April 29
Today we have to say goodbye to our little guesthouse here
in Luang Prabang. We will miss our
little peculiar place as we venture on. Annie
and I have decided to get up ultra-early to watch the procession of monks from
all of the local Wats that parade down the main street and collect alms in the
form of food that they place into their metal buckets. We arise at 5:30 and wade through the
sleeping caretaker in the lobby of our hotel, past the motorbikes and out
through the closed shudders to emerge to a barely light day. We are immediately approached by a hurried
woman who directs us to sit down on the mats she has placed at the edge of the
curb. She points to a pot of steamed
rice and a place of banana and instructs us on how to place the food into the
metal buckets when the Monks come by. We
wait on the mats for about 10 minutes and then realize that we wanted to be up
at the main street anyway. We then learn
that the lady plans to have us pay for the food and tells us how much we will
be charged. No Thanks. We walk up to the main street where we are
quickly assaulted by a throng of women with more cooked food and treats placed
neatly onto plastic plates. They all
crowd around us vying for a sale. We opt
to purchase one plate each, despite the fact that they are thrusting the plates
in our faces and semi-demanding money. I
give one woman some kip and don’t have another small bill. I give the other woman a larger bill and she
seems to go back about her daily routine with no intention of giving me my
change. I follow her for a while and
when no change is forthcoming, I inform her that I no longer want the food and
would like my money back. She absolutely
refuses to give me my money back. She and
I have a semi-argument in the middle of the road over food for monks – go figure!. She wins the battle and I am left with a
plate of biscuits that I no longer want and a horrible taste in my mouth about
the whole encounter. Annie and I wait a
while longer and when I cannot stand it anymore, we return the plates to the
woman and walk down the street from where we can observer the monks from a
distance. It is a thoroughly interesting
process as everyone goes silent and a sea of orange robes parades down the
street. The seated people place food
into the metal buckets and the Monks continue down the street. Upon reaching the corner, they turn and
kneeling there are needy and hungry children and older people who are asking
the Monks for food. The monks then place
some of what they have collected into the baskets at the children’s feet. A whole cycle has been created of giving and
receiving and giving. It is a really
nice process that takes place every day of the year. We return to the hotel and have a coffee and
awaken the rest of the crown. We are picked up around 9:15 for an 8:30
departure….not too out of the ordinary for Laos. Once we get a picked up, we literally pile
into a 13 person van with about 15 people….not the way I want to travel for the
next 7 hours. We arrive shortly at a bus
terminal and we all pile out of the van and are instructed to wait for another
van to take us to Vang Vieng. Soon a van
arrives and it looks like we might be the only passengers until we are told to
wait for an endless amount of time and then, Voila, a group of 6 young adults
arrives and piles into our van along with us.
Luckily, as the first ones to arrive, we get the choicest seats with Sam
and Paulie in the front with the driver and Annie, Hudson and I in the next row
back. We don’t realize how lucky we are
until we are well underway and going around some pretty nasty twists and
turns. The AC is not working well and
the driver keeps rolling down his window which makes the backseats hot and
sweaty. We have to stop the car a number
of times for a poor German girl that has to keep throwing up outside the
van. Finally, I give her some of our
Dramemine to help with her nausea and we arrive in Vang Vieng around 3:30 in
the afternoon. We have booked a hotel
called the Lao Haven and we get to it and settled in. It may not seem like we have done anything
today, but riding in that car and surviving our reckless driver seems like
quite a feat. We are in fact quite
exhausted and stay in the cool room for a long time before venturing out to
check out the town. We are all a bit
hungry….seems like we only eat around 2 meals each day now….and so we head out
for a late lunch/early dinner. This town
really caters to the younger crowd and has tons of open air restaurants with
platforms inside and cushions to eat on while watching endless reruns of either
“Family Guy” or “Friends”. The boys
absolutely want to sit down at a restaurant with the TV blaring and for once we
let them have their way. Paulie, Annie
and I sit at a real table and enjoy a most satisfying dinner before wandering
around a bit more and returning once again to the cool haven of our hotel for
an early night.
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