One of the parts of being a tourist that I like best is having nothing to do. I also like being places where there isn't much to do, Long is just such a town.
My morning began with domestic chores, I'd just returned from a long walk and many things needed doing. I washed my clothes in the bucket from the bathroom at the same time as I listened to the BBC on my cheap Chinese short wave and brewed up endless cups of instant coffee with the electric cup heater. The addition of electricity to Muang Long has been a godsend.
I also washed myself, pieces at a time. I do it by quarters so that I'm only 1/4 freezing to death. No hot water shower in town.
That's the whole thing, Muang Long. The "Muang" part means that it's the center of the district. Biggest place in hundreds of square miles.
A technical note here. I've posted Lao Script in the title because I think it looks cool. If you are seeing boxes or something else please let me know. Not sure it will show up though it does in the preview.
More below the tangled baci threads.
I was there a couple of years ago. There was no internet, no ATM, no foreigners that I saw. The market is a happening place from daylight until maybe 8am, after that things get quiet.
I wandered down to the old part of town, slowly, I wasn't walking so great.
The houses down by the river are all old and close together, wooden, carved. I walked into the courtyard of the wat. Ordinarily I'm not much of a religion tourist. The monks have their thing to do, I don't gawk. It used to be that Lao guys my age would have spent at least a couple of months as a monk, so I've talked to quite a few monks and former monks. Now everyone is in a big doggone hurry, kids in Bankok fit their obligation in, between vacation and school, if at all.
That all seemed far away from this place where no sound of internal combustion engine or aircraft overhead disturbs the lazy buz of insects and the low murmur of young novices whiling away the hours discussing who knows what. I returned their smiled greeting with the same, and one of them motioned me over as I'd been actually walking around to get to the other side of the wat. I was looking to get a photo without the monks, nothing more cliche than a monk photo, the cliche is not only the photo but the western tourist taking it.
The monk was actually motioning me into the wat through a side door so I went. Still smiling and unspeaking. Best to not speak Lao, leave them to go about their business, and I notice the sun from the door closes behind me. Alone. I don't do the three bows and the incense bit, I was born with round eyes.
I know enough about it to understand that the Lu temple is shaped differently than say the temples of Thai Nua, or Vientiane or Krung Thep Theravada Buddhists. I'm most impressed with the massive tree trunk central posts that lead to the high roof, and the roof itself is made of tin. I forever appreciate a wat with a tin roof.
Notice the two small tiers to the upper roofes and how there are 4 sides to the roof lower down, this is unmistakably Lu.
I take some photos having no idea what I'm taking photos of but thinking to myself that my fellow blogger over at http://laomeow.blogspot.com/ more than likely would. She is a long practicing Buddhist and a student of the religion as practiced in Laos. No doubt she's much more fluent with the language, but also maybe most importantly she is Asian. Some understanding of culture you are born into.
Theravada is the branch of Buddhism most closely associated with the original from Sri Lanka and so it's very old and infused with ritual. Like any religion it absorbs much of the religion it has replaced. I suspect the white rope looped around the posts in the photo above has very specific religious significance, maybe related to the pii or wandering ghosts of local beliefs.
Even though I understand little I am glad to have peeked inside the wat. The wat is the center of life within the community in a way the government office building or school could never be. The wat is the place to celebrate the birth and honor the death, to connect with those who have passed and to assist those in passing. The wat holds the highest forms of art and architecture. Inside it's pali scripts is the moral guidance of the culture codified.
The day has warmed while I'd been down in the old part of town. Some boys who had been spear fishing down at the Nam Long passed me by. I was walking very slowly. They were excited to be returning to their families with a morning's catch in the baskets they both wore around their backs. What an advantage a simple thing like a plastic face mask from China. In a place where most eat what they have grown or caught fresh fish is a good thing.
By mid day Muang Long is downright quiet. A motorcycle causes people to look up to see who it is, a car or truck is an event. Mostly the sun shines brightly and people are off doing whatever it is they are doing that day. I returned to my laundry, turning it so to dry on all sides and packing what was already dry. Somewhere up the street someone played Morlum and mid day drifted into afternoon to the hypnotic notes of the khaen.
Down at the market I ate a leisurely bowl of khao soi and watched nothing happen.
I noticed the two guys walking across the empty dirt parking lot that sits slightly above the market, they were the only things moving. The market though open was half asleep. As they came closer I recognised one of the guys as being my local guide from the walk Ban Nam Hee to Ban Huway Poong.
I suggested they both to join me in a bowl of khao soi and I asked them what they were up to while we ate. (they spoke almost no Lao language)
They'd left Bahn Nam Hee that morning. Assuming they left at about 8, that was well over 40km in seven hours. They had with them what they were wearing, a thin jacket on one and a light weight shirt on the other. They would have drunk from springs and carried no water, at night curled around either sides of a fire dozing until the fire needed more wood. Cold. Likely they'd also carried a long knife apiece and stashed it in the woods before town. I didn't ask them their purpose in town or other particulars. Maybe they were there for supplies or maybe just to see the sights. For most people in the villages Muang Long is the largest town they are ever likely to see.
Another day of doing nothing.