The water that cascades over the Kuang Si Falls is a startling shade of turquoise blue. An informational sign explains that the water picks up limestone particles with high levels of calcium carbonate as it falls over the rocks and this is what gives it the unique color. This was not an easy photo to work with. It took quite a bit of work in Photoshop to come up with a color that is a reasonable match to what I saw in nature.
The Kuang Si Waterfall area is about a one hour drive south of Luang Prabang. Over a road with numerous axle-breaker potholes. I rode in the back of what is called a tuk tuk in Laos, a pickup truck with a cover over the back and wooden benches along both sides of the bed. It was a bumpy ride.
The falls themselves are beautiful, and I visited at the tail end of the dry season in this part of the world. Significantly more water comes pouring over the falls after the summer rainy season begins in June. The good news is that the hot, dry month of May is the low season for tourism in and around Luang Prabang. There were plenty of other people visiting the falls, but finally it was not that crowded.
Laos is a multi-ethnic country with Lao people making up only slightly more than 50% of the population. After the Lao, the two largest ethnic groups are the Khmu accounting for about 11% of the population and the Hmong accounting for about 9%. Much of Laos is mountainous and this is where the Hmong people can be found – around Luang Prabang and in other highland areas, including in the eastern part of the country along the border with Vietnam. There are also Hmong living in the Vietnamese highlands. That border between Laos and Vietnam runs through some rugged, wild country that is sparsely populated. There are few main road (though no doubt there are un-mapped secondary roads and paths) and no urban areas of any size. I cannot help buy wonder how porous that Lao-Vietnamese border is. Although Hmong on both sides of the border are citizens of and have assimilated to some extent within their respective countries, they are nonetheless one people with a common language. Are Hmong people from the two countries who live in communities on either side of the border able to move relatively freely back and forth across the border? By freely here, I mean without passports, border stations, and border formalities. Or as a part of the state-building process, have Laos and Vietnam hardened their borders, making it difficult for ethnic minorities like the Hmong to move back and forth between the two nation states? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I am definitely curious.
A number of Hmong shops in Luang Prabang sell handicraft fabric and items like bags, pillow covers and decorative tapestries made in Hmong villages. Some of it is quite beautiful.
Some chili for breakfast? Lao food is delicious, but a lot of it is loaded with chili – fiery, set-your-mouth-on-fire hot chili. Delicate palettes beware. This morning street market had plenty of several varieties of chili available.
Not all of the Buddhist temples in Luang Prabang were gilded and affluent looking. The grounds of Wat Siphoutthabath were rather overgrown and some of the buildings were locked and appeared to be not in use. Beauty of a different sort.
