Day 2 in Luang Prabang gave us a boat trip on the mighty Mekong. First we had to go to the temple - the oldest temple in Luang Prabang which has 32 temples recognised by UNESCO as important sights. The temple buildings had wonderful glass mosaics on the outside representing morality stories such as don't fall out with your mother-in -law as her son might just throw you out!
The river trip took us to the Buddha caves - only 200 steps today. There were two caves one called the Lower and the other the Upper. There are over 4,000 statues of Buddha in the caves which are brought there by local people on the anniversary of the death of an ancestor.
On our return to dry land after a lunch of traditional Lao food we visited what used to be the Royal Palace before Laos became the Peoples Republic. Again the walls were covered with glass mosaic decoration; in the former palace the Japanese Government had provided the money to restore the mosaic decoration.
We finished off the day with a visit to the newest temple in Luang Prabang. The internal decoration involves a lot of gold paint and gold leaf as well as many statues of The Lord Buddha. The people are deeply religious and their working day begins with a visit to the temple. The predominant religion is Buddhist but some of the Hmong people also combine it with ancestor worship. Many people bring food to the temples for the monks.
On our final day in Laos on our way to the airport, we stopped off at a craft village where the people preserve local crafts of weaving and paper making (with material from the mulberry tree).
Arriving in Hanoi is a different world to that of the very much rural Luang Prabang. Hanoi as the capital city is very big with about 7 to 8 million people. It is still the national Thet (new year holiday) so apparently the traffic was fairly light i.e. it was moving, but it still looked busy, busy to us.
Weather is quite cool and it is showery. We arrived at the hotel in the evening so only time to settle in and get something to eat. 21,000 Vietnam Dong equals 1 dollar. In Laos they did a lot of prices in US dollars but not here so everything seems really expensive till you do some mental arithmetic - reminds us of the days of the Italian Lira. Kieran asked our guide a question about Chinese investment in Vietnam and we soon learned that there is little enthusiasm for China here. Old scores are still not settled.
The river trip took us to the Buddha caves - only 200 steps today. There were two caves one called the Lower and the other the Upper. There are over 4,000 statues of Buddha in the caves which are brought there by local people on the anniversary of the death of an ancestor.
On our return to dry land after a lunch of traditional Lao food we visited what used to be the Royal Palace before Laos became the Peoples Republic. Again the walls were covered with glass mosaic decoration; in the former palace the Japanese Government had provided the money to restore the mosaic decoration.
We finished off the day with a visit to the newest temple in Luang Prabang. The internal decoration involves a lot of gold paint and gold leaf as well as many statues of The Lord Buddha. The people are deeply religious and their working day begins with a visit to the temple. The predominant religion is Buddhist but some of the Hmong people also combine it with ancestor worship. Many people bring food to the temples for the monks.
On our final day in Laos on our way to the airport, we stopped off at a craft village where the people preserve local crafts of weaving and paper making (with material from the mulberry tree).
Arriving in Hanoi is a different world to that of the very much rural Luang Prabang. Hanoi as the capital city is very big with about 7 to 8 million people. It is still the national Thet (new year holiday) so apparently the traffic was fairly light i.e. it was moving, but it still looked busy, busy to us.
Weather is quite cool and it is showery. We arrived at the hotel in the evening so only time to settle in and get something to eat. 21,000 Vietnam Dong equals 1 dollar. In Laos they did a lot of prices in US dollars but not here so everything seems really expensive till you do some mental arithmetic - reminds us of the days of the Italian Lira. Kieran asked our guide a question about Chinese investment in Vietnam and we soon learned that there is little enthusiasm for China here. Old scores are still not settled.
No comments:
Post a Comment