The Laotians are outgoing and quick to smile. They have an unsuspected sense of humor, enjoying cracking jokes or friendly teasing. The country has been communist since the mid 1970's but I detected a certain sense of nostalgia for the last king. The king died after several years in a communist 're-education' camp. The people enjoy many freedoms: religion, private ownership of land and businesses, and travel. They joke about the simplicity of voting since there is only one political party and a single candidate for each position.
Luang Prabang is located in northern Laos in the highlands. The mountains, while not high (the highest is only slightly over 9,000'), are dramatic and picturesque. The limestone cliffs are cut with waterfalls tumbling into deep pools only to flow over another drop creating a magical descent from shady pool to shady pool with the constant splash and cooling mist from the cascades.
Laos currently has forty nine separate cultural groups. Each with their own language and traditions. The Hmong people were only recently returned to Laos from Thailand. Hmong villages supported the United States during the Vietnam war and suffered the consequence after the U.S. pullout. Most fled across the Thai border hoping to be allowed into the United States. While many did make it out of Thailand, about 450,000 were trapped in Thai refugee camps. By the 1990's the Thai people decided they could no longer support the refugee camps and repatriated the Hmong people to Laos. The Hmong were allowed to return and establish villages.
The region is split by the Mekong river. On one side, roads, motorbikes, tuk-tuks and cars. A few hundred yards across the river is stepping back in time, no roads or motor vehicles. The nearest bridge is hundreds of miles to the south in the capital. During the wet season, the Mekong rises ten meters or more flooding all the small garden plots and sticky rice fields along the banks and washes all the bamboo structures away.
The Laotian villages west of the village are primitive, much like the Hmong villages. The people are friendly, the women busy with hand looms while the men mended nets.
I have said very little about religion in Laos. Buddhism is the dominant belief and there are close to forty temples in Luang Prabang. Several of the tribes, including the Hmong are animist. As in Bhutan, monks are a common sight.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Tau Pan, Botswana
No comments:
Post a Comment