A Good Start in Laos

We flew to Luang Prabang, Laos in a noisy, vibrating prop plane - a short one hour flight. Thankfully, we walked off the plane into warm air which was welcome after Hanoi and Sapa. As there are always surprises in a new country, the first two were (1) the airport was about the size of a large house. The people on our tiny flight were the only ones in the airport (2) transportation to town was on two benches on the back of a covered truck. We shared a ride with two other girls and together tried a few hotels that were too pricey ($15), so decided to stop for a beer. We continued on after that and found a place for $9 each. Clean with a hot shower, hooray!

Monks are a huge part of life here - most men become monks for at least a few months of their lives. There are many wats (temples/monasteries) around here, so it seems one in four people is a monk, wearing a bright orange robe. The first day I arrived, I met a French guy, Julien, while I was walking around one of the wats. Me, Dave and Julien ended up talking to these Lao guys who were English teachers and they invited us to teach at the school that night. So for the past two nights we taught English in their classes. The classes are separate from regular school and students can elect to take classes if their parents can afford it. I think its 250,000 kip per term which is $30.

Teaching is really fun and its simply wonderful to be able to truly help the locals. The class is about 20 students, monks and regular kids, age range about 15-25. Periodically, the teacher will call me up to pronounce the phrases on the board and the children repeat after me. At the end, they clap and say Thank you very much. They really seem to love having us there, it's really too sweet. When I'm not teaching, I have been sitting next to this 16 year old girl and she is always reading to me from her workbook in between exercises, so I can help with her pronunciation. The quality of the schools is low compared to western style. It's much less organized and the lesson plans don't really teach the language in the traditional way from the ground up - its more about memorizing phrases. Kids are free to wander in and out of class (although they mostly stay in). And the teachers, who are kind and enthusiastic and you can tell truly love their jobs, do not have the best grasp of the language. Many times, the phrases on the board use improper grammar (which I simply can't read aloud without editing!). Their pronunciation is also off, which is why they said they always invite foreigners to class.

Last night after class me and three other young travelers who were teaching, went to dinner with the two head Lao teachers. It was a nice time, and we got to eat real Lao food. :) They eat sticky rice with their hand, form it into a ball in their palm and eat it with a bit of fish and some sauce. Totally addicting, esp for carb-lovers :) After dinner, I met up with some of friends we hung out with in Hue and Hanoi that we randomly ran into again. Good times. Luang Prabang has an 11:30 curfew! So early to bed for us.

This morning I woke up at 6am to watch the monks collect alms, which means about 300 monks walk in single file around the town and people give them fruit and sticky rice. It's nice having met monks in class because I see them more as human. I smiled and said good morning and they smile back, while the other tourists seem to regard them as gods. They are just kids! Another interesting thing is that the alms procession attracts a lot of tourists now, so the monks get more than they need. You see little poor kids with baskets who follow the monks around and from time to time the monks give the kids some of the food they collected.

Also of note - I had my record-breaking cheap meal two days ago: 60 cents for a vegetarian buffet at the night market. :) OK, so it wasnt the most delicious but it did the job. But you dont have to pay much anyway - Lunch was noddle soup for $1.25 and very good!

I will probably spend a few more days here, but I'm not entirely sure where I am heading next. Probably south but people have also recommended trekking in the north. Who knows, but for now I am enjoying my time here. I did some biking yesterday and today and I am going to get a massage and find a bookstore. :)