Travels to Savannakhet

The dirt road to La’s house.

La’s House

Us with La after her ceremony.

La, Ked, and La’s sister at the temple.

The Temple in La’s village.

This weekend Russell and I visited my language tutor in her hometown of Savannakhet. It’s about 155 miles from where we live in Pakse. Okay. I know that many of you have questions, so I’m going to attempt to think of them all and answer them as best as I can. If I leave one out, just post a comment and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

The reason for going? They were having a special ceremony for my tutor because she has recovered from a major surgery. She wanted so badly for us to be there. I’m pretty sure we were the first foreigners to ever have visited their village. We were quite the spectacle. You would have thought we were famous!

The mode of transportation? Well, we could have taken a bus to get there, but there was no telling how long it would take and it was quite probable that we would have been dropped off on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in Laos to wait for a different bus to take us to Savannakhet. If you know Russell and me at all, you know that this is definitely not appealing to us. At all. We have heard stories that it could take up to 8 hours to get there. You might be saying at this point, “But you’re only going 155 miles!” Yes, well, my friends, we’re in Laos. Not in America. So, I say all of that to say that instead of taking the “iffy” mode of transportation, we asked some good friends of ours in town if we could borrow their very old SUV. So, that is what we did. Russell drove the Hyundai Galloper all the way to Savannakhet, dodging cows, goats, chickens, motorbikes, bicycles, and random people walking on the road.

The amount of time it took? Okay, I know in the states to go 155 miles it should only take about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. It took us at least four hours. So, not too bad. (Well, I can say that because I wasn’t the one driving!)

Where did we spend the night? We stayed at a guesthouse in the downtown area of Savannakhet. It’s probably just a big as Pakse, maybe a little bit bigger. Our room was complete with bed, one side table, and chair. Yep, that’s it. Oh, did I mention that the bed was concave and as flat as a flitter? At least we had our own private bathroom. That was nice, except for the many, many mosquitoes. I am thankful it was cool outside, though. We left the windows open and slept with a fan all night.

How was the village? The village was about 10 miles off the main road on a very, bumpy, dirt road. It took us a half hour just to get to her village. We drove for a while on the dirt road and didn’t see anything. Then all of a sudden, we come across a village. Wrong one. So, we keep going. Thirty minutes later, we come to La’s house. It was actually a quaint, quiet little village. It was amazing of how many houses and temples are in the middle of nowhere! La took us to two temples in her village. It was heartbreaking to see her and her sister bowing down before the stupa.

What did you have to eat? Good question. Actually, La’s family was in Pakse about 3 weeks ago because of her surgery and stayed at our teammates’ house so, they watched carefully how they cooked things. They tried to recreate things that we had fixed! It was such a sweet gesture and we honestly didn’t have to eat anything icky.

How was the ceremony? To be quite honest, we had told La that we could not come or participate in the ceremony because of our beliefs, so we didn’t actually see the ceremony take place. Nonetheless, she was very excited to see us. I think she likes Russell the most, because she went straight for him as soon as we pulled up. She loves her “brother.” That’s what she calls him and she calls me “sister.” It’s Lao culture to call those close to you “brother” and “sister.”

I hope this answers all your questions. It was very tiring, but a very rewarding trip. Again, we are the Father’s hands extended to these people.

Until next time,

Bethany