The Peace Correspondent (25 page)

But there is much more to Hue than wartime relics. Nguyen Dynasty kings (1802-1945) built their tombs in complexes spread over a large area along the Perfume River. It is a latter-day Angkor Wat (Cambodia's famous ruins), though not as grand or artistic. Picking out the complex furthest from Hue, we direct our driver, who is obviously tiring of sightseeing, along the deserted back roads through the jungle.

With no road signs, we could quickly get lost, so we follow the foreigners cycling among the ruins. At the Tomb of Khai Dinh, a backpacker says it is easy to avoid the entry fee to all the tombs, and disappears around the side of the hill. We pay the US$3 and walk up the steps to meet a phalanx of stony honor guards as intimidating as a regiment of unpainted garden gnomes.

One of the more recent tombs (built from 1920 to 1931), Khai Dinh is a stunningly gaudy mishmash of colored bits of porcelain and glass slapped onto a reinforced concrete structure. The guidebook says it is an amalgam of East and West, though neither culture should accept the blame.

By now, the Danang duo is strongly agitating to head home, but we insist on seeing another tomb, Tu Duc. After 45 minutes of aimless driving around the jungle roads and countless stops to ask directions, we finally find it. The bicycling gatecrasher is already there, climbing over the fence.

Tuc Duc, spread over 225 hectares, is more extensive, older
and more tasteful than Khai Dinh. It is a pleasant atmosphere, like a busy urban park on a Sunday afternoon, as Vietnamese families stroll among the tombs and follow tiled paths past viewing pavilions, small lakes and temples.

Finally, with the late evening light slanting across the temple wall, we ask our dejected escorts to take us back to Danang, anticipating a sunset ride through the countryside. But it is not to be.

On the way out of Hue, our driver gets lost.

LIKE a star performer exiting a stage, the vivid vermilion sun plops into the Mekong River, turning the water a liquid gold. Time for another Beerlao. Watching the dramatic sunsets from an outdoor cafe on stilts over the riverbank is as exciting as nightlife gets in Luang Prabang, former royal capital of the kingdom of Laos.

Which is just fine for visitors, who savor the leisurely pace of the scenic town, 367 kilometers northwest of Vientiane, now the Laotian capital. Crowing roosters greet the dawn in front yards lining unpaved streets, and goats rummage around the underbrush in this small riverine community. Groups of young boys with shaved skulls wearing robes the color of a Mekong sunset stroll the streets like their teenage counterparts wearing jeans and T-shirts in other Asian cities. Five years ago, traffic was mostly bicycles. Today it is mainly three-wheeled vehicles, with many Bangkok-style tuk-tuks (motorized trishaws) plying the streets. Soon, it will be four-wheeled vehicles, and some of the bucolic charm will be lost.

The town, with its lost-in-time aura, is perhaps the best-preserved
in Southeast Asia. In recognition of this, UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in December 1995. An incredible 600 buildings are classified, with 33 temples and 111 historic Lao-French buildings listed for restoration.

For so small a town, Luang Prabang has numerous worthy sights, plus several pleasant excursions. Like many visitors, I get my bearings by climbing the “mountain,” a 150-meter-high, pagoda-topped hill called Mt. Phousi. This is about as challenging as walking up to Hong Kong Park from Central District, and worth the effort. Stairways lead past rustic homes and small temples, with young monks hanging about, to a drowsy ticket taker collecting 8,000 kip (about US$1), the entry fee to the hilltop wat (temple compound).

A rusted old Russian anti-aircraft gun perched near the top provides momentary entertainment to visitors, who twirl the barrel around and sit in the gunner's seat posing for photographs. The peak, with the modest Wat Chom Si, provides a lofty view of the old town, set on a peninsula where the small Nam Khan River meets the Mekong.

From here, I glimpse some of the dozens of Buddhist temples scattered among the palms, including the five-tiered Wat Mai, and That Makmo, ostensibly shaped like a watermelon. Luang Prabang has so many temples, and relatively few tourists, that I often have one to myself -- or with the company of a young monk, eager to chat in English.

Restoring long-neglected religious structures is a major enterprise here. In a wat compound back down in the town, elderly monks oversee red bricks being laid for a new stupa and novices help unload ferroconcrete reinforcing bars from a three-wheel delivery bike while several of their robed brethren stroll by bearing paint rollers over their shoulders like sacred icons.

Only a few other visitors wander about Wat Xieng Thong, the town's grandest, most popular temple, the evening I arrive. The compound of elaborate, ornate chapels is set in a fragrant tropical garden of bougainvillea, frangipani and hibiscus, among banyan
and palm trees. In one corner, the small royal chapel, shimmering like a jewel in the evening sun, houses an elaborate golden hearse, a huge, gilded and ornately-decorated funeral chariot, incongruously set on rubber tires.

One morning, not too early, I wander down to the riverbank to arrange a visit to the Pak Ou caves, a Buddhist shrine about 35 kilometers upstream from Luang Prabang. Locals hanging around the river ask for $15 for the boat trip, but readily agree on $13. This is easygoing Laos.

It is a pleasant, if buttocks-bruising, ride upriver in a long, narrow boat past empty, sandy beaches, a line of trees like huge ferns and rounded, forest-clad hills. Men load big burlap bags onto cargo boats; women wash themselves, their children and their clothes in the river; fishermen perch patiently on flimsy dugouts; and farmers tend their vegetable patches.

A school of noisy, Thai-style long-tailed boats roars by, spewing spray and exhaust fumes, disturbing the tranquillity; soon, it is peaceful again. Fortunately, these offensive craft have been banned from around the city.

Two peaceful hours from Luang Prabang, the boat approaches high, flat cliffs with a darkened cave mouth showing. A steep staircase leads to a little landing, where lazing locals collect the 8,000-kip entrance fee while their sisters sell sticks of incense. A pack of backpackers is leaving the lower cave as I arrive, so I have it to myself. This is so often the way in Asia; a place is swarming with tourists, or it is deserted. In pre-Buddhist days, a sign informs us, locals worshipped Phi, the spirit of nature, here. In more recent decades, the faithful have placed more than 4,000 gilded and wooden Buddha statues in the cave, a whole army of figurines, some old and artistic, others like cheap souvenir dolls.

After renting flashlights to explore the higher, deeper cave, then buying a token souvenir, a hand-stitched purse from the hill tribeswoman waiting below, I cross the river to a collection of makeshift restaurants. For a serene hour or so, I sit on a tiny
stool set out on the sand, the reflection of the water shimmering on the thatched palm roof, drinking beer and eating boiled eggs and noodles.

I return to Luang Prabang in time for another excursion not usually on tourist itineraries: a visit to the grave of 19th-century French explorer Henri Mahout. The first European to see the fabulous temples of Angkor Wat while exploring the natural history of the Mekong River, the young Frenchman died here of jungle fever in 1861.

Setting off into the countryside on a rented minivan, I pass classic Southeast Asian rural scenery of jungle, thatched farm houses, water buffaloes, and half-naked children. A faded and chipped yellow sign, partly hidden by the foliage, says, simply, Henri Mahout.

The driver parks by the road and lights up a cigarette while I walk down to the sandy riverbank and follow a not-very-well-worn path. Soon, another faded sign points me back toward the jungle, and a few meters from the river, I find the famous French explorer's tomb. It is a simple, peaceful site, secluded and shrouded in the thick jungle. And there is not a souvenir or snack salesman in sight.

Back in Luang Prabang, there are so many historic buildings that, like most visitors, I sleep and eat in heritage houses. The Villa Santi, a French colonial mansion once home to a Laotian princess, is now a fine hotel with the pleasant Restaurant de la Princesse. Tables on the verandah overlooking the street are ideal for a long lunch or dinner.

The grand old L'Hotel Souvannaphoum's pleasant White Elephant bar is another atmospheric spot for a leisurely beer or Mekong whiskey. The quiet little room evokes colonial times, with crossed swords on the wall, old-style gas lamps as wall sconces, an ancient wooden gramophone, rattan tables and chairs, and a lone gecko clucking and skittering along the wall in search of wayward insects.

But when dusk approaches, I head back to the river, find an
open place on stilts over the Mekong, and end another peaceful day with fish curry, noodles and fried rice, and an iced Beerlao as the sun sinks into the Mekong.

NEITHER mad dog nor Englishman, here I am, out in the scorching midday Burmese sun. Baked stones sear bare, tender city soles, sending me dancing down the path to the coolness of the shaded pagoda.

Aside from hot feet and the indignity of scurrying for cover, touring the ruins of Pagan (now Bagan) is a truly awesome experience, even for more jaded travelers. And I can now appreciate why both canine and man wander out in Noel Coward's nonsensical song.

Pagan, 315 miles (470 kilometers) northwest of Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar) is accessible from the capital by plane, train and bus. The Arrow Express bus takes about 12 hours, Air Mandalay about 80 minutes. The flight is worth it for the view, coming in over the flat, dry grassy plains, of the odd bumps that are the fantastic ruins, then, just as we are descending, of a gold stupa shimmering off in the distance.

The late 13th-century royal capital spread across Burma's central plains, one of the world's prime architectural wonders,
equals Cambodia's Angkor Wat, Indonesia's Borobudur, Peru's Macchu Picchu or Guatemala's Tikal. Yet it is perhaps the least known, and appreciated of these.