Today, we started off with another drive up into the hills.This time, we went to visit the Luang Prabang Elephant Camp. Here, we learnt about the elephants in Laos from our guide Joy. There were once over 4,000,000 elephants in Laos; however, this number has been rapidly declining. Today, there are only a few thousand left in the wild. We all felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to spend time with these amazing creatures. We were able to ride, feed and wash some of the elephants that had been rescued, including a 4 year old baby elephant. The elephant handlers were extremely enthusiastic, especially when it came to taking photos of us riding the elephants. Many of us now have as many photos from the elephant ride as we had from the last ten days!
On the way back from the Elephant Camp, we visited a Hmong Village. This village holds as many as 400 people with approximately 80 families all up. Many of these families will be made up of eight or more people, but there is only one house per family. Many of these children within the village haven’t had the opportunity like we do to have a proper education and have to work from a very young age. To see so many children trying to sell things to us was quite confronting.
After venturing back to the hotel we were split into groups of 5 for the Great Race around Luang Prabang. We were staggered 15 minutes apart in our departure time. In the race, we became well acquainted with the steep stairs of Mount Phousi. We climbed up into the clouds to take a selfie only to descend back down the other side to continue our journey. Apologies to anyone who will receive a postcard from a very rushed and pressured student. This was one of the many tasks that we were faced with in our race the finish line.
This evening, we went to a traditional Baci ceremony, in a nearby restaurant. When we entered, we were asked to sit on a mat before some elders from villages near Luang Prabang, who performed a number of blessings on our group for good fortune and health. Next, the elders tied bracelet blessings around our wrists, moving from student to student while 2 local boys played traditional Laos music. It felt very special to have been able to participate in this ceremony. Then, a dance troupe performed a series of traditional dances for us. The dancers were all about the same age as us, and they wore various traditional costumes for each dance.
Tonight we also came celebrated two birthdays – Jackson’s and a belated birthday for Molly. The two birthday cakes were a welcome burst of sugar for us all.
Once we returned from dinner we all participated in a circle time. This gave us time to reflect on what we had each learned/taken from the trip. It took a while to go around such a big circle, but it was nice to hear everyone’s thoughts on the trip so far.
Tomorrow we leave Laos for Cambodia, and while we’re all excited, it is hard to accept that we are heading towards our final trip destination.
By Hannah and Josh.
