Luang Prabang 2019

Maybe it was because I’d read The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen and George Orwell’s Burmese Days on the same weekend; neither of them about Laos particularly, but both of them dealing with foreign intrusion into Indochina.

Maybe it was that faint recognition of a shared Southeast Asian history so rarely felt on our archipelago, set apart as it was,  but a concept I was slowly coming to terms with.

True, my country had not been part of French Indochina and had never been a British overseas possession – although Manila did have a British Governor-General during the occupation between 1762 to 1764 — but we knew what it was like to be invaded and ruled from across oceans, to have to fight wars of independence, and to continue to wrestle with post-colonial identity, did we not?

Or maybe it had been that Laotian lunch in Saigon.

Whatever it was, or maybe for all these reasons, a couple of weeks ago I pulled up Google Maps, zoomed in on the mainland, and decided I was going to visit UNESCO-listed Luang Prabang.

***

Within an hour of landing in Laos, I find myself sitting in a tuktuk bumping up the red roads to Kuang Si Falls, and doubting the wisdom of my spontaneity. Nobody knows exactly where I am this weekend, and I’d hired the tuktuk on a whim after checking in.

Why did you come alone? they ask at the ticket counter. Why, indeed.

I meander up the mountainside, pausing at every waterfall tumbling into its icy blue-green pool. The banks are dotted with plenty of visitors, but there is a quiet, respectful calm, and any litter is quickly swept up into tidy woven baskets.

Finally I stop, leave my things beneath a tree, and slip (quite literally, on the submerged rocks) into the invigorating water, where the fish, moving stealthily in the cloudy depths,  give me and every other swimmer a robust welcome.

By which I mean they bite. But no matter, I lie back in the water and let the purifying cold wash through my dusty spirit.

A chocolate tiger glimmers in an errant ray of sunlight that filters through translucent leaves — a beautiful visual I file away for sharing later with the zoologist who taught me to identify butterflies.

***

Back in Villa Maly I consider ordering a whiskey sour at the bar but I’m tired so it’s lemonade and cookies instead in my room with the emerald-green shutters and crisp yellow walls.

The villa, built in 1938, is surrounded by wonderfully lush gardens, on a street quiet enough to make you feel as if you’ve wandered into a secret hideaway. It was named after the village princess who used to reside there, and retains its genteel colonial charm, complete with a trio of house cats.

Soon I fall asleep underneath the gauzy mosquito netting, thinking, oddly enough, of Sara Crewe. All girls are princesses. (Or maybe not too odd. Sara was born in British India, and for now my literary brain seems to be stuck in the empire that the sun never sets on.)

***

After a peaceful breakfast on the green-and-white deck, it’s time to explore the city. It is a sweltering 34 degrees out so I have my hat and bottled water and suncream, but also a turquoise silk wrap for modesty’s sake — I mean to visit the national museum, which will require me to cover my shoulders and knees.

I make my way past the temples of the city’s historic quarter, stepping into courtyards and catching a swirl of bright orange robes, before reaching the museum. Luang Prabang remained the seat of the royal family even as Laos became a French protectorate, and today the palace is open to the public.

The crimson throne room is ablaze with gold and vivid glass murals, but I am more interested in the slightly austere living quarters that remind me of similarly preserved aristocratic residences back home. I sit on a smooth-worn wooden seat in the hallway outside and contemplate the echoes of history in the richly embroidered clothes and personal effects on display.

Elsewhere on the grounds is the ornate structure built for the Phra Bang Buddha, thought to have been cast in 1 A.D. and after which the city is named. I peer into the sacrosanct gloom, and am surprised to realise that the Buddha, revered as the very symbol of the right to rule Laos, is quite…diminutive.

I wonder how I can take a photo here without being disrespectful, and even a selfie on the steps seems rude somehow, but I eventually end up behind a hedge while following the butterflies (a quirk I have acquired living in this part of the world), and feel this is an acceptable perspective.

***

Lunch is at the serenely beautiful Rosewood, where The Great House’s chef, UN culinary ambassador Sebastien Rubis, has prepared a special set menu.

And what a glorious selection it is.

There is kaengnor yanang, an earthy, mysterious soup of herbs and bamboo shoots; the bright and zesty goi paa or river fish; and phaneang kai, a delicately balanced chicken curry,  fragrant and piquant and sweet all at once. Savoury steamed rice is wrapped in banana leaf and the lemongrass iced tea is a blend of citron and butterfly pea hues.

National Geographic recently named Laos the world’s next great foodie destination, and royal Laotian cuisine certainly makes the case for it.

I feel a bit spoilt feasting all by myself, though.

***

That is a nice hat, calls the friendly-looking man in the pool.

Very stylish, the woman beside him adds.

Thank you! I better tell my mother, because she thinks I paid too much for it, but random compliments from strangers are priceless, are they not?

Bouncing back poolside a few minutes later, I settle underneath one of the tangerine umbrellas to finish George Saunders’ Man Booker Prize-winning Lincoln in the Bardo; I have to take some time to collect myself, and hastily blink some tears away.

I set off again at dusk, just to see if I can make it to the end of Sisavangvong Road and back, and I do, but not before being waylaid at the many little shops and galleries, dodging all the tourists that have emerged, from Korean couples who have a photographer trailing them to American backpackers to French families with their delightful-sounding patter to a rather large group of bewildered-looking Brits blocking the sidewalk, and not before stopping to buy an organic-cotton elephant woven by the Tai Lue women of the northwest, a fortifying fruit shake from one of the enterprising stands strategically positioned outside the night market, a fan with a pachyderm print (this is the Kingdom of the Million Elephants, after all), the requisite magnets, a bundle of bamboo straws, and a beautiful cobalt-blue cotton skirt.

I only bargain for respectability’s sake, but it is a very lighthearted market and I have no problems paying close to whatever is asked for with a combination of dollars and kip, the Laotian currency that can’t be exchanged anywhere else in the world.

It begins to rain when I return to the villa.

***

The grey morning brings with it a leisurely breakfast and one last cup of bracing Laotian coffee, and soon it is filled with the minutiae of getting myself back; of packing, waiting in airport lounges and going through security screenings and worrying about transfers and checked-through luggage and flight delays.

I’m home by sunset, and it has been an all too brief visit, really, but one that has been good for my soul. Sometimes the mental-health break you need is just a weekend away.