I began my day not sure what to do other than to secure batteries for my camera (a never-ending quest on this trip, for reasons far too dull for repetition) and try to unload some Vietnamese currency somewhere in exchange for some dollars or Loas kip. Having arrived at night, I had no idea what lay outside my window, much less down the
street, up the hill, or towards the river. After breakfast and reptile extermination, I set off with an umbrella and three street maps, each less helpful than the others. All the "major" sights were to the left, so I turned right, always having to do things my own way, figuring I'd start small, at the easternmost tip of the town and work west. Along the way, though, I stumbled into some pretty major "minor" wats. But with so many wats in this ancient capital of Laos, and one or two seemingly punctuating every block, it would have been hard not to.
At the fourth wat I visited, Wat Nong Sikhounmuang, a novice stood outside the (closed) temple door. "Sabai dee!" I called out ("hello"), one of the three phrases I know in Loa, the others being "please" and "thank you", which pretty much covers both the necessities and my available foreign-language RAM. I've already forgotten the one Vietnamese word or phrase I was able to say--what was it again? "How are you?," he asked, in Enlish. "Where you come from?" We had a brief exchange limited by my hearing and his poor English. Then it got really confusing, and remained so for the rest of the day. Don't ask me why, but I thought he said there was another deaf woman and he was going to get her. In fact, what he said was that he would open the locked door if I wanted to see the interior of the temple. I went in, he offered me a seat on the floor, and we continued to make and hear sounds of no communicative consequence. It became an English lesson and he asked me if I would come back later for more practice. He also said something about the market. That's the part that perplexes me still.
I continued to explore Luang Prabang, making my way down the main drag of shops and guest houses and restaurants. I bought some batteries (yay!) and got rid of my Vietnamese scrap paper, visited the Palace (and Museum), saw a photo exhibit and another wat, and had lunch at Tum-Tum Bamboo. Here's how you know you've been in Asia for awhile. I saw a small bug crawling through my sticky rice and just pushed that bit aside! (I saw it only briefly, vut I think it was just a tiny ant.) After that, with each forkful, I held it up briefly and, if none of the black specks moved...I ate it! :O Like your altered sense of trust without reliable cultural cues, I didn't know whether to do such a thing is, no matter where I am, unthinkable, or whether relativism applies and I should take the "eh, whatever" approach. No matter, I seem not to have been affected by it. Well, so far, anyway.
After lunch, I returned to the wat and found my student waiting again at the temple door, notebook and phrasebook in hand. In mine, an English/Loa study text I found at the Palace Museum store. To see the Palace, I had to rent a shirt to cover my shoulders--again, for me, inexplicably and shamefully unprepared! :O My student (Novice Bee) asked if I wanted to go to the "room" to study. I didn't know what "the room" was, but I said yes and followed. With monks everywhere, I had no lingering apprehension from my Yuksom (Sikkim, India) Tibetan monk episode.
We left the temple and walked to what turned out to be the monks' living quarters. My presence drew curiosity, but not as much attention as you might think. Boys (that's what they are) were coming and going and engaging in what my Dad would quaintly call "tom-foolery." We sat on the floor--I now had four students--and began a pronunciation lesson. Our "sh", "z", and "th" sounds, among others, don't exist in Lao or Thai (which they all speak, as it's closely related to Loa). So I instructed them to listen for the difference and repeat ship/sip, shock/sock, thank/tank, and zero and visit and buzz and other "v" sounds. It was fun to call upon the skills I used to earn my TESOL certification--curl your tongue this way, listen for that sound, put your teeth on your lower lip, relax your jaw. However, all the while, I was also thinking, am I where I am, doing what I'm doing? Am I sitting in a country we carpet-bombed in a circle of orange-draped kids meditate in the mornings and try to make "sh" and "v" and "z" sounds in the afternoon?
Mid-lesson, my "primary" student (Novice Bee), again said something about the market. And--damn it--I still don't know what this whole market thing was about! I still don't know what transpired, linguistically, that led to my next finding myself in a tuk-tuk with Novice Bee and Novice Van heading out of town to a market several kilometers away and returning with new sandals for both (I also bought them two more English study texts.) As we climbed into the cramped space, Novice Van made sure I was aware that I mustn't touch them. I said I knew that and was being very careful.
After our whirlwind tour of the market, I again found myself back in the dorm room with a newly reconstituted class, all of whom worked hard on that "v" sound. Novice Van interrupted to say that he wanted to give me something. He reached into his bag and produced two braided orange strings. He told me to put out my hands--one like this, one like that, one palm towards him, one turned the sky. He wrapped one string around my right wrist and chanted a prayer. He rearranged my hands (touching me in the process, which I guess is okay if your doing a blessing?) Novice Bee then repeated the process (but without the precisely arranged hands and with no prayer and with a slightly different hue of orange wristlet). As it was approaching 6pm--time to pray--our lesson ended, but not before I asked if I could attend prayers with them. Of course I could--Buddhism's a big-tent faith! I sat in the back of the temple for a half-hour or so, listening to and "feeling" the chanting, watching the prostrations, and generally marveling at these lives, so very different from my own.
I asked a monk outside to tell Novice Bee I would return if I could. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I may have a class scheduled for some time in the afternoon! Now, however, despite sore throat, headache, and what may be a fever coming on, I'm headed up the mighty Mekong River in a longboat to the Pak Ou caves of a Thousand Buddhas and to...a rice moonshine distillery.
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