Sunday, November 12
Another early morning today as we left at 5:30 am for the offering of food to the Buddhist monks. I had no idea what to expect. I thought we would stand on the street and give them a packet of sticky rice. Instead, we had a basket of sticky rice and had to take our shoes off before we sat on plastic chairs. When the monks came by, they walked close to us and we put some of the sticky rice into the offering bowl they opened to us. The monks share what they get as people may put different things in the dish. As they opened the dish, I saw candy bars and money as well as sticky rice. There was a local near us and she had some additional food tied up that she was going to provide. We didn’t wait for all 3,000 monks to walk by and left after about 50. They come in groups of about 10 or 15. Not sure how they decide who goes when.
After leaving, we headed over to a morning market. Very different from last nights as it had food items.
It was then back to the hotel to get ready to leave Laos. Before going to the airport, We went to a family’s house for the Baci ceremony, which is done for good luck and to provide protection. It was very interesting. The head of the household chants and then each member of the family came to us on their knees and tied cotton strings to each of our wrists as they said good wishes. We were supposed to keep the strings on for 3 days, but I didn’t make it past one day as they were pretty itchy.
Off to the airport we then went for the last flight until I head home. Once we got to Bangkok and were transferred to our hotel, we had the rest of the evening to ourselves. Since the hotel is right on the river, I decided to sit for awhile at the outside lounge chatting with some of my co-travelers. They say Bangkok is the Venice of Asia and I can see why as there were many party boats and boats providing transportation along the river.
Photos
Additional photos coming