There was a storm last evening that cut our plans short to visit the night market with the kids, and lasted through most of the night. Between the storm, someone coughing up a lung next door, and a rooster that should get his eyes checked if it thinks 4 AM is anywhere near dawn, it was tough for everyone to get a decent night's sleep. I did for the most part though, thanks again to earplugs. We enquired whether the person next door with obvious health problems had checked out - he had. I hope he went to a clinic, although I understand they are hard to find in this part of the world.
Today we took a tour. Our first stop was XangHai village which was billed as a whiskey making village. It seemed to be a very poor town that was selling many of the same handmade textiles and souvenirs that we've seen elsewhere. We tried the whiskey, which was good. It was made from white or black rice which was pulverised and fermented. The resulting product was either clear or red in colour and close to wine in taste and alcohol content. They also distill the product into a 100 proof spirit that tasted much like vodka.
More interesting than the whiskey to me though was our guide Phong. I don't get a chance to talk to many locals so guides are always a good choice, since they really don't have much choice but to talk back. As we were the only participants for this part of the tour and Phong spoke English fairly well, we were able to pepper him with questions. It turned out Phong joined a monastery at age ten by his own choosing and spent the next ten years at the monastery's school learning to be a monk. A typical day for Phong started around 4:30 AM with prayers and preparations for the day. He would then go out at dawn to collect alms, and return to offer blessings and support to those who came to the temple. Next he would have a communal breakfast with the other monks, as the first of two meals in the day. I didn't get a sense of the rest of his day other than he would go to school, but he did mention he would get pretty hungry sometimes between his second meal of the day and the next day's breakfast.
He said he was no longer a monk for the time being and was instead occupied as both a guide and a student at the university in Luang Prabang, where he has completed two years of a five year program. I don't know at what level of schooling he was at but he said he was studying mathematics, English, and Buddhism. His goal was to become a monk again in a year, finish his university program, and then teach Buddhism to young monks at the monastery. I understand that as a monk his university tuition would be paid for. I didn't ask if that fact played a role in his plans.
He said his family lived in a village in the mountains about four hours away by bus, followed by a two and a half hour walk. He would visit his parents at the village every month or so, and stay for two or three days at a time. His parents have a farm, which consists of a rice paddy field, pigs, chickens, corn and vegetables. He has 16 other siblings and when I asked him why his family was so big, he said that everyone had big families since 'medicine' for birth control was only recently made available. I asked if there was a hospital in town and he indicated there was a clinic at the next town where pregnancies could be monitored.
I saw rice paddies everywhere on our travels today. The locals grow a sticky rice here, which is more glutinous than the rice I'm used to. They grow one rice crop a year, planting it in May and harvesting the rice in December. The rice paddies look like wet and muddy pools, with narrow causeways of grass dividing up the muddy fields. Sometimes the fields are terraced, with pipes overhanging the terrace to allow the water to flow from a higher to a lower level. The rice plants looked something like bunches of green onion or thin grass shoots, spaced neatly in rows like solders on parade.
We joined some other tourists at the Manifa Elephant Camp. At the camp we were able to get close to the elephants. Tourists were riding the elephants, two on a wooden bench on the elephant's back, and one on the elephant's neck. There must have been a train of about ten elephants. From what I could tell the animals looked healthy and well taken care of. We were allowed to pet the elephants and feed them bamboo. They felt quite rough with spiky hairs.
Our next stop was the Pak Ou Caves, on the other side of the Mekong River. The caves were not that interesting frankly but the trip across the river was. We needed to cross the mud flats of the river to get to these very narrow but long wooden boats that were very low to the water and sat one person abreast on a small wooden plank. With no life jackets present, we crossed the wide river in a fairly strong current to the caves on the other side. If you could ignore the obvious safety concerns, it was a fantastic ride across the brown muddy river with majestic cliffs above. The cliffs had black streaks running down the beige vertical stone, with trees somehow managing to grow sparsely in places up the vertical face.
In the afternoon we made it to Tat Kuang Si Waterfalls, which were something special. The water was as cool as a lake in cottage country on an early summer day, and was the colour of milky light blue and green like Lake Louise in Banff. Maybe we were just hot when we arrived, but they were a beautiful sight to behold with terraced waterfalls around every corner as we walked our way up the path. We enjoyed our time soaking in the water and sitting on the terraces with the water running over us.
Here we are walking over to the boat on the way to the caves, across the Mekong River.
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