Christmas Day in Luang Prabang

It currently gets light about 6.30 am here; so that is when I emerge from my bed and put the kettle on for the first of several pre breakfast cups of Lao coffee.The Monks will have been down the end of the road on their alms walk in the dark, about 6.15, their  impending arrival announced by the temple drum, and their departure by a short chant of thanks for alms received. It is very cold here now in the mornings; those of you who have been here in the winter will believe it, those of you who have not, will not. Unusually today we had a little rain shower about 5.30am. In fact it never really got hot today.

The families up the hillside start their day as soon as it gets light with several visits to the well to collect water and later to wash their clothes. It is a task for whole families with even small children carrying a couple of plastic containers of a litre or two, and it will be repeated this evening. It makes for a hard life, and the disparity of wealth here is not a great advertisement for 'communism'.

Christmas Days here are always a little different to those back home...no Queens Speech or Only Fools and Horses re-run of course.
Last year was spent at a small and remote Khmu village celebrating their New Year, the year before at the waterfalls, the year prior in an aircraft and the year before that visiting a school. (Unless I have got those last 2 the wrong way round).
Breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon bread, and more coffee was followed by my first meeting of the day at 8am when the Project Manager for our School dropped by to discuss arrangements for later in the day (see below). We also took the opportunity to exchange Christmas presents.
I do not have a washing machine and so apart from large items which I send send out to a laundry I wash everything by hand..usually in cold water; a daily task from which Christmas Day is not exempted.   Several texts arrived on my phone wishing me a happy Christmas,  not all of them signed, so a rather low key response was sometimes  in order, not being quite sure to whom I was replying.

 After the daily chore of the laundry I got myself ready to go out visiting friends and leave Christmas presents. Wrapping presents here is quite a chore. Decent paper seems hard to find and the Chinese sellotape sticks to nothing but itself, so some presents were stuck down with metres of sellotape and then tied up with wool....yes, they did look a mess; but then wrapping parcels was never my strong suit.Christmas cards were less  of a problem since I had a stock of them left left by a friend who stayed last Christmas. Oh, and I do have a Christmas Tree; albeit not a natural one, but lights here are cheap and plentiful.

After a morning spent avoiding invitations to drink beer and LaoLao I moved onto to lunch with friends at their restaurant. It was quite a large affair with about 12 of us, friends, family and staff. Paul had cooked pork loin with a huge range of vegetables, followed by his famous trifle. (He insists it is not a trifle but a 'parfait'....it's astonishing how pretentious Australians can be under that rugged veneer!  I mean, it looks like trifle, it tastes like trifle and in my book it IS trifle...very good it is too). Pretentious chefs aside, it was an excellent meal spent in good company; just how Christmas lunch ought to be, whichever  side of the globe you might be.

 The slight downside was that I had to slightly moderate my alcohol consumption, which as those who know me well is a task not easily undertaken successfully. The reason for this was that in the late afternoon we held a ceremony for the laying of the foundation of the new LEOT school and I seemed to be the host and MC. Since it was primarily a religious occasion I felt that I should not be too inebriated. In fact I cannot recall  playing any significant role in a religious event since my voice broke and I left the Church Choir, never to return.I was a little surprised to be phoned mid morning and asked for my age, which apparently had some bearing on the day's events, though quite what, I am not sure.

The actual event involved the blessing of a central pillar of the building by monks...this is known as the 'spirit column'. There are, at a  cursory glance at the plans, 35 columns so we had to take proper religious advice as to which was deemed to be the right one.

 I was also advised that we should bury some coins with the column. Laos does not have any coinage, only paper money, and I was able to find some US, Canadian, Australian,and Thai money...but whoops, I did not have any UK coins. Happily the aforementioned pretentious chef was able to find me a 10p piece, so all was well.

We bought the land some months ago. When I say 'bought', we had to arrange a purchase and leaseback for a peppercorn rent using a third party since foreigners are not allowed to own freehold property. Back in the rainy season it looked like this.

but by last week it was looking like this..which you might not feel represents a great environmental improvement, but building sites are rarely things of great beauty, Stonehenge excepted, of               course. However, by yesterday it looked like this                                                                                

occasions, Lao parties are like the  Hotel California.....'you can checkout any time  you like but you can                                                    never leave'.                                                                                                    '.                                           '                                                                     

Letters from Laos will be resumed in January, all being well. Wishing you all a great new year,         whether it is Hmong, Kmu or what is known here as 'Happy New Year'       

ALAN