Luang Prabang Secrets Vol. 1,
Alms Giving

When you live and work in a place abroad, like Luang Prabang, you look at your new home with different eyes. You will easily find a different view on daily life and will fell different about what you like and dislike. Living abroad, especially in a place like Luang Prabang will make you look at the Lao life with a different perspective.

After a while you will find a lot of spots that are “off the beaten track”. In the following lines I would like to introduce some places that I discovered during my stay as an Intern for Tiger Trail in Luang Prabang.

Where is a good place to see the Dag Bat, the morning alms giving?

Well, it is definitely not only on Sisavangvong Road, the main road on the Luang Prabang peninsula!

The Dag Bat is for sure one of Luang Prabangs greates buddhist attractions that should not be missed out on.

Luang Prabang is the Buddhist spiritual center of Laos.There are numerous monasteries and temples that make it to the city with the perhaps highest monk population density in the world.

Just after sunrise, Luang Prabang is glowing in saffron colors: Every morning a couple of hundred monks and novices are walking along the streets and follow an old tradition that is called Dag Bat. They are collecting alms that are given to them by the Buddhist population. Especially on the peninsula where several monasteries are located, you can watch this truly intense hour quite closely.

These days, Sisavangvong Road which is probably the starting point of the Dag Bat is occupied by truckloads of tourists and when you arrive there you can see the flashlights of cameras in the distance already.

A good place to stand and enjoy this breathtaking event is at Sokdee Guesthouse.

When I was there it felt like in a dream! The big queue of monks looked really majestic as they walked barefoot and in a hierarchical structured order of novices and monks through the streets! It is truly an amazing experience and worth visiting.