Schlagwort-Archive: fauna

Brazil/Salvador de Bahia: In the Cauldron of Magical Slave Energy

Brasilien: Candomblé Ritual, Salvador de Bahia | Candomblé spiritual ritual — **Brasilien: Candomblé Ritual in Salvador de Bahia | Candomblé spiritual ritual in Salvador de Bahia**

FOREWORD

The author, Gerd Michael Müller, born in Zürich in 1962, traveled as a photo-journalist to more than 50 nations and lived in seven countries, including in the underground in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80 years he was a political activist at the youth riots in Zürich. Then he was involved in pioneering Wildlife & eco projects in Southern Africa and humanitarian projects elsewhere in the world. As early as 1993, Müller reported on the global climate change and in 1999 he founded the «Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland». Through his humanitarian missions he got to know Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other figures of light. His book is an exciting mixture of political thriller, crazy social stories and travel reports – the highlights of his adventurous, wild nomadic life for reportage photography .

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

During one of the first of a total of five trips to Brazil, after the Iguacu Falls, Rio de Janeiro, I also discovered Salvador de Bahia, the landing place of the Europeans and the first capital of Brazil. If you want to get to know the exotic facets of Bahian life, get ready for hot come-ons, cool rejections and delicious consolations, at least during Carnival. If you dive into the mystical world of the candoble and let yourself be overwhelmed by the overwhelming spirituality, you will leave the local world and fall into a trance to the point of ecstasy. A trip to Salvador de Bahia is like a departure to new shores. First of all, it is admirable how exhilarated the Baihanos go through life. Remarkable how they express their joy and sorrow.

The mystical world of gods and spiritual source of the Bahanos is reflected in the Candomble, which gave reason for the Christian mission, especially since Bahia was the starting point of the western explorers and conquerors. Not only the bastions along the coast testify to this. The roots of the slave tower are deeply anchored in the local culture. Especially the candomble spirituality, lived out in secret, bears witness to this. When hundreds of gospel singers resound with fervor, not only does the earth tremble, but the air in the far periphery also vibrates, as with an approaching hurricane. The psalm-singing Catholic boys‘ choir next door in the Sao Fransico monastery in the baroque old town district of Pelourinho really sounds rather pitiful.

Rarely does one discover such a playful people that has produced an incredible number of dance and musically gifted people. In Salvador de Bahia, the cradle of carnival and samba, there is no standing still or being stiff as a board. Everything is in flux, everyone is constantly on the move, more or less gracefully. Another Bahian specialty is capoeira, the martial art disguised as dance. Here, too, the graceful flowing movements are recognizable, flowing through the whole life and triggering impulses. But not only in expressing feelings also the body cult is on top of the agenda. In this the Bahianos hardly differ from the Cariocas. There is hardly an Adonis who does not present his athletically steeled body in his skimpy briefs. There is no woman who does not proudly walk around the beach in her Fio dental (tooth thread) bikini, flirting with her grace and freedom of movement. No wonder the church has sent more friars here than anywhere else in the world. In Salvador de Bahia alone, 165 houses of worship have been built.

In 2003, I was stationed in Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil for three months as a resident manager for a Swiss travel company and had a hell of a good time. Few guests, so no stress, a hotel room right on the Beira Mar (that’s like the Copacabana in Rio), and a good vehicle with which I could drive all the way to Jericoacoara to the fantastic sand dunes or south to Moro Branco. I was very attracted to the Brazilian lifestyle, music, language and cultures on previous trips, so I also learned a little Portuguese. Since I spoke Spanish well, it was easy for me to get started and I like the Brazilian dialects better than the harsh Spanish accents. I am also enchanted by the music of many Latin American sounds: from the tango in Argentina to the bossa nova of a Gilberto Gil in Brazil or the folk dance forro, as in Fortaleza, from the salsa and son in Cuba to the merengue in the Dominican Republic, all these musical styles and dance forms appeal to me very much.

In Fortaleza I lived during these three months as a Station Manager at Beira Mar, ideally located also for daily trips to the beautiful city beach Praia do futuro and at night to Praia do Iracema at the end of Beira Mar, where the tourist entertainment district with all the nightclubs was located, which was very convenient for the local tourist service. At the end of the three months, I was shipped off to Sinai, but after the six-month assignment in Sharm el Sheikh, I returned to Fortaleza unemployed because the tsunami had hit Asia and as a result all the travel companies needed fewer station managers and tour guides.

When I returned to Fortaleza, I lived for two months in the Serviluz favela with a friend who had a small brick house near Praia do Futuro and I felt quite comfortable there. Soon I knew a lot of people via Heldon and his friend Joaquin, and the neighbors in the favela also knew me, so I could move around freely there day and night. It was a comfortable time, because I had made good foreign exchange deals with the tourists in Sinai and before in Brazil. This was always a tolerable source of side income in this job. In Poland, I almost became a zloty millionaire. Then a friend from Switzerland visited me and we rented a „Highlux“, i.e. an off-roader, to drive up along the Brazilian coast from Fortaleza in the state of Céara via the states of Maranhão and Piaui to Manaus and to complete the return journey inland.

That’s a good 6000 kilometers we planned to cover in 11 days. The off-road driving was more comfortable than driving on the asphalt road, which was completely littered with holes, up to half a meter deep. The asphalt looked like it had been bombed over a wide area! Therefore, I often drove on the scree strip to the right of the roadway. There one comes basically faster ahead and whirled up strongly dust, which is to be seen already from a distance and prevents the accident danger. The journey went via Jericoacoara, with its fantastic dune landscape, which was surpassed in beauty by the crystal clear lakes in the sand dune landscapes in the next state of Maranhao. An extremely fascinating region! The deep blue Atlantic with lonely dream beaches to the left, a gigantic sand dune strip along the coast and inland the esmerad green jungle. The national parks of Jericoacoara and Lençóis Maranhenses on the Atlantic coast are unique biotopes.

I like deserts better than virgin forests. One gets on better. At least in 4×4. But even here, I would have been stranded without the help of the local fishermen, because on this trip numerous rivers had to be crossed. Except for one time it went quite well, but then we came to a river, which was shallow on our side first about 30 meters, then there was a small sand island in front of the place where the river flowed through a narrow, tearing mouth, like in a funnel. You could just make that out from 40 meters away, and it was probably the most dangerous part. „If I couldn’t cross the last ten meters after the tiny river island at full throttle,“ it would look bad, I thought.

And that’s exactly what happened. So I drove with a lot of speed through the 30 meters wide, shallow river towards the island, but got stuck there due to the slope and had too little momentum to cross the current channel with the ripping flow. and came to an abrupt stop with the engine hood stuck in the water at a 45 degree angle to three quarters. After a few hours, a couple of fishermen approached. Only thanks to a boat in the current channel that lifted the car a little and a car that pulled us back from behind with the wire rope over the shallow part of the river, we managed to get out of the river.

Another time, just as I was walking alone in the sweltering midday heat, I got stuck in deep quicksand. It took four hours, many drops of sweat and endless jerks for a few meters further. The sand was scorching hot, I shoveled like a madman for hours and didn’t think I would make it. But finally it worked out. And so the journey continued to Ilha do Maranhão, one of the largest alluvial areas in the world at the foothills of the Amazon. 800,000 buffalo populate the island, which belongs to only a few Hundert landowners who hardly employ any workers.

Where the animals pass in the dry season, a river course emerges in the rainy season. Thus, the fragile ecosystem and the thin layer of humus is destroyed in just a few years. Year after year, huge areas of virgin forest are being appropriated first for cattle breeding and then for intensive agriculture such as soy plantations. In the past 30 years, almost a quarter of the Amazon Delta has been destroyed. Yet the biodiversity here is unparalleled. In the Amazon alone there are over 2000 different fish. For comparison: In the whole of Europe there are just 150 species of fish. The same is true for all animal species, most of them are endemic.

The adventurous journey continued through the state of Piaui and from there we drove on to Manaus. Then again a good 3000 kilometers inland back to Fortaleza, where we visited the Gruta de Ubajara, Brazil’s largest caves with nine chambers and a depth of a good kilometer, at the Ubajara National Park, about 300 km west of Fortaleza. Now we come to the last and most special Brazil tripf Fortaleza.

Endless horizon and dunes of the National park Lencois in Maranhao

Guyana 1997/2003: From the jungle directly into space

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French Guyane: Two monkey’s riding on a Tapir

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

Thanks to the cooperation with the „AOM“, which connected the French Départements d’outre Mèr, i.e. French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, the South Seas or New Caledonia with Paris, I flew almost once a year to Cuba and was also briefly on Guadeloupe, three weeks in the South Seas, and now flying to French Guiana in the backyard of the Grande Nation, „where the pepper grows,“ where political prisoners have been exiled on an island and the European Space Agency (ESA) has set up shop in Kourou. The most exotic of all EU members is known at best through the movie „Papillon“, as a former penal colony, and so the image of French Guyana is also characterized by diffuse ideas and shimmering legends. Guyana’s reputation as a dangerous country populated with legions of poisonous insects, fearsome tarantulas, deadly snakes, meter-long aligators and piranhas is probably true, but beyond that, the country where Europe runs out and disappears into the green jungle thicket is one of the most stable in the region.

„The most dangerous creature here is man, followed by wasps,“ puts Philippe Gilabert, founder of „CISAME“ (Centre Initiation Survie et Aventure au Millieu Equatorial), an idyllic camp in the middle of green hell after about 60 kilometers of pirogue travel upstream on the banks of the Approuague near the Brazilian border, into perspective. „Humans,“ Gilabert, a former „Legion Etrangere“ paratrooper and terrorism expert, tells us, „are the most harmful creatures to the fragile ecocycle of the primary forest. Then would come the wasps, but they are a threat only to unwary humans, added the then 43-year-old Frenchman, who worked as a paratrooper and terrorism expert, wryly. He and Manoel, a Karipuna jungle Indian must know, because they specialize in bringing the wild jungle closer to as many civilized people as possible (than they actually care to) and offer 10 days of survival training to the toughest. So the civilization-impaired first practice archery, trapping, climbing, canoeing, fishing, making fire and building dwellings before having their own experience of what it’s like to have to survive in the jungle. So the jungle experts show the civilization-weary how to survive in the jungle and nature-lovers what treasures and functions the primary forest has and why it is absolutely necessary to protect it worldwide.

Among the guests of Mirikitares, the camp of the river people, as the Karipunas call this place, are reservists of European and North American armed forces as well as executives of companies who want to get their top shots in shape here. Even ordinary tourists are inspired to fulfill their dream and plunge into a daring jungle adventure. The fact that this is not just a macho world is proven by the growing number of women who come here and can often easily compete with us men in survival training. Either way, everyone gets to know themselves and their limits or abilities. The commitment goes to the substance of the mental and manageable, the survival mode switches on and amazing, existential insights open up to you. You suddenly realize how small and inconspicuous, how vulnerable and alone you are. You go from being the hunter to the hunted. A unique experience.

Having barely escaped the rainforest unscathed, new habitats open up, at least in the imagination, on a galactic trip to the moon, revealed to curious travelers in Kourou, not far from Guyana’s capital Cayenne, at the European Aerospace Center, the „Centre Spacial“ of the (ESA). So it is from here that the journey into space starts. The place itself offers nothing, except for the usual third-world view of the country’s class hierarchy. In the old town live the socially weakest, the Creoles, Indians and white unskilled workers, surrounded by out-of-place concrete buildings for the middle class, and on the beach the magnificent villas of the Europeans, scientists and employees of the space station in nearby Kourou.

After a visit to the European Union Space Station, I take a boat to Devil’s Island, a penal colony made famous by the movie Papillon. The three islands off the coast, Ille Royale, St. Jospeh and Ille Diable, where political prisoners were held for years by France in extreme conditions before ending up under the guillotine. Some, it is said here, would have preferred to be eaten by sharks while fleeing through the sea than to continue to suffer the earthly torment settled here. Guyana’s highlights include the country’s Wild West, especially the picturesque colonial town of St. Laurent-du-Moroni, on the border river with Suriname, which is well worth a visit. The colorful mixture of peoples, including Indians, raven pirogue drivers, bustling Indo-Chinese and Hmongs who came here via France to flee the Pol Pot regime, as well as Haitian cloth merchants, Dominicans and Creoles of all shades, and a few whites, was and still is impressively diverse.

On the last evening before our departure, we, a small group of journalists from Switzerland, trolled late at night through the harbor district of the capital Ceyenne and we were already quite drunk, after the humid happy rounds in some bars. Obviously, we had been observed, because at a rather dark intersection, suddenly from all sides a few sinister figures stepped out of the cracks of the houses quickly towards us. I could just warn my companions with a loud call, then someone coming from behind sprayed tear gas into my eyes, whereupon I could see nothing more and inhaled the irritant gas coughing. I whirled around like a dervish and began to swing my camera equipment around to keep the three attackers at a distance, whom I could see only dimly. Then I broke through on one side and ran up the street until I was out of breath and out of range of the gang. My colleagues were also lucky and managed to fight back and save themselves from the attackers. With this adventure behind us, we left the country the next day and flew back to Switzerland.

On one of the first of a total of five trips to Brazil, after Iguaçu Falls, Rio de Janeiro and Buzios, I also discovered Salvador de Bahia, the landing place of the Europeans and the first capital of Brazil. If you want to experience the exotic facets of Bahian life, be prepared for hot pickup lines, cool rejections and delicious alcoholic consolations, at least during Carnival. If you dive into the mystical world of Candobléein and let yourself be overwhelmed by the overwhelming spirituality, leave the local world and get into a trance to ecstasy. Candomblé is a Brazilian religion that has its roots and cradle in West Africa. The saints Orixá, Nkisi or Vodum are, in contrast to the supreme god Olorun, so to speak „approachable“. Most enslaved Africans came from Nigeria and Benin and were influenced by the Yoruba and Bantu traditions. During a Candomblé rite, a saint can take possession of a person. The roots of the slave tower are deeply rooted in the local culture. However, they are often lived out in secret. But when hundreds of powerful gospel voices resound from full fervor and the percussionists begin with their drum rhythm, then not only the earth trembles, but also the air vibrates in the far periphery, as with a howling hurricane. This makes the psalm-screeching Catholic boys‘ choir in the Sao Fransico monastery in the baroque old town district of Pelourinho sound rather pitiful.

A trip to Salvador de Bahia is therefore like setting out for new shores. First of all, it is admirable how elated the Baihanos go through life. Remarkable how they express their joy and sorrow. The mystical world of gods and the spiritual source of the Bahanos is reflected in Candomblé, which gave reason for the Christian mission, especially since Bahia was the starting point of the western explorers and conquerors. The bastions along the coast are not the only evidence of this. In Salvador de Bahia, the cradle of carnival and samba, there is no standing still and no stiff posturing. Everything is in flux, everyone is constantly on the move, more or less gracefully. It is rare to discover such a playful people, who have produced an unbelievable number of talented dancers and musicians.

Another Bahian specialty is capoeira, the martial art disguised as dance. Here, too, the gracefully flowing movements are recognizable, flowing through their whole lives and triggering impulses. But not only in expressing feelings also the body cult is on top of the agenda, in this the Bahianos hardly differ from the Cariocas. There is hardly an Adonis who does not present his athletically steeled body in his skimpy briefs. There is not a single woman who does not proudly walk on the beach in her „Fio dental“ bikini, flirting with her gracefulness and permissiveness. No wonder the church has sent more friars here than anywhere else in the world. In Salvador de Bahia alone, 165 houses of worship have been built.

In 2003 I was stationed for three months as a resident manager for a Swiss travel company in Fortalezza in the northeast of Brazil and had a truly good time there. Few guests, so almost no stress, a hotel room right on the Beira Mar (that’s like the Copacabana in Rio) furthermore I had a good vehicle with which I could drive to Jericoacoara to the fantastic sand dunes or south to Moro Branco. I was very attracted to the Brazilian lifestyle, music, language and culture on previous trips, which also helped me learn a little Portuguese. Since I spoke passable Spanish, it was easy for me to get into Portuguese and I like the Brazilian dialects better than the harsh Spanish accents. I am also enchanted by the music of many Latin American sounds: from the tango in Argentina to the bossa nova of a Gilberto Gil in Brazil or the folk dance forro, as in Fortalezza, from the salsa and son in Cuba to the merengue in the Dominican Republic.

In Fortaleza, during these three months, I lived as Station Manager at Beira Mar, ideally located for daily trips to the most beautiful city beach, Praia do futuro, and at night to Iracema at the end of Beira Mar, where the tourist entertainment district was located with all the nightclubs, which was very convenient for local tourist services. At the end of the three months I was shipped off to Sinai, but after the six month assignment in Sharm el Sheikh, returned to Fortaleza unemployed because the tsunami had hit Asia and as a result all the tour companies needed fewer Station Managers and Tour Guides.

Upon my return to Fortaleza, I first lived and stayed for two months in the Favela Serviluz with a friend who had a small brick house near Praia do Futuro and felt quite comfortable there. Soon, via Heldon and his friend Joaquin, I knew many people and the neighbors in the favela knew me as well, so I was able to move freely there day and night. It was a comfortable time, because I had made good foreign exchange deals with the tourists in Sinai and before in Brazil. This was always a tolerable source of extra income with these jobs. In Poland, I almost became a zloty millionaire. Then a friend from Switzerland visited me and we rented a „Highlux“, an off-roader, to drive along the Brazilian coast from Fortaleza in the state of Céara via the states of Maranhão and Piaui up to Manaus and then to complete the return journey inland.

That’s a good 6000 kilometers we wanted to cover in 11 days. The off-road driving was more comfortable than driving on the asphalt road, which was completely littered with holes up to half a meter deep. The asphalt looked like it had been bombed over a wide area, which is why I often drove on the scree strip to the right of the road. There one comes in principle faster ahead and whirls up strongly dust, which is to be seen already from a distance and prevents the accident danger. The journey went through Jericoacoara, with its fantastic dune landscape, which was surpassed in beauty by the crystal clear lakes in the sand dunes in the next state of Maranhao. An extremely fascinating region! The deep blue Atlantic with lonely dream beaches to the left, a gigantic sand dune strip along the coast and inland the esmerad green jungle. The national parks of Jericoacoara and Lençóis Maranhenses on the Atlantic coast are unique biotopes worth preserving.

I like deserts better than virgin forests. One gets along better. At least in 4×4. But even here, I would have been stranded without the help of local fishermen, because on this trip numerous rivers had to be crossed. Except for the one time it worked quite well, until we came to a river that was shallow on our side only about 30 meters, then there was a small sand island just before the place where the river flowed through a narrow mouth, like a funnel, much more tearing. You could just make that out from 40 meters away, and it was probably the most dangerous part. „If I couldn’t cross at full throttle the last ten meters after the tiny river island,“ it would look bad, I thought. And that’s exactly what happened. I drove with a lot of speed through the 30 meter wide, shallow river towards the island, but got stuck there due to the incline, had too little momentum to cross the current channel and was soon stuck with the hood at a 45 degree angle to three quarters in the water. After a few hours, a couple of fishermen came along. Only thanks to a boat in the current channel that lifted the car a little and a car that pulled us back from behind with the wire rope over the shallow part of the river, we managed to get out of the river.

Another time, when I was just out on my own in the sweltering midday heat, I got stuck in deep quicksand. I was shoveling like a madman in the scorching hot sand and didn’t think I would make it. It took four hours, many drops of sweat and endless jerks for a few meters further, but finally it worked out. And so the journey continued to Ilha de Maranhão, one of the largest alluvial areas in the world at the foothills of the Amazon. 800,000 buffalo populate the island, which belongs to only a few hundred large landowners who hardly employ any workers. Where the animals traverse in the dry season, a river course emerges in the rainy season. Thus, the fragile ecosystem and the thin layer of humus is destroyed in just a few years. Year after year, huge areas of virgin forest are being appropriated first for cattle breeding and then for intensive agriculture such as soy plantations. In the past 30 years, almost a quarter of the Amazon Delta has been destroyed. This is a catastrophe, because the incomparably high biodiversity is also seriously threatened here. In the Amazon alone there are over 2000 different fish. For comparison: In the whole of Europe there are just 150 species of fish. The same is true for all other animal species, most of which are endemic. The adventurous journey continued through the state of Piaui and from there we drove on to Manaus. Then another good 3000 kilometers inland back to Fortaleza, where we visited the Gruta de Ubajara, Brazil’s largest caves with nine chambers and a depth of a good kilometer, at the Ubajara National Park, about 300 km west of Fortaleza. Now we come to the last and most special of my Brazil trips and my only cruise.

Französisch Guyana: Drei Ara-Papageien auf einem Zweig

Laos 2013: River trips in the Golden Triangle and the Mekong Delta

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Laos: Around 2000 Monks are collecting food in Luang Prabang every early morning

FOREWORD

The author, Gerd Michael Müller, born in Zürich in 1962, traveled as a photo-journalist to more than 50 nations and lived in seven countries, including in the underground in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80 years he was a political activist at the youth riots in Zürich. Then he was involved in pioneering Wildlife & eco projects in Southern Africa and humanitarian projects elsewhere in the world. As early as 1993, Müller reported on the global climate change and in 1999 he founded the «Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland». Through his humanitarian missions he got to know Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other figures of light. His book is an exciting mixture of political thriller, crazy social stories and travel reports – the highlights of his adventurous, wild nomadic life for reportage photography .

First it shoots through the multifaceted jungle face and bizarrely rugged riverbed landscapes, then it meanders another 1000 kilometers through rice-growing flatlands and finally fans out into a delta with 4000 tropical islands. The Mekong is the lifeblood of Indochina and the pulsating lifeline for seven million Laotians. What could be more natural than to explore the charms of Laos on a hotel boat and to drift downstream, contemplating the hustle and bustle of Laotian life. To slow down from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, to look calmly over the iridescent green tones of the jungle or to glide over the shining company-ment and to let the soul dangle.

A trip on the Mekong River near the Golden Triangle is still an adventure today and just as exciting as it was in the days of the first Western explorers, the Frenchmen Lagrée and Garnier, who took two years for their expedition (1866-68). They were still struggling up the river in small outrigger boats against the wild rapids. Numerous jagged rocks, huge sandbanks, rocky gorges, narrow bends and the strongly varying water level, which can rise by several meters within hours, require extreme caution and precise knowledge of all dangerous places from the ship’s captains. At night, the upper reaches of the Mekong River are closed to navigation. It would be too dangerous in the darkness on the river. These are the pitfalls in the dry season. In the rainy season, on the other hand, the river swells rapidly by up to 20 meters.

Then logs weighing tons often shoot downstream at breakneck speed. Even on our short trip, the water level rose by three meters within two days. This was due to heavy rainfall in China and the opening of a dam. No wonder the upper course of the Mekong is one of the most beautiful but also one of the wildest river upper courses in the world. Our captain manages indeed, and sometimes resembling a small miracle, even on the way back downstream in the wake of the rapids, to curve around all the dangerous cliffs and skillfully weave through the narrow passages with the jagged rocks. In the dry season, the bizarre rocky outcrops rise up to above the deck of the boat. In the rainy season, they disappear below the surface of the water.

The river trip begins in the cultural heart of Laos, in the historic center of the city of Luang Prabang, which is situated in the protection of the spur between the Mekong and its tributary Nam Khan in northern Laos at an altitude of about 300 meters and is a trading center for rice, rubber and teak wood and handicraft products made of wood, textiles and paper. Since an international airport was built here, it is also the starting point for tourists coming from Vietnam or Bankok. The number of tourists in the old royal city of Laos is manageable. Between the many backpackers mingle more and more jetsetters who want to see the quiet beauty of Luang Prabang before it gets loud and crowded as in Cambodia or Vietnam.

In 1995, Luang Prabang was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. 32 Buddhist monasteries and all of the French colonial architecture in the city were listed and have since been restored. Restrictive urban planning is also in place to prevent violations of the unique art-historical character of the city center. Luang Prabang’s urban history is inextricably linked to the history of Laos‘ origins. The political decline of the Sukhothai kingdom in northern Thailand in 1345 and the shift of the political center in Siam to Ayyuuhaya in 1351 also accelerated the need for a political unification process east of the Mekong River. 1365 is generally cited as the founding year of Lang Chang (the Land of a Million Elephants) under Fa Ngum. As a vassal of the Khmer Empire, Fa Ngum had received the Buddha statue Phra Bang as a coronation gift from Angkor. This was venerated in Luang Prabang, which was the capital of the kingdom of Lan Chang between 1354 and 1560, as a sacred statue with a function of legitimizing the rule.

Around 1356, Luang Prabang became a place of pilgrimage for the Phra Bang Buddha statue. Under King Setthatirat, many Buddhist monasteries were built in Luang Prabang in the 16th century. In the course of the Buddhist missionary work, among others, Wat Pasman was built on the site of today’s Wat That Luang as the oldest sacred building in the city. A considerable loss of power for Luang Prabang meant the transfer of the capital to Vientiane, which King Setthatirath had arranged in 1560 out of fear of attacks from Burma. Nevertheless, Luang Prabang remained the cultural center of the country. For more than three centuries, it became a pawn in the struggle between Thai and Burmese for political supremacy between the Irrawaddy and Mekong rivers.

When Laos came into the crosshairs of the power-political rivalry between France and England around 1886, France hoped to reach southern China by sailing up the Mekong River, but the Mekong proved to be unnavigable throughout. Nevertheless, the French were interested in political control of Laos as a strategic safeguard for their colony of Vietnam. Cleverly tactical, France took advantage of the distress in which the Laotians found themselves in the face of raids by Chinese gangs in 1887 and unceremoniously declared the region of Luang Prabang a protectorate of its colony Union Indochinose (1893-1954). In contrast to Vietnam, Laos was not of economic importance to France. Until the middle of the 20th century, Laos and thus also Luang Prabang were strongly influenced by cultural and architectural influences of the colonial power France. Even before France’s devastating defeat at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954, Laos was granted political independence in 1953.

Despite the International Laos Conference in Geneva in 1962, at which the country was granted neutrality, military supplies for the Viet Cong in South Vietnam during the Indochina War passed through Laotian territory along the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail. Heavy bombing by the U.S. Air Force was the result. The CIA inflicted death and devastation on Laos on an unbelievable scale during the Vietnam War (1965 – 1975); the Americans bombed Laos with over two million tons (fragmentation and napalm bombs as well as the nerve agent „Agent Orange“). More bombs fell on Laos than on Germany and Japan combined in World War 2. Nevertheless, the GI’s did not find the Ho Chi Mingh Trail. The peace-loving Laotians have a 200-year history of conflict with foreign aggressors. Every year, hundreds of people are seriously injured by mines. Defusing squads, mostly women, still search the ground for bombs. The city of Luang Prabang was largely spared the fighting, although units of the communist Pathet Lao organization entrenched themselves north of the city in the Pak-Ou Caves area. In 1975, communist units captured the city.

Luang Brabang is home to over 2500 monks who make pilgrimages through the streets of Luang Prabang every morning shortly after sunrise in their orange robes, taking mild offerings in their pots from the faithful and tourists. Mostly elderly women and tourists, let the procession of monks pass by kneeling and donating to each a handful of rice, some fruits, candies, a few banknotes or other things to live on. What cultural sites and religious treasures are there to discover here? First, there is the Royal Palace (Ho Kham), built between 1904 and 1909, now the National Museum, where the throne of the rulers of the Lan Chang period stand. Then the Vat Xienthong (also Wat Xieng Thong) – a temple complex on the Mekong River, built in 1560 under King Setthathirath and restored in 1960-1962. It was the only temple in the city to survive the looting of 1887 intact. The architectural style with the roof reaching almost to the ground is typical for northern Laos.

A gem is also Vat Visounarath (also called Wat Visoun or Wat Visounarath) is a temple complex located on the southeastern side of Phousi Mountain. King Visounarath founded the monastery in 1512, which was destroyed by Chinese hordes in 1887. Most of the complex was rebuilt in the 20th century. The sim (Lao term for the main building of a wat)from 1898 contains Khmer-style window columns. Inside, since 1942, there is a museum with numerous Buddah statues especially in the rain calling gesture typical of Luang Prabang (standing with overlong arms pointing down parallel to the body).

In addition, there are two other temples: That Makmo (the Watermelon Stupa) donated by Phantin Xieng, the wife of King Visounarath, in 1504, the stupa was rebuilt in 1932, with the precious grave goods transferred to the royal palace. And the Vat Sop stupa in the northeast of the old city, founded as early as 1480 as the funeral temple of King Chakkrapat. Behind Vat Sop, on the street called Thanon Vat Sop, there is a typical Lao Baan residential quarter, where you can get an impression of the everyday life of the locals. Last but not least: Mount Phousi (130 meters high, 328 steps), the topographic accent and spiritual center opposite the Royal Palace with a magnificent view of the city area, the Mekong River as well as the forested mountain landscape in the surrounding area. Then head to the night market at the foot of Phousi in Thanon Sisavangvong, the main street of the old city, handmade textiles, sou-venirs and food are offered daily between the Royal Palace and the cross street Thanon Setthathirat from 6 pm. Many of the women traders belong to the Hmong people, who are known for their high-quality weaving, embroidery and sewing.

In Laos, beyond Theravada Buddhism, there is also ancestor worship and animism, which are still widespread among the many ethnic minorities (Hmong, Khmu, Akha or Lanten) in the mountainous regions in the inadequate north bordering China and Burma. The Hmong, for example, are archaically structured opium clans with magical spirit worlds and mythical powers, who to this day believe in their spirit world, with which they have a lively connection through their opium and canabis consumption. The opium farmers live in the isolated highlands of the Golden Triangle completely self-sufficient and reject any government, as well as modern living structures to this day. They live in dark huts without electricity or heating in the most remote highland regions of Laos, as they did hundreds of years ago, and engage in skirmishes with Laotian government soldiers. But the latter are just as unable to secure the Laotian border as the Vietnamese allies, who engage in skirmishes with the Chinese. The Chinese often get the short end of the stick and are said to have three times as many casualties. The Thais also repeatedly tried to invade Laos and were repulsed by the Vietnamese. Since the generals in Hanoi made it clear to Bankok that they would advance right up to Bankok next time, there has been calm on this front.

The Hmong allied with the Americans in the Vietnam War and supplied the CIA with thousands of tons of raw opium annually for their costly war. Rumor has it that the CIA packed 150,000 tons of raw opium per year into empty ammunition crates and flew them directly to Mexico on the doorstep of the United States using Air America pilots and private charters from the Corsican mafia in Laos, which was heavily involved in the international drug trade. The CIA thus not only financed its dirty war, which cost a billion dollars a day toward its end, but also fueled the opium trade and drug consumption of quite a few U.S. citizens and Mexicans. The irony of history: The top Hmong general lived in Washington and enjoyed the protection of the U.S. government, otherwise he would have long since landed in The Hague. The Hmong exodus has resulted in over 150,000 U.S. emigrants in San Diego. Furthermore, many Hmong also live in French Guiana and are therefore Europeans with French passports.

Laos magical Mekong meander and the 4000 islands.

Afterwards, we will descend by plane from Luang Brabang to the commercial metropolis of Pakse in the south of the country, where the second part of the river journey in the Mekong Delta begins. Here the river landscape looks quite different. Wide river streams, flat land mostly overgrown with rice paddies or sand islands and here and there extensive hill ranges far away on the horizon. The trip is very leisurely and more focused on the life on board. You sunbathe on deck and read a book or listen to music and let the world just glide by. That was then the less exciting but all the more leisurely and relaxing river trip. But also here in the south there is a large temple complex called Vat Phou. However, it is a temple complex built by the Khmer. Not quite as impressive as Ankor Wat in Siam Reap, the capital of Cambodia, which I also visited and was impressed by the colossal Khmer cultural strongholds.

But in the morning we are greeted by elephants taking a dip in the Mekong River. Before they either set off on a tourist safari, silently stalking through the dense jungle along the impressive river landscape, carrying enthusiastic backpackers on their backs, or are needed for work assignments around the village. They are the strongest builders‘ helpers, replacing the crane and the tractor. Under the shouts of the Mahuds, the elephants skillfully pile up the huge logs that they had previously placed in the right position.

In Laos there are also still numerous wild elephants in the inaccessible regions of the north. To this day, between 40 and 60 new species of animals are also discovered there every year. A new species of deer and the largest spider in the world are also among the most amazing discoveries. Unfortunately, due to the destruction of the habitat of flora and fauna, a large number of animal and plant species are threatened with extinction here as well. In 1996, 68 species of mammals, birds reptiles and fish were considered endangered. However, about 14% of the territory is now protected. Forests are threatened primarily by logging, clearing for arable land, and fuel production, with about 8% of the country’s energy needs met by wood. Annual forest loss is estimated at about 300,000 hectares.

Another tourist highlight is the picturesque karst and river landscape around Vang Vien. The Boracay of Indochina, where backpackers get high on grass and opium, is halfway to Laos‘ capital Vientiane, which like Luang Brabang is known as the city of a thousand temples. Here, the sacred That Luang stupa with its chunky gold-plated tower towers above all other religious structures, while on the lowlands near Pakse, Laos‘ economic center, the intricate ruins of ancient Khmer temples can be seen at Vat Phou, the largest Khmer complex outside Cambodia.

In the lowlands of the Mekong near Pakse, where the Mekong Islands await their guests, lie the 4000 tropical islands on the lower reaches of the Mekong. On the largest of them live 30,000 Laotians, who intensively use the fertile alluvial soil for agriculture and also engage in lively fishing. Rice cultivation, fishing and agribusiness have been the most important resources of the country, from which the lowland Laotians have lived quite well. On the smallest Mekong islands and alluvial dunes, on the other hand, there is hardly room for two herons or a palm tree. The Mekong River has already reached a considerable width here and fans out into a wide delta.

So it is no wonder that the market of Pakse, the largest goods transfer point in all of Indochina is. It is unbelievable what there is to see and taste here. Gigantic the abundance and mountains of rice, vegetables, salads, spices, fruits and fine fresh Mekong fish. There are thousands of frogs jumping around in bowls, there are grilled rats and snakes, small puffer fish and all kinds of other specialties. You, dear reader, should see this with your own eyes. After a side trip to the Kuang Si waterfalls, we return to the capital of Laos, Vientianne.