At 5:40am, our second day in Luang Prabang would be our second earliest start on the trip, as we needed to be up and out early enough to secure our spots to feed the local Buddhist monks. The procession of monks begins around 6:15-30am, and tons of people line up on mats to pray and give out the food they've brought - this will be the only food these monks will have for a week, or sometimes even a month.
It seemed like there were about 100 monks or so, and they basically walked by in a straight line, one by one, with their food baskets either open (they're still accepting food donations) or closed (no más, por favor).. in a funny way it reminded me of Halloween, except instead of candy they get foods for sustenance like sticky rice, which is what we giving out.
It actually took a little coordination to keep grabbing chunks of sticky rice quickly enough to pass a bit to all monks who walked by without missing one, since they walked somewhat briskly at times.. though they must be a big fan of sticky rice, as I noticed numerous times that they'd have their baskets closed but then re-open them for our group and our sticky rice. Strangely, there was what appeared to be a Jewish star on the inside of my sticky rice basket.. and I didn't see it on other baskets.. but I'm sure that was just coincidence. Hm.
The rules for us as donaters of food were that we had to stay seated (not allowed to stand) on our mats on the sidewalk until our sticky rice was gone, and we weren't allowed to look the monks in the eye when we handed them the food.. so mostly boilerplate monk stuff. Once we finished handing out our food, we were allowed to photograph the remainder of the procession. All in all, it was a really cool thing to be a part of.
The next activity for the day was quite possibly the one I was most excited for before the start of the trip - elephant riding!
We head out to the stomping grounds (yep) of some local elephants about a half hour from our hotel. I get paired up with Tiana, who is the only other American on the trip.. she's from Seattle actually, and at this point the Superbowl had yet to be played, so she's still fairly grounded and low key.. that is, until our elephant, Thum, took matters into his own.. hands? .. hooves? I'm not sure what's appropriate here.
Anyways.. we all start by standing on this high platform that's similar in height to the backs of the elephants, making it easier to jump on. Everyone else gets onto their elephants without a hitch, and they leave to start the tour.. so Tiana and I are last to leave the platform. Tiana (or Tiananmen, as my autocorrect seems to prefer) gets on while I'm grabbing my dSLR camera for our ride.. and then the real fun starts.
Each elephant and group of two of us has an elephant trainer/whisperer of sorts.. basically a guy who works there whose job is to manage the elephant and its behavior during the ride. In the very beginning, this person's job is to simply (or not) help everyone hop into the seat on the elephant's back, prior to getting themselves on near the head/neck to help direct the elephant on the tour.
While I'm grabbing my camera, our elephant whisperer is still on the platform, just after helping Tiana onto the seat on his back, about to help me hop on as well.. and then Thum shows us what he's made of. He's not about rules and conformity - he stomps (yup) to the beat of his own drummer.. he's a renegade.. he's defiant.. he's THUM.. and now he's left for the tour without me OR the elephant trainer. That's right, Thum has run away with Tiana. Now they're about 50 feet from the platform, and people are freaking out.. mostly Tiana, but the trainer was yelling at Thum from the platform, and that wasn't working. Even Tamara, our tour manager who was staying on the platform to watch our stuff, said she'd never seen this before and wasn't sure what to do.
To be fair, I would've been freaking out too. Thum had a pretty good pace going with no one to direct or control him. and he gave no indication that he wanted to turn back. All of the other trainers were riding and directing their elephants on a leisurely tour, and our trainer couldn't even get Thum to come back so we could start ours. Thum wanted to do his own tour, alone with Tiana, and he didn't feel as though the trainer or I needed to be a part of it.
Finally the trainer gets off of the platform with another guy and they start chasing Thum down. The scene was completely ridiculous.. a massive elephant is running away with a girl from our tour, and these guys (the trainers) are running after him on foot, yelling and screaming at him.. like that's going to make a difference.
After about ten minutes, the elephant whisperer does convince Thum to come back with the classic trick that never seems to fail on animals - offer up a treat (in this case, bananas). The tour for other people is about 15% over already, and we haven't even started yet.
When Thum pulls back into the platform, the trainer gets on immediately and the other guy helps me into the seat, which has a wooden bar that closes over you like on a roller coaster, with Tiana. Finally, we start our tour.. except now Thum is in a mood after having to turn around and come back.. so he doesn't want to move around too much. The trainer is yelling at him in a local dialect of Laos, and he's not responding. In fact, Thum's runaway was the fastest he would go for the entire tour.. for us, he moves extremely slowly and keeps going off the path to eat something or relieve himself. Whenever there's an easy way and a hard way to continue along the path.. Thum takes the hard way and then improvises to create a new, harder way. There were points when we'd go up a hill and have to hold on for dear life, because it seemed like Thum was going to fall backwards and we were going to get crushed.. but thankfully, he stayed upright for the duration of the ride.
Somehow we're able to meet up with the rest of the group after another 15 minutes, as they sat and relaxed in the river while waiting for us to catch up. Thum continued to make our tour as interesting as possible, until he finally relieved himself, which may have been on his mind from the start. Pretty amazingly, these elephants actually go the bathroom while they're still walking - now that takes coordination.
It was actually a lot of fun once we got moving.. and once Thum started acting like more of a team player, the whisperer actually hopped off let me take his spot near Thum's head for a really cool experience.. plus, he took a bunch of great photos of us. Luckily, I brought my Korean Bad Guy hat (sorry Ed! I did get you a hat from Laos though) and let Thum wear it for a photo opp, as it couldn't have been more appropriate for him. We trekked up and down the path, through a river, and back to the beginning.. and it was awesome.
At the completion of our tour, we reconvene at the platform and they give us an opportunity to buy mini bananas (they don't seem to have the larger yellow bananas we're accustomed to.. maybe they need a fresh direct gopher?) and bamboo-like branches to feed our elephants. Unsurprisingly, Thum ate everything in sight.. and feeding him was really cool. In the end, we had a blast.. and Thum will go down in history as the coolest elephant.. EVA.
After a great local lunch at the Lao Lao Garden (Padsapao!), our final leisurely excursion on the day (it was a long one) is at the Kuang Si Waterfalls. This one involves some hiking up a bunch of steps and other terrain, and there's a really nice waterfall is at the end. We're allowed to swim in it, despite the fact that the water is extremely cold.. plus there's a rope swing from a tree branch that overhangs maybe 15 feet above the water.. so swing, we did. The cold water is a huge shock to the system once you land.. and heaps (an Aussie favorite to describe a lot of something) of rocks and stones on the floor of the falls make it very difficult to get out. Regardless, this was also a lot of fun, and it wouldn't be the last we'd use a rope swing to have some good times in the water.
It seemed like there were about 100 monks or so, and they basically walked by in a straight line, one by one, with their food baskets either open (they're still accepting food donations) or closed (no más, por favor).. in a funny way it reminded me of Halloween, except instead of candy they get foods for sustenance like sticky rice, which is what we giving out.
It actually took a little coordination to keep grabbing chunks of sticky rice quickly enough to pass a bit to all monks who walked by without missing one, since they walked somewhat briskly at times.. though they must be a big fan of sticky rice, as I noticed numerous times that they'd have their baskets closed but then re-open them for our group and our sticky rice. Strangely, there was what appeared to be a Jewish star on the inside of my sticky rice basket.. and I didn't see it on other baskets.. but I'm sure that was just coincidence. Hm.
The rules for us as donaters of food were that we had to stay seated (not allowed to stand) on our mats on the sidewalk until our sticky rice was gone, and we weren't allowed to look the monks in the eye when we handed them the food.. so mostly boilerplate monk stuff. Once we finished handing out our food, we were allowed to photograph the remainder of the procession. All in all, it was a really cool thing to be a part of.
The next activity for the day was quite possibly the one I was most excited for before the start of the trip - elephant riding!
We head out to the stomping grounds (yep) of some local elephants about a half hour from our hotel. I get paired up with Tiana, who is the only other American on the trip.. she's from Seattle actually, and at this point the Superbowl had yet to be played, so she's still fairly grounded and low key.. that is, until our elephant, Thum, took matters into his own.. hands? .. hooves? I'm not sure what's appropriate here.
Anyways.. we all start by standing on this high platform that's similar in height to the backs of the elephants, making it easier to jump on. Everyone else gets onto their elephants without a hitch, and they leave to start the tour.. so Tiana and I are last to leave the platform. Tiana (or Tiananmen, as my autocorrect seems to prefer) gets on while I'm grabbing my dSLR camera for our ride.. and then the real fun starts.
Each elephant and group of two of us has an elephant trainer/whisperer of sorts.. basically a guy who works there whose job is to manage the elephant and its behavior during the ride. In the very beginning, this person's job is to simply (or not) help everyone hop into the seat on the elephant's back, prior to getting themselves on near the head/neck to help direct the elephant on the tour.
While I'm grabbing my camera, our elephant whisperer is still on the platform, just after helping Tiana onto the seat on his back, about to help me hop on as well.. and then Thum shows us what he's made of. He's not about rules and conformity - he stomps (yup) to the beat of his own drummer.. he's a renegade.. he's defiant.. he's THUM.. and now he's left for the tour without me OR the elephant trainer. That's right, Thum has run away with Tiana. Now they're about 50 feet from the platform, and people are freaking out.. mostly Tiana, but the trainer was yelling at Thum from the platform, and that wasn't working. Even Tamara, our tour manager who was staying on the platform to watch our stuff, said she'd never seen this before and wasn't sure what to do.
To be fair, I would've been freaking out too. Thum had a pretty good pace going with no one to direct or control him. and he gave no indication that he wanted to turn back. All of the other trainers were riding and directing their elephants on a leisurely tour, and our trainer couldn't even get Thum to come back so we could start ours. Thum wanted to do his own tour, alone with Tiana, and he didn't feel as though the trainer or I needed to be a part of it.
Finally the trainer gets off of the platform with another guy and they start chasing Thum down. The scene was completely ridiculous.. a massive elephant is running away with a girl from our tour, and these guys (the trainers) are running after him on foot, yelling and screaming at him.. like that's going to make a difference.
After about ten minutes, the elephant whisperer does convince Thum to come back with the classic trick that never seems to fail on animals - offer up a treat (in this case, bananas). The tour for other people is about 15% over already, and we haven't even started yet.
When Thum pulls back into the platform, the trainer gets on immediately and the other guy helps me into the seat, which has a wooden bar that closes over you like on a roller coaster, with Tiana. Finally, we start our tour.. except now Thum is in a mood after having to turn around and come back.. so he doesn't want to move around too much. The trainer is yelling at him in a local dialect of Laos, and he's not responding. In fact, Thum's runaway was the fastest he would go for the entire tour.. for us, he moves extremely slowly and keeps going off the path to eat something or relieve himself. Whenever there's an easy way and a hard way to continue along the path.. Thum takes the hard way and then improvises to create a new, harder way. There were points when we'd go up a hill and have to hold on for dear life, because it seemed like Thum was going to fall backwards and we were going to get crushed.. but thankfully, he stayed upright for the duration of the ride.
Somehow we're able to meet up with the rest of the group after another 15 minutes, as they sat and relaxed in the river while waiting for us to catch up. Thum continued to make our tour as interesting as possible, until he finally relieved himself, which may have been on his mind from the start. Pretty amazingly, these elephants actually go the bathroom while they're still walking - now that takes coordination.
It was actually a lot of fun once we got moving.. and once Thum started acting like more of a team player, the whisperer actually hopped off let me take his spot near Thum's head for a really cool experience.. plus, he took a bunch of great photos of us. Luckily, I brought my Korean Bad Guy hat (sorry Ed! I did get you a hat from Laos though) and let Thum wear it for a photo opp, as it couldn't have been more appropriate for him. We trekked up and down the path, through a river, and back to the beginning.. and it was awesome.
At the completion of our tour, we reconvene at the platform and they give us an opportunity to buy mini bananas (they don't seem to have the larger yellow bananas we're accustomed to.. maybe they need a fresh direct gopher?) and bamboo-like branches to feed our elephants. Unsurprisingly, Thum ate everything in sight.. and feeding him was really cool. In the end, we had a blast.. and Thum will go down in history as the coolest elephant.. EVA.
After a great local lunch at the Lao Lao Garden (Padsapao!), our final leisurely excursion on the day (it was a long one) is at the Kuang Si Waterfalls. This one involves some hiking up a bunch of steps and other terrain, and there's a really nice waterfall is at the end. We're allowed to swim in it, despite the fact that the water is extremely cold.. plus there's a rope swing from a tree branch that overhangs maybe 15 feet above the water.. so swing, we did. The cold water is a huge shock to the system once you land.. and heaps (an Aussie favorite to describe a lot of something) of rocks and stones on the floor of the falls make it very difficult to get out. Regardless, this was also a lot of fun, and it wouldn't be the last we'd use a rope swing to have some good times in the water.
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