Luang Prabang to Vientiane

We had a much needed easy going morning as we weren't checking out of the hotel until 9. After another wonderful breakfast overlooking the Mekong River we climbed aboard our colorful tuk tuks for one last visit to downtown Luang Prabang. Our destination was to visit the Royal Palace which was built from 1904 - 1909 as a gift from the French to King Sisavang Vong. The Crown Prince was living in the palace when the monarchy was overthrown by the communists in 1975. The Royal family was taken to a re-education camp never to be seen again. It is a museum now that has many different artifacts such as the royal throne. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside and even had to put our cameras in a locker while we visited. Here are pictures of the outside.

The three headed elephant represents the Union of the three former kingdoms (Vientiane, Luangprabang, and Champasak) that made up Laos. 

Carriages of the Royal family 

 The Haw Pha Bang temple is very ornate and was built to house Laos’ most sacred Buddha image the Phra Bang. It is legend that the image was made in Sri Lanka almost 2,000 years ago.   

This is a statue of King Sisavang Vong.

An observation about Luang Prabang: this is the street where the night market is held. It amazes me how it is transformed into a shopping center every night and then everything is packed up and removed before sunrise.

A picture of the same spot at night.

We left downtown and headed for the airport to fly south to the national capital city of Vientiane. It was a very short flight of 30 minutes. It took almost that long to deal with the crowded baggage claim and the slow unloading of the plane.

Once we were checked into the hotel we took a quick orientation walk around downtown. This is the convention center.

I was surprised to see several Christmas decorations on display given that there are fewer than 200,000 thousand Christians out of a 7.2 million population.

Tonight we had our home hosted dinner. This is a practice of the Grand Circle Foundation where we go to the home of a local family to spend the evening so we can learn more about their culture and to share ours with them. We were picked up at the hotel by our hostess Ms. Vone. She has basically taught herself to speak English and she did a really good job communicating with us during the 20 minute drive to her home. 

We went out of downtown to a suburb area. As we proceeded toward her home the roads began to get narrower and more basic. When she turned onto a semi-rough dirt road I began wondering what type of home she might live in. I was surprised when she turned into the drive of a really nice 2-story house. Vone has 2 children and lives with some other family members. Her brother and sister where there to help prepare the meal. Her sister teaches English to 4th and 5th graders. She would help Vone when she struggled to think of the right words to answer some of our questions. Her son is in the 5th grade and spoke very good English. Her daughter is in the first grade.

They had us help prepare a dish for our meal as part of the experience.

We had sticky rice, chicken salad, steamed fish, chicken wings (the long piece of meat - definitely not like our wings), and the salad we helped make.

The sisters 

After our meal Vone performed a little ceremony where she dropped bits of string on a special decoration her mother had made out of banana leaves and flowers. She blessed the string and then tied some around our wrist while saying a blessing for each of us. 

Vone with her children and sister holding the gifts we took to them.

Our group with Vone and her children.

It was a fantastic evening and I hated to see it come to an end. I always enjoy the home hosted meals and having the chance to connect with the people.