Luang Prabang... AKA feeding the monks

Luang Prabang was like a breath of fresh air after the slow boat. In fact, after the slow boat, anything would have been heaven, but Luang Prabang happened to be a stunningly beautiful town, probably one of my favourite places for just wandering the streets and relaxing. It’s easy to see why people arrive and then don’t leave for a week or more. I stayed five days, six nights, and could have easily have stayed longer if I didn’t have such a short time in Laos altogether. I swam in waterfalls, did a lot of mountain biking to villages and surrounding areas, wandered around the town, drank fruit shakes and ate local food and felt so relaxed.

While wandering the streets I encountered an organisation called Big Brother Mouse. It is an NGO that publishes colourful exciting children’s stories in Lao for children to read. Books are a very rare thing in Lao, and books with colourful pictures that are fun to read are even rarer. I spoke to a few of the volunteers there, including a Lao boy who at 17, still at high school, spends his free time working at the centre, illustrating stories that others have written. He said ‘When I was young, I’d never seen books like this before.’ He was really impressive, well spoken in English, and passionate about giving children books that are fun to read in order to encourage education and literacy in the Lao population. I had used my daily budget of $20 a day already, but I decided it was worth going over for this cause, so I bought 10 books to donate, then rather than taking them myself, which would have been lovely to see the smiles on the faces of the children as I gave them, I decided to ask the Big Brother Mouse crew to give the books on their next rural visit, to a place that really needed them. I figured I wouldn’t get to see it personally, but I wasn’t buying the books for me, so I may as well offer them where they were most needed. Tha Thao, the illustrator was such a charming young man that it was easy to forget he was only a high school student himself. He gave me a book that he had illustrated as a present, so I got to keep one. It just made me want to help, too. But there are so many injustices in the world, and so many charities, that you can’t manage to do everything. Maybe my $10 went a small way then.

The absolute highlight for me was the guesthouse I stayed in. Called the ‘Sipadith Guesthouse,’ I found it on a small street with some other places recommended in the lonely planet… but this one was new and a family-owned place, and appeared to have no guests at all. I liked the look of it, so bargained down to $4 per night for a room. The room itself was modern, light, airy, fantastic view of the mountain and temple, and meticulously clean. I loved it. But I loved the family more. They sat with me and tried very patiently to teach me some Lao words. Every time I opened my mouth they would laugh uproariously at my attempts to imitate the tones and sounds of the language, but they really enjoyed it. They seemed to think I was a genius for managing the ten basic phrases that I finally learnt!

The final day I set my alarm and woke up early to feel the monks. No, I didn’t say monkeys, I said monks. It’s known as ‘giving alms’ All the monks in temples get up very early in the morning, about 3:30 or 4am, and they pray for an hour before walking around the village collecting food as offerings. By about 5:30am they are walking around the town with their silver coloured pots to receive food from the townspeople who offer them a small handful of sticky rice each, but added up it becomes a day’s food for the monks and novices. I decided I didn’t want to just observe it and take photographs, but I wanted to participate. I asked the folks at my guest house what I should prepare and where I should go to give alms. They said that the monks pass right in front of the guest house, which made it quite convenient, but they didn’t know exactly what time. They suggested I prepare bananas and wafer biscuits in advance, and the father of the family woke up early with me to show me how to kneel properly in order to make the offering, and just basically to make sure I was okay. He offered to take some photos of me with the monks, but his photographic skills were less than impressive. He managed to get one shot, of one monk with his head chopped off, and I was hidden behind the monk! So after the monks finished in our street, I went off into the main road and took a few photographs of my own. It was definitely one of the most memorable moments of Laos so far, and well worth the 5am wake up.