different
Updating on a computer with a purple-tinged screen in a crowded internet cafe where someone's feet smell like 6-month old Teva sandals.
As an aside, my friend Ravi invariable pronounces "cafe" to rhyme with "safe". At first I didn't know what he was talking about when he would say cafe. So finally I realized and told him. And he persisted in pronouncing it that way, despite me teasing him. Huh. I guess it becomes ingrained.
But my main thought was again how much Laos has changed in 6 years. When I came back then, Laos had only been open to tourists for (I think) 2 years. It was my favourite place because it seemed so peaceful and untouched. Wow -- I can barely recognize it now. Partly that's because in our group of 4 people we have restricted ourselves more to the touristed areas. That's one reason that I'm glad I will be leaving tomorrow for a 3-day trek to more remote areas. I will be seeing Hmong and Kamu villages that haven't been visited much before... through a company started by a Canadian living here who seems to have good consideration for minimizing impact on the local people.
But back to the changes: today I visited a few temples, but I forgot when I went in that I was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Normally you're expected to wear long pants and generally be covered up when visiting a temple. But they sold me a ticket (when no ticket had been required previously, heh) and didn't seem concerned with my attire. Now there are also hotels charging $50+ per night, and restaurants serving meals at western prices. None of that existed before. I don't recognize much of Luang Prabang because of the changes. Oh, and here is an even worse change -- everyone has TVs here now. And what do they tune them to? Wrestling. As in WWE or whatever the acronym is. This morning as we were having breakfast there was a TV on nearby showing wrestling, which gradually attracted a crowd of 6 guys sitting down watching it. Blech.
I did have one nice experience this afternoon. I recognized one old temple that I had visited 6 years ago. There I had spoken with a 15-year old monk for a couple of hours. I learned some things about his life; he showed me where he lived, what he was studying, etc. This afternoon I went back to the same place, and there was another young monk talking with some foreigners. So I got to see the same place, and it doesn't seem to have changed much.
Just to explain, many young boys become monks in order to continue their education. Everyone does primary school, and its seems that only boys (who become monks) do high school. Some of them also study English, but that is a separate school for which they have to pay. What do the girls do after primary school? From what I can see, they help out at home; they have stalls in the night market selling goods to foreigners, etc. It's nice to see that women are very much active in the culture though. We saw a mother and daughter painting the walls of their house, while listening to music.
As an aside, my friend Ravi invariable pronounces "cafe" to rhyme with "safe". At first I didn't know what he was talking about when he would say cafe. So finally I realized and told him. And he persisted in pronouncing it that way, despite me teasing him. Huh. I guess it becomes ingrained.
But my main thought was again how much Laos has changed in 6 years. When I came back then, Laos had only been open to tourists for (I think) 2 years. It was my favourite place because it seemed so peaceful and untouched. Wow -- I can barely recognize it now. Partly that's because in our group of 4 people we have restricted ourselves more to the touristed areas. That's one reason that I'm glad I will be leaving tomorrow for a 3-day trek to more remote areas. I will be seeing Hmong and Kamu villages that haven't been visited much before... through a company started by a Canadian living here who seems to have good consideration for minimizing impact on the local people.
But back to the changes: today I visited a few temples, but I forgot when I went in that I was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Normally you're expected to wear long pants and generally be covered up when visiting a temple. But they sold me a ticket (when no ticket had been required previously, heh) and didn't seem concerned with my attire. Now there are also hotels charging $50+ per night, and restaurants serving meals at western prices. None of that existed before. I don't recognize much of Luang Prabang because of the changes. Oh, and here is an even worse change -- everyone has TVs here now. And what do they tune them to? Wrestling. As in WWE or whatever the acronym is. This morning as we were having breakfast there was a TV on nearby showing wrestling, which gradually attracted a crowd of 6 guys sitting down watching it. Blech.
I did have one nice experience this afternoon. I recognized one old temple that I had visited 6 years ago. There I had spoken with a 15-year old monk for a couple of hours. I learned some things about his life; he showed me where he lived, what he was studying, etc. This afternoon I went back to the same place, and there was another young monk talking with some foreigners. So I got to see the same place, and it doesn't seem to have changed much.
Just to explain, many young boys become monks in order to continue their education. Everyone does primary school, and its seems that only boys (who become monks) do high school. Some of them also study English, but that is a separate school for which they have to pay. What do the girls do after primary school? From what I can see, they help out at home; they have stalls in the night market selling goods to foreigners, etc. It's nice to see that women are very much active in the culture though. We saw a mother and daughter painting the walls of their house, while listening to music.