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Laos Essential Artistry Posting Page
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
 We have given the name Nuaykeo to the galleries we work with in Sam Neua and this time when we flew up to Sam Neua the Sam Neua City Pillar, representing Nuaykeo with a huge glass ball had been completed. As we write on our Nuaykeo Gallery page, "The name Nuaykeo has special meaning to the Lao. In fact, on May 17, 2008, Huaphan province in the north of Laos hosted an official celebration for the dedication of a city pillar in Xamneua district which represents Nuaykeo, because at the top of the pillar is a multi-colored crystal ball. This crystal ball symbolizes a popular folk song, Xamneua Pennuaykeo , describing Xamneua as being rich in natural beauty and comparing it to a glittering ball, like the one created especially for the province. The song goes on to tell how the people of the province enjoy strong friendships among all ethnic groups, and how in their various colorful costumes they resemble a jeweled ball." In the next post I will display four photos taken of the City Pillar, two aerial shots, and two taken from the ground, one during the day and one at night. We had an amazing trip to Laos. It's not often when most everything goes as plan, and when it doesn't, the breaks go your way. But happily we can report all went well. And even when our flight to Sam Neua was canceled, and we thought we were going to have to cancel flying to Sam Neua because we only had two days to fly up and back, the pilots decided to fly the next day on a Sunday, when a flight wasn't even scheduled. That is very unusual and it ended up there were only five of us on the plane flying up the next morning. So after we flew up the next morning, we checked into our guest house (the Khaem Xam), ate a quick lunch and then drove up to Muang Vaen (about a 2 and one half hour drive, and back that afternoon/evening. The next morning before the plane took off at 11:00 a.m. we hurriedly walked up (about a mile) to the Nuaykeo Gallery where we had ordered some silk ikat textiles and browsed through a selection of some new silk scarf designs, bought a few and then luckily the owner called for a tuk tuk to take us back to the guest house. And then we quickly went to the market as Bai wanted to get some bitter bamboo that comes just from this area and bought quite a few kilos to bring back to various people in Vientiane. In Sam Neua in the winter, and sometimes in the summer, the fog tends to settle in the small valley Sam Neua is located in. Normally the fog will lift by 10:00 or 11:00 and planes are able to land and take off. Normally the flights are scheduled to take off from Vientiane around 9:00 and what they do at the Wattay Airport in Vientiane is to start calling Sam Neua around 8:00 to find out how the weather is. If Sam Neau is fogged in they will delay the flight and keep delaying the flight until either the fog clears or they cancel the flight. Last December when we were in Sam Neua wanting to fly back there had been some rain and low level clouds and although the skies seemed to be clearing by 10:00 they canceled the flight, I think primarily because there were only five passengers at Sam Neua to pick up (the plane holds 17 passengers). This time the fog began clearing right around 7:00 a.m. so we knew we weren't going to have any problems flying back. And a bonus for me was the weather was clear as we passed just to the east of Long Cheng and I got some great photos to add to my collection. It was too rushed of a trip, but we were able to pick up some nice textiles and most importantly place some orders in Muang Vaen. Visiting Muang Vaen in person is essential, well, because they have no phone access! No landline nor cell phone service, they're that remote. And this way we can pick up the textiles when we return to Laos in June when we're guiding a professor/friend of ours who is finishing up the research for a book she's writing. I'll write a post shortly about what we wanted to order and what it was like when we were there. An interesting story. by: Laos Essential Artistry 
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