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I am posting just a sampling of photos taken of the Mekong River here in Luang Prabang.
We have eaten our late dinners along the river each night as there are many restaurants along
the edge of the road and on the river. By "restaurant", I mean simple wooden and bamboo platforms with railings and sometimes big trees coming through the floor. They often have strings of lights and a little bar. However, the most beautiful views of the river are daytime when the activity of farming and the fishing and boating and swimming of the local kids are like scenes from some long ago time; the simplicity of the activities and the beauty of the place are "cinematic".
You would be hard pressed to take a "bad" photo... It is a quiet, lovely scene every day and even though we know life can be very hard here for so many, this view is something to treasure.
We woke up early this morning and watched the line of monks (teenage boys mostly) walk for offerings to and from the temple complex down the road... I tried to take a very few discreet photos with no flash so the photos are not great, but it is something special for us to see this ritual every morning.
The town has about 30,000 inhabitants and 30 Wat or Buddhist temples, mixed with battered and some renovated French Colonial architecture, some traditional Lao houses, and some very poor homes open to the street. Sometimes you wonder what year it is.......or what decade or what era.... The evocation of other times and history and the simple pace of life is seductive and we agree that is is easy to see why some people find it hard to leave.
We have eaten our late dinners along the river each night as there are many restaurants along
the edge of the road and on the river. By "restaurant", I mean simple wooden and bamboo platforms with railings and sometimes big trees coming through the floor. They often have strings of lights and a little bar. However, the most beautiful views of the river are daytime when the activity of farming and the fishing and boating and swimming of the local kids are like scenes from some long ago time; the simplicity of the activities and the beauty of the place are "cinematic".
You would be hard pressed to take a "bad" photo... It is a quiet, lovely scene every day and even though we know life can be very hard here for so many, this view is something to treasure.
We woke up early this morning and watched the line of monks (teenage boys mostly) walk for offerings to and from the temple complex down the road... I tried to take a very few discreet photos with no flash so the photos are not great, but it is something special for us to see this ritual every morning.
The town has about 30,000 inhabitants and 30 Wat or Buddhist temples, mixed with battered and some renovated French Colonial architecture, some traditional Lao houses, and some very poor homes open to the street. Sometimes you wonder what year it is.......or what decade or what era.... The evocation of other times and history and the simple pace of life is seductive and we agree that is is easy to see why some people find it hard to leave.
2 comments:
mom - that is a beautiful post. Now Laos is officially on our list of places we have to visit someday.
Is there a translation of the comment above mine? I only see 'anime products,' '18,' 'sex,' and 'shopping bags'...which reads like some very interesting MadLib entry!
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