Living like the Monks

After the intensity of Vietnam and Cambodia, I was more than ready to lighten the mood of my trip - and luckily Laos turned out to be just the place for a bit of fun and relaxation. Starting off in Vientiane, I was soon won over by the slow pace of life there; it is very small for a capital city and as in the rest of Laos, there is little traffic to disturb the peace. But despite its serenity there was plenty to occupy visitors, including a Buddha Park full of bizarre statues, an unexpectedly endearing "cultural show" performed in what appeared to be a school assembly hall, and an imposing monument in the style of the Arc-de-Triomphe, which was described in an official notice nailed to the wall as a "monster of concrete".

After Vientiane, I took the bus three hours north to Vang Vieng, which is apparently famous among backpackers and turned out to be a very odd place. Set in stunning surroundings with tropical vegetation, a tranquil river and misty layers of forest-covered mountains, Vang Vieng itself is somewhat incongruous. The town is dominated by a handful of streets packed with guesthouses, TV bars playing continuous episodes of Friends, restaurants selling western food and even a McDonalds of dubious authenticity. Due, I think, to the multitude of opportunities for adventure sports - rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, caving and the backpackers'-favourite tubing (floating down the river on a tyre, often while drunk and/or stoned) - tourists started flocking to this little town, and the town responded by turning itself into a miniature version of Khao San Road. Luckily, it was entirely possible to avoid all of the above by walking just a little way out of town, across a temporary bamboo bridge and on to the tiny Don Khang island. There you could stroll by the river or relax in a hammock, and every evening after dark the local bars organised a bonfire - the perfect place to while away the evening chatting to other visitors over a bottle or two of the ubiquitous Beerlao.

My favourite destination in Laos however, turned out to be Luang Prabang, which combined the calm of Vientiane with Vang Vieng's picturesque mountain setting and close proximity to waterfalls and caves. When I arrived at my guesthouse, they told me about the sunrise procession of hundreds of monks, who pass by every morning at 6am. As they make their way to the temples, the monks collect alms of sticky rice from locals, and bananas sold by street-vendors to bleary-eyed tourists woken by the drums. There are a lot of monks in Luang Prabang, many of them children, and they could be spotted all over town in their orange robes - sightseeing in the museum, doing the gardening outside their Wat, climbing trees, smoking, sending text messages, checking their email and playing computer games in the internet cafes... even the monks have fun in Laos it seems, and (as Barry Norman would say) why not.