Selamat Hari Guru!

Last week, I got sucked into Teachers' Day at one of my schools - I popped in to visit one of my mentees, and she suddenly recalled that there were to be no lessons that day. Oops. Oh well, a day of games and makan-makan (eating) it was, then. Life is hard.

I was immediately dragged onto the quad to take part in Coconut Bowling, which is, as you may guess, bowling a coconut at ten plastic bottles - a marvellous and eco-friendly version which I am definitely taking back to Africa for future family gatherings. As soon as I walked out, children flooded the quad from all over the school, bearing cameras, and I was terrified of accidentally killing somebody with my poor aim! The problem, actually, honestly, is not my aim (honest) but the shape of the coconut - it's like a built-in probability-quantum-thingy. With all the little knobs and bumps on it, you can aim all you like, but it (almost) entirely depends on how the coconut falls, and at what angle. I didn't do too badly - got 5 bottles over three throws - which was apparently enough to put me among the top few teachers, so thank goodness. Once all the children had taken an acceptable amount of photos of the orang putih chucking a coconut about (and not, thankfully, committing any unintentional manslaughter), they disappeared back to their mysterious preparations, and my mentee demanded her own photo of me taking one final (and illegal) turn.

Once all the teachers had taken part and had their score recorded by one of the Year 6 pupils, we moved into the open-air hall (you can see it behind me in the photo above), where the kids demonstrated their amazing skills in planning, organising and executing a whole ceremony to honour their teachers.

Although they didn't do all  the work... We were all called up to sing the national Malaysian Teachers' Song - I did my best, reading off my neighbour's song sheet, but fear I did worse than I would have had I known the tune. Or any of the words. Nonetheless... The kids all watched and clapped and took photos.

Then it was cake-cutting time; as is becoming usual in my life, I was asked to have the honour of making the first cut. I managed to persuade them to let me do it with the headmaster.

After cake-cutting, the students awarded certificates and presents to each teacher - awards like Smartest Teacher, or Most Easygoing Teacher, or even Cutest Teacher (she was...)

And then there was the gift-giving, when each teacher gave a present to another. Of course, I hadn't been warned, and had no gift to give, but the ever-generous teachers magically found one for me, leaving me embarrassingly short-handed - but next year I am determined to always carry around a store of little presents that I can pull out suddenly when the occasion demands it, earning myself title of Most Prepared Teacher (Orang Putih Division).

And then, finally, it was time for makan-makan, which is an essential part of any gathering/ceremony/awards-giving/celebration/party/first day of school/last day of school/day the orang putih attends our school/any old day... I love it, I have to admit, now that my teachers have gotten used to my vegetarianism. I always get mothered, with teachers asking me if I'm on a diet when my plate is only half full of rice - "Why not proper portion Emily? You don't like rice?" - invariably leading to a discussion on Africa's staple food, and expressions of sympathy that it's not rice. Makan-makan is not just eating, for Malaysians, it is a part of the culture, a part of their innate hospitality, their desire to take care of you. In that respect, there is a strong link between them and the people of Zimbabwe, making me feel more at home in this strange place!

Singapore

Singapore's a rather remarkable place. Once a part of Malaysia, it's quite different in outlook and focus. I live with a Singaporean in Sabah, and he's always going on about how Singapore has vanquished poverty and everyone owns a home and everybody's happy and fulfilled - why can't Malaysia do the same? What's wrong with the people? But Singapore has 3.25 million citizens - it's not so easy with Malaysia's 28.3 million. 

And Singapore is tiny. Their army runway is a major highway - the pots of plants in the middle get whisked off, and hey presto, you have a landing strip in case of war. Everything rises upwards, too - people live in towering blocks of miniature flats, laundry hung on long sticks out the window; business addresses are often something like Room 925, 89th Floor, Block H, Blah Business Park.

It's so multicultural too, Chinese Buddhist, Christian, Malay Muslim, Indian Muslim, Hindu, "non-religious" (I'm not sure that's even an option on a Malaysian census form...) Of course, each denomination has its place of worship too, so there are these amazing temple structures everywhere (yes, also soaring into the skies...)

Sri Mariamman Temple, Chinatown

Masjid Sultan, Kampong Glam

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

The Malay quarter was nearly the only place without soaring towers - just low shophouses converted into bars and stores selling organic bamboo clothing and handmade soaps, and an old cemetery.

Apart from height, my overriding sense of Singapore is of smell - incense, food (and what food - shops are selling Very Lucky Turtle Soup, and Pig Organ Stew). Everywhere I go, the scents change - from marigolds and incense in Little India, to fried food and incense in Chinatown, to car fumes in the City Centre... Actually, surprisingly, the air seems to be fairly clean in Singapore, even in the centre; a guide tells me that the bus we're on runs on natural gas, so perhaps most other cars do too.

Helix bridge, ArtScience Museum

Sometimes the didacticism gets a bit much. I mean, I know we had a Road Safety Track when I was a kid for learning about the roads, but here it's called the Road Safety Adventure Park... Walk on Left, Use Official Crossing, Clean Water: Beat Dengue... it's constant.

So is the sense of wanting to present a good front. On the bus, they go on about what a wonderful place it is: "Yes, this is a beautiful old park. Even though this is prime land, we protect our heritage. On the left is an old temple. I see you're wondering why it hasn't made way for a skyscraper yet. Well, even though this is prime land..."

But while they may be sensitive to heritage, they certainly aren't to the social gap. We pass for ten minutes through an area of obscenely wealthy properties, red Porsches sitting outside icing-cake-pink mansions. It's particularly blatant in space-desperate Singapore. Many of the houses here are smaller than my house in Zimbabwe, and were built decades ago, but because of the space, they're now worth millions of US dollars.

As I leave at the end of the day, I realise how space age Singapore can be, too: we pass through what looks like an abandoned tollbooth, but which is actually a solar-charged congestion charge point, picking up car signals as they whizz by, to add the charge to their monthly account.

All too soon, I am back at the airport for my flight home to Sabah. I'm there on time; my plane isn't: there has been flooding along the Sabahan coast, and the pilot prevented from reaching Kota Kinabalu Airport, so I sit and wait for 4 hours. If you're going to be delayed for four hours, Changi Airport is the place to do it - lots to keep one occupied, and for free. But eventually the plane arrives and I return to Sabah and to little Ranau, and because of the delayed flight, I have to set out for work immediately on arrival and there's no time to mourn the end of my long journey. 

I realise though when considering my next trip that this journey has taken almost four full pages from my passport, and I'm going to need to get a new one about six years early. So not that cheap a trip after all ;)

Wakaf Bharu to Singapore

The train to Singapore leaves at 7:20am from a little station just outside Kota Bharu, called Wakaf Bharu. It's the first time this trip that we'll be taking a day train - there are sleeper trains available on this route, but they leave and arrive in the dark, and who wants to miss out on the scenery promised by the train's nickname, The Jungle Line? Not me...

Wakaf Bharu is a fairly nondescript station. We share the platform with a lot of other people.

And also a lot of their baggage. These trolleys all belong to just one couple:

Inside, the carriage is pretty scruffy, with dirty seats and a vinyl floor that's seen better days. The windows have probably never been cleaned in their lives. It's a distant thought on the horizon from the adverts that dotted the Wakaf Bharu station - I wish I'd taken a photo of one of the posters, but I assumed I'd be seeing the real thing when I boarded. Alas, however, it's not to be: the carriage is not a gleaming spectre of transparent glass and silver steel. Oh well. It's only, what... 14 hours to go? 

The Jungle Line runs south from Wakaf Bharu, through the eastern states of Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang before entering the southern Johor state. After stopping at the main town of Johor Bahru (where this trip began), it will just be a ten-minute trip over the Causeway to the final stop in Singapore.

The Jungle Line's also known as the East Coast Line, but this is a little misleading, as its course runs quite far inland. The Jungle Line is much more apt, and although I spend the first part of the journey locked in a silent and deadly territorial war with my neighbour, I do manage to snap a couple of photos out the windows of the gorgeous scenery. 

I actually want to do this trip all over again, just to take proper photos! I'm aghast now, looking back, at how lazy I was on these trains... The open door between carriages was a mere couple of metres from my seat. Of course, the space around the open door was occupied mainly by leering men generally smoking, judging from the wind-defying haze of smoke, around ten cigarettes each at any one time. So not a particularly appealing spot to be.

But gazing out the window, there's lots to be seen, even if I don't capture it all. Gua Musang is a beautiful and terribly dramatic landscape of rock cliffs and caves, and as we pass near the National Park, there are Pied Hornbills, monkeys, and eagles to be seen.

And then it all stops, and mile upon mile of bloody oil palms whip past. Honestly, what is wrong with people? Who in their right minds exchanges primary rainforest and hornbills for ugly, spiky, inedible monoculture? Sheesh.

There are positive moments, though - like a family (a big family - there were eight cars in the carpark, and just one person got off or on the train) bidding fond farewell to their relative by singing and taking photos on the platform. 

Compared to Sabah, there's a proper mix of cultures here - Malay, Chinese, Indian; we pass Hindu temples and Chinese cemeteries as much as Malay ones, even in tiny villages. Just before Tenang, there's a temple for the safety of train workers. When we stop at the station for 30 minutes, I'm tempted to jump off, run back the 200m and take a photograph of the temple, which includes a small shrine to what looks like a brown ferret-like bear, but I'm glad I don't, because the train leaves after we've been sitting for 31 minutes, and I certainly don't want to be stranded without any luggage in this corner of Malaysia.

Some of the temples are quite grand, but a lot are just a few small three-walled rooms, each one housing a statue, Tamil inscribed above the entrance, dotting the edges of the plantations.

Some of the stations are lovely and sweet, little wooden buildings that bear similarities to traditional buildings in Sabah, but these are fast disappearing, and often as we departed a station, we passed a monstrosity of a new and shiny (and bland and ugly) building site. It will be a shame when Malaysia bulldozes the typical stations and opts for a standard globalised version of the railway, but what to do, lah?

It's a long day of travel without a nap in a sleeper to break it up, but eventually we draw into Johor Bahru's train station. Here my friend departs - she needs a pre-arranged visa for Singapore, so she flies home from here instead. I am continuing on to Singapore to complete the journey. The border formalities are simple - the train has almost emptied out, so just 4 border officials enter our carriage and check our passports to stamp us out of Malaysia.

And then we're off, slowly, out of the station and onto the 1,056-metre Causeway that separates Malaysia from Singapore.

Johor Bahru Station from the departing train

As we've moved downwards through the countries - Laos, Thailand, Malaysia - we've moved upwards through "development", each country considered more economically powerful than the last. But even down here in the south, heading for the most developed nation of all, the rules are lax, and I'm allowed to hang out of the open door trying to take a photograph of the two cities at night.

Looking back towards Johor Bahru from the Causeway

Singapore from the Causeway

So, are you ready for a looooong historical politics lesson? No, not really, but it is an interesting tale. I'll try shorten it for you. Singapore, of course, was a part of Malaysia in the mid-20th century. When it declared its independence, Malaysia apparently retained control of the beautiful, central, Art Deco Tanjong Pagar railway station. Train passengers therefore used to arrive here, and complete customs here, before entering Singapore. But in Singapore, land is precious - and besides, Malaysia, in a rather aggressive move, hung a sign out front declaring "Welcome to Malaysia." This wasn't the beginning of the tussle, more the beginning of the end. Singapore signed a new contract with Malaysia that would see the land Tanjong Pagar stood on return to the Singapore government. With me so far? Malaysia interpreted the contract differently, and decided that the land would return to Singapore, but only when Malaysia felt like vacating the station. Singapore moved their customs to the nondescript Woodlands Station. For a time, passengers entered Singapore at Woodlands, and left Malaysia at Tanjong Papar, leading to a bizarre situation of being able to physically occupy two countries at once. Then Singapore stopped all trains to Tanjong Papar. One-nil to Singapore. Malaysia had to move their immigration offices back to Johor Bahru, and the station returned to Singapore. I miss out on arriving at one of the loveliest and most historical stations in Asia by 11 months, and instead arrive at one of the blandest.

And emptiest - there isn't even an ATM or money-changer. Quite an odd place, really. I have to catch a taxi from the front, and ask him to stop at a bank so I can withdraw Singaporean dollars.

A stopover

We crossed the border at 4:30pm, and immediately found a taxi outside to take us to Kuala Besut, the estuary town where we would catch a boat to the Perhentian Islands. Our taxi driver called ahead to the ferry operator to let him know we were on our way; between them, they strung us along for almost an hour, suggesting that we would still make it to the jetty in time, but in the end we arrived at 6:30, an hour after the last boat had left.

Thus we found ourselves in Nan Hotel for the night - and the less said about that, the better. Suffice to say, expecting to awake with the sound of the sea in your ears, and instead looking out at 6:30am over a grim little street is not one of life's little pleasures.

Although our neighbours were interesting - it was a soup farm. A roosting spot for swiftlets, from whose nests Bird's Nest Soup is created. Fairly common in Malaysia - in Sabah, it's more likely to be an old cave than a house. In the peninsula, families build a double storey house and, keeping the ground floor to live in, turn the empty upper floor into a dark, safe place for birds. Well, at least safe until the nest is built - often in the haste to harvest these expensive bits of spit and mud, eggs and chicks are simply turned out onto the floor and left to die. Asia can be a hard place.

The following morning, we caught the earliest boat possible to the Perhentian Islands. There are five of them, and they have a more interesting history than present - their name means "Stopover", and they used to be a regular port of call for Chinese and Thai traders.

Now, though, the once numerous turtles are in decline, mainly due to the frequent oil spills from a nearby oil rig, and the supposedly gorgeous beaches are littered with backpackers in tiny bikinis. Actually, I think I would have preferred it if they had been the only occupants - it was the contrast between the nearly naked people and the fully clothed Muslims from the mainland that made it somehow worse. There were women swimming in full burkha, and men in Speedos, and it just didn't work!

Anyway, I think our beaches are better in Sabah.

So we had a halved stay on one of the islands; I went snorkelling a couple of times, and was lucky enough to see three black-tip sharks, which was pretty thrilling, plus a family of clownfish - I couldn't work out why they were so brown until I remembered my diving training: red is one of the first colours to disappear underwater.

The day after arriving, we were back on the boat to the mainland; we stayed overnight in Kota Bharu, the main town, and early the next morning were on our way to the railway station in Wakaf Bharu, for the final train south.

Bangkok to Sungai Kolok

Having frozen on trains from south to north and back again, shivering beneath my thin standard-issue blanket, it came as somewhat of a shock when the aircon failed. They do say you don't know what you've got...

Boarding the train at Bangkok's Hua Lamphong Station (after a few hours sheltering and dozing at the hostel we stayed in on our way north), the warm air wasn't immediately apparent, but the 50-odd passengers and sealed windows soon saw to that. At each station, the conductors gathered outside my window, the centre point of the carriage, and fiddled about with something to do with the aircon, passers-by sidling up, arms clasped behind them, sometimes offering advice, sometimes not. But the aircon stayed off.

To escape the heat a little, I walked up to the restaurant car, the border between 2nd and 3rd class. There wasn't any aircon there, either, but at least the windows opened, and the joy of being able to stick my head out and wave to the occasional Railway Child took a lot of the pain away. (In case you're starting to question my stamina, I should tell you that we passed a digital temperature display that showed 37°C. Nobody should have to sit in a sealed glass-and-metal box for hours on end when it's that warm.) I wondered why I hadn't decamped to the restaurant car (which was called Bogie Gourmet - I'm not sure whether the name was a little harsh, or a little optimistic...) earlier (but of course, earlier I had a lovely, extra wide, cool, private seat to keep me away.)

We hit a big town at 5:15pm, just after the school gates had opened. The railway crossing held back a tide of kids on scooters. There was no apparent order, just a thousand scooters pressed against the barriers, the odd intricately-painted truck rising above the sea of uniformed students. Schoolkids sat on the edge of the railway tracks smoking or eating ice cream, sometimes both, one vice in each hand, taking turns. The station was decorated with the usual painted statues and potted bougainvillea, but also old tracks recycled into benches, and sleepers into bridges over a deep ditch, leading to the stilt houses beyond. 

At Patharan, herds of marigold-garlanded elephants heralded the station, and I wished for the hundredth time that I'd had my camera on standby.

I walked to the back of the train, past First Class, and simply opened up the back door, looking out over the tracks as they whisked away into the distance.

We passed little stations without stopping; at each one, a man in starchy uniform dropped his flag as we passed and returned to his room. At most, the minute we passed, people walked onto the tracks, carrying produce or children, or in one case, a great big weapon, for who knows what use. Surely there's nothing in the scrub or the rice padi that would hold up to a metre-and-a-half metal-and-wood hatchet?

The further we got from Bangkok, the smaller the stations became, until we passed Ban Trok Khae, which was the first of many train stations that are simply tiny brick shelters with a sign - more like a run-down bus stop than anything else.

From a side door I watched the gathering sunset pick out golden stupas from the landscape, and cranes floating over waterways choked with lilies and lotus flowers. We passed a temple complex on a hill, lit up in the dusk by powerful lights, white and gold like an overwrought wedding cake. Thai people are certainly not the shy, retiring type.

. . .

In the morning, the scenery was more rural: rice padi fields and the occasional patch of bush and scrub. The karsts rose up in the distance again; it all felt quite familiar from the first trip through.

On our way to Hat Yai (around the time that my ticket said we should be arriving into Sungai Kolok), the attendant was changing seats into beds and gathering in blankets and pillows, when he started calling out in Thai, "something something something Hat Yai something." I looked about and everyone was nodding their acknowledgment, but thought, well, he's seen all us foreigners down this end, I'm sure if it's important, he'll come and try to let us know through sign language or something.

Hahaha. No, really.

Actually, I'm being a bit unfair here. He did come and check up on us. Approximately ten minutes before we reached Hat Yai, he came and looked at us worriedly for a bit. Then a neighbour took pity and translated for us: because there was no aircon or water in this carriage, we had to disembark in Hat Yai and wait for another train to come to bear us onwards to Sungai Kolok. When would this train come? Not sure, but we would get to Malaysia at about 4pm. No, 3pm. Well, maybe 4pm.

My friend and I looked at the other two foreigners in dismay - reaching Malaysia at 4 would mean missing the last ferry to the Perhentian Islands unless we were extremely lucky with transport. We asked the man if we couldn't stay on this train. Our translator explained there weren't any seats, but that he would try to find us one. We said, "We'll stand! Just please don't make us wait for another train!"

When we reached Hat Yai, the attendant came and took us and our bags to the next carriage along. He told us to wait there, but when he was gone, we thought that we might be more comfortable and have less chance of being kicked off if we were in the restaurant car. So off we went, piling our bags under the tables and sitting by the open window chatting to the other foreigners (who were at the end of a 6-month overland journey from Switzerland, so plenty to talk about).

After about an hour, during which time we hadn't moved, the attendant arrived in the restaurant car and said we could come and sit down again, so off we went again, following him to... a new carriage where all our fellow passengers were sitting. Yes, they hadn't meant "Wait for a new train", but "Wait for a new carriage." We felt a bit silly, really, for not simply getting onto the platform and waiting with the rest of them - I guess this is how tourists get a name for being difficult.

Anyway, the train finally set off again, heading into southern Thailand. We sat in our air-conditioned seats happily munching on green mango with chilli salt bought from one of the carts at the station.

Out the window, the scenery was still padi fields and small villages, the occasional rubber plantation flitting by. Wildlife too - well, mostly birdlife, really, but I did see some golden orb spiders, their bulk making them visible even from the train. Bee-eaters and kingfishers were common, and twice I saw fish eagles.

The scenery didn't change much, but the train stations did. When we reached Yala, an enormously long station, there were armed guards on the platform, and soldiers boarded our train, walking up and down the carriages talking to people for the remainder of the trip.

Thereafter, the small stations were guarded by soldiers, and were bound by well-kept metal fences, razor wire trimming the top. This being Thailand, of course, the fences weren't official grey, but were painted in bright reds, oranges and yellows.

The people changed at Yala, too - there was more of a Malay feel; women were still riding scooters, but now they were wearing tudong, the Malay headscarf. By Wat Chang Ha, mosques had become as visible as temples. The military presence grew - young Thai men in black vests and big boots, casually sporting rifles - they were set apart from locals by their paler skin, the locals being farmers and labourers.

Finally, finally, we came to Sungai Kolok, where we crossed the tracks (and by the way, I am all in favour of this method of crossing through a station - no lifts, elevators, stairs, tunnels or nasty smells in dark corners...) to the carpark to take a taxi to the border crossing, a few hundred metres away. There we left Thailand, and crossed a 50-metre No Man's Land, which spanned a small river - which, incidentally, was being crossed without any restrictions by the villagers who lived on either side :)

On the other side of the bridge, we returned to Malaysian soil.

Nong Khai to Bangkok

Now, Customs & Immigration is never much fun - certainly in Africa it is a nightmare of to-ing and fro-ing, queuing, forms, and, if you're unlucky, a bit of bribery and corruption. My abiding memory of Beitbridge on the SA-Zimbabwe border is of 8-hour waits in 45° heat. Airports are, of course, marginally better - if only because of the wait time (I think a regular 8-hour wait at Heathrow would probably bring down the government) - but train borders have got to be the best. You get off the train with about 20 other people, you wander over to a counter for your stamp, and then you get back on your train, or a new one of a different nationality. Either way, it's a matter of minutes - sometimes you don't even leave your seat.

Of course, the Law of Sod dictates that should you actually express this delight, something bad will happen. And so it was that the friend I was travelling with needed a visa for Thailand, was not a seasoned traveller, didn't think to get a multiple entry visa, and on departure from Thailand was told she couldn't re-enter the country from Laos at the train station without a pre-arranged visa. As it was a weekend and we were rushing off north to Luang Prabang, and therefore had no convenient access to the Thai embassy, I agreed for ease to forgo the train and to take a bus from Vientiane (Laos) to Nong Khai (Thailand), where we would rejoin the train to Bangkok. On our return from Luang Prabang, therefore, we made our way to the main bus station to board a rather grubby commuter bus, over-grandly named the International Thailand-Laos Express. It took 20 minutes to reach the exit point; we complete Laos formalities, then approached the Friendship Bridge where we waited for the train we should have been on to cross, before driving over - barely noticing the changeover of sides, were it not for the warning sign.

On the other side of the Mekong, we stopped again for Thai immigration, and while I waited in one queue, my friend went off to arrange her Visa On Arrival. I was back on the bus when she cam across the parking lot, with, I swear it, terror hanging above her head in a black cloud. They were refusing to let her through. Our train tickets to the southern border, proof of accommodation in Malaysia, and a two-year work visa weren't enough to convince the Thais that she'd be leaving the country, and they refused her application for a visa. Obviously another Small Man in a Small Job. I got off to try to help, but the next minute, the conductress from the bus was dumping our bags on the tarmac, shouting "No waiting for visa! Only permit! You get back on bus NOW or we leave!" The first and only unpleasant Lao I have ever met in my life (and I fear that I told her as much...) Not sure what to do, I was torn between abandoning a woman who'd never really travelled before, at a remote-ish Asian border post, and abandoning my long-planned journey - we needed to get to the train station within the next hour if we were to be in Bangkok for the next train - it was a row of shaky dominoes, and I'll admit to a slight frustration that it was in jeopardy through no fault of mine.

The un-Lao lady was still speaking in capital letters, and getting shriller by the second, when a man came up and took charge. I said "She needs to be at Nong Khai train station in one hour." He said, "No problem, see you there." I allowed myself to be bundled back onto the bus with my rucksack, and the last I saw of my friend was as the bus left the carpark: hurrying around the corner of a distant building behind a large Thai man who had already taken control of her cumbersome suitcase. That was also the moment I remembered that we'd been delayed getting to the airport that morning because she'd left her bankcard in the ATM, and now had very little cash (and no Thai baht) with her. Yes, I know - I can't believe I left her there either... But it was done, and there was nothing I could change. I got to the train station and sat down to wait.

Back at the border, my friend was told she'd need to buy a plane ticket before she'd be given a a visa. The man who'd offered to help took her to a small shop about ten metres from the customs official's desk, where a woman charged her USD10 to print out a fake ticket from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur for the next day. The official barely glanced at it, stamped her passport and turned away.

Ten minutes before the train left Nong Khai Station, my friend arrived on the platform. And the line of dominoes remained standing.

The train journey itself was rather dull in comparison - just more endless beauty, small villages, wetlands and temples. Ah, the shame.

The only downer was our restaurant attendant, who was touting for business all evening. The menu had a small notice at the bottom: "If you receive overpriced or ungentle service, please call -". I didn't call, but I was tempted at 5am when he started to pace the corridors, calling out loudly in very whiny Thai, "BREAKFAST TIME!"

Luang Prabang the Second

Luang Prabang is an odd town. Sometimes you can feel that there's nothing in it but tourists and people working for tourists. But then you wander a little, and you get off (gasp!) the Sisavangvong Road, and you stumble on a street full of Laotian boys singing karaoke...

My hotel was quite a way from the main tourist street, and the lane in front of it was occupied not by chic French cafés or backpackers wearing Phuket t-shirts, but by a couple of tiny, dark houses where the inhabitants lived towards the back of a large ground floor room and sold essentials from a glass case at the front. To buy a drink, I stood at the door and called inside "Sabaidee! Hello! Sabaidee!" for about five minutes, until the lady heard me from her bed, then came to charge me smiling for the can I already had in my hand.

While my friend did the tourist route for her first time, I simply wandered about the streets, drinking coffee, watching people, and, yes, shopping. I found one tiny shop with a cat on the doorstep and a weaver within, and couldn't resist buying my cousin's birthday present from there.

One day, I dropped into the library.I admit, my main reason was entirely selfish: I was wilting in the 32-degree heat, and there was a little cafe attached to the side of the building. But once I'd downed my cold drink, I got talking to a volunteer at the door who suggested that if I had nothing better to do, I might like to step into their back room, where at that very moment their afternoon conversation club was running. I did indeed have nothing better to do, so I let myself be guided into the room, where around 20 foreigners were chatting to Lao counterparts. I was assigned to a young monk, Phoung, which I was thrilled about. I'm not a religious person, but if I were seeking an answer to life, I think Buddhism would probably be the route I'd choose. Yet I know next to nothing about the lives of the thousands of saffron-clad men who'd populated my train window scenery since southern Thailand. 


Phoung was extremely chatty - perhaps the most driven student of English I've ever met - and so I just let him talk for the next hour about his life in the monastery. Actually a novice, he was just 16, and had come to the monastery in Luang Prabang from his rural village at just 12. So young, I though, but then I know people who went to boarding school at 5, and this seems, in many ways, quite similar to a religious school in the west. He's up at 5am for chanting, then he goes on the walk for morning alms-giving before spending time with an older monk who tutors him in religious and secular matters. Later he does chores - that morning he'd been painting the temple, and then, because it was a full moon, he'd been called to shave the abbot's hair off - he would have his own head shaved later that afternoon. After that it's lunchtime, and then he's free for 2 hours - this is the time everyday when he comes to the library to practise his English with tourists. When that's over, he returns to the temple to carry out religious duties and to wash before the evening chanting. Later in the evening there's time to attend his English course with an American volunteer before bed at 11:30. Replace the chants with mass or chapel, and it's very close to any Christian boarding school in the west. At 18, they are given the choice of taking vows and becoming full monks, or making their way into the world. Phoung wanted to be an IT technician.

After a while, we were all evicted from the library but outside I sat a little longer to chat with the librarian, Phoung and his friend, and a Swiss woman, Jutta, who recently left her job and instead of finding a new one packed up and moved to Laos, intending to start up English classes for women (boy, do I wish I was her.) She's ended up having a lot to do with the temples, though, and knew Phoung well. She invited me to visit one of the temples she works with, explaining on the way that today was a full moon. That meant shaved heads, but also some rather special drumming. We sat with a novice called Keo just outside a small pavilion on the temple grounds. Other novices came jogging up, some running hands over heads shaved moments ago. They gathered inside the pavilion and one started the beat with the huge, hanging drum. Others joined in at the sides with smaller drums and cymbals. 

The afternoon heat - even at 4pm - meant that every minute or so, sweat streaming off his head, the drumming novice would make eye contact with another novice who would take up the mallet and continue, without missing a beat. It was pretty hypnotic stuff, and before I realised it, 20 minutes had gone by and the novices were slowing down, pausing, stopping for good.

Or at least until the next special day - a full moon, half moon, new moon, old moon, time for blessing... the novice sitting with us said with a laugh, "Many festival days for Buddhists!"

Jutta and I went into the temple next, where, thanks to the full moon again, buckets of water had been brought by villagers to be blessed. The hall was full of women sitting on their heels, soles of their feet carefully pointing away from the golden Buddha statues at the front. The monks came in - not the novices this time - and sat in a semi-circle at the front just before a line of the only four men in the hall. They held a piece of string as they chanted; my eyes naturally followed the string along its course, through the clasped hands of the monks, around the buckets of water, through a small circlet of marigolds, and out through the window, where it was looped around a brand new pick-up and motorbike - obviously two of the men had been doing well recently... The chanting rose and fell, and as I sat on my heels I quickly learnt to do as the other women did, leaning forward and swiftly slipping my feet from side to side. Several times I wasn't fast enough and my feet fell heavily asleep. The chanting was faintly soporific and went on for nearly 90 minutes (to Jutta's surprise, who attends it regularly, despite being an atheist) but the women certainly didn't just sit in reverence; they joined in from time to time, quietly spoke to neighbours, placated children, and came and went from the hall as needed. Towards the end a teenage boy came in on his knees and handed out cups of sweet, icy tamarind juice, and my neighbour, who had been grinning at me and Jutta and setting us right when our hands drooped or we didn't move in time, forced one into my hands, saying "You welcome! Drink!" The men started to pass forward gifts to the monks - banana leaves wrapped into cones and decorated with marigolds and cash. With more novices and monks owning mobile phones, apparently, money is becoming a more welcome gift than the traditional food and clothing. 

Right at the end, a monk gathered together all the buckets of water - they would remain in the temple overnight and during the morning chanting, then the villagers would be taking them home to sprinkle around their houses and thus keep their families safe from spirits a little longer.

Outside the temple I said goodbye to Jutta, but with every intention of seeing her again here before she leaves - each day I spend in this little town makes me love it more. It's terrible that so many people never see past the shiny veneer of tourism; Jutta and I were the only foreigners in the temple, and although there were a few other tourists at the drumming, they didn't hang around, just got up close, took their photos and left. I asked Jutta and Keo what they thought of all these tourists; Jutta told me that they're mostly intensely shy young men, embarrassed by attentive paparazzi. Keo said he'd had tourists at the almsgiving pushing their cameras into the line of monks and using the flash; the day before, a woman had said loudly, "Well, I think they all look like beggars - they don't even have the respect to wear shoes." He told me that he and many others don't like non-Buddhist foreigners to take part in the almsgiving, although discreet photos are okay, and  I promised to pass it on, while flushing at the memory of my last trip to Luang Prabang, when I allowed myself to be easily bullied into offering food. So this is me passing it on: should you ever go to Laos, watch the almsgiving, and enjoy an ancient cultural tradition, but don't treat them like they're in a petting zoo, and there for your entertainment. Okay. Lecture over. Learn from my mistakes.

So the next morning, I was woken at 5:45am as on every other day, by the temple bells. When I lived in Coimbra, Portugal, my house was opposite a Catholic cathedral that tolled the bells early every morning - I have to say, I do kind of prefer the Buddhist version. I blearily came out onto the balcony, and down below me saw the women waiting to offer rice from their traditional baskets. 

Bearing in mind the friendly pleas of the novice, I didn't join the hotel staff who were also making offerings, but I did crouch next to the gate (being careful to keep my head below theirs) and take a few photos. I was rewarded by a big smile from one of the monks (they are the ones with both shoulders covered), and was left feeling slightly less of a sponging tourist! 

It was on my last evening, the night of the full moon drumming, that I went for a walk through the town at 10pm, unable to sleep. Probably because of the 11:30 curfew, there was barely a soul out. The full moon made it all a bit eerie and I was turning back for the hotel, and that was when I passed the street full of karaoke singers. It's a remarkable town, this Luang Prabang of mine.