Parade

As promised a few days ago, I have some photos of the parade on the Saturday of Flower Festival.

The first thing we saw were several young women dressed in ballgowns with escorts. I think they were the candidates for the queen of the festival. What you can't see below is the very high stiletto platform heels she is wearing. This is near the end of the parade, which is nearly three miles long. I can't believe she was still able to smile at the crowds!!

There were a number of bands and various groups in regional dress. Here is one such group.

This enormous drum might have come from a temple. Notice the gongs on the side.

All the floats were completely covered with flowers, petals, acorns, etc. An astounding amount of work must have gone into them.

Flower Festival 2016

Last year I went a little crazy taking photos at the Chiang Mai Flower Festival. If you are interested, look back into the February 2015 posts. This year was very different. Dan had a Thai lesson on Saturday morning, so I walked to the park (about a mile) and met up with Seth, Jasmine, and Billy. We looked around the park and at some of the flower exhibits. They didn't seem nearly as numerous as last year, and more of them were inside the park. Instead of many exhibits on the road, there were booths, some with flower exhibits, but many with things for sale.

Park wall decorated

Bonsai

Another bonsai -- amazing droopiness!

Photo-op with selfie

Succulents for sale

Posing in front of the elephant

Street booth with photo-op

After we had looked around, we saw that the parade was arriving. We walked along the street toward our place. We stopped for a while at the massage school where we get our regular massages; they had a front stairway that made a perfect viewing spot.  We saw a lot of the decorated floats; I'll post some of those later.

We went on back to our apartment, where we met up with Dan, I made scrambled eggs for lunch,  and had a good round of dominoes.

Now it is Chinese New Year and the Chiang Mai Life website says 80,000 Chinese are expected here for the holiday. We will stay away from the most popular areas!! There are already plenty of firecrackers going off even in our neighborhood.

Luang Prabang Wrap-up

We are heading back to Chiang Mai today (Wednesday). It's been a very nice, relaxing visit. There is a new very modern bar next door to our hotel. We stopped in a couple of times and enjoyed chatting with the manager (Swiss) and owner (English). The food is small plates (tapas) and all delicious. Below are a dark chocolate mousse and shrimp balls.

Looking down from our balcony, I watched a truck/taxi filling up with backpackers, probably heading to the airport or bus station.

These are the brooms they use to clean. I'm not sure why these were laid out so nicely on the patio, but I thought it was a good opportunity for a photo.

One day we ate lunch at Lao Lao, recommended by our hotel. We biked there, as it was a bit far to walk. It was a lovely setting in a garden that went up a slope behind the street. Lao Lao is also the name of the distilled spirits we saw being made in the village.

This dish was chicken and vegetables in a coconut milk curry sauce. Very tasty.

While we were there, we enjoyed watching this small dog move around from spot to spot. This young man brought him food and tried to get him to eat, but the dog wasn't interested.

The Lao skirts and tops are lovely, in both silk and cotton. I saw many of the women, young and old, dressed in the skirts, which are a tube that is wrapped around the body. Very colorful!

We visited one of the temples on the main street. The front of one of the temples was covered with a mural.

Closeup of one section of the mural.

Entrance stairs with multiple snakeheads was reminiscent of Angkor Wat.

This old stupa was on the grounds.

River Trip Lunch

I promised I would share our lunch with you, so here we go.

First came the appetizers, sesame-coated Mekong sea plant, very thin, deep fried. Crispy and nice but not too much flavor other than the sesame. There was also some sliced sausage.

Soup course -- absolutely delicious; chicken with potatoes and carrots in a coconut milk broth.

Sticky rice was served in its own cute little basket -- one per person. It appears to be more common here than regular rice.

These little packets held two bites of delicious soft fish in an herbed broth.

The two main dishes, both chicken-based. In the rear is lab, a salad-like dish of minced meat with herbs. The front dish was chicken and vegetables in broth. They offered regular rice as well as the sticky, but we had plenty to eat without it.

We had a nice plate of fruit afterwards.

This spirit house was near the dock area. I thought it was wonderful with its carved balconies and staircases.

River Trip

Just a year ago we did a week-long cruise, mostly on the Mekong, in Cambodia and Vietnam. The Mekong goes through Luang Prabang, too, and we did a short cruise on Sunday.  We rode bikes over to the dock; it would have been a longer walk than we wanted. It was a fairly big boat -- could probably take up to 35 or so but we were only nine -- 2 German, 2 Canadian, 5 American. We took off a half-hour late as there was some problem with the pump. They borrowed one from the ship moored next to us and eventually we took off.

The first picture is looking down the steps to the boat. The lower part consists of packed mud with some boards to help form the steps. I was glad for my sticks!

Inside the boat there were tables and benches. It was open -- no windows. There was a nice deck up the steps you can see. It was a bit cool when we took off at 10:30 with the river breeze, but not uncomfortable. The sun came out around noon and it was pleasantly warm the rest of the day.

This is the same tree I admired the day before -- what a nice shape!

There were a number of nice-looking homes along the river.

There were many rocky places. Most of them had a cement pillar like the one below, helpful when the river is in flood stage -- which I think happens many rainy seasons.

When I first saw this boat, I thought "Noah's ark!" But it is a cargo boat on which the owner and family live.

This is our guide/tour leader (although he didn't guide us when we got off, just told us when to return). He was very interesting. He did his degree in French in Vientiane but it is very difficult to find jobs here. The economy in Laos is very poor.

Our first stop was a village known for weaving and for distilling Lao Lao, a local liquor. This photo shows the still with the liquor dripping down the pipe into the large jug.

This woman was prepping some weaving while her baby slept happily in the hammock.

A sign explaining about how the liquor is made.

There were several dozen stalls where a woman was weaving and had scarves and shawls for sale. The fabrics were all beautiful.

I walked around the village a bit and enjoyed seeing the very nice temple there.

Looking down from the village to our boat.

The terrain around here is hilly, with interesting formations unlike any I've seen elsewhere.

The Pak Ou caves are one of the well-known tourist sites around here. They aren't limestone caves like we are used to in the US, but rather hollowed out from the rock by the river. They have become places of worship and there are hundreds (thousands?) of Buddha figures set up inside. 

The second cave was a good distance above the first one. I went up about halfway. As you can see, the steps were very uneven. Dan went up but said it was just as well that I didn't make it all the way.

After the caves, we headed back downriver to Luang Prabang. We were served a very nice lunch, which I'll put in the next post.