They say travel broadens the mind, but it is perhaps more accurate to say that travel causes one to question the great mysteries of life.
Take, as an example, the sight of a local angler, clothed in a simple loincloth type of garment, sitting on a remote rock recently underwater but now exposed by the falling river level at this time of year, on the bank of the mighty Mekong River, swirling its way down from the high plains of Tibet to the distant river delta in southern Vietnam. There he sits, rod in his right hand, seemingly miles from the slightest sign of human habitation, surrounded by jungle-covered soaring mountains on every side and yet, and yet, in his left hand he holds to his ear a mobile phone into which he is excitedly communicating with some remote third party. The mystery is this: how come a third-world country where the average annual income is a few hundred dollars provides a better phone network in such alien surroundings when it beyond the capabilities of UK networks to provide a similar service in the flattest part of East Berkshire a couple of miles from where we live?
I ask you. Who can fathom these great mysteries? I might put it to one of the many young men who roam this small town in gangs, all dressed in similar garb, often congregating in large gangs on street corners. Yes, these are the young novice monks, all of them clothed in distinctive bright orange robes, some with yellow sashes, many with black umbrellas doubling as sunshades in the 35-degree heat. At times, they seem to outnumber the visitors on the streets, especially early morning as they process single file in their hundreds collecting rice from the locals anxious to earn credit, or at sunset as they return for the evening chanting. After all, it is not uncommon to see a senior older monk clutching an expensive camera or mobile phone these days, so maybe they know the answer. Unfortunately, my Lao vocabulary is limited to a single word learned this morning: pronounced something like ‘aemng mum’, meaning spider, but that’s a story for another time.
All I know is that even on our fourth visit here over the last ten years, it has never failed to recast its magic spell as one of our favourite spots in Asia.
Luang Prabang (meaning Royal Buddha image) is not a place, it is a frame of mind, a daily pattern formulated eons ago and still recreated today with the same precision. This mountain kingdom in today’s northern Laos is no longer a French colony, part of Indochina and no longer boasts a royal family (the last king was sent off for ‘re-education’ in 1975 and has not been seen since, but life goes on in much the same way regardless of these changes.
The day starts before dawn, when temperatures are still well below the high thirties of midday heat. The muffled pounding of monastic drumming stirs one’s sleep around 4 am, an hour before the first cock starts his noisy routine and believers head to market to acquire sticky rice to offer the procession of hundreds of resident monks as they snake their way down the street from 6:30 onwards. The local people then find a place to squat along the monks’ route, joined by curious and often intrusive visitors keen to record the daily event for posterity, thrusting their cameras almost into the faces of the silent shoeless monks’ faces as they pass opening their alms bowls to receive the proffered rice portions from believers. For locals, a time-honoured ritual; for visitors, a unique spectacle, to be followed by coffee and baguette in a nearby coffee house. All this before 7:30 am.
The morning is a time for commercial activity, the early morning silence now broken by multi-coloured tuk-tuks, motorcycles, bicycles, a handful of cars and minivans restocking shops and restaurants and markets, collecting bread before the midday heat overcomes everyone with a complete state of lethargy until late afternoon, hours after the monks have consumed their last meal of the day. Only the thousands of butterflies keep going; I guess you have to if you only live for twenty-four hours.
Towards 5 pm, the main road (main is a relative term) is closed off to traffic as out-of-towners move in to set up their stalls and set out their wares of textiles, artwork, jewellery and other craftwork laid out under red awnings lit by naked light bulbs.
A few dozen visitor stalwarts brace themselves for the 200-step climb up to the temple of Mount Phousi on the highest point in town to witness the going down of the sun over the Mekong River, raising a round of applause as the sun is finally extinguished by the sharply focused mountainous horizon. Simultaneously, there will be gatherings in many if not all of the temples of monks and worshippers for evening chants and moments of reflection.
Within a couple of hours, all will be silent in the many temples as the monks return home in twos and threes for an early night, ready for tomorrow’s early start as the whole cycle repeats itself once more while backpackers and the more mature travellers head for a local eatery to try out Lao cuisine or French fine dining.
The pace is languid, the scene serene, the pattern satisfyingly unchanged from visit to visit.
No doubt the UNESCO designation has helped to retain Luang Prabang’s charm. That’s the trouble with mysteries: you solve one and then along comes another one. I knew it was tempting providence to emphasise the peacefulness of this town, and so it has proved.
Mystery of the day: If you are going to have the mother-and-father of a shouting match with your beloved, would you choose 05:45am, and would you pick as the location a small hotel completely full of guests? Now if you are a mainland Chinese family over from Beijing celebrating Chinese New Year, then, based on this morning’s fracas, clearly the answer is yes. If this were an Olympic sport, it would be another gold for China. But would a buttoned-up English couple do so? Somehow, you can’t picture this happening in Bournemouth or Torquay.
OK, we’ll I knew you’d say: ‘of course’ but it does raise certain questions, doesn’t it?
What was the cause? Had the fellow been snoring solidly for eight hours and his sleeping partner just snapped? Had he fatefully mentioned the wrong girl’s name in his sleep? Or had he just decided to claim his conjugal rights from a drowsy partner and been rebuffed? Twenty-five solid minutes of female screaming suggests that either he could not get the message across, or that if he had won the argument, it wouldn’t have been worth the effort. And what about the famous loss of face that is supposedly so important to the oriental? If you have any suggestions, answers on a postcard; anonymity guaranteed if you are speaking from personal experience.
After all these years in Asia, there are still things that amaze. For example, why is there only ever one loo roll in the room? Don’t they have ‘bogof’ here too?
I was a few seconds too late to claim a prime site table in a restaurant when an Asian (but non-Lao) family of eight swept in to claim it. Fair enough, I thought: more income for the owner. Wrong. They felt no compunction about ordering a just a jug of water and proceeded to play cards (for money), taking no account of the wonderful river view, nor the owner’s livelihood. You can’t imagine Heston or the Roux Brothers taking a similar view if you turned with a scrabble board and a pack lunch.
So, time to leave and head for the airport, but there’s a problem: no taxis, except for a moonlighting hearse that had just become free. I take a quick look in the mirror to see if I appear a bit peeky but, hell, you normally only get one chance to try one, so why not? To be fair it looks just like an elongated tuk-tuk with open sides and less than six feet long (the Lao are a short people). As we hurtled through town, I waved at the startled passers-by who were clearly more used to a more subdued send-off.
***
There has been a step-change in tourism in Thailand over the last twenty years, speeding up over the last five, and for all I know the same is true elsewhere. It goes like this.
This northeast part of Phuket, miles from the fleshpots of Patong further south, was once occupied by retired 50- and 60-year-old Swiss, Scandinavians, Germans and other assorted Europeans quietly whiling away their sunset years on sun loungers, followed by a modest cocktail and meal on the beach.
One day, the management of the one major hotel realised his business model was unsustainable. The 60 year-olds of yore are now 80-year-olds, and declining in numbers each year as they fall off their perches, eating less, spending less, doing less, so he decided on a new model based on attracting the growth markets of Korea and Russia, stuffed with all those newly wealthy citizens taking over the world.
And so it came to pass that all the beach restaurants have menus in Thai and Russian (English one on request) and they are now packed with groups, often eight or ten strong, ordering huge quantities of food for their families and friends, with only an odd European couple making do on two fried rice and a shared large beer. The Korean or Russian head honcho talks endlessly and at full pitch on his mobile phone securing some business deal back home which he will need to close in order to pay for the two litre-size bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label scotch he has brought with him to the table to wash down his lobster.
So, what happened to the Europeans that haven’t died off and gone to heaven, I know not. No longer able to afford today’s prices on their dwindling assets? Certainly, native English speakers are now thin on the ground and many of those are probably expatriates from Singapore or Hong Kong; not many could contemplate bringing two or three kids over from the UK for a half-term week. Have they all moved upmarket to the Four Seasons and the like or down market to the atap-roofed huts beloved of hippies (and us) in ages past?
Even the Chinese are beginning to make their mark, especially at Chinese New Year, and one thing for sure is that it is bringing the average age down because there are more family groups and younger couples rather than empty nesters so I am sure the shops and restaurants are benefiting.
Any good news? Well, the sun loungers are still quite plentiful because Koreans seem uninterested in working up a tan. In fact, it is a mystery where they do go all day, keeping out of the sun. Probably inventing the next smartphone or tablet to hit the market and pay for next year’s holiday.
P.S. for Valentines Night, just managed to set off a heart-shaped Chinese lantern heavenwards from our favourite beach restaurant not yet patronised by our new friends from the frozen North. Magic still.
Just found the BBC World Service. Shouldn’t have bothered really. Riots, demonstrations and bloodshed in Baghdad, Tunis, Madrid, Colombo, Lisbon, on and on. Even militant Buddhist monks waging verbal war and ethnic strife a couple of hundred miles down the coast.
So, what’s on the agenda here at 18:27 as the blood-red sun gives up its heat for the day and sinks into the Andaman Sea? Well, in exactly fifteen minutes all hell will break loose as it does every evening up in the casuarina trees that fringe the coast here, as, right on cue, the local cricket conductor rouses his choir into an ear-splitting chorus with full surround-sound. It’s the evening call to song, as regular as the competition’s call to prayer, also a feature of this part Muslim area of Thailand. But back to the choir: a solitary cicada, right on cue, strikes the first clear note and within a pico-second, the troops respond from their secret hiding places, carrying their collective chant in waves up and down the beach. As with the Chinese and Koreans, where do all these creatures get to all day? Perhaps they have heard of the Koreans’ and Chinese’ voracious appetite for unusual meals.
It’s such a shame that so many visitors here deprive themselves of such free entertainment by refusing to remove their iPod earphones all day. Even taking time out for a restful massage does not discourage the young from continuing to fiddle with their smartphone, and for all I know, the same applies down at the tattoo parlour which, judging by the ubiquitous examples of their handiwork, must be extremely busy. Some clients are running out of space on the body to add new artwork, so perhaps it’s becoming a saturated market. The Tokyo gangster fraternity would feel quite at home here when the Aussie young hit town.
I am sure I am repeating myself (at least I still know I am doing it) but we are once again going from 35 ˚C here to 35 ˚C at home, but sadly on different scales of course. We seem to have survived this time without an emergency visit to a hospital or dentist which makes a change, and the only inconvenience has been a plague of frogs in our room in Koh Lanta, which is at least an improvement on finding one in the bottom of my shoe two years ago. I don’t suppose it was much fun for the frog to see the sudden appearance of a large foot thrust into your temporary home.
Bangkok remains much the same, lots of middle-aged dodgy-looking male European and Middle-Eastern diamond geezers hanging on the arms of their tottering totty, although to be fair, I did mishear when my wife said there was a new place full of hookers near our hotel, which turned out to be a coffee bar where the local Egyptian community go for a quiet hookah session.
The only other excitement today, as I sat in the hotel lobby, was the sudden appearance from heaven above of what I took to be a suicidal terrorist wearing what appeared at first glance to be a dynamite belt around his waist plus other assorted paraphernalia including a sort of skateboard contraption. It turned out to be a window cleaner lowering himself on ropes from the upper stories, but you have to be cautious these days; better than assuming a terrorist is just a window cleaner surely?
It really is easier to become five-a-day person (fruit/veg, not large Singha beers) in Asia, the only place in the world I seem to be able to manage it with such a wonderful choice of fruits: papaya, pineapple, jackfruit, mangosteen, coconut, rambutan and the king of tropical fruit the mango.