We headed down for breakfast around 0745 for an 0830 pick up. Today was a mixed bag of visits with our first stop being the Royal Palace Museum.
It was built in 1904 during the French colonial era for the King and his family. The palace is close to the river making it easy for guests to travel there. The river was the main form of transportation in those days. In 1975 the Monarchy was overthrown by the Communists and the Royal Family was sent to “re-education camps”. Many did not return and have not been heard of since. The palace has since been converted into a national museum.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the museum, so all you can see are some outside shots.
From here we headed off to see few other temples, unfortunately technology let me down as I was relying on the GPS link from the phone to the camera to tag the photos so I could track them back later. It didn’t work, so here are some mixed temple views!
Above is the name of one the temples. In Laos a temple is VAT, in Thailand it is WAT. The language and alphabet in the two countries is similar enough to allow them to communicate.
Above is a close up of the bottom right corner of the Tree of Life. The whole scene is depicted in a mosaic of small pieces of glass. The two pictures below also incorporate glass work.
By this time we were “templed out” so we headed off for a drive through the country to a fabric workshop. As we left the city, the roads became progressively worse, making Ottawa’s pot holed roads look quite good. The journey reminded me of road trips in many of the Caribbean Islands. Where ever you went there were roadside vendors or open store front shops. Again, like in many of the islands, although the housing looked poor, all the people we saw were clean, well dressed and happy looking. They have mastered the art of making a moped or scooter into family transport, we often saw them with 2 adults and 2 children on them, crash helmets…. what crash helmets!!
We arrived at the workshop shaken not stirred! The speciality here was silk. We could watch the silk being spun from the cocoons, and then been woven on the loom. The intricacies of the patterns was amazing.
Below are some of the patterns being woven
After watching the weaving we went into the shop, where Lyn managed to find a small silk wall hanging to take home with us. Next we had a Lao lunch, the went onto see some waterfalls.
In the park they have some rescue bears that they look after.
Finally we found the water falls, we had brought swimwear with us, so decided to go swimming, it was cool and refreshing!
Tomorrow it is a 5 am start for us! In the afternoon catch a train then a plane and hopefully finish up in Vietnam.