One of the big tourist attractions in Luang Prabang is riding elephants. Being the animal lover that I am, there was no way I was going to miss this. We found great Eco-tour company called Elephant Village. About a 40 minute drive out of town they have a little camp with a few cabins and 8 elephants and their "mahouts" (elephant trainers). All of the elephants have been saved from the logging industry where they were severely mistreated (they even give them drugs to make them work harder!). Now they have an easy life with good treatment, plenty of food and the easy job of carrying around tourists for a couple hours a day and hanging out in the jungle the rest of the time. And many of the mahouts also used to work in the logging industry, so now they have better lives as well.
So anyway, we decided to do a one day tour with the elephants. We were picked up from our hotel in the morning and drove the 40 minutes along "Dancing Road" to get to the camp. We had time to walk around the camp and got to see some of the elephants hanging out eating pineapple plants. We rode 2 people + mahout to an elephant, alternating riding in the saddle that holds 2 and on the elephant's neck. Our elephant was the youngest of the 8, a 17 year old girl named Mae. We rode around for about an hour, up and down hills and wading through a shallow river. I couldn't have been happier to be riding the elephant, it was so much fun!
We rode back to the camp to have lunch and pick up more elephants... This was the fun part! This time we rode one person per elephant (with the mahout) without the saddle. I rode on the neck and the mahout rode farther back yelling commands. We ride back down to the river, but this time to a deeper area. The elephants went all the way under water and got completely wet- and got us completely wet, too! We stayed in the water for 30 minutes scrubbing our elephants and getting the nice and clean. It was such a fun experience and you could tell the elephants loved it too. My teenager, Mae, kept splashing her trunk up and down and splashing everyone. It was a great experience that I'll remember forever.
After the river, we took the elephants to where they would stay for the rest of the day in the jungle and we headed to a waterfall to do dome more swimming and relaxing.
All such a great day, my favorite on our trip so far.
Showing posts with label Eco-Tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eco-Tourism. Show all posts
Mar 28, 2009
Luang Prabang
What an amazing, beautiful, relaxing place! Lonely Planet calls it "the most beautiful town in South East Asia", and I think they're probably right. It was so nice to come to a quiet relaxing place after the hustle and bustle of Hanoi. Luang Prabang is a town of about 25,000 situated on a peninsula between the Mekong River (the biggest in SE Asia) and a lesser river. It is a tourist hot spot which is obvious by the massive amounts of brand new guesthouses and trendy restaurants. But more than that, Luang Prabang is also the capital of Buddhism in Laos, and it is nearly impossible to set foot outside without seeing an orange robe clad monk. There are dozens of temples, big and small, scattered throughout the little city. Its such a laid back and relaxing place where everyone goes to bed early. Even the bars close by 11 pm. We loved Luang Prabang so much we ended up staying for a full week when we only planned for a few days (we hear this happens to lots of travellers here).
We stayed in a beautiful little guesthouse right on the river for $14 a night. It was wonderful: beautiful tile floors, great hard wood ceilings, nicely decorated and with our own big balcony. A place like this would easily run at least $150 a night in the States.
When in Luang Prabang, we did a lot of relaxing and just exploring the city. In Lao culture, stress is a bad thing and should be avoided as much as possible. This seemed to be our theme as well. We wandered around some of the amazing wats (temples), rode bikes around the city, ate great food, explored the night market, etc.
We spent a day at the beautiful Kwang Si waterfall with the bluest water you've ever seen. There are 3 pools of water where you can jump off the small waterfall, swing from the rope swing and picnic around the water. At the top there is a 100 meter waterfall surrounded by lush green trees and plants. There was also a bear sanctuary there where rescued Asiatic black bears have a safe place to reside.
Another thing that I really liked about Luang Prabang is that there seem to me a lot of people who are trying to do some good for their community. Such as the Elephant Village (see other post), the Red Cross (I got a massage there and the money went to charity... win win situation!), the Free the Bears Sanctuary and many more organizations, including a few to help the children.
Jason and I spent two mornings volunteering at Big Brother Mouse, a group that promotes literacy throughout Laos. They publish books in both English and Lao for kids of all ages. They disperse books throughout the country and try to encourage tourists to buy books to hand out to kids rather than candy. It's a great organization, learn more about them here. So anyway, volunteers can go there from 9-11 every morning to help students practice their English. We had thought we would be working with little kids and were a little surprised when we were greeted by a bunch of college kids. It wasn't what we were expecting, but we still had a nice time helping them and hearing their stories and learning more about their culture. A lot of them were from poor farming towns and their parents had saved up all their money to send their son to college.
Luang Prabang, what a wonderful place. I think it will probably stay as one of my top throughout the trip.
We stayed in a beautiful little guesthouse right on the river for $14 a night. It was wonderful: beautiful tile floors, great hard wood ceilings, nicely decorated and with our own big balcony. A place like this would easily run at least $150 a night in the States.
When in Luang Prabang, we did a lot of relaxing and just exploring the city. In Lao culture, stress is a bad thing and should be avoided as much as possible. This seemed to be our theme as well. We wandered around some of the amazing wats (temples), rode bikes around the city, ate great food, explored the night market, etc.
We spent a day at the beautiful Kwang Si waterfall with the bluest water you've ever seen. There are 3 pools of water where you can jump off the small waterfall, swing from the rope swing and picnic around the water. At the top there is a 100 meter waterfall surrounded by lush green trees and plants. There was also a bear sanctuary there where rescued Asiatic black bears have a safe place to reside.
Another thing that I really liked about Luang Prabang is that there seem to me a lot of people who are trying to do some good for their community. Such as the Elephant Village (see other post), the Red Cross (I got a massage there and the money went to charity... win win situation!), the Free the Bears Sanctuary and many more organizations, including a few to help the children.
Jason and I spent two mornings volunteering at Big Brother Mouse, a group that promotes literacy throughout Laos. They publish books in both English and Lao for kids of all ages. They disperse books throughout the country and try to encourage tourists to buy books to hand out to kids rather than candy. It's a great organization, learn more about them here. So anyway, volunteers can go there from 9-11 every morning to help students practice their English. We had thought we would be working with little kids and were a little surprised when we were greeted by a bunch of college kids. It wasn't what we were expecting, but we still had a nice time helping them and hearing their stories and learning more about their culture. A lot of them were from poor farming towns and their parents had saved up all their money to send their son to college.
Luang Prabang, what a wonderful place. I think it will probably stay as one of my top throughout the trip.
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