Luang Prabang - a spiritual experience

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Since we left you, we’ve found our favourite city so far - and had some amazing, humbling experiences in the process.

With Lonely Planet describing Luang Prabang (LP) as a ‘jewel...preening herself’ and as a ‘gem’ we new it had to be pretty good. It was great.

Not (yet) as touristy or developed Laos moves at a much slower, more relaxed pace than its neighbours. You are hassled less by people trying to sell you things you don’t want, there is less traffic, noise, smells, and more time to relax and enjoy yourselves.

There is so much to tell you about Luang Prabang - so I’ll try & cut it down to just a few things. . This entry is solely about the monks - the others will follow shortly.

The monks.

First, what you must understand about Thailand & Laos at least (I have yet to see this in the other countries - but when I visit them this may also prove true in some), is that these countries are largely Buddhist and that enormous amount of the men were or had been monks at some time. There are three types of monks; those from families too poor to afford proper schooling - as a monk the children receive good education for free; those from ‘good’ families who do it for a couple of weeks to a couple of months after they finish school¸ and a small percentage (about 3%) of ‘lifers’ who stay in the monk hood for life. Monks have many rules they must live by; vegetarianism, no food after noon, no touching women - or being within one metre of them etc. As monks are not ‘allowed’ to buy their own food, the only way they can eat is by offerings given to them by devout Buddhists. This is called ‘giving alms’. As monks must not eat after noon, they have to finish both breakfast and lunch before then. Hence their 4 am start & collection of alms at dawn.

I had read in the travel column of the NZ Herald about giving alms to the monks. Jim Eagles the travel writer had just completed a tour of SE Asia & highly recommended this. Thanks also to Senka, my Physio, who highly recommended it - and to our ‘Thai hosts’ three very kind Thai men who befriended us and shared some amazing cultural experiences with us. (On this topic, I have already had one email from someone doing a good deed to an Asian visitor who was struggling at an ATM in NZ. I’d be keen to hear what else you have all done to help foreigners - feel free to email us, or to add it as a comment onto our blog site).

Having been told to catch the monks at 6am (everyone we spoke to said a different time & place) we set our alarm at 5.20 am - and although it was painful, thought of how long the monks had already been awake & got out of bed anyway. Having read the information on posters around the city about respecting the monks & not making this a ‘touristy’ thing, we wandered in the dark to the morning markets to buy some sticky rice for them. Luang Prabang is quite far north and gets quite cold at night. Even wearing long pants & my icebreaker merino jumper I still appreciated hugging the warm rice to my body. After much hanging around the main street in the dark and seeing some other lost looking tourists we walked in what looked like a sensible direction until we came across some locals, mainly Lao women, kneeling on mats, with the ubiquitous sticky rice baskets beside them. Well this was very promising. Firstly it looked like we had found the right place & secondly, I was having difficulty working out whether women were able to participate, given that we could not be within 1 metre of the monks. We were.

I was quite unnerved as no other tourists (and there weren’t many around) we spoke to were going to participate. They had been told by locals (guides) that if you weren’t sure you could do it properly and respectfully, best just to watch from a distance. Seeing just 4 -5 locals ready to give alms, and the monks ready to come out of the Wat (temple) I lost my nerve & went to give the closest lady my rice to give to them. Whether she misunderstood or knew I was nervous, she kindly beckoned me to sit down beside her, showed me how to kneel and to give the food. As the monks came by all my attention was on giving them even handfuls of stick rice (one portion each) and not holding up the queue as I seemed so much slower than the locals. Brendon stood across the road and discretely took photos in the dawn.

In total 4 groups of monks (all from different Wats) passed us and we gave them alms. In between each group I chatted to a Lao man who spoke English (the only one out of the group) and he explained when we could site & rest our knees and what else to do.

It was very surreal and also very moving. The monks seem so gentle and peaceful, while not a Buddhist it somehow seemed ‘right’ to be helping feed them.

After the last group passed, the Lao man told me that there was a much larger procession of monks further down the road - and that I’d still catch them if I went along. A tired Brendon went back to bed & I took the camera to wander down the road & see what it was like as a spectator. This other group was enormous with well over 100 - 200 monks passing by. As I walked up to watch, our kindly Thai hosts saw me and called me over share their mat and give alms with the enormous amount of food that they had brought. It was great.

As this was the ‘main’ alms giving place in town, there were many, many Buddhists giving food. This meant that many of the monks had their pots overflowing by the time they reached the end of the queue (us). Some enterprising young children (well, their parents organised it), stood at the very end with empty bags. The generous monks handed them some of their own food with which to eat.

Pretty much all they got in their pots was sticky rice & occasionally bananas in banana leaf. I wondered if the monks were ever bored on this diet. However they all looked fit and well - not malnourished without the seeming lack of vitamins.

Afterwards we went and enjoyed a Lao coffee (sweet!) and some traditional breakfast, as the sun slowly made its way up over the Mekong River. A magic morning.

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Comments

[helen]

just to prove I read it
May use this experience in discussions on cultural safety. It is always a totally different experience if you can do the local thing rather than the tourist thing. Makes you wonder what people really understand about NZ and our way of life after a whistle stop bus trip.

[Jenny]

Senka
Claire assume the Senka you know and the one I know are the same. Paul and I were able to see Senka get married in Pauanui as her mother is a very good golfing friend of mine.She looked beautiful.