Colossal Waste: Around The World 2011 Day 18: Luang Prabang, Laos

Question. How often do Barbie and I get up before sunrise? Answer. Never. Not even for a flight, because Barbie is too smart to ever book a flight that requires we awake before dawn. However, today is different. Today we woke up as the sun was rising to take part in a daily Luang Prabang ritual.

This was the first picture taken on my iPhone today. I have no idea what it is or where it was taken, but I think that it perfectly captures how both my iPhone and I felt about waking up before sunrise.

La Residence at dawn. We are being loaded into vans. I will tell you why.

Luang Prabang is a very spiritual place, and is home to many Buddhist temples and monasteries. Each houses a number of monks. Now... let me make something clear. Our culture misunderstands what it means to be a Buddhist monk. A very small number of Buddhist monks fit the preconception that we have of monks living in silence for all their lives, meditating and praying and doing their monk thing. In reality, young men study as monks for a period of time, similar to many traditions that have their young people go through religious training, and when a young Lao male is done with his time in the Buddhist monastery he then goes out into the world and works, gets married, and lives his life. In fact, this period can be anywhere from three days to three months to three years. (The Lao are big on this number three.)

Now that we are clear, you can look at these monks not as super holy men who have devoted their lives to extreme poverty and religious practice, but as young men in religious school who are learning and growing and then going out into their society more mature and knowledgable people. (I am told that women may become nuns, but I have not seen one. Not one.)

We arrived at our destination, set up for us to give alms to the monks.

The Lao people, like Buddhists everywhere, are very proud of the young men who are monks. (Rmemeber, I showed you that monks get priority seating at Thai airports.) The society truly appreciates what the monks are doing during their time at the monastery, and the society at large takes it upon itself to support these men. That is why a ritual has developed where each morning at dawn the monks walk the streets collecting alms.

We arrived to see that each of us would have a mat to sit on and a bowl of sticky rice to give to the monks.

The monks are given rice and other foods each morning, sometimes even money, so that the rest of their day and night can be spent in religious training. And, of course, those who give to the monks get a little transitive blessing sent their way. You know, the I do not have time to pray, but I gave food to a guy who does and that makes up for it system.

Look closely and you can see monks preparing to start their day.

After standing around a bit, we sat and prepared ourselves. And soon enough, the monks came.

This is exactly what it looks like when the monks come. They keep a lid on their bowls to keep the rice warm, and lift the lid as you pass so that you can place some rice inside.

Matthew demonstrates the two-handed alms giving method. Being the boob that I am, I tried to shoot video with one hand and give alms with the other. Not so good, that video.

As you know, Barbie loves to give and give, and she ran out of rice pretty fast, which allowed me to stand up and take pictures and videos while she switched from her rice to mine. After all, my wife giving my allotment of rice to monks counts for me, no?

Monks! Monks! Everywhere monks!

The story of why their robes are orange was told to us by our guide Noy in Northern Thailand, but I did a tad bit of research to clarify. Her version was not necessarily inaccurate, but it was definitely incomplete.

The Buddha taught that a monk's robe should be made of pure cloth, which meant cloth that no one wanted. If you need money to buy it, it is not pure. Monks would scavenge cloth from rubbish heaps and cremation grounds, trimming away unusable parts and then washing the cloth clean. Once the cloth was clean, it was dyed by being boiled with spices such as saffron or turmeric to improve the smell, resulting in a yellow-orange color. And just like that, you get a saffron robe.

Total ripoff shot. Michael took a shot of their feet and showed it to me on his camera. When we moved spots and the monks passed us again, I shot their feet.

Slow Shutter Cam turns the marching monks into a saffron blurr.

Even the local dogs like to come out for the monks.

Another slow shutter effect. I like.

And with that, our morning of giving alms to the monks ended. If you think about it, many religions have you give some sort of tithing, or pay a membership to an organization, or some such thing. Here, the Buddhists simply give food every day to those who are focused on prayer. Not a bad system.

A sole boat on the Mekong River, on our way back to breakfast.

In this breakfast picture you have (Right to Left) Barbie, Some Guy, Nicole, Kelli, Michael.

Our eggs are prepared each morning by this young woman in hill tribe garb. I wanted to tell her that I had great respect for her wearing her traditional clothes while working at a job and not, you know, treating her own traditions like a freak show for hand-outs. I said none of that, because it is way too close to a backwards complement. But I really did feel good seeing her respect her culture without selling it out.

A shot behind the La Residence lobby. Beauty is everywhere.

Barbie in her natural habitat. That is, a hotel lobby.

Time for an excursion with Trails of Indochina.

We came to a buddhist temple. By now you should know that is the stupa which holds relics and remains.

Inside this temple, like many Buddhist temples, there are a whole lotta Buddhas.

Remember when I got all complementary of the Thais for depicting the Buddha accurately as a man who looked more Indian than Asian? I get the feeling that the Lao prefer to identify a little more closely with their Buddha, because this representation is pretty Asian looking.

After the temple, we headed over to the Children's Cultural Center, which is a local day-care and after-school program for kids while their parents work.

This little girl and her sister were being picked up by mother on motorbike, and they are probably two of the cutest children on Earth. I scrambled for the camera and she smiled from behind mom's shoulder. I do not think you get more adorable.

You know me. Mister Cynicism. Alas, if when visiting Laos you have to visit the after school program so that you will donate money to help kids, so be it.

The movies of the USA cover this planet, especially the animated movies.

Note the little boy in red. While the class was demonstrating a classical Lao dance, he never took his eyes off the instructor in yellow. He would stare at her and barely move his hands. I think someone has a crush.

The adorable little girl in pink also never took her eyes off the instructor, but she moved her hands in a shy way, mimicking her movements. Maybe someday she will lead the class?

They played games and such for us. This young man was an excellent dancer, and even went up against the girls. Look at that smile.

I may stick a video in her at a later time.

After watching the kids, we headed over to the National Museum.

The Haw Pha Bang, built to house a special golden Buddha.

This statue of Lao King Sisavang Vong was given to Laos by the USSR. They made this statue look a lot like Stalin, and not so much like the thin, Southeast Asian man it is supposed to represent. Ah, the Soviets. They were so focused.

If you were wondering, Laos was on the Soviet side of the cold war for its entire duration, and remains a single party socialist state. More on that another time. Let us just say that the Lao government is not at the top of the list of most democratic and open institutions.

The National Museum complex is converted from the Haw Kham Royal Palace, built by the French during the colonial period.

No photography. So I took a picture explaining why you get to see nothing of the Lao history inside or the teeny moon rocks that Nixon gave as a gift, along with a little model of the lunar lander and a teeny Laos flag that went to the moon with Apollo 11. The moon is in the center of the Laos flag, and it was quite respectful of the Nixon administration to do this.

The no photography rule kept me from taking this kids picture inside the museum, but I waited for him to come out and asked if I could take a picture of his shirt. Because that shirt rocks!

I have seen teen women in the USA sharing iPod earbuds. These two on a scooter show me how young women are young women, no matter where you are.

This stupa-with-a-doorway brings us into Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang's oldest temple. It was built in 1560 and was spared destruction several times, by nature and man. The city was razed in 1887 by the Black Flag army from Vietnam, because their leader had studied here as a young monk and felt an attachment to it, using it as a headquarters while they occupied the city.

Something about the design of this greatly appeals to me. Interesting that the oldest wat also has the most interesting look.

Dori takes in the Buddha's tranquility, while a tourist takes its picture.

Outside the Wat we saw this Buddha image. Our guide Don explained that Buddha's hand positions always have a meaning, and this hands in those positions are to eliminate evil. The Lao are a superstitious lot, indeed. Like all religions, Buddhism is always interwoven with the culture where it exists. Don also explained how elements of animism are common in Lao Buddhism.

On the back of the wat is this mosaic of the tree of life.

It turns out that Wat Xieng Thong has lots of kitties. Yes, kitties.

This orange guy seems to be protecting his runt sister.

Skip the next picture unless you are okay with seeing an animal that will break your heart.

Seriously.

Skip it.

Animal lovers, close your eyes.

I do not know how long Blacky is going to be around. She is a runt and clearly not getting a lot of food. I named her Blacky because that is the name my nephew would have most likely given her two years ago when he put a y at the end of everything to name it.

Poor Blacky.

Motorbikes and scooters are dominant here, though there are many cars as well. It made me think how much less gasoline Los Angeles would use, and how much less pollution we would have, if half the people rode motorbikes or scooters.

Time for lunch at Biblio Bistro.

Spring rolls.

Vegetable soup.

I ordered the Iced Lao Coffe. It was most delicious.

Curry stir fry.

Fried fish.

For dessert, mango sticky rice.

Back at the hotel. Not bad. Up on the hill is the golden stupa of Wat Chom Si, at the top of Phou Si Hill. Phou Si is pronounced pooh-see. My goal for tomorrow is to walk the 328 steps to the top.

Okay. It is not easy to frame my feet and point at the same time. But I thought I would try, for YOU. There it is. The first ever photo that includes both the feet and the finger pointing.

I was off by a small degree, wich is amplified. I could have pretended that I nailed it, but that would be wrong. I suppose you cannot see the golden stupa on that hill unless you enlarge the picture, anyway.

Yours truly, captured in the pool by guest photographer Barbara Howard.

Barbie headed off to a massage, while I stayed resting my weary bones, muscle and skin in the pool. Then the rain came.

You can rarely photograph rain in the air, but you can photograph it when it hits the ground.

Soon enough the rain stopped and we were on our way to meet up with the group at a Buddhist ceremony.

The rain had stopped, but this path got muddier and muddier until we decided to turn back. Oh well. I am not too into ceremony, anyway, and neither is Barbie.

Returning to the hotel, the sunlight was better to catch the stupa on the hill. The hotel pays to keep it lit at night.

See, I did better this time.

Tonight, instead of a site inspection and dinner, we have a site inspection and a cocktail party. No need for site inspection pictures, but the cocktail party?

The name of the mixture of sugar and whiskey is something like Lao Special. Barbie will remember and when she reads this she will let me know the correct name.

For some reason, when I watched everyone interacting at this cocktail party, I kept thinking of Stewie from Family Guy having a Sexy Party. For the record, the hors d'ouvres were excellent and I should have taken pictures. They were dinner for me.

Tomorrow we lose the lovely Greta from Australia one day early, which means that we had to take a group photo tonight.

A few La Residence employees (LAE) snuck into our group picture. Still, I think this is my one and only photo of all eleven of us. Left to Right Front Row: Dori, LAE. Second Row: LAE, Kelli, Barbie, Cynthia, Esther. Back Row: Yours Truly, Greta, Matthew, Trails of Indochina Person, Tom, Michael, and LAE. (That last LAE is a handsome guy named Eddie who is made of charm and Barbie would want me to mention his name, since just calling him a La Residence Employee is wrong to do to such a handsome fellow.)