Laos, trip#2

View of the Mekong in Vientiane. Those specks are people walking out in the huge area of land that appears in the river during the dry season. The strip of land on the horizon is Thailand.

I know those of you at home are enjoying my photos and my blogs, so I thought I would definitely include something about my most recent trip to Laos, although I have to be totally honest in saying there isn’t a whole heck of a lot to write about. I spent a lot of my time in Vientiane, the capitol city of Laos, waiting to talk to people or stressing about funding for next year. I don’t necessarily think it was the most productive of times for me, but that is all about timing, which I had no control over.
I traveled to only three places on this trip: Vientiane, Luang Prabang, and Nong Khiaw. Not much to say about it. In Vientiane I met with some very helpful people and stayed at a fabulous (although pricey, for me) guesthouse.

I was only in Luang Prabang for probably a total of 2.5 days. The afternoon of my only full day in Luang Prabang, I wasn’t quite sure what to with myself, but I knew if I traveled around the main wat area, I would eventually be invited to help a novice or young monk practice their English and thus would have a chance to practice my Lao (I am always in desperate need to do that). I was right, and spent probably 3 or 4 hours at a wat chatting with a group of novices. The group size varied throughout the time I was there, averaging between four and eight novice monks who really got a kick out of talking to me all at once while speaking Lao very quickly. They knew I had no idea what was going on when they did that. One of them was even speaking Khamu at times, a language not even related to Lao. I think they got a kick out of the farang trying to practice her Lao. The novice I spoke with the most would immediately switch to speaking Thai if I spoke Thai to him instead of Lao, which was actually quite startling – I could tell the difference immediately even though the two languages are so closely related.

Later that evening, I was walking down the street near my guesthouse and saw one of the novices I had spoken with earlier in the day. “Rebecca!” he yelled. “Pai yuu sai?” (where are you going) rather than answer, I responded with a “jau pai yuu sai?” (where are you going?) and he responded that he was going to study. I said “dii lai” (very good), gave him a thumbs up, and we were on our way. A group of Lao next to where I was standing just broke out into laughter. How enjoyable. I think there are few things more wonderful about Luang Prabang than the numerous novices and monks walking the streets heading to school, to study, or to wherever they may be going. It is very beautiful, and a very good reminder that although Luang Prabang can feel like it has been totally overrun by tourists, it is still a very important Buddhist city, with novice monks coming there from around northern Laos to get a better education than they could ever receive at home.

Nong Khiaw, the other place I visited is about 3-4 hours north of Luang Prabang. It is a very beautiful area with limestone cliffs, caves, and the Nam Ou river. I didn’t get much done there but it was quite relaxing and I did get to see some banners. I had wanted to explore villages around Nong Khiaw, but it proved a difficult task because no one was of any help to me in the town. But at least I finally made it there. I thought I would get to Nong Khiaw on my last trip to Laos, but things did not quite turn out as I thought they would, with the lost wallet and all. Oh well.

Nan Province

What is there to say about Nan Province? I went there for only my second time within days of my return from Mae Chaem. I had gone to Nan for the first time this summer and could not wait to get back. Nan is one of the more “isolated” and less touristed places in northern Thailand. It shares a border with Laos, and there is even a border crossing between the two countries in Nan Province, but it has yet to be opened to non-residents. This is twofold for me because if the border was open, I would use it in an instant because it connects the two places I would like to spend time more than just about anywhere else in this whole region (Hongsa and Muang Ngoen are two towns on the Lao side of the border that I visited in November. They never quite made it onto the blog because I never had time to write about them, but that area completely stole my heart, with some of the most beautiful banners I have ever seen). However, if the border was open, I would be far from the only farang using the border, and thus two rather non-touristy areas would change very quickly.

Back to the point of this blog. I arrived in the city of Nan after 5 or 6 hours on a bus and another mountain road which makes me really question my commitment to my dissertation topic. In many ways, I wish I could just say “OK, I am sticking to the easy places” like Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang. But in fact I really love what I do and am happiest when I am out in the “chonabot” (countryside). As soon as I arrived in Nan I was glad to be there. It is a place full of people that genuinely appreciate my attempts to speak Thai. Nan Province is also full of beautiful wats, textiles, Tai Lue villages, mountains, and trees. I only had about 5 days to spend in Nan Province before I had to head back to Chiang Mai so I could fly to Vientiane, Laos. You can see why I have been too busy to keep this blog up-to-date. Anyway, I knew from my last trip to Nan that my top priority was to get out of the city and head north to the area that has numerous Tai Lue villages. I wanted to get to the Thung Chang area because I was very curious to see the banners there. I had not been there yet, and its close proximity to the Lao border has made me very curious to know if the banners look at all like those in Muang Ngoen and Hongsa, two towns on the Lao side of the border. I never made it to Thung Chang. It was just too far and I had so much to see between Nan city and Thung Chang. Perhaps next time I can head straight to Thung Chang – top priority.

So, what did I do in Nan Province? Well, I went to Ban Nong Bua and ate lunch with two very nice women who happen to be weavers. Wat Nong Bua is well known throughout Nan Province and perhaps all of northern Thailand because it has some incredible murals painted inside of the wihan (main temple building). The Tai Lue who live in Nong Bua are active weavers, and have built a traditional Tai Lue house at the back of the wat complete with two active looms underneath. The house functions to teach the tourists about Tai Lue culture and is a place where the women can weave and sell their beautiful cloths. After lunch with the women (who were incredibly generous and nice), I headed further north for about another hour, and visited two more Tai Lue wats, one named Wat Ton Laeng that I had never been to before – it was fabulous – and Wat Nong Daeng, the wat that sealed my love for Nan and was the first wat where I truly saw banners hanging in sizable numbers in the wihan for the very first time. I was excited to get to Wat Nong Daeng and it did not disappoint. There were awesome things everywhere and I just didn’t want to leave. I talked to one old lady who was in front of the wihan, then wandered around a bit. I realized that some village residents and a monk or 2 were in another building working on something, so I kind of peered in to see what was going on. They seemed to be cleaning the building. So I just sat around a bit more until one of the villagers helping at the wat got curious and came over to talk to me. I talked to him a little bit, then eventually invited myself to go help them clean. And spent the rest of the afternoon helping and gaining some valuable merit (as was pointed out to me by one of the monks). It turns out they were organizing some of the temple objects into a sort of museum display (not unusual to have at a wat).

It was fun and the head monk of the wat (“abbot” is what it roughly translates to in English) kept trying to convince me to spend the night in the village. But I didn’t have anything with me and wasn’t really mentally prepared for such an event, so I kindly refused. Repeatedly. And at the end of the day rode my motorcycle the 2+ hours to get back to the city of Nan and my guesthouse. I had promised them I would come back the next day, prepared to spend the night. But I hate to admit this – I never made it back.

The next day I got all of my things together and headed off in the direction of Nong Daeng. Because I had to pass near Ban Nong Bua, I decided to take the weavers a little present of dried fruit to thank them for their kindness and generosity the day before (note to readers who may not already know: generosity and food are two integral parts of Thai culture). I got to the wat and rode my motorcycle around to the back, knowing that was where the weavers were and suddenly found myself absolutely swarmed with schoolchildren. Pretty funny. I think they were shocked to see a farang. I just laughed and was friendly and realized there was a monk with the schoolchildren who was taking photographs of the ridiculous situation (that would be taking photos of me and the kids). It was kind a bit surreal. The teacher of the schoolchildren came over and was very friendly to me, excited to talk with me, especially because I understood Thai. She gave me her name, phone number and address and told me if I was ever in Mae Charim (a town about 30 km west of Nan city) to contact her. She even gave me some candy. At the same time I was swarmed and being photographed, the weavers had been gesturing for me to come over to them to say “hi.” I finally made it over, at the same time as the kids, but after it all died down we chatted for a bit, I gave them the fruit, and again I was invited to eat lunch with them. In the meantime, the monk who had been taking the pictures came over. I think he was a bit curious about the ridiculous grinning farang who spoke some Thai. It turned out the monk was very sweet and had been teaching the kids about the murals in the wat. One of the weavers pointed out that the monk and I were the same age, and thus could be “friends.” OK. When the monk and I got to talking, he was thrilled to hear that I was a Ph.D. student from the States who was so interested in Tai Lue art and culture. He even offhandedly mentioned I should spend time in the village so I can learn more and then record what I learn to help preserve a culture that is changing quickly. Who could refuse that? So I got his email information. I kept telling them I needed to leave so I could go to Wat Nong Daeng, but I was very tired and they convinced me that it was just too far. So I stayed there a bit, then followed the monk’s directions to get to another Tai Lue wat closeby that I had never even heard of. Once I left, I went to the wat, Wat Don Mun, and was blown away by how amazing it was . Once I got back to Nan city, I was very happy with how my day turned out, even though I felt horrible about not making it back to the place I had set out to at the beginning of the day. Well, you just never know where one path will lead from one day to the next. And to think I really almost didn’t stop at Wat Nong Bua. My entire experience would have been completely different from here on out. It again makes me question how a series of events occurs and how it is set into motion? The question of fate comes up again. Or is it a game of chance? Unanswerable, but I consider myself very lucky to have these opportunities and for them to work out as well as they do. I know I am in a Buddhist country, and certainly that will only affect my perspective. More on this later, but my friend the monk is sure that we knew each other in a former life. He is a Buddhist after all – who could expect any other explanation from him??

Then the next day I was milling around Nan trying to go to places nearer to the city and ended up following the procession to the cremation ceremony for a very important abbot-monk from the wat that has the city pillar in Nan. Wow, that was amazing and generally indescribable. It was so beautiful to see and really meant a lot to me. The cremation was a valuable lesson about the impermanence of it all. The next was my day to leave Nan. In the morning, only about an hour or two before I was scheduled to take the bus, I met another abbot and was trying to learn about the banners hung there from him, but he spoke really quickly and was too excited to show me his photos of his trips to America. He really liked that I went to the cremation the previous day and gave me a book from the funeral. And then I ran to the bus station and returned to Chiang Mai, looking towards Laos, my next destination. I was sad to leave Nan, but had promised pretty much everybody I had met that I would be back in 3 weeks time, and knowing that made leaving much easier.