2008: Lao Monks

It was fitting that I got a little bit lost in Laos. Sometimes, when I'm traveling, I feel like getting lost. Not necessarily lost in that I don't know where I am, but lost to the world. Out of touch with everyone who knows me. I don't know why that appeals to me exactly, I just need to feel that way for a few days once in a while. The ultimate escape, I guess... that nobody - except for my new friends Marne and Sandra, who I'll never speak to after this week - nobody who knows my name knows where I am. If I slipped into a muddy ravine, absolutely no-one would come look for me.

That, to me, is what it means to be lost. But now you know. I'm in Luang Prabang, the ancient capital of Laos. Staying in a place called Chumkhong Guest House. If you have a vision of me slipping into a muddy ravine, please take a moment to Google it and ask the nice couple who runs the guest house to check in on me.

I knew that Luang Prabang was a historic city. I knew it was a UNESCO world heritage site, which means it qualifies for all kinds of funding to pay for restoration projects. I had read that it has lots of temples and monks, so I knew I would like it. But I wasn't prepared for how much I would like it. That was a total surprise. Laos is one of the world's poorest nations. It has only two cities - Vientiane, the capital, and Luang Prabang, the ancient capital. No other area of human population apparently qualifies as a city... just towns and villages through the entire rest of the country. So to find here, in the middle of jungle and mountains, a charming place full of painstakingly restored Lao temples, French colonial architecture, brick walkways shaded by stone walls and lush gardens, it was far nicer than anything I'd imagined.

If you take all the things I like best about Vietnam... gregarious people, stunning topography, fresh and flavorful food, tropical plants and birds, fascinatingly different culture... take all that and condense it into one place at one time, then add more varieties of tropical flower than you ever thought existed, so many butterflies that you think you're in a butterfly garden, 32 golden Khmerian temples and about 600 monks in saffphron robes, and you have Luang Prabang. And because it's in the mountains, the temperatures are actually fairly cool, even now in the height of the hot season. Cool by tropical standards, at least, which means that I don't use the air conditioner and still need a blanket at night.

One of the things that fascinates me most here is the presence of so many monks. Most of the town's 32 temples are wats, a wat being a temple with resident monks. Each one uses a drum to call the monks to chant or prayer or other activities at various times of the day. I stumble across one wat with a sign that says it's OK to be in the temple during the monks' evening chants. All you have to do is ask.

Of course, I ask. I love music, love chanting and love this slightly run down temple. One of the monks speaks enough English to tell me it's OK, and to come back at around 6:00 pm. Just before 6:00, the drum sounds. I stand near the entryway and the same monk waves me over.

"You can sit here." He motions to a spot in the back next to a large pillar. There is a long list of rules posted outside; all part of the same sign that says it's OK to ask to attend the chanting... as long as you ask by 5:00 pm. Don't stand so that you're taller than a monk. Hold your hands in the prayer position while addressing a monk. No shoes in the temple, and more. I hope I remember them all. I also hope I'm sitting right. I'm not used to sitting on my knees for so long. Not even sure if I'm in the right position. Not even sure I am supposed to be in the right position, since I'm just an observer. Can I sit in any position for so long? How long is a chanting session anyway? I don't know. I've never been.

The monks set me at ease almost right away. It is a solemn ceremony and they clearly take it seriously, but one tenet of buddhism is something along the lines of "don't take anything too seriously." The monks definitely embody that idea, enough at least that I stop worrying about whether I have my legs right or whether I am sitting low enough that I don't tower over them with my big Western body. By the time the first chant is done, most of the monks have shifted positions and are sitting sideways, cross legged or whatever doesn't make their legs fall asleep. Several wander in late. One takes a call on his cell phone just before they get started. The little ones - some look as young as eight or nine - are antsy and giggly. Someone slaps a mosquito off his arm. They're not overly worried about being perfect.

Their chants, though, are uninterrupted no matter what distractions arise. And they are hauntingly beautiful. The chants have a nasal, almost electric tone to them. When they are joined by the cicadas outside - thousands of tiny buzz saws - it is an enormous chorus. Orange rays from the 6:00 pm sun filter in through holes in the simple wooden ceiling. They illuminate the huge golden buddha with his saffron robe and add to the reddish glow of candles sputtering in front of him.

The monks, also in orange, chant for about 30 minutes and then abruptly bow three times to the huge buddha and leave. I barely have time to thank them and put a donation in the box before they lock the door.

The next day, I'm sitting on an 18th century stone wall that runs alongside the Nam Ou - Ou River - taking a picture of a dodgy looking bamboo footbridge that runs across to the other side. Marne and I had walked down to the foot of it the day before, but decided not to walk across it when it creaked under our weight. "We're so big," she said. "I don't think it's made for people as big as us."

We would be mortified if we broke their bridge. She visualizes the headline in the Vientiane Times: "Tourists Break Bridge: Villagers Stranded." Well, we certainly didn't want that to happen. We stayed on our side of the bridge. On the other side, for those who dare to put their weight on it, the eastern bank of the Nam Ou rises sharply, drenched in mango and jackfruit trees, coconut palms, papayas and bamboo, with terraced fields growing beans, eggplant, tomatoes and fragrant herbs. A muddy but fairly solid looking path cuts straight up the hill to a small village and a wat. I am trying to get both the bridge and the wat in one photo, but not having much success.

Two monks approach me from behind. I snap the picture quickly so I can put the camera away before they pass. I remember that one of the many rules from the previous night's list had to do with not photographing the monks. "Sawadi," one of them says to me as they pass. "Hello." I am surprised. The monks usually seem to keep to themselves.

"Sawadi," I say.

"Where are you from?"

"California," I tell him. "United States."

He stops to chat about California for a minute then asks, "do you want to see my temple?" I'd love the chance to talk to one of the monks here so of course I say yes. "Where is it?" He points to the temple on the hill across the dodgy bamboo bridge. "There." And he walks on in silence. I follow.

"I won't break it?" Whole sections of bamboo slats are already missing in the middle. The bridge hangs about 30 feet above the river at that point.

"It's OK," he says, which I take to mean that it's a strong bridge and I won't break it. I start walking. "Sometimes it breaks," he adds. Hmm, that's OK. I'll take my chances. The bridge creaks under my weight with every step but I make it to the other side without breaking it.

Saeng takes me on a short tour of the hundred year old temple and shows me what the monks' living quarters are like. They're not bad, actually, not as small as I would have thought. Over the next two hours I learn a lot about monks and how they live, about the traditions of the town of Luang Prabang, and about Saeng's aspirations to learn English, go to university, and travel. In that order. His English is pretty good, so at the age of 17 he's already well on his way. I can't help but like a 17 year old whose limited English vocabulary includes words like "mindfulness" and "laypeople."

"How much does it cost to go to university in Luang Prabang?" I ask.

Saeng

"Very expensive," he says. "About two hundred US dollars per term. Four hundred per year." He waits for my face to register amazement as this vast sum. I don't dare tell him that the college where I teach, NDNU, charges almost $400 for a single unit. I fight the jaded and suspicious side of myself that has put a nagging thought in my head. I hope that's not what this wonderful, friendly moment is about. I hope he's not going to ask me to help him pay for college. I hate myself for having the thought, but it's not like things like that haven't happened. Thanh and Yum, a sweet couple who run a cafe I go to in Saigon, often encouraged me to play with their daughter. "Someday she'll visit America," I said to Thanh one morning.

"Yes," Thanh said. "Maybe you take her."

"What was that?"

He looked very serious all of a sudden. "You can take her with you." Our eyes met for a moment and I was embarassed. He was serious. I didn't know how to respond. So I did what any stupid but well meaning foreigner does when she sticks her foot in her mouth - I pretended I didn't understand him. He knew, though. I could see his eyes fade into disappointment. He and Yum were still just as nice to me after that, swapping short lessons in Vietnamese for short lessons in English, but it was never quite the same. An optimistic light had disappeared from Thanh's face. I hope that I'm not setting Saeng up for the same kind of disappointment. But the cost of college is the only money talk that takes place between us. Like so many of the people I met in Vietnam, Saeng just wants to talk to a foreigner and practice his English.

I learn a lot about monks from him. I learn that the rice and bananas they collect during their morning procession through town, for example, really is their breakfast. Marne and I had gotten up at sunrise to watch the procession that had been a part of life in Luang Prabang for centuries. Starting at 6:00 am the monks walk single file out of their wats, barefoot and carrying only their alms bowls. Laypeople line the streets handing out fresh, hot rice and sometimes bananas to them. By 7:00 am the monks have bowls overflowing with rice, so much that they give the surplus to a handful of small boys carrying plastic bags and laundry baskets, anything they can use to take a portion of rice home for themselves and their families, Marne and I speculate. "The monks can't really eat that rice," Marne says. "Who knows if those people handing it out have washed their hands? I didn't wash my hands - at six in the morning it was all I could do to stumble out the door."

But they do eat it, I learn from Saeng. What they get in their bowls in the morning is what they eat for breakfast. They don't wash it, re-cook it, nothing. In fact, according to Saeng, the monks don't cook or store food at all. If they get more than they can eat for that day's breakfast, they give it to the little boys. But the boys aren't collecting for their families, like Marne and I thought. They're homeless orphans who sleep on the stone walkways around the monks' temples. The townspeople feed the monks and the monks feed the orphans. That's how it's worked for centuries.

Monks bathing in the Mekong

"What about lunch and dinner?" I ask. There aren't any afternoon or evening alms processions.

"The laypeople bring food to us," Saeng says. "They are like our mothers and fathers." I must look incredulous. "Yes, every day."

"You never cook?" Somehow I'm stuck on this particular point. I can't imagine that monks really live like that, not stocking up for a rainy day, not even having a kitchen. What if someone brings them something that needs to be cooked?

"They bring it cooked. Every day they bring us food that is cooked. They take care of us because we are monks and they feel like our parents." The monks are like orphans themselves, I realize. The scene with the homeless boys makes more sense now. I think about it all the way back across the rickety bamboo bridge.