Back to Beyond

So, first off, we now know to say it Loo-ong, like sarong, Pra-bong, and try hard to do so consistently so as not to sound too uncouth. We were actually given a very gentle lesson in the grammar and pronunciation of a single word – “Lao” – by our affable but respectful guide in Vientiane, who brought it up right at the start, presumably to help us avoid mistakes that he would then have to correct. “Lao”, it turns out, is a multipurpose word that functions as an adjective (the Lao people), a noun (Lao is what people speak) and a proper name (the country is Lao). Neither the language nor the people are “Laotian”, an apparently western construct. And what, we asked, of the name “Laos” that was in our grade school atlas? Well, he told us, we can say merci to the French for that. It seems that when they came for a visit in the late 1800s and, with Gallic nonchalance, failed to leave for the next 60 or 70 years, they tired of distinguishing among the three Lao kingdoms they had taken over and, instead, simply mashed them together into the plural “Laos”. Quelle surprise!

But I digress. LP, as no one calls it, is a funny but ultimately satisfying place. It sits on the Mekong River, and watches the boats and sunsets from a series of surprisingly modest riverside cafes and restaurants. At first, walking through the night market and down the main street, with blocks full of bars and restaurants and guest houses and people, mostly western, crawling the streets, it feels like a place that might be tipping over into kitsch. But the night market is organized by a group designed to help artisanal craftspeople from the area. And the busy strip only lasts a couple of blocks. And once off it, there are just streets with local people making roadside breakfast street food on little tables or at rickety looking cooking stations or selling fresh produce or blue plastic pipe fittings or doubtful looking coloured sweets or a zillion kinds of baskets that – wait for it – actually have a useful function and are not meant to decorate a room. And temples abound, large and small, all inviting the passerby to wander in to briefly pray, if you wish, or simply to admire the rich decoration and many variations in the depiction of Buddha.

So we leaned in to Luang Prabang, and its quiet side. It is easy to ignore the groups of western or Asian tourists and just walk the side streets in the evening and wonder what it was like 30 or 40 years ago when Lao opened up again to the west and the old guy ahead of you with the scraggly grey pony tail first arrived…