Traditionnal steambath Laostyle!

A few days ago, i thought i'd give myself a nice treat and went to the Temple next door where i had been told natural steambath and lao massages could be given.
So i've been to the "Vat Sokpaluang" ("vat" means temple in Lao, and "sokpaluang" is the name of the neighborhood where the faculty is) and walked a bit around there; it's a pretty amazing place; after passing through an amazing door, you walk into a kind of small forest where time seems to stand still; not a single noise, not a single person around... it's a very peaceful place.

Il y à quelques jours, j'ai décidé de me faire un petit plaisir et de passer dans le temple du coin (ici il y a partout, même dans les villages les plus reculés) pour profiter d'un sauna traditionnel et expérimenter le bain de vapeur Lao aux herbes naturelles.

Entrance laostyle...Pretty cool eh.

On my way looking for the steambath place, i kinda lost myself in the wood and stumbled across a temple where a meditation course was taking place. I didnt dare to come in but it was kind of attracting. Ive read later in the paper that there was indeed meditation courses taking place there, so i think i'm gonna get in, one of these days.

Anyway, i had a hard time finding my way to the sauna place, but i eventually found it, thanks to this obvious pannel stuck onto a palm tree :


So ive experienced traditionnal sauna, and it was pretty amazing! The sauna was in a traditionnal lao wooden house hidden in the middle of the wood: under the house you could see a huge cauldron where the steam and the fume used for the steamroom was coming from. Above the cauldron was standing the room where you could have the steam coming from a hole in the floor. Nothing mechanic or electric in there, everything trad' like!

L'expérience est étonnante! Le mot traditionnel prend ici tout son sens: aucune installation mécanique et encore moins éléctrique: la vapeur est concoctée dans un énorme chaudron chauffé au feu de bois, dont la fumée est envoyée dans la pièce au dessus par un trou dans le sol.

Traditionnal human oven

So i spent something like 20 minutes in there, chit chatting with a lao boy and a german guy (i suspect he was dating the lao boy, just like so many foreigners here...), and it felt great. When i got out of there, I had a tea with the lady owner of the place, enjoying the soft breeze of the afternoon atrying to get my body's temperature lower than 40° C :)

J'y ai passé une vingtaine de minutes, profitant des bienfaits des herbes naturelles, puis ai siroté un thé avec la gérante du sauna qui parlait un peu français en me séchant le corps à la douce brise d'une fin d'après midi laotienne.

When there's a tea ready for one, theres a tea ready for ten.

Massage mats

To give u an idea of the prices of things in Laos, the sauna session costed me 10,000 kips, which is around 70 Eurocent.

I'll probably try out the massages one of these days. Hmm...which makes me think ive got nothing planned tonight...:)