Ceremony's and Relaxation

It had been a busy day, and we were tired coming back to Houay An, Tee's village. When we arrived after dark to the bemused looks of the local, Tee's wife wa already starting to cut the white string they use for the Basi Ceremony. This is a ceremony used to celebrate happy occassions and also to provide thanks and goodluck. This was my forth such ceremony, but it was my mum's first and so I made sure I didn't tell her what was going on. After a while we were invited into the livining room where about 15 or so people had arrived to participate in the ceremony, that after four times I have still not been able to record the chanting that occurs during the ceremony. The ceremony concludes with the placing of strings by each person on the wrist of the guests and those that brought them here (i.e. Tee), and then eating of chicken and the drinking of Lao-Lao before starting the main meal. AFter dinner we were given an extra special treat of Khmu whisky which is drunk using a strw directly out of the clay pot it is fermented in. Mum wasn't all to impressed with the Lao=Lao and whisky, but then again most of the Lao women don't like it either.

Anyway after all this alchohol and a long day, we went to bed reasonably early and looking forward to a more relaxing day.

Waking in the morning to the sound of roosters (to be honest they never stopped all night) we had breakfast (stewed bird, whole, and sticky rice). Before we headed off however we had one thing to do, and that was to deliver some of the things we bought to the School in Houay An. Waited for the teachers to arrive and then in a very short inconspiquous ceremony we handed over book and pens, balls and a net to the Teacher who accepted the gifts greatly with many thank you's. As we left the school we could see the urgency as the school books were immediately distributed amongst the children and at the first play time the new net went up immediatelywith eagerness and care, ensuring exactly the right tension, they started to play with more skill than I could ever have.

Getting our things together we quietly headed off to the Elephant Park and Tad Sae waterfall meeting some other dutch tourists heading the other as we crossed the river. Tee drove us to the Elephant part were due to that fact that he worked there prviously was able to arrange a special deal for us with a short elephant ride and washing in the river. I hopped on to my Elephant with relative ease as I had done it before, howeer Mum needed to use a raised platform to get on. as we walked toward the river and down the embankment mum wasn't all that impressed and looked like she
would rather be somewhere else. You don't realise how high an elephant is until you are on one. But once we were in the river and falling off didn't seem so problematice, we both had a good time cleaning the elephants. They Particularly like a good scrub behind the ears, where they can't easily get to. Just like your own household pet.

After cleaning the animals for about 15min we headed back to the park, were we sat and had a drink while waiting for the boat ride to the Tad Sae waterfalls. The boat trip was nice, with the occasional water snake swimming passed and many butterflies flying around with the occasional Laotian fishing near the banks of the river. We arrived at the aterfall which has a bit the feel of an expat enclave, as the mingle around the many cascading pools where you can swim and dive or just pose. The watr was a little cold so after about 20min in the water we got out to have lunch. Climbing stairs that was almost a ladder we sat in the restaurant and order beer and food. The beer came, the food did not, and when it was time to leave, it turnedout our order had got lost. So we cancelled and left still hungry. Arriving back at the Elephant park Tee was there to meet us after completing some work in Luang Prabang. As we were still hungry we stopped at a road side restaurant for some noodle soup. Were a friend of Tee's dropped by and asked for a lift to the city and to try out my Ipod. With lunch finally out of the way we headed back into Luang Prabang by purchase a few extra thing after taking stock the day before.

We again arrived back in Tee's village. Houay An, after dark and had to wait for someone to come from the village to take us over. This time the evening was quiet and after dinner I talked with Tee about the delivery of the materials to the other schools and negotiated a rate of pay for him. He will deliver the remaining items to the schools when he finishes three weeks of bicycle tour work he already had lined up. He will hopefully take fotos and send them to me. The following morning he would leave at 6:30am so we said out goodbye's and went to bed.

In the morning, Tee, knocked on the door to say thank you and good bye one more time before he left and we stumbled out of bed an hour later for breakfast. At around 9am Tee wife and mother in law accompanied us across the river to the main road and joined us for the Tuk-Tul drive into the city. After sorting out some remaining financial matters we said our last goodbye's and went to find a guest house for the night.