Mandarin Kvetchin: Ha Long Bay and Luang Prabang. Yay!

Hello and Welcome back to the Gabe, Feesh, and Lip show!

To bring everyone up to speed we left Hanoi and Ha Long Bay about 3 days ago and are currently in Luang Prabang in The People's Democratic Republic of Laos. Just a note before we get into the meat of this post the Water Puppet Show in Hanoi was very entertaining and had some lovely music.

Before leaving Hanoi we spent a day in Ha Long Bay, which means "descending dragon" bay and was also featured in the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow never dies." Needless to say, Ha Long Bay is beautiful. When we got there, we were shuffled on to a cool decent-sized wood and iron boat and cruised around the hundreds of huge green rock islands. Our first stop was at a floating village where we were able to pick out what we wanted for lunch fresh from the sea. Lip and I each picked out a nice little crab with blue claws for $2 each, which was lovingly prepared by the staff of our boat and was delicious.

After lunch we had the opportunity to get into a small wooden boat and float through some of the smaller crevices and networks of the islands and see a few of the more secluded areas of the bay. We finished off our trip by exploring one of the caves in the islands. It was really pretty inside with a few areas of scattered light shining in from cracks in the walls of the caves. Our tour guide was also quick to point out a few notable rock structures in the cave specifically the "fairy nipples" and the "woman with the man under her dress."

We flew to Luang Prabang in Laos the next day, which brings us to here. Luang Prabang is a small town in the northern part of Laos and despite the overabundance of temples, it's hard to believe it used to be the capitol. Nonetheless, the town is amazing and it is our favorite place so far. The people here are very friendly and unlike all of Vietnam honking is not allowed on the roads, which is a stark contrast to all the places we've been to so far.

Our first day here, we saw a sampling of the temples and checked out the night market. We had some delicious grilled fish and chicken in the market as well as some water buffalo jerky and doughnuts. The next day we took a cooking class at a restaurant called Tum Tum Cheng which is the name of the monks' drumming in the morning and afternoon. It turns out the chef that taught us, Chandra Vongsalavanh is world renowned and was one of the 86 chefs from around the world chosen by the Smithsonian to represent their country's gastronomy. Not only was the cooking class fun and delicious (we now know how to cook several authentic dishes), but we were given an entire lesson in Laotian culture, buddhism, and monastery life in Luang Prabang by the chef. He also invited us to give alms to the monks the next morning and we jumped at the opportunity. It was a little hard to wake up at 5 in the morning, but it was worth it to see over 500 monks streaming down the main road. Before the monks rolled through our chef friend dressed us in a nice sash, which I am sure has some sort of symbolism or history unknown to us, and gave us each some sticky rice and bars to give to the monks as they passed by. The monks will only eat 2 meals during the day all of which is gotten from donations during there collections, however the monks pray for good fortune and long life to those who give them alms in the morning, so it's a win win for everyone. It was a good experience and a nice tradition to participate in.

A few hours after the monks, we headed off on a trip to the elephant village. Obviously in the elephant village, we got to ride elephants. Elephants are big, very big and they are awesome to ride. They took us down a path and eventually into the river where we rode the elephants (as in sitting on its bare neck with knees behind its ears) up the river and back to the camp. It was really fun when out of nowhere our elephants started to pick up speed and run down the trail. Mine slowed down after it stole a jack fruit from someone's garden and the mahout (elephant driver/rider) eventually slowed down the other elephant. Once we got back to the camp safe and sound, we were able to feed the elephants. The elephant's trunk is an amazing thing and it's impressive how tightly it can squeeze a banana when it wants the one you're holding. Additionally, one of the mahouts was wearing a vikings shirt, however when we asked him about it, he didn't know what we were talking about. Oh well.

From the elephant camp, we had a nice 3 hour hike through the forest with a short stop at a poor farming village. We eventually made it to the Tad Sae waterfall where we were able to swim in the cold blue mountain water and have some lunch. We took a nice speed boat ride back up the river before heading back to town.

All in all, Luang Prabang has been great, but we will be flying to Chiang Mai in Thailand and I am sure we will dissapointed.

Until next time,

The Wolf Pack