Mind Your Signs Behind You

We all know that things are sometimes lost in translation, and other times meanings are added unintentionally.

If you've been on the London Underground, you've seen the "Mind The Gap" signs.  What they're telling you, of course, is not to step into the space between the train and platform.

Apparently, the person who created that sign was hired for this:

Ironic, isn't it, that it's on the grounds of a Buddhist monastery?  "Mind your head":  Is that what it means to be "mindful"?

On the other hand, this sounds painful:

and could lead to this

which is what might have happened to me if my surgery had been botched.  

OK, I'll stop with the cheap jokes.  Luang Prabang is a wonderful place.  

Tell Them About Your Commute

The next time you complain about your commute, reflect on these young women:

If you are my age, you might be lamenting "today's young people" who don't look up from their phones.  But they did talk to me.

Their commute starts like this

and continues with this

and goes up even further

until, finally, they reach the top of the hill and have all of the best views of Luang Prabang.  

Hoiko, Pamela and I cycled across that bridge yesterday.

As nice as the view is, I''ll bet they don't think much about it.  That's what happens when something becomes a part of your work routine:  It wouldn't surprise me to know that waiters and other workers in Windows on the World stopped noticing the view, if they ever cared about it in the first place.

Maybe they laugh at folks like me who trudge up those stairs as part of their "vacation"

 or pay 50000 kip (about $6) to release two young birds into the air from the viewing area.

Or maybe they don't. Either way, I have respect for them because, even though there are two ways you can ascend or descend Pho Si, neither involves an elevator (lift) or escalator (moving stairs).  One route, on Thanon Phousi, includes several viewpoints "manned" by statues along its 355 stairs. The other, which starts on Sisavangvong Road (opposite the Royal Palace Museum) takes 328 steps.  That's the way I came down; I went up the Thanon Phousi.

It makes perfect sense that those statues, and other images of Buddha, are found on the hill:  Phou Si's literal meaning is "sacred mountain".  Some people climb it to watch sunsets.  Yesterday I couldn't get there in time; on the two previous days, the weather didn't cooperate.  To me, the walk up and the view were rewarding.  And I'll never, ever complain about my commute again!

Did Buddha Sleep Here?

In a way, Luang Prabang reminds me of Florence:  It's not very big, with only four major streets, all of which run the length of the peninsula.  This means that if you're on a bike, no place is more than a few minutes from anyplace else.  

Another thing the onetime capital of Laos has in common with the epicenter of the Italian Renaissance is that it's full of artistic and cultural treasures.  Not surprisingly, both cities are UNESCO World Heritage sites and attract visitors from far and wide.

One difference to me, though, is that I felt the presence of those travelers much more in Florence than I do here.  Granted, there aren't as many tourists here as there were in Venice, in part because this isn't the peak tourist season in most of Southeast Asia and, perhaps, because Luang Prabang isn't quite as well-known as Florence. But visitors here don't seem to fill up the narrow streets and to simply "take over" as they do in the Italian city.  So, everything seems so much less pressured here:  the "vibe", if you will, is actually quite calm.

I was mulling this comparison on my way to a shop that rents bikes when I bumped into Heiko and Pamela, two German tourists.  The shop wanted our passports as a "deposit"; we all agreed that we don't hand our passports to anyone who isn't a border control agent of a country we are entering.  As far as I know, no such international boundary exists around that shop.

So I suggested that we take a walk down a street called "Utopia" (really!) I had walked it yesterday, and I seemed to recall seeing a rental shop or two. Whether they would demand our passports, I didn't know.

As we were walking, Heiko articulated exactly what I had been thinking about Luang Prabang. "It's interesting, but so peaceful," he said.  "People don't seem to get upset or impatient."

We wondered whether it might have something to do with all of those monks and meditations in Luang Prabang.  Everywhere you turn, you see the monks, some of whom look too young for puberty, in their saffron robes.  And those temples are all over the city.

The cycling was really good, especially after we crossed this wooden bridge 

leading out of the city and into the countryside.

It was calm there, too, but that wasn't a surprise given what we've experienced here. Why, there's even a place in the city that's decorated in gold and red felt as if it were bluer than the Blue Mosque:

Wat Mai Suwannaphumaham, referred to as simply the Wat Mai, is so calm that, behind the Buddha that stands over everything, I found this:

No wonder this city can "slow your pulse," as the editors Lonely Planet claim.