20
November 2016
The
second temple we visited also was built and taken care of by the villagers. In
the history of Laos, there had been some trouble with China and some Chinese
soldiers had drawn pictures of Chinese soldiers on the walls of this temple.
Apparently this was what stopped the Chinese army from destroying this temple.
We were
supposed to turn back around but I saw a Buddhist monk walking straight ahead
and I asked our guide where he was going and he said there was another temple
in a cave nearby. So of course we went to the cave temple! This temple is in a
100m deep limestone cave called Tham Sakkarin Savannakuha. Many Buddha images
from temples that have been torched or otherwise fallen into decay are kept
here. It was really dark inside and we had to use torch lights, and parts were
slippery too. I love caves.
On the
way back to the main road we passed a group of tourists and Silvia had an altercation
with them and when I asked her what happened, she said that one of them had
said in Czech, “here comes the black lady” or something like that, which was
referring no doubt to me. Me! All I did was to peacefully walk along the path,
minding my own business and contemplating the life of a Buddhist monk this side
of the Mekong river. Not necessary for such remarks. Racism is unfortunately
very much alive. I’m on holiday so karma can deal with him.
The tuk
tuk was waiting for us at the main road, and then we had a very bumpy ride
mostly uphill, about 15 km to a Khmu village. Khmu is one of the minority group
in Laos. They have their own language but are taught Lao in schools. They are
animistic. It was a really small village and I suspect everyone knew each other
here. It was a Sunday so children were just running riot playing all sorts of
outdoor games. No tv, video games, handphones. They should enjoy it all while
they still can.
For
lunch we had vegetable and duck soup with sticky rice. I thought the duck was
not cooked properly; it was too hard for me so I didn’t finish it. Plus it felt
a bit wrong eating duck when I just played with some ducklings earlier.
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