Luang Prabang : Day 3 (Part 4)

19 November 2016

The last temple of the day was Vat Aham. This is a small temple with 2 ancient looking stupas. It has a history of both Buddhism and spirit worship. The temple was built in 1818 on the site of a much older temple dating back to 1527. According to our guide, in the 14^th century at the site where the Vat Aham currently stands, a shrine was built for the guardian spirits of Luang Prabang. Nearly two centuries later, the shrines were destroyed by the King who was a staunch Buddhist. Soon after, the town of Luang Prabang was hit by several disasters including diseases, drought and failed harvest. The locals believed the destruction of the spirit shrines to be the cause, and were rebuilt. When the spirit houses were destroyed again in the 20^thcentury, the spirits were believed to have taken residence in the large banyan trees on the temple grounds.

The walls of the temple are covered with colourful murals with depictions of scenes from the Jataka tales, the stories about the previous lives of the Buddha. Other murals contain scenes of Buddhist hell, with rather vivid drawings of the punishments and tortures received by those who stay there.

We were then done for the day, and were dropped off at the night market in the city again. First we walked along the market and bought some souveniers here and there. I think most of the souveniers are over priced because I see mostly foreigners here and you have to bargain which I hate to do. I should’ve just bought souveniers in Vientiane, I think it would be much cheaper there as there are less tourists there.

Then I went for my first foot massage ever (costing around RM20 which according to everyone is cheap) and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Then again back to our convenience store for chips and beer. Life is good.

At 9.30 p.m. we waited for the shuttle. By 9.45 p.m. we were contemplating a tuk tuk when I noticed a guy who I guessed was from a hotel, waiting for guests to get into the van. I decided to try playing the damsel in distress so I told him that we were from the Le Vang Bua Hotel and unfortunately our van is not here. It worked. He said we could sit in his van as our hotel was on the way, but we had to walk for about a minute. We had to sit at the back of the van like stowaways but at least we got a free ride safely back!

Thus ended another fruitful day.