What a glorious day! We got up and headed first to a silk making and paper making cottage industry home. We learned how to make the thick paper from the bark of the mulberry tree. The bark is first pounded for about one-half hour (we tried this out), then the bark is soaked in both water and lye for a couple of days. After the bark is softened into a kapok-like substance, it looks like white fluff. We took the fluff and spread it evenly in the water over a square screen. Once it was evenly distributed, we took flowers and leaves and laid them on the screen in the kapok-like substance. We lifted the screen out of the water and voila! it stuck to the screen and was able to stand vertically in the sun to dry. After it dried, it could easily be pulled off and made into lamps, bags or whatever. Fun to learn this process.
The second part of the home was composed of a mini silk weaving factory. The process of taking the silk from the larva all the way through to the silk cocoons was described for us step by step. Then we learned how they dyed the silk once the threads had been separated, with the dyes all coming from local products. Lastly, we were able to watch several weavers weaving beautiful things out of silk. They are paid by the piece, and they could run their looms quite quickly. We bought two beautiful table runners.
Our next stop was to get on a long boat for a cruise and lunch on the Laotian part of the Mekong River. What a glorious time. The scenery was beautiful, and the scenes along the sides of the river were equally fascinating, whether it was water buffalo (one of which was an albino), other long boats, fishing nets set out to trap fish, monks washing clothes, women washing clothes, or seeing the people who live in the back end of the long boats while using the front end as transportation for tourists and locals.
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| clothes washing day at the monastery |
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| beautiful scenery |
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| one of the fancier houses along the river. Probably a government worker or an ex-pat according to Sean, our guide |
Our lunch was made by the woman who was the wife of our captain. Their son was also with us and he helped steer the boat occasionally. The family owned the boat and lived in the back portion of it. Happily, there was a "Happy Room" (a toilet) which we were able to use, but which also doubled as the family bathroom. Their living quarters were quite small and the area for guests quite large, but I think they use the entire boat when it is not in use by tourists. That "tourist" area included several tables as well as comfortable chairs and some benches. Not a bad way to live, I think.
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LONG BOATS: You are seeing the living quarters at the back end of these three boats.
Up front(a quite large space) is for shuttling people. |
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| An albino water buffalo |
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| Sean, our guide, talking to us from the front of the boat. |
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| You can see how long these boats are. The blue part is the living quarters; the part on the right is for the tourists. |
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| Even the "long boats" have a spirit house to honor their ancestors and the gods. |
One of our stops was at a rice distillery where we all tasted rice wine and rice alcohol right out of the still (potent). I bought three bottles of rice alcohol, but not the bottles with small (dead) cobras in them, supposedly an aphrodisiac. . . . We didn't try any. . . .
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| those are dead cobras in the bottles. |
Another stop was at the caves of the sacred buddhas where buddhists go to honor the Buddha and their ancestors -- Pak Ou Caves. There are supposedly 4000 little buddhas in the cave. People leave a Buddha representing the day they were born; I was born on a Friday, so my Buddha is the Buddha of wisdom with arms crossed over his chest. Some Buddhas are quite small; others are quite large. There was also a Buddha shrine in the cave. The geology of the cave was quite amazing.
We turned turned and headed back to the hotel at Luang Prabang. I had a Lao massage on my feet, legs, and shoulders -- not all that great. I'm now sitting by the excellent pool at the hotel typing out this posting before we head into town for dinner and to the night market. I bought a few things today, and plan to pick up a few more tonight or tomorrow night.
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