Below Belief

We’re now leaving Kyoto and enroute to Hiroshima via bullet train.

We’re travelling with the bags which is never too much fun but the Japanese rail system is impressive by any standard and so doing a trip like we’re doing (Kyoto to Hiroshima for lunch, a few hours to look around the atomic bomb memorial, and then back on a train for 3 hours to a small place called Kinosaki-onsen (on the north coast, north of Osaka) is definitely do-able. We have JR rail passes and the process for getting booked onto the right trains took just a few minutes – with a Japanese booking clerk whose fingers flew over the keys of her keyboard to get us on each of the right trains. Like I said, impressive.

In the end we “got Kyoto” and enjoyed our time there. We took it slowly – not giving in to the “temple-itus” that a lot of tourists seem to have. As you can see below, we admired their temples to consumerism (actually they were quite revolting). the city scopes at night as well as the temples, the zen gardens and the Geishas (entertainment girls, heading to dinners).

Here’s a Geisha, on her way to dinner. The sawn-off flip-flops they wear look painful and the preparation of all that make-up intense…

The toilets are something else. Especially when you press the wrong button and get surprised!

We are somewhat alien here, being both Tall and Large:

Drinking Sake!

The food is pretty much universally amazing:

Temples (everywhere!)

And crowds, crazy crowds in places. In other places it's quiet, almost too quiet:

It’s rare to get a truly inspirational experience – but Living Land is one.  It’s an organic farm community project on the outskirts of Luang Prabang, Laos. It was set up by Mark, an English gentlemen who they said has supported more than 80 Lao children through education and into jobs within the community.

We met members of the community who started out life as poor Hmong villagers with slash and burn agricultural practices, no education and no way out of their existence. Through the help of the Living Land community (and the temples), they have been educated in the ways of organic, sustainable farming and rice growing – and found self-esteem and empowerment, even university careers. There are 40-50 people working on the farm who otherwise wouldn’t have jobs. Incredible support! The experience was great – learn how to grow rice in 14 easy steps, very hands on, using original and ancient techniques. Ploughing the field with Susan the buffalo was hilarious.

This is one experience not to miss (and you get to eat the rice products at the end too!)

By selling high-end organic, mostly European-species of salad and herbs to the nice hotels in Luang Prabang, and offering tours around their farm to tourists, they can fund their existence as well as doing outreach projects in the Hmong villages, looking for talented young kids with the right attitude but lacking the opportunity of any education. By educating these youngsters they help their families to grow out of poverty and adopt organic, sustainable techniques.

• Eat Mekong "river weed" – basically river weed that's been fried in sesame seeds, served with hot chilli paste (it's pretty amazing actually)
• Lao coffee at the Morning Glory Cafe
• Tom Tom Cheung restaurant
• Diam Sabori
• Utopia – cool bar for evening chills
• Tak Bhat – the morning almsgiving monk procession
• Saffron restaurant – for Lao food
• Kwang Si waterfalls
• Big Brother Mouse reading project – but also in the afternoons at the Library
• Ride Bikes

So far, we've:

• Done a cooking class – though possible S's tummy upset came from said establishment…
• Been to a couple of Wat's (temples) and the National Museum
• Ridden our bikes around town
• Visited the giant food market… wow
• Helped locals to speak English at the library
• Enjoyed several restaurants
• Visited the night market
• Seen a big tropical storm
• Slept a lot (good)
• Read books…