Silk Worms and Alms

The day after my last post, I spent another day with Patty and Angel. We went to a small village outside town where they make silk, dye it with natural dyes and weave it. In the same village they also make handmade paper using the same process I saw in Bhutan. We then headed out to another waterfall which is a bit closer to town than the last one. We spent an wonderful afternoon there - it was just beautiful. We were right in the jungle, so the terraces of waterfalls actually came through the trees, and there were many different pools of varying size and depth. We feasted on a lunch of barbequed chicken, fried rice and vegetables washed down with Beerlao. Given that this was my last day with Patty and Angel, we celebrated with a lovely dinner and a few bottles of wine, followed by cocktails at the local bar. Okay, so we celebrated like this every night for the last 5 days, but who's counting?

I was on my own yesterday, so caught up on a few things I had wanted to do. I saw the National Museum, which is really just a palace which is still set up as it was when it was being used from 1904 - 1975. It's quite spartan but there are some lovely displays of household items and other artifacts from the area. Some of the gifts to the king from other countries were really beautiful - porcelain and silver and artwork from other Asian countries, and a beautiful model of one of the Apollo missions from the USA. Seriously. I can't tell you how out of place it looked. Unfortunately the displays had very limited signage so it wasn't always easy to figure out what I was looking at, but it was beautiful nonetheless. There are also a couple of art shows in town which I took in. One was a series of black-and-white photos taken at a retreat for monks to learn meditation. It was breathtaking. The other was a display by local artists using all mediums to depict their culture. There were some really innovative and creative displays. I ended my afternoon with a massage and then did some shopping at the night market.

I got up early this morning to go watch the giving of alms. The monks here rely entirely on handouts from the community for food. They are not allowed to have money or to shop. Every morning just after sunrise, the local families line up along the street with baskets of sticky rice and the monks come along in a procession with bowls on slings around their neck. As they proceed down the line, the people drop a handfull of rice into their bowls. They can actually donate any type of food but rice is the cheapest and easiest. The families earn merit (good karma) by making these donations. Travellers are welcome to participate in this event as long as they observe the traditions and don't do anything offensive (like touch a monk or point their feet at them).

I got there a bit early and by the time the procession started there were about 12 Laos set up and about another dozen or so tourists ready to hand out rice. Each person had a pint-size basket of rice. Another 150 or so tourists were hanging around with cameras around their necks and there were about 200 or so monks in line. There was clearly not enough food there to feed 50 monks much less all of them. It was the most heart-breaking thing I've seen in a while and I was ashamed to be part of it. As I was walking home, I spotted a monk in a store doorway where the owner was privately handing over a basket of rice to him. I can only assume that they are so tired of the zoo-like atmosphere of what was once a spiritual ritual, that most of the locals have stopped going and are making other arrangements to make their donations.

I am finally ready to move on but am having trouble making my arrangements. Will likely stay another day here and then head south.