Marigolds and moon landings

There's an old French colonial saying, "the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians tend the rice, and the Laotians listen to it grow". This was not intended as a complement to the Laotians, but perhaps it should be. The Laotians are pretty laid back and daily life runs at an easy pace around here, which isn't a bad thing in my view.

Last night on the way to the night market I saw a large number of vendors along the main street selling strange items to the locals that were unfamiliar to me. They consisted of cones made from banana leaves, with orange flowers like marigolds placed with toothpicks on the apex and around the base. Earlier in the day I had seen rice shaped into flat circles and left to dry in the sun, and we finally connected the dots. The rice circles are used as a base for the cones with flowers, and sold to the locals for use as offerings at spirit houses. The locals have the same type of spirit houses as most of the businesses and homes we saw in Thailand, which are used to calm the local spirits and bring good luck.

Daily life here starts pretty early. I went for a run yesterday around 6:30 AM before the day heats up and the streets were bustling with people going about their day. I believe they wrap it up early at night too. We're not exactly night owls but we did try to enter a local café around 9 PM the other night only to discover it was just closing up.

We went to the national museum yesterday. It included the Royal Palace where the royal family lived until the last king abdicated in the '70's when the communists came to power. The Palace was well preserved with much of the furniture remaining and many artifacts of regalia and coronations, including gold trimmed benches used by the King for elephant riding. There was one room with gifts from various governments to the royal family. I most liked those given by President Nixon in the early 1970's, which included a model of the Eagle moon lander, a small Laotian flag that travelled to the moon and back, and a moon rock. The gift from Canada on display was a plate, which wasn't as impressive by comparison. Is that why Canadians are charged the most for a visa to enter the country?

We rented bicycles today with working brakes, which was a bonus, and rode down along the river to catch a breeze and enjoy the view. We rode down a few kilometres so John could find the last geocache around Luang Prabang, which he did at the end of a lane near the river. Here we spotted six small kittens, and the kids fawned over them for some time. One of them had worked its head and front legs into a small piece of a plastic bag so we freed him. The kids were concerned since the mother cat was nowhere in site but the kittens did look healthy. We left the kittens with the hope that the mother was out hunting and would soon be back.

Today we also visited wat row, which is a long series of Buddhist monasteries along the river fronted by gardens and palm trees, one after the other. We started with Wat Xieng Thong, which is the most well known, and worked our way down the street. Along the way we sighted young monks in the wats going about their business in their saffron robes, and we observed a couple of novices being taught something at a table outside. I understand it's quite the site at dawn to see all the monks leave their monasteries en-masse to collect alms from some of the locals who kneel in a long row with their sticky rice in bamboo baskets, placing clumps of rice in each monk's alms bowl. It has turned into a tourist attraction unfortunately, with tourists interfering with the practise with their presence and cameras. So I'll pass on being a spectator.

Here's Catheleen at Wat Xieng Thong, modestly yet stylishly attired, thanks to the lady attendants at the entrance who insisted on the shawl and skirt additions.