In July I went to Laos and visited coworkers there and the businesses they run in partnership with Laos owners - a language school, a handicraft project and a silk farm. I really enjoyed visiting Laos, because they used to be colonized by France, they have great bread and European restaurants and coffee shops, as well as great coffee and cheese ( a large price to pay for being colonized, I know!). Although Vientiane is only about 1 1/2 hours from my home, it seems worlds away. The Lao language is similar to Thai, so I can understand it for the most part and people can understand me. By the end of the week I was speaking some Lao, especially the endings, question words, common phrases and greetings. The fun thing is, that is also spoken here out in the villages of the northeast of Thailand, and is called the Isaan language. So, since I've returned, I've slipped into speaking Lao more with my neighbors, and they think it's a lot of fun. It's harder to learn here, because everyone around me will speak central Thai to me, and a mix of the languages to each other. In Lao, I just heard it all the time and it was much easier to figure out.
The Coffee was great!
There is a lot of history in Laos, old temples and chedis like this one..
Night life in Vientiane can revolve around this "Arc de Triumph" type monument, in a park central to the city where people gather at night to exercise and eat. (Sorry it's a blurry picture).
There are MANY unexploded bombs remaining in Laos, it's tragic, still causing deaths and lost limbs each year of many people, especially farmers and children. It's frustrating because it's not only killinhg people, but preventing people from using land because of the fear and reality of these unexploded devices. Generally, the poor are the ones who suffer most, getting killed by discovering these devices while farming, and also being kept in poverty by not being able to use large sections of land for farming out in the villages. There are organizations working to remove these unexploded devices. Here is one that simply was unearthed in an area up north by a famous tourist site, the Plain of Jars (those with me told me this one wouldn't explode, it was sort of there for the tourists to see).
Up North in Phonsavan, I visited the Plain of Jars, which is a huge plain full of, well, large jars. They are over 3000 years old and are thought to have been used for burial, or to store Lao wine. It was a beautiful place to visit, somewhere I had wanted to go to when I last lived in Thailand. So thankful for theo opportunity!
There were clearly marked placards, telling us which way to go to avoid the unexploded bombs.
Here is the process of spinning the threads from the cocoons into finer silk threads
Natural dyes are used, including saliva from insects, certain leaves, berries and barks. Here the thread is being dyed indigo, one of the colors that is dyed in cold water, not by boiling.
Here's freshly dyed red silk threads, hanging out to dry and set.
The farm employes women to weave on site, and it's amazing to watch the work that goes into some of the intricate patterns that are woven, often the texture that is put into the cloth by the weaving style is much more complicated than merely weaving with different colored thread. I'll never complain at the seemingly high prices of handmade silk scarves again! So much work goes into the product....and the women at the farm are paid well for their labor.
