Personal note to self, day 10 is December 3rd. It’s Adem’s birthday, happy birthday Adem, hope you have a great day. Also my nephew Will’s birthday, happy birthday Will, see you soon.
Straight after breakfast (full English with all the trimmings, oh hang on, it was omlette) we left shortly after 9 to go visit Big Brother Mouse. This time is was open and we were beckoned straight in, the young folks eager to capture someone to work with. I sat to work with a young man who proudly informed me he was a monk, and he went off to find a book. I also found out he was 19 and had one brother and two sisters. His spoken English wasn’t brilliant, but he had a pretty good idea of how to read, though when I corrected his pronunciation of some words he questioned me, and I realised quickly that our language makes little sense sometimes. Also the book he had chosen about Greek history did have a rather high number of awkward words in it. I wasn’t sure he understood what some of the words meant so I did a fair bit of miming and explaining. After around an hour my young chap said he had to go and was quickly off. Meanwhile, Mrs Tom had been reading and conversing with a couple of other young chaps before mine had departed, and as I turned to join in she had began with a third who had just come in from school. He was 21 and was in his second year of studying English so his spoken was pretty good. He asked us to explain some words from his exercise book and showed us the work be had been up to. Some pages he had missed because the guest house he works in was busy that day so he didn’t go in to school. He had been a monk already for 3 years but wasn’t any longer, and had once been swept off his feet by an Australian girl who had taken him travelling around Laos and he spoke of her with great affection. Poor lad was a bit besotted. To cheer him up I told him there was an Australian girl who worked in the Tamarind restaurant and maybe she would be just as nice, so I think he might give her a go next. He walked back with us to our guest house and then hopped on his bike and went off to work. It was a great experience being in there with the young people trying to learn English and helping them to do better. Thoroughly recommended.
After Big Brother Mouse we packed up as this was our last day in Luang Prabang and indeed Laos. After packing we dumped our stuff in one of the assigned day rooms and went for a walk along the riverside. We were actually looking for the point where the Mekong meets the Nam Khan as I wanted some pictures, but we walked in completely the wrong direction. Not to be put off we looped back along the main street where we saw Steven, Summer and Darren parked up outside the Joma cafe. We joined them for 20 minutes or so then set off for the riverside again, this time the right way. We quickly found it, but I was also looking for an old bridge built in the communist days, but failed to find it.
Having ran out of time to find the bridge we got back to the hotel bang on leaving time and found everyone else just picking up their things from the day room. En route to the airport we stopped by the Ethanology centre where a guide talked us around a recently opened museum of Lao ethanology. We saw clothes for different groups of people and what sort of places they lived in and courting customs, all very interesting stuff. The Lao people have different ways of classifying themselves, including where they live, the dialect, the religion, ancestry. The different groups often also have different customs and different clothing.
After the Ethanology centre we continued on to the airport and boarded the plane to Hanoi. Unusually for a short flight (approx one hour) we were given something to eat: a couple of ham and cheese rolls, a little donut and some fruit. A fairly uneventful flight all in all.
The transfer to the hotel was much more interesting. Rafaele has a very thorough knowledge of Vietnamese history, and he shared much of this with us on the transfer. For one thing, there is no Vietnam war here, it is called the American war – they wern’t at war with themselves. He must have talked for 20 minutes at least telling stories of how Vietnam came to be were it is today, stretching back a few hundred years. Vietnam has a very interesting history an one which I did not know much about, so I was glad of the lesson.
One thing that is immediately obvious when you get here is the big difference in the numbers of people and how much faster the pace is here. Vietnam is marginally larger than Laos, but Laos’ total population is around 6 million whereas Vietnam is more like 89 million. As a result things are busy and loud. Apparenty there are 40 million motorbikes here too, the primary method for people to get around. Crossing the street is an experience in itself.
We get some practice in crossing the street as we go out for dinner to a place Rafa has booked us in for around 8:15. Around a 15 minute walk we all managed to arrive at the restaurant with only minor injuries and one fatality to speak of. We sit on the roof terrace which is covered and sit cross legged on the floor at a traditional style low table. The food is great and once we’ve paid up however many million dong it is we get a taxi back to the hotel as Rafa goes off out somewhere. We were hoping to be able to find somewhere to have a drink and possibly even buy some supplies for tomorrow’s overnight boat trip, but unless we wanted to go to a karaoke bar we were out of luck. Steven had also scared us off karaoke bars as he’s been reading about “special” ones in his book about China. So, sober, we trundle off to bed having been in a bit of a party mood, though not before checking out Summer’s room as she was keen to share the apparent smell with us. There was no smell, she’s mental.