More Luang Prabang

10/4/2006

This morning some of us woke up really early to watch the monks receive alms at about 6 am (see above). Basically people set up stations along the streets with sticky rice or other food that they plan to give to the monks. Then lines of monks would walk by holding pots into which people placed their food alms. This was the food that the monks would eat the rest of the day. After watching and participating in the ritual, I found a poster describing the do's and don'ts of morning alms. It turned out that we broke about half of the rules by talking and taking close-up flash photography, among other things. I imagine their quite used to this based on the large number of tourists in the town.

During the day I updated my blog and checked out more of Luang Prabang. I went to the Royal Palace Museum, which had been the palace of the king of Laos in Luang Prabang before the communists took over in the 1970's. There were some nice murals, swords, manuscripts, diplomatic gifts, thrones, etc. I'm not a big fan of museums, but this one wasn't too bad since it only took about 25 minutes to view everything. Later that day the whole group went to another wat and then had a de-briefing discussion about the first third of the trip. After the meeting I went with Emma and Michal to get a Khmu (Lao tribe) massage. Maybe it's just be, but I don't think massages have much of an effect after their done. It's good to figure that out over here where they're dirt cheap as opposed to in the US where they cost a fortune. The picture below is of me at some wat.