tithes, tits and phousi

Good news: Internet here costs 1.5 cents a minute, so about 90 cents and hour.
bad news: It's SLLLOOOOWWWW.........

Last night in Luang Prabang. Sigh. Just had a foot massage...aaahhh.....

Got up at 6am to feed the monks. I was a bit nervous about it as I didn't want to do anything insulting or wrong, ettiquette wise, but it seemed fairly simple. The hotel provided us sticky rice and so we went down to the street with our baskets of sticky rice and waited for the monks. WE were accosted by the "alms vendors", these women who sell the stuff to give the monks to falang like us. There was no way we could say no. AT first I thought they were just being nice, showing us where to sit, etc., but then they gave us extra food...and I knew they snared us. If you have ever been in a country with touts and street people, you know the feeling...they have you before you know what's what. Anyhow, they gave us extra bananas and some wierd candy to give the monks as well, since we already had rice. And gave us a mat to sit on. (I found out later that the monks don't appreciate this food, as it is considered taking the easy way out, but how the hell would I know that? And we did bring our own rice! Really! It's just we got accosted by those touts and they took over!)

WE waited for the monks to arrive, and boy did they...they lined up over 100 of them. They started walking by and we would grab little gobs of very HOT sticky rice and put it in their food bowls. It was kind of hard work because they were going FAST and the monks are not allowed to talk to us, so it also felt a little rushed and thankless. Here we are giving them their daily food and they can't acknowledge us at all? What was strange was before all this, there were some monks waiting to get going, young boys of about 16, and they talked and laughed with us, but the minute the food thing started, it was all serious faces and no talky. Almost dirty looks even. The old monks were not nice at all.....but I am wondering if they saw the stuff provided by the touts and dismissed us as taking the easy way out. WE promise we didn't.

Tourists were massed up and taking pictures. I feel a bit sorry for them, they wanted local culture and instead got a bunch of white women interfering in their quaint local ceremony. I guess I will be in Gunter's photo album. Wish i had worn makeup.

Anyhow , we finished our rice (we gave bigger gobs than the local women, cuz seriously, who wants to sit on their knees for an hour giving three grains of rice at a time?) and managed to get some pics ourselves.

AFter the feeding, we crashed for a bit, then went to the waterfall outside of town. We hired a driver to take us there. It was gorgeous, turquoise pools of water, rocks, swimming ponds, cool cool water. Colleen has bad knees and so is not much of a hiker, but I wandered around some in the woods and took some pics of the different pools and the large white people floating around in them. Boobs boobs everywhere. White people just look so large and squishy compared to the lithe, lean people here.

AFter the falls we checked out a Hmong village. Well, our driver sort of dragged us there. It has unfortunately become a sordid tourist trap, with dirty children being trained to make the foreigners feel as guilty as possible if they don't buy the bracelets the kids offer up in their grubby little hands. Kids no older than two or three, shouting prices at us, "Buy Buy! 10000kip! Ok,ok 5000!"! The parents should not do that to their kids. If felt very calculated and very uncomfortable. I think they all had much nicer houses at the very back of the village and saved the huts for the front. Sorry to sound cynical, but we met up with some other folks and we all felt the same.

Anyhow, back to town after that, and to a small lunch where I tried the BeerLao dark, which was actually quite good. Crisp, dark amber ale, a bit malty, yummy. Not bad for 75cents. I like it better than the lager.

I had a giggle when I learned how to pronounce "Phousi". There is a Phousi Hotel, a Phousi Restaurant, a Phousy Market and....Phousi Massage. Go ahead, you know how it's pronounced, don't you? Leave out the "h".

Yeah. Good town for Phousi. I could use a Phousi massage about now. Luckily Rich comes to Bangkok tomorrow.....