one night,

in a monastery, in laos...

it's about 9.30pm, patrick and i are sitting on the steps of our 'bedroom' for the night.
we're in the grounds of a bhuddist temple about 90km north of vientienne, the capital of laos. i'm on a few days break from my work in vietnam and pat is on his way home from his two months with gvn.

how we got here is a result of our shared lack of any ability to make a proper plan and sheer luck. we've just spent the last hour and a half in the common room of the monks house sharing coffee and conversation with the visiting lao-born-france-dwelling monk.

earlier that evening we stopped across the road to watch a stunning sunset along the river. it just so happened that there was a temple across the road and we went in to have a look around, as we had done a few times during the day. it just so happened that gilbert, the french speaking monk, was visiting for a few days and it just so happened that pat speaks very good french. (i haven't spoken french in about seven years at this stage so even though i understood almost all of the conversations i said little, which in it's own way was quite nice.) somehow, through a misunderstanding as much as anything i think, we are invited to stay the night at the temple.
pat looks at me, did you get that? do you want to stay? the sun has set, we're a good two hours out of the city, i'm driving and we've just been invited to spend the night at a temple, do i want to stay?! this is the kind of experience you could never buy at any overpriced tour agent, the kind of thing you could never plan. and even though the monk tells us he doesn't think they have any moquito nets i'm not going anywhere.

well we did go, to the next village to buy some cigarettes by way of token of appreciation to the monks. we also bought them a pack of cards, not sure what they've done with them, i wonder if they play cards at all? it seemed better than washing powder or soap at the time anyway.

so here we are, sitting on the porch of one of the outbuildings. the monks are chatting upstairs in the house, we can see them, they can see us. our beds, two mats and two very square pillows under one of those cake cover mosquito nets, are behind us on the tiles. the porch is fronted by two roller shutters but the gables are only half walls. we're neither inside nor outside. we're sharing scotch out of a plastic bottle and the moment. the monks disappear and leave us in the quiet of the night. there's a sense of peace and contentment around that i could never describe or explain. no photograph could capture it, but it's there.

we decide it's time to hit the hay, we pull down the shutter, i'm not sure why but it seems like we should. i lie down to sleep shoeless and clothed, hot and happy.
i can't say i slept much though. cats, insects, goats, cars and motobikes are the stuff of the night in the middle of nowhere, laos. i can't say i really minded though, it was part of the whole experience.

then the drums started. 4am, the temple nearest this one. it's a particular rhythm and it's lovely to listen to. but then at 4.30 they started in the temple we were in. i didn't realise it was so loud! of course it's loud, it's supposed to call to all the people, land animals and fish for miles. but i didn't realise how loud that had to be!
there's a drum and a one stringed instrument which is thwanged at particular intervals. in the black of the night, with the reverberations all around it felt almost ominous, the soundtrack to a scary movie.

after that i slept again for another hour or two and woke to daylight. the monks were moving around so i got up. pat was still asleep, one of the best sleeps he's had in years apparently! the monks were in the temple having breakfast.
in the cities they have morning alms where the monks parade around the town and people give them food. in the country the food comes to the monks. the women from the local village carry bowls of fish, vegetables, rice and eggs and eat with the monks in the temple.
pat woke up and we were invited by gilbert to join them. it was delicious. i couldn't eat the fish and gilbert enquired as to my hesitance to eat but pat explained i was allergic and he pointed out all the 'non poissons', even going to get me more eggs. all the while gilbert is smoking, this morning it's a cigar. he explained to us the night before that there isn't really very much for a monk to do once the prayers are done and the novices take care of the grounds so they just mostly sit around smoking. what a life!

while we ate, a woman in her thirties sang. she was dressed in jeans, a vest top and camouflage shirt. she had a beautiful face, the voice of an angel and a crew cut with chunks of hair missing. she was smoking too. and burning bits of paper and fake money in a saucer (a bhuddist tradition) all the while she's singing sort of sean nos style lamentations. gilbert explains to us that she's crazy and gets a cup of water to put out the fire. i wonder how she came to be 'crazy'. was she born like that? did something happen to her? i wonder where her place is in this world? she is tolerated in the temple but i doubt she gets any help. maybe she doesn't need it. but the bald patches on her scalp remind me of a girl in our spc centre in quang ngai and it's obvious she's not happy.

after breakfast gilbert shakes pat's hand and we leave. monks are not allowed to touch women. gilbert was married but became a monk after his wife died. he has a son and i think i remember him saying a daughter too. i don't know if they're allowed to touch female family members. it was facinating listening to him tell us about life as a monk. how the core values are the same but the rules differ from region to region. how his life in france is much different to that of his lao counterparts. it seems a funny picture when i imagine him on the streets of his town in northern france with a jumper on under his bright orange robes.