Savannakhet

Savannakhet is a delightful place. It was founded in 1642 and during the French colonial period developed as a centre of administration and commerce in southern Laos. John felt at home there with its domestic scale buildings, leafy green streets and the old French colonial houses, some set in large open spaces. In fact he is wandering the streets right now, taking pictures and sketching...

We have been here for the last 5 days. Ueli, a Swiss man we met at our guesthouse inspired us to go on a 2 day trek organised by the Savannakhet Ecoguide Unit, whose goals atre "to contribute to poverty reduction and nature conservation".

So, early on Friday, we left our tandem in the friendly Provincial Tourism Office and set off with our guide, Sinatcom (we were allowed to call her by her nickname Nid later on), and after a long and cold ride on a tuk-tuk met our other guide, Sawda. We walked through Dong Natad forest, a mature forest with beautiful tall trees (the first we have seen in Laos), Sawda stopping from time to time to invite us to taste different leaves and berries, some delicious, others very strange, or show us how villagers collect oil from the Niang trees for lighting. However, we declined trying to taste ants (apparently they use them as condiment in cooking, formic acid giving a pleasant lemony taste to food). Sawda then told us the story of the sacred Nong Lom Lake while we sat and ate a Lao snack by its calm waters. However, apart from a small chameleon like little lizard and a bat we didn't see much wildlife. Sawda kept asking to borrow John's binoculars to look at aeroplanes and when we did hear birds and asked him what they were, the answer was always "sparrows"!

After another 15km through varied terrain and occasionally meeting fishermen, farmers or charcoal makers we arrived at the village of Ban Phonsim. By that time we were ravenous and quite tired. Our host, Mr Sounthong spoke perfect French and because he was born the same year as John, was delighted to call John "his friend". The mystery of why everybody in Asia seems to ask your age was revealed! Apparently you don't address people by their name but by the age relationship to you: if you are both born in the same year you are "friends", slight difference in years you are "brother" or "sister", "father " and "mother" are used if one of you could be the other's mother or father, and "uncle" or "aunt" if slightly younger than "father' or "mother". Now we understand! When in another village we were asked to present ourselves in Lao (taught by Nid), the villagers were especially delighted when we added how old we were, as this made it easier for them to address us "properly".

We really enjoyed our stay with Mr Sounthong and his family (he has 7 children and 14 grand-children!). They put on a Baci ceremony for us, where several bands of cotton were tied around our wrists by the many people present, while many blessings were wished for us - it was very moving, and coooked us delicious food. When bedtime came, Nid and Nicole slept under one mosquito net and John under another (which was quite fortunate as he had to get up 5 times to go to the loo - downstairs and across the street! - in the night). Apparently men and women, even married, are not allowed to sleep under the same mosquito net! So now we have another mystery to solve: how are so many children born?

The following day, we went to the Wat with Mr S and Nid and took our offerings of food to present to the monks. It was a "Buddha Day" (happens each quarter cycle of the moon) so many villagers (if not all) were present. After breakfast Mr S took us around the village and we saw many of the village crafts: weaving cotton, rush matting, coconut matting for roofs, bamboo fencing and indigo dying. We were then invited by a widow to a ceremony at her house in memory of a husband who died 3 years ago. The whole village was there. The women sat separately under a sun awning, eating what was a shared lunch. The men sat at tables in the sun drinking rounds of lao-lao. There weren't many long faces! It seemed an excuse to drink as many rounds as possible to the dead man. You did this by half drinking the glass offered and then pouring the remainder on the ground for the dead spirit. We were offered quite a few glasses which would have been rude to refuse!

The rest of the day was spent walking through rice paddies and lovely bamboo plantations, stopping on the way to pay respect to the ruins of Muang Kao, the site of the old city of Savannakhet. After saying our goodbyes to Mr S and his family Nid took us to That Inghang, built in 500 AD by King Sumitha Thammavongsa, a most sacred stupa containing relics of the Buddha and the venue for important Buddhist rites.

After spending 2 days with Nid we were very sad saying good-bye.