Spitler School, Ang Chang, Cambodia

Today is our last day here and we spent the morning in a small village named Ang Chang 4 miles outside of the city. The school was founded in 2005 through the donations of an American couple who visited here for a few days and met a tour guide who had a passion for trying to improve the educational opportunities for the poorest children of Cambodia. The village we visited is extremely poor. The child mortality rate is very high, 1 in 7 children under the age of 10 die from malaria, dengue fever, dysentery and even regular childhood diseases for which there is simply no medical care available to them. The families have many children because child mortality is so high, but that also means a lot of mouths to feed and grinding poverty for most of the families. There is no medical or dental care, sanitation is poor, drinking water is scarce and the families struggle for mere survival. The school started in 2005 in two rooms in a wooden structure with a thatched roof, and now, seven years later there are 500 children enrolled in the school from grades kindergarten through six, and the “campus” has several concrete block buildings, a new toilet facility (the first facility of its kind with running water and flushing toilets), a small library, seven teachers (all local Cambodians) and a bevy of volunteers. The challenge in these poor Cambodian villages is to keep children in school beyond the 6^th grade. By then the families need the children to work to support the family, and, the cost of the “free public education” that Cambodia provides is prohibitive for the poorest families who cannot afford the uniforms, bicycles the kids need to get to school, shoes and school supplies. This Spitler School raises money to be sure that their graduating sixth graders each receive a bicycle, enough uniforms for their 7^th grade year and the school supplies they need so that they can continue their education. The Spitler Schools try very hard to encourage the village families to keep the kids in school beyond the 6^th grade so as to improve their chances of being able to get better jobs and improve their standard of living. The school provides a hot breakfast to the students each day and through donations they have managed to arrange dental care for the children and check-ups by visiting doctors.

When we arrived we were met by a bevy of the teachers and Jim Litt, an American volunteer (retired school principal) who gave us a tour and then put us to work. We split into two teams and painted one of the classroom buildings (outside) and the concrete fence in front of the school. I was on the fence team and Sam was on the school team. Sam’s group had their paint rollers attached to very long bamboo poles so that they could reach far up to the top of the building. At one point I saw Sam standing on a table with his paintroller on bamboo pole so he could reach the top of the school walls. We worked steadily for three hours and managed to finish the one building and the entire fence in front of the school. It was quite a transformation! We all came away fully paint splattered (I had it in my hair, fingernails, clothes…you name it!) The place looked really good when we were done, however, so it was well worth it. We had some help from the schoolchildren who pitched in when they had a break and before they left for their lunch.

I don’t have pics to post of the activity today because my camera battery chose that moment to run out of juice, but I have included some pictures of the Cambodian children we have been seeing in the villages here all week, all of whom are living under the same conditions as the children we worked for today. This is truly a place where abject developing world poverty is a reality for thousands and what is very difficult is that so many of the older Cambodian people, those who lived through the Khmer Rouge years and the civil war afterwards, are emotionally scarred from those experiences which doesn’t help them help the children.

We then came back to Siem Riep for lunch and are now back at the hotel for a free afternoon before our farewell dinner tonight. Tomorrow morning we leave very early from Siem Riep. We fly first to Phnom Penh, then on to Singapore. There we catch our flight to San Francisco, which goes via Hong Kong where we’ll have a layover before continuing to SF. Then in SF we will take the red-eye to Newark and finally the shuttle flight to Buffalo, hopefully arriving in Buffalo around noon on Friday. Here’s hoping we have the same luck going back that we had coming over with no delays or cancellations! Sam and I are looking forward to a dinner of pasta on Friday evening, and I can hardly wait for a good cup of PG tips tea!! It’s been an amazing trip and I’m sure we will be reflecting on lessons learned for months to come. Sam will certainly have a lot to report in the fall re “What I did on my summer vacation!”

See you all soon!! Wish us traveling mercies!

Shadow Puppets, Oxcarts and Temples

This morning we went to see our last group of temples in the Angkor Wat complex known as the Roulous temples. These are the furthest out from town and the oldest, dating from the 9^th century. They were originally built as Hindu temples to the God Shiva and then were later turned into Buddhist temples. They are in serious disrepair at this point and are being restored by various groups from around the world. We visited Preah Ko, Bakong and Lolei temples. At the second stop, the Bakong temple we spent some time interacting with some young monks who live at the active Buddhist temple and monastery that are there and the young folks in our group got into a long and animated conversation with a young Cambodian man who is volunteering his time at the temple teaching the monks and local village kids to speak English. He has only been learning English for two years himself, and he teaches in order to learn more and because he can interact with English speaking tourists like us and improve his skills. We were most impressed with his language skills and his willingness to give his time to the local children whose educational opportunities are extremely limited. He represents a growing group of young Cambodians who, now that Cambodia has been free of war for over a decade, are very hopeful of becoming educated, getting better jobs and attaining a better life than their parents knew. The damage of the Khmer Rouge era and the civil war that followed is evident in the village people we have spoken with here. Years and years of war and of mass murder and turmoil, not to mention landmines, have left Cambodian people psychologically bruised. Yet the younger ones are eager to move into the modern world and to become educated and seek better lives. Our kids probably learned more from their conversation with this young man than he learned from them!

After visiting Bakong we went across the way to a workshop where local Khmer villagers make shadow puppets, an ancient Khmer craft. This particular workshop is run by an organization that maintains the orphanage located on the site, where 50 children live. They go to public schools and then come back to the orphanage/workshop and learn English and the craft of shadow puppet making. All the shadow puppets for sale in the shop are made by the kids and when you buy a puppet, you get to take a photo of the child who made it holding the item. Our kids had a chance to make small versions of the shadow puppets and I’ve included a picture of Sam working with his Cambodian tutor making his.

When we were done in the shop, we visited the Preah Ko temple, the third of the Roulous temples, and then rode oxcarts through the local countryside to meet our bus! The oxcart ride was hot but fun, if a bit bumpy as the roads are dirt roads and in this rainy season they are muddy and full of holes! It was about noon when we took our ride and I kept thinking of Noel Coward’s line about “mad dogs and Englishman go out in the noonday sun.” It is extremely hot here in the middle of the day, so much so that most Cambodians take siestas in the mid-afternoon and return to work in the later afternoon when it cools down some. We had a picnic lunch in a Buddhist temple, sitting on reclining cushions with backrests to have our box lunch right in the main temple area. The caretaker monk was napping up in the front of the temple while we munched away. It was cool and pleasant in the shade of the temple and rather peaceful to have lunch under the watchful eye of numerous Buddha statues! As we were getting back on the bus, a bunch of local children came over to have a look at us and we had lots of extra cakes and apples and chips from our lunches that we didn’t want so we gave them to the kids, who shrieked with delight and went running down the path holding their booty aloft and giggling. The children in these little villages are very poor – none of them wear shoes and many of them are completely or half naked. There is much to be done over here to raise the standard of living for many villagers.

Then later in the afternoon we watched a documentary about a Cambodian boy who was recruited by the Khmer Rouge at the age of 14 and forced to kill many people as part of his tour of duty with them. Eventually, he was injured and escaped over the border into Thailand where he met an American clergyperson who adopted him and three other Cambodian boys. He was then brought to the US and educated in American schools through college. In High School he suffered from severe depression and PTSD and began to tell his story. Eventually he began to travel all over the world telling the story of the Khmer Rouge and its effect on the lives of Cambodians and ultimately he returned to Cambodia to help revive arts and music that had been expunged by the Khmer Rouge when they killed virtually all the artists, musicians and artisans in the country during their purge. The very few who survive and remember the traditional music, arts and crafts of Cambodian culture are now working hard to teach the next generation so that the ancient traditions of Cambodia can be revived and continue to be passed on. The tradition of making shadow puppets is one of those traditional arts that the Khmer Rouge tried to wipe out. This evening we had a delicious Khmer dinner and then saw a traditional Shadow Puppet performance. It was wonderful and very entertaining even though we didn’t understand a word of the dialogue! To those Cambodians who are learning these traditional arts and crafts the work is very important because it connects them with a part of their history that is good and rich and beautiful and helpls them to heal from the Khmer Rouge years.

After the puppet performance a few of us went back to the Night Market for one last spin. Tomorrow is our last day here and we’ll be too busy packing tomorrow night to go out to the market. We rode the “remork” home which is always an adventure!

Tomorrow we have a community service project in the morning at a local school. Until then…..

Kamchang Pluk and Ta Prohm

Today we rode to Tonle Sap Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, about 30 miles south of Siem Riep. There are many small fishing villages on the edge of the lake. The lake changes in size considerably during the rainy season, expanding to almost one and half times its size at the peak of the rainy season, and then receding during the dry season. So the villages on the edge of the lake are known as “floating villages” because the people who live in them live on small houses/huts that float on a bamboo barge or a small wooden boat. As the waters rise the houses and village buildings rise with them. The other option is the one we witnessed at the village of Kamchang Pluk, where the houses are all built very high up on stilts and as the waters rise the families move progressively further up until they are only living in the top section of the house in the months at the end of the rainy season. At this point we are only about 1 ½ months into the rainy season, so while the waters are rising, there is still a lot of dry land. We took a boat through the village “streets” which are largely waterways and then out into the lake. On the way back we stopped and walked through the main street of the village, which, in another two months or so will be completely submerged. The jungle area that borders the lake is already becoming flooded and it was amazing to look into what appears to be a forest and see all the water around the trees.

These villages are very poor fishing villages. The villagers fish and raise shrimp in the lake as their main source of income. They also have chickens, pigs and cows, which, believe it or not, share their quarters with them and move up as the waters rise and back down again when they recede. They sell the animals at market as another source of income. We saw one pig on his way to market as we were approaching our tour boat. The only substantial buildings in the village are the Buddhist Temple, built high up in a section that does not get submerged, and the village school is right next door. We saw many villagers tending their boats, and their shrimping traps and lots of children playing in the village streets and swimming in the lake. The lake water is so brown it looks like chocolate milk! It is the primary source of washing and cooking water for the village. We did see that they have a cistern for drinking water and each family gets a small ration of purified drinking water, but even with that, many villagers wind up drinking the lake water which causes disease due to the pollution. Our guide told us the life expectancy in these villages is about 57. You see very few “grandparents” in these villages because folks simply do not live to a ripe old age. Apparently tuberculosis is a big killer of the older generation. There are many children and the mothers are practically children themselves. Most of the village children get only an elementary school education because the secondary school is far away from the village and the children do not have transportation there, nor do they have the money for the required uniforms and shoes. The children are all barefoot and we noticed that the littlest ones are often naked. This is really subsistence existence. A lot of the villages along the lake are populated by Vietnamese, who came here during the war and have stayed. Kamchang Pluk is largely Cambodian.

After our visit to Kamchang Pluk we returned to Siem Riep and had lunch in a French Indochine restaurant. It was delicious Cambodian food with a French accent. Then we had a short rest break before departing for the Angkor complex again to visit the oldest temple ruins, Ta Prohm. The young people rode bikes to the temple while we oldsters rode the bus. It was a rather comical expedition, as our program guide was riding with the kids and his bicycle chain broke and he was struggling to keep up with the kids and finally had to give up and ride in the van that followed them to the temple. On they way they passed a group of monkeys who were most entertaining.

Ta Prohm is the oldest temple in the Angkor complex and in the need of most repair. An Indian architectural conservation group is working on the restoration of the temple. It was built during the 12^th century, during a period when Cambodia was a Buddhist empire. Then the Hindus came into power and they came and ripped out all the Buddha statues ( and “ripping out” statues that are carved in stone all over a massive temple is a rather destructive enterprise!). The temple was abandoned for centuries and HUGE trees have grown all around it, dwarfing the temple structures in many places and doing significant damage to the structure. The temple is deep in the jungle and we could hear all manner of birds and insect life chirping and cawing and crowing and generally making noise as we walked around the temple ruins. This is the temple most known for having been the location at which the film “Tomb Raiders” was shot. It does rather have the look of a horror movie set!! After our exploration of Ta Prohm, we returned to the hotel for a rest before going back downtown for dinner. We had another delicious Cambodian meal. Sam joined some of the others in the group for another spin through the Night Market. I opted to return to the hotel for an earlier night.

Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Landmines

Today we started every early, leaving the hotel at 5 to go to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise behind the temple. It is quite an attraction to be there at sunrise and the crowds are unbelievable for that hour of the morning. When we arrived it was still dark enough that we needed flashlights to see where we were going but the sun rose quickly and by 6 it was light and we toured the Angkor Wat temple complex. What a magnificent old structure it is! The carvings in the stone throughout the temple are spectacular, notwithstanding the ravages of time and weather. The structure is simply enormous and seems to go on forever as you wind your way through tunnels and up and down stone staircases. We climbed up the wooden staircase they’ve created to get to the top of the temple which affords a view out over the whole complex that is really stunning. The temple combines both Hinduism and Buddhism as it has, in its history, been the center for religious life in Cambodia when the prevailing religion was Hindu and then again when it was Buddhist. The blending of the two religious traditions is fascinating. In Angkor Wat the bas relief depiction of the “Churning of the Sea of Milk” an epic tale of how the good gods defeated the demons in a battle to procure and consume the elixir of eternal life is stunning. Much of it is under restoration having suffered from the effects of the elements, including acid rain on the stone structures over the centuries. Even so, it is incredible to see the intricate carving in the stone and the perfection of the work, knowing that it was constructed in the 12^th century by human hands working for years and years to create a magnificent piece of architecture and art in the massive temple. After visiting Angkor Wat we returned to the hotel at about 8:30, feeling like we’d done a day’s work already, to have our breakfast. We were all starving having been up since 4 with no food. And touring these temples is a lot of work – climbing up and down stairs and walking good distances in the massive complex.

At 10:30 we returned to Angkor city and saw Angkor Thom, (“Big City”) and its temple and the Boyon Temple. I’ve included pics of Sam and of me at Boyon Temple. On our way through that complex we were delighted to see a community of mackac monkeys playing in the trees as we went into the complex. We stopped to photograph them and they were playing with one tourist, climbing all over her head and reaching into her bag to see what she had! They were really adorable. Then as we turned around we saw a parade of elephants decked out in fancy red coats ambling through the gate. Some people tour these temples on the elephants so they were on their way to pick up passengers!

We then had lunch at a little café in the temple complex called the Blue Pumpkin. The food was delicious. Sam and I passed on the prescribed dessert in favor of one they call “dizzy delight” – a concoction of chocolate and caramel ice cream with chocolate sauce, grand marnier, triple sec and kahlua drizzled over the ice cream. It was heavenly. We then had a couple of hours of rest time, which was much needed after our very early start this morning.

Then in the late afternoon we went out into the country to a small landmine museum. It was started originally by a Cambodian man named Akira, who was raised during the era of the Khmer Rouge. He became a “soldier” of the Khmer Rouge at the age of 10 and under their orders he planted thousands of land mines in Cambodia. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge he became an avid “de-miner” and has spent his life removing landmines all over Cambodia. He started his museum in his own home, and he and his wife adopted a number of children who were orphaned and injured by landmines. The museum grew and ultimately became a recognized NGO with the help of an American not-for-profit benefactor who then managed to get US government grants to help the organization do its land mine removal work. They also run an orphanage for about 35 children. The man who gave us the tour is the American ex-pat who now lives and works here full time for this landmine removal group and in the orphanage. It was really sobering to learn about landmines, how they were planted, by whom and how difficult it is to remove them. Cambodia still has hundreds of thousands of land mines buried all over the country and it is a very tedious task to remove them, by hand, one by one, but this organization is dedicated to the work they are doing.

During the drive out to the museum we got outside the main part of Siem Riep where all the tourists and shops and restaurants are and were once again plunged into the midst of developing world poverty. We drove through village after village that are collections of small bamboo homes with thatched roofs, outdoor fires for cooking and many children, usually ill clad. The disparity between the relative opulence and wealth in Siem Riep where are all the investors and tourists compared to the reality of life for the rural villagers is sharp and disturbing.

Tonight we are going back down into the city for dinner and Sam and I are hoping to hit the Night Market even though it’s already raining cats and dogs. Cambodia’s rainy season seems to work like Florida in the summer. Hot and sunny for about ¾ of the day and then the downpours start in the late afternoon/evening and keep going, but clear up by morning. So we may have a soggy shopping trip but we’ll enjoy it anyway and take a “remork” (their version of a moto-taxi) back to the hotel.

Almsgiving, Arrive Cambodia

This morning started very early as we got up at 5:30 to go out to watch the procession of monks collecting their daily alms. May of us were awakened at 4 by the drum beating at the temple across the street. The drum goes at 4 am to awaken the monks. I haven’t heard it the other mornings, but this morning I did, probably because I was sleeping lightly aware that I needed to get up very early. At 6:00 every morning all the monks from the temples go out to collect the food they will eat that day. The townspeople prepare the food and bring it out, hot, to the street and put it in each monk’s bowl as he passes by. The monks then return to the temple and have their breakfast at 7:00 and lunch at 11:00 and then don’t eat again until the next morning. I couldn’t help but think of the line from the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us today our daily bread” as I watched the monks filing past collecting their food. They do not cook or buy food at the temples. They rely entirely on the alms giving by the local people. The monks are trained to eat what is given to them and make do with that. For the people who are giving the food it is considered an auspicious thing to do, something that creates good karmic merit to give food to the monks who are the spiritual guardians of the population. The monks line up in order of seniority, so you first see the older monks and the line gets progressively smaller till you get the young boys, as young as 9 years old coming along with their bowls. And as ever, the array of stray dogs are there too, because if there is food left over after the monks go by, the dogs get a chance to have their breakfast too. They follow the monks along and sample bits of food that fall to the ground!

We then had our breakfast and headed to the airport for our flight to Siem Riep. We were in a small propeller plane and made one stop in Paske, in the south of Laos before heading into Siem Riep. We finally got to our hotel here a little before 3 PM. We had a “light lunch” (if you call appetizer and 4 courses plus dessert “light”), checked into our rooms and then went to the Angkor National Museum where we got a preview of what we will see at the Angkor Wat complex. The museum contains a lot of pieces that were taken from the Angkor Wat complex and are kept in the museum to preserve them better. The most amazing room in that museum was the “Hall of a Thousand Buddhas.” What an impressive display of Buddha statues from every era imaginable in every kind of stone or metal, in all the different postures that the Buddha has ever been depicted in – truly it was a breathtaking room. I could have stayed there the rest of the day. We only had two hours to do the museum (which is not nearly enough time!) so it was a bit of a rush to get through.

We then returned to our hotel for a little rest and then went to dinner in the French Quarter of Siem Riep. (Another multi course meal – khmer cuisine. Delicious!) What a fun place that is! Really hopping with lots of nightlife, markets, restaurants, bars, cafes, you name it. It retains the French flavor from the colonial era in the architecture of the buildings and in the atmosphere in the general neighborhood. We had planned to walk around the night market but the heavens opened just as we were finishing dinner and we decided we were not up for walking around in the torrential downpour that did not seem inclined to let up anytime soon. All of which is probably a good thing because we have to be leaving the hotel at 5AM to get to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise over the temple. (Which of course means getting up at 4 so Sam and I can each get showers before we head out!) We have been struck in our first few hours in Siem Riep at how different is the atmosphere here from Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang is very old and feels very “third world” although it has a charm all its own. But it feels more like a village from another era. Siem Riep, near as we can see so far, is bustling with tourists (all here mostly for Angkor Wat) and is full of upscale hotels, restaurants, bars, apartments. The Royal Palace is here too, although the king is not currently here. There is an air of sophistication and energy here that surprised me. Our hotel is spectacular and spanking new – only about 4 years old, with fountains, a pool, a fitness center, wi-fi, nicely appointed rooms, a full bar in the lobby – really luxurious, particularly compared to our Laotian digs. So even though Cambodia is also a rural, developing, poor country, recovering from the trauma of Pol Pot and the genocide that accompanied that era, there is nonetheless in this city at least, a level of energy and excitement that is electrifying. China and Korea are investing lots of money here, so that is also helping Cambodia to develop fast and improve their standard of living.

Another member of our party went down today to the traveler’s sickness that has decimated our ranks! I’m glad to report that Sam is fully back in the saddle. He returned to devouring curries and tucked into the Khmer cuisine this evening with the gusto he had before he was felled! So that’s our report for today. Gotta get to bed so that I can have a little “nap” before getting up in the middle of the night to head out to Angkor Wat. More tomorrow….

Silk, Prabang Buddha and Baci Ceremony

Today was a relaxing day compared to most on this trip! The younger generation split off from the adults this morning. They went to Ockpoktok workshop, where silk is made and dyed and woven into beautiful patterns and materials. The kids dyed silk and learned how to weave the silk on the loom. I’ve included a picture of Sam taking his turn weaving a silk cloth. I understand that they learned all about raising silkworms and how the silk is harvested from the cocoon of the silkworm and spun into thread and then how the dying process is done and what plants are used to create the different colored dyes.

We adults went to the National Museum which is the former Royal Palace from the days before Laos was a communist country and was ruled by a king. The museum houses the Prabang Buddha. The Prabang Buddha is believed to have been constructed in Sri Lanka in the 1^st century and was later presented to the Khmer King Phaya Sirichantha upon his intention to embrace Theravada Buddhism. By the 14^th century there are records of the travels of the Prabang Buddha into and out of Laos, a couple of times to what is now Thailand. By the late 19^th century it returned to Luang Prabang and has been here ever since, first in various “wats” and finally housed in the Royal Palace. It is now in a special room in the Museum which is the old royal palace. The statue is cared for by the monks here in the city and once a year is taken out to be cleaned and is processed during the Buddhist New Year festivities. The city was named Luang Prabang after this Buddha statue. The Pra Bang Buddha is believed to have extremely protective powers and he is depicted standing, with his arms raised, palms out in the “abhaya mundra” posture, a pose of assurance and protection. The museum houses other beautiful pieces from Laos’ days under a monarchy and many Buddha statues from various centuries of Laos’ history.

After our morning activities we had a free afternoon, starting with lunch. Sam and I opted for a simple “western” lunch today! Much as we love all this Asian food, we were in the mood for something considerably more pedestrian so we went to a little Swedish café down the road where we got sandwiches. Sam is easing back into a regular diet so this was a good re-entry lunch! He then spent the afternoon resting in the room, enjoying the air conditioning (it is VERY HOT here today and humid and, for once, the sun came out which is great but makes it even hotter!) I went out for a long walk, climbing the 320 steps to the top of Wat Tham Phu Si, a Buddha shrine at the top of a steep hill which offers a spectacular view of the city and the mountains and river. It was worth the climb. On the way down I visited another 19^th century shrine that contains beautiful paintings on the walls of the shrine, even behind the Buddha statue. In front of that shrine is a huge Bodhi tree given to Luang Prabang by the government of India in honor of the Buddha some years ago. (The Bodhi tree is the kind of tree the Buddha was sitting under when he achieved enlightenment.)

Then I ventured out into Luang Prabang away from the tourist center and wandered through a market where the locals do their shopping. It was fun to get away from the tourist area and see a little of the local atmosphere. I walked for nearly two hours and came back along the Mekong Riverfront back to our hotel. I was greatly relieved to get into the air conditioned room after three hours in the heat of the day. I took to the local custom of putting up my umbrella to shade me from the sun because it really was exceedingly hot. Sam and I noted that here in Laos we’ve finally found a place in the world where McDonald’s is NOT. It suddenly struck us that there are no signs of any American fast food joints anywhere in Luang Prabang or the surrounding countryside. Refreshing to see a place that hasn’t been junked up with the worst of American exports!!

In the early evening we went to a local shrine room where a Buddhist spiritual leader led a Baci ceremony, which is a ceremony that both welcomed us to Laos and wished us well and safe travels on our journey away from here. There were six local townspeople taking part in this ceremony. The leader chanted a series of prayers, made offerings to the spirits in our honor and asking for our protection and for safety in our travels and safe arrival home, and then the leader and all the participating congregants gave us special blessings in a ceremony where they tie a white thread around the wrist. (Photo of Sam and I receiving our threads.) In this ceremony we got white threads for both wrists from all seven folks, so we walked away looking a little peculiar with both wrists adorned with white yarn! Sam said we look like a cult of some kind!! Of course in these Buddhist countries the white threads are not unusual sites and locals know they signify blessings. We have to keep these threads on our wrists for 3 days and then untie them and give them as an offering in a Buddhist temple, which won’t be a problem in Cambodia to be sure. Then after the strings were tied on both our wrists by everyone there, there was more chanting and music played on an instrument called a “kim” and then we were offered the food that had been blessed and offered to the spirits. We had bananas, rice cakes, a tapioca cake, a sweet made of coconut and rice and a kind of cookie. After the formal ceremony was over, the young people were invited to try playing the “kim”. I’ve included a picture of Sam taking his turn!

We ended the day with dinner at a very nice local restaurant, sitting outside on the terrace. Tomorrow we have an extremely early day – up at 5:30 AM to watch the morning ceremony where the monks go out collecting their daily alms. (Sam has decided to pass on this activity, not being fond of the 5:30 AM hour!!) We then get breakfast and leave for the airport to fly to Cambodia. Two countries down, one to go!!

Community Service, Waterfall and Lao Dinner

Sabaidee! Today we traveled 30 kilometers outside of Luang Prabang into the countryside to a small village called BanOu, where we participated in a community service project with the village elders and the village children. We brought trees and flowers to plant around the village school. We planted about 10 trees and several dozen flowers around the school property and built a fence to protect the flowers after planting. We had a lot of help from the village children and the village elder and the school’s teacher. The children were delightful and clearly got a kick out of watching this motley group of “falang” (foreigners) digging holes and hammering nails and trying to be productive. Every plant I put in the ground drew a horde of children around me to help fill in the dirt and pack it down around the new plant. The children were all barefoot and they managed to get around in the muddy terrain better than those of us with sturdy shoes on! It was raining pretty hard a lot of the time and all the paths and fields are exceedingly muddy at this point. After a couple of hours of hard labor, our young people played a came of catorb with the local children. It’s a game that is a cross between volley ball and soccer. Our guide had purchased team jerseys for the village children and our young travelers and when the game was over we gave our jerseys to the village kids for their school to use. Then we went into the classroom for a language lesson, which was truly hilarious as we tried to struggle to converse with our extremely limited Lao and the children’s limited English. It was good fun however, and the children were simply delightful.

We couldn’t help but observe the difference between the life these children live and the lives our own kids have known. These kids have very little material wealth – their clothes are old and ragged in many cases, the have no shoes, they live in small huts with an entire family sharing a room smaller than most middle class American living rooms, they obviously lack dental care, and yet they are cheerful, resourceful, well behaved, good humored and hard working while also playful and creative. During the catorb game it started raining quite hard and, lacking umbrellas, the children ran to the nearest almond tree and pulled the very large leaves off the tree to use as umbrellas. It was very funny to see them sitting there watching the game holding their almond leaves aloft! And in the catorb game, our side were all wearing athletic shoes and socks and the village kids were playing barefoot.

The difference in socio-economic development between Laos and Thailand is striking. Thailand is clearly fast becoming a “first world” country, at least in its major cities. Laos, however, is still very much a developing country with widespread poverty, lack of sanitation and potable water and villages dotting its rugged countryside that are truly living in another era altogether in terms of development. The country is 70% agricultural workers with the primary crops being rice, corn and bananas. They also do a booming business in traditional handicrafts and silk weaving which they sell to the tourists. The Laotian people, however, are gracious and beautiful and very proud of their country and their culture. The food is similar to Thai cuisine, but somewhat less spicy.

After our visit to BanOu, we went to a nearby waterfall, which is huge and magnificent and had a picnic lunch (actually about 6 courses of hot food, with the usual curry, stir fried rice, fish, pork sausage, baguettes, glass noodles with veggies, vegetable curry) next to the waterfall. The vegetation in the forest there was incredible and I was spellbound by the birds of paradise flowers all over the place. We then made our way back to Luang Prabang for a few hours of free time.

The downside of visiting a developing country is the risk of gastrointestinal ailments which took two of our party down in the past two days. Sam succumbed yesterday and spent the day in bed and today in the hotel recovering and another of our group didn’t appear at breakfast this morning having been felled in the night with the same problem!! Another member of our group incurred a deep cut to his arm on Monday and his first stop in Luang Prabang was the Emergency Room of the local hospital for cleaning the wound and antibiotics! I’ve been on antibiotics since the fourth day of our trip so we are really falling like dominos here!! We’re hoping we’ve had all the medical calamities we’re going to have for awhile now. And last night, when Sam was still in the throes of his distress and I was up and down a few times after him in the night, we discovered a rather large visitor in our bathroom – a COCKROACH of considerable proportions – whom neither of us was in the mood to meet in the dead of night! He appears to have moved on to other quarters at this point, but we both approach the bathroom with due caution even now, charting the territory before stepping into the room!

This evening a local family hosted us in their home for a traditional Lao dinner. Lao people eat sitting on the floor which we falang folks found rather uncomfortable as we are not all that limber! We have been learning some Lao while we’ve been here but it was still rather difficult to try to converse with our exceedingly limited vocabulary and their lack of knowledge of English. It was the usual extravagant spread of food – sticky rice, steamed rice, a fish dish, soup, a chicken curry, a chicken and peanuts dish, spring rolls, stuffed vegetables and fruit for dessert. Sam came along and ate the rice and some soup broth while the rest of us had our second huge meal of the day. Still it was a great experience to be in a Lao home and have a chance to see real people up close. This family is pretty well to do by Lao standards and they were gracious and generous hosts.

That’s it for today! Pop kan mai!