I decided to wake up excessively early today and go for a walk to see the monk collecting alms. Around 5:30am the monks go around collecting food and so if you're up early you can see this. I took some pictures but I didn't want to take too many because there were many other tourist standing around taking pictures and I kind of felt bad for these boys who were just doing their early morning duty being photographed by so many people. I guess the reason I felt bad is because my friend Link said that someone took a picture of him and his friend without them knowing and made it into a poster add for one of the hotels. His friend went to the airport to fly to Bangkok and saw this giant poster of himself and Link. They joke about it and how they're 'famous' now but they also seem a little embarrassed about it.
After my little walk around I chilled out and wrote a few letters and journal entries while eating breakfast. The monks on the hill had asked me to visit again, this time in the morning, and so I was going to go at 9am after I relaxed a bit. I went to an internet cafe and talked to Mattea and wrote a few emails and then off I went to climb the hill once more.
I spent most of my day joking around on the hill, or at least the rest of the morning and some of the early afternoon. The monks who didn't speak any english continued to walk by me making silly faces or hiding around the corner and peeking out to make silly faces when I least expected it. They were really playful. We climbed trees and ate the sour fruits and just relaxed and chatted.
When I left I went for another walk around. I dropped by my guest house to pick up my clean laundry, once again dodging the inappropriate advances of the guest house clerk. Ecky.
The men in Laos play Petanque (a French game with metal balls on a gravel playing field) pretty religiously and often crowds gather to watch a good Petanque match. I watched a specific group of men play, they were really skilled and though I didn't know what they were saying besides when they tallied the score (counting in Laos is the same as in Thai) they were dynamic enough and skilled enough that I could easily figure out what was going on by their body language. During my time in Luang Prabang I watched this group often enough that they would make room for me to watch when they saw me coming and though they didn't speak any english would smile at me when I arrived and when I gasped or reacted to the goings on in their game. They all had a distinct style of play, it was really interesting.
The best part about Petanque though was that the little kids were totally into it too, wanting to emulate their fathers and grandfathers (i never saw women playing just men). Little kids as young as five years old would make their own Petanque using their sandals as the balls, so cute!
In the evening I had dinner, finished the last of my shopping and bought a bus ticket for the Monday night bus back to Vientiane. Since I got up so early I went to bed at a reasonable hour.
Today's picture is of my friend Link sitting in the place he sat every time we chatted.
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