A Weekend in Laos

As the rainy season really starts, monks begin a three month "rain retreat" called Khao Phansa or Buddhist Lent. The lent begins around late July and goes until the 15th of October.  During these three months, monks meditate and study. They do not leave the temple grounds, contrary to the rest of the year when they are free to travel. I have seen monks out and about, whether at the market or just on the road, so I'm not sure of the exact rules. I've also been told that some Buddhist monks these days are not as traditional as in years past, so some of the stricter rules don't apply. Traditionally, monks were made to stay in the temples for three months so that they would not trample the rice paddies, as this is the premier time for harvesting rice. Thai people get up early on the days that Buddhist lent begins to make merit and give the monks food. This three month time period is also seen as a time of spiritual rejuvenation.

Tha Kaek, Laos

While the Thai people were making merit and getting ready for Khao Phansa, I went to Laos with 6 of the other volunteers. We were able to experience the holiday there as well, for much of Laos is Buddhist. The temples had decorations and had traditional songs playing all day on Monday, July 26th, starting at 5:00 am. We only had 4 days to travel, so we spent our time in Vientienne (Vienjan in Thai), which is actually the capital of Laos, though you wouldn't know it after spending time there. It is a very slow moving capital, very quaint with remnants of the French occupation. There are bakery's on every corner, as well as street vendors that sell baguettes. There is also a huge about of Beer Lao, the countries national Beer. It's pretty good, but they don't sell it here in Thailand, or at least not in our area. I've heard that it isn't sold here because people would buy that instead of the local Thai beer, Chang or Leo.

Amazing food - real coffee and sandwiches with cheese!!

Our trip started out with a bus ride from Nakhon Phanom to Udon Thani on Friday afternoon. We picked up Val and Trish on the side of the road - I was afraid we would pass them - and arrived in Udon about 5 hours late.r The border crossing is in Nong Khai province (directly north of Udon) but we couldn't get there with the timing of our buses. Upon arrival in Udon, we immediately set out to go to McDonalds and Swensen's ice cream. (I held out for some traditional Thai noodles). The main city in Udon is quite a bit bigger than NKP, so it was a treat for sure. On Saturday, our travels took us to Vientienne, but not hassle free. Traveling never seems to be as easy as guidebooks say it will be. Despite all of us being well traveled in SE asia over these past 10 months, we fell victim to a Visa scam as we tried to cross the border.  Our tuk-tuk's brought us to a 'visa agency' and we decided to go with it. It must have taken twice as long to cross the border and our van driver was not happy with us. Perhaps as a result of the fact that we were not happy with getting scammed. In any case, I felt like the ugly American for a couple hours but I also felt justified as we DID get scammed. Of course, we finally make it into Laos, and the Immigration counter is at lunch. Sooo we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Eventually we made it through the gate and into Laos!

At a Mexican restuarant for our first dinner in Laos

It didn't feel that different from Thailand, but it did have goats. I have yet to see a goat in Thailand. We stayed at a guesthouse called Mixay Guesthouse - Paradise. It was the 2nd building of an older Mixay Guesthouse and had only been opened for 2 weeks. It was wonderful though, and the staff was great. It seemed like there were more staff than guests, but they were some of the sweetest people and were always willing to help. Our time in Laos was relaxing and we only did one really touristy thing. I would have liked to see more of Vientienne, but I'm glad we relaxed the way we did. There are many other cities I would have loved to visit, so I'm sure I'll be back! We did rent motorbikes (automatic) and drive about 30 k outside of Vientienne to a buddha park. It turned out to be quite the interesting trip, complete with rain/ hail storms and flat tires. None of us brought any sort of rain gear and literally just as we are starting our journey, it starts drizzing. We tried to outrun the storm, but failed miserably. We were soaked through and about half of the ride was spent in pouring rain. The ride back was nice and sunny though, so sunny that I was pretty sunburnt when we returned to the hostel! The buddha park was really interesting, if not a bit strange. The Lao name is Xieng Khuan and it was built by Luang Pu (venerable Grandfather). It's a sculpture garden that consists of over 200 Hindi and Buddhist statues. The two main things are a reclining buddha that's over 40 meters long, and a giant pumpking that depicts Earth, Heaven, and Hell on the inside in three different levels. You can actually climb to the top of the pumpkin and you get a pretty awesome view of the whole park.

We went bowling!

On Tuesday, three of us (Kate, Haley, and I) had to head back to Nakhon Phanom as we all had to teach the following day. The rest of the volunteers had the whole week off. We though all would be well as we were catching a bus from Vientienne at noon to get to Tha Kaek (Lao town direction across the river from NKP) and from there, we were going to take the ferry over to Thailand. It was a pretty nice bus, 'VIP', comfortable reclining seats, with about 50 poeple on it. Well, about an hour and a half into our journey, our bus broke down. Like, bigtime broke down - the engine stopped working. We probably stayed on the bus for about 15 minutes, thinking and hoping that the bus would start again, but no can do. Everyone was standing around for a while, or going to the bathroom in the woods, and eventually poeple just started sitting down. I'm proud to say I lay down and almost took a little nap - the road was a liittle too rough though. One of the guys on the bus threw down a mat (almost like we were having a picnic) and emptied two bags of mints onto it for us to have while we waited.  About two hours into our 'picnic', these women appear literally out of nowhere selling drinks and local Isaan/Lao food. Of course, we jumped on this opportunity and bought some bbq meat and sticky rice, soymilk and coke. yummy. At about the 2.5 hour mark, the bus was fixed! Spare parts had been driven down from Vientienne and we were on our way. We didn't make the deadline for the ferry though, and ended up spending the night in Tha kaek.

The ferry the next day was about as eventful as our bus ride. I actually thought Haley was going to fall out of the boat a few times. There was a hose jury rigged inside the boat to get the excess water out. And it was absolutely pouring rain. I might add that the wood slats on teh bottom of the boat were almost all broken as well. But we crawled on in and fit about 20 people in that little boat and headed back to Thailand.

Haley's 'french toast' which was really toast and two eggs....

Crossing over to Thailand

Nakhon Phanom from across the river!!

A couple things I've recently found out:

1. It is rude to throw something at a student, such as a marker or a ball. In Thai culture, they see this behavior as fitting for a dog or other animals, so if you do this, you are actually treating that person like a dog. I can't count the number of times I've tossed a whiteboard marker to a student to write something on the board....

2. In conservative Thai areas (such as the one I live in) black is reserved only for funerals. So to wear a black shirt during the workday or to an event is rude.  Now, most of what I own these days is black and since skirts here tend to be more colorful, my outfit generally consists of a flowery skirt and a black top. A Thai teacher told me this on Friday and when I asked when it took 10 months for someone to bring this to my attention, she said she didn't know how to tell me. I think I'm gonna be buying some new work shirts. I also must confess that I wore black to Angkor Wat, in Cambodia. While I was walking around, this woman stopped dead in her tracks, pointed at me, and started laughing. I didn't know why and was a little offended to say the least. Guess it was the black outfit thing.

3. It is inappropriate to cross your legs (like when you are sitting in a chair) when the Director is speaking. Again, something I do all the time, as I always viewed it as more appropriate to cross your legs. When I thought about it, I did remember students telling me to sit differently, but I never knew why. Guess this is it!

4. When you suspect that someone has been possessed by a ghost or has come into contact with a ghost, you must cover your eyes and stick out your tongue. My school thought I was posessed by the Thai ghost 'Pee Pob' this week, as severe allergies caused some bruising/ bleeding in my eyes. It was interesting to say the least, and after several days, both annoying and hurtful. I'm sure it will be a funny story in years to come, but as a foreigner who didn't quite understand these things, it was difficult to just grin and bear it.  It did prompt me to look into Thai ghosts though, so more on that later.

More pictures on their way