Khan river below and across at the jutting finger of land (between the Nam Khan and the Mekong) that is the most heavily 'templed' area of Luang Prabang. I watched Lao tend the lush green gardens planted on the rich alluvial soil of the river exposed by the low water level of the current dry season. Long narrow boats poled back and forth across the water and orange robed monks wandered through the rows of bright green lettuce and corn.

The final wat I will mention is one that I found most heartening. Wat Xieng Muan is involved in a UNESCO funded project that is training young monks in restoration and repair of temples. The wat was a hive of activity with monks applying whitewash to a temple wall, cleaning up and working on wood and stone carving. A very fine woodcarving depicted various Luang Prabang monuments and traditions and orchids were being raised - presumably for placing around the compound as decoration.

On Wednesday I will wind my way back down to Vientiane on the bus - a 420km trip that takes 10 hours. I'll stay two nights and then (if all goes to plan) on Friday night (March 22nd) I will board a bus (which I have been assured is air-conditioned and of the 1 seat to 1 person type - as it should be for $25 US) for the 22-hour ride to Hanoi.

There will be less wats to spot in Vietnam but I look forward to it nonetheless although the traveler’s grapevine seems to be fairly heavily weighted towards the negative in terms of overall impression of the country. An oft-repeated statement is "In Vietnam you are just a walking wallet."

And on the subject of wallets (nice segue huh) - if you'd like to help fatten mine up a little please have a look at our (our being myself and business partner Michael Korican) latest website that's all about credit cards . Let us know what you think of our efforts by using the mail link page on the site. And if you haven't looked at it lately check out our original site - Where Can I Buy A Car Online - that just celebrated its first birthday.

Lastly I'd like to tell you about a shop here called L'etranger (I presume that means the stranger but my French is abysmal). L'etranger is a shop that sells and rents books as well as marketing Lao handicrafts. Upstairs is a tea room where you can recline on comfy cushions while you enjoy tea, lao lao (rice liquor) or a glass of wine while selecting your reading material from one of the two hundred or so issues of National Geographic that line the walls.

L'etranger collects donated books in English and French (and probably other languages too) and loans them free to Lao people (mostly children it seems) for 5 days. The children are very excited to have this opportunity and I really enjoyed watching their happy faces as they exclaimed at the colourful pictures and dug through the box of treasures. I'm sure their textbooks - if they even have any in their poor looking schools - are dry and boring in comparison.

If you are planning a trip to Lao please thinking about bringing 2 or 3 old books (whether for children, older readers or grown ups) for L'etranger's collection. Or if you have some connection (Airline? United Nations? other aid organization?) or can think of a way to get books here economically the address is:

L'etranger
P.O. Box 148
Luang Prabang Laos 06000

e-mail: booksinlaos@yahoo.com

Bye for now - my next missive will be a message about massage. How's that for alliteration? So long from Laos and next time "Hello from Hanoi".