Days 59,60: 1/16,17/24 - Wats, National Palace Museum, UXO Visitor's Center
1/16/24
Wats (Luang Prabang edition). The smaller wats of LP were less crowded, and less grandiose than many we saw in Thailand, but no less ornate. The acme and most famous of them is Wat Xienthong. We shamelessly followed a private tour (at a discrete distance) and picked up some knowledge about the impressive Buddha statue collection. We wandered what appeared to be the central Wat road of the old town, weaving in and out of temples of varying degrees of grandiosity, ending our walk with a long lunch to wait for the national palace museum to reopen (they close for a generous 2 hour lunch break each day).
Upon entering the palace museum, we were surprised to find that it was more directly described by its name than say, the national palace museum in Taiwan. Instead of being a national museum located in a palace, it was a museum of the palace. Mostly presented as it was while occupied by royalty, it did contain some interesting rooms of cases filled with objects from royal persons, gifts from foreign countries, an entire room of cars used by royalty with a wall of pictures of the royal chauffeurs, and myriad uniform and medals. Unfortunately no photos were allowed. There was little exposition provided, but what there was had ominous undertones: all of the most recent objects and employees of the monarchy stopped being used or employed in December 1975 for some unmentioned reason...
We enjoyed a diverse dinner from several of the stalls at the night market.
One of Luang Prabang's many wats.
Shamelessly listening in on this no-longer-so-private tour through Wat Xiengthong's collection of Buddhas.
Another of Wat Xiengthongs claims to fame is the involved glass mosaics that cover many of the exterior and interior walls.
Luang Prabang: definitely a contender for the most beautiful place we have been.
1/17/24
Taking advantage of our longer stay (most people we met only did 2-4 days in Luang Prabang), we did a morning in, and a video call with some friends. A local delicious lunch came with a show of an old Frenchman trying to pay in Euros and very angry that the cashier didn’t speak French. We then made the trek to the Unexploded Ordinance (UXO) visitor center. We had done some light reading on the work being done to safely remove some of the millions of explosives that are spread over much of Laos, but the visit was eye-opening in the best/worst way. Here are some facts:
The US dropped ~270 million “bombies” (smaller explosives fit into a larger casing) between 1964 and 1973
Under ideal conditions, the designers expected only 70% to explode on impact, leaving >80 million UXO spread throughout the country (note that unexploded does NOT mean cannot explode)
All of this was to attack supply lines the Viet Cong ran through their neighboring countries
Large scale UXO clearing efforts began in 1996, and as of 2010, <1% of the land where UXO are has been cleared. (This number is from https://www.uxolao.org/the-uxo-problem/, I didn't write down the updated number they had at the visitor center!)
People are still impacted indirectly, by making it harder to build infrastructure, and directly, by, you know, bombs in their backyards. It is unfortunate (understatement) that we live in a world where people have ignored the terrible example made in Laos when ordinance is used in largely civilian areas.
We walked back to our hotel, stopping as we like to do at a local "minimart" that was not appropriately named, got haircuts on the balcony, and headed back to the night market for dinner from the food stalls.
Walking through town, you could hardly go a block without seeing some food being sun dried, and it is still technically winter! Jujubes, river moss, chilies, and rice cakes were the most common.
Because of the value of scrap metal, many people, including teenagers and younger, seek out the remnants of the 2 million tons of munitions dropped on Laos. When they come upon UXO, it can have dire consequences.
Forgive the mood change, but one of the staff at the hotel had formerly worked at a Salon! Haircuts by the river! Surreal!
This guy was a machine! Simultaneously working on as many as 6 folded pancakes with fillings on the same pan, taking orders and adding them to the queue without writing anything down, calling out the order to the finishers and cashier behind him, and they were delicious!