Moral Dilemma

June 18

3:14pm Laos time

I actually slept past 5am this morning but I woke up to Melissa packing around 6 or 6:30am. I was kinda bummed but oh well.

I had fresh fruit for breakfast and that tasted so refreshing instead of an oily omelet. Then, we were on the road for a 7 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang! I am really pumped for Luang Prabang. The things we can do here sound so cool. It is also the best night market so I'm pumped for that as well. As I've already mentioned a few times haha.

The drive was really pretty and I stayed awake the whole time. It was very green and mountainous. Laos is a beautiful country! Worked on catching up on the blog, watched the view, listened to music, chatted. Cara got in a huge argument (like silly one) with Robyn and Courtney about how to pronounce "a". Cara says Bath differently and a few other words like grass, etc. and there aren't rules for when the "a" is pronounced different ways. They were all giving each other a hard time. It was pretty funny.

We stopped off at a place with an amazing view. There was a toilet with a wall missing so you could sit on the loo and see the view. It was pretty funny. They charge you to use the toilets, and to take a photo of that one. A bunch of us managed to sneak one without paying. In the little shop I wasn't going to buy a snack but I found the koala cookies we used to eat when we were younger. Strawberry flavor. I was so pumped! And then I bought a flavor of fanta that I hadn't tried. It was bright green. Like neon green. It tasted pretty good.

So for Laos, they pronounce it Lao. But in some places they say Laos so both are correct pronunciations. In case you were wondering....

We have about 45 minutes of rest time and then Matt is taking us for a walking tour around Luang Prabang.

The place we stopped for lunch was wretched. Really dirty and gross. There were dead flies all over the tables. They were serving deer meat soup soaked in liquid feces in the intestine. To be fair, Matt warned us to stay away from the meat haha. Gross. I will for sure be doing that. I literally had Pringles for lunch. Even the people who got quick noodles didn't end up eating it because they saw the woman put a dirty rag from the floor in the same pot with the hot water right before she poured it into their soup. So yum! They didn't want to take the risk. I don't think I would have wanted to either. Not a healthy lunch, but at least it was safe. Sorry to disappoint Alyssa, I am not living here so I want to try to avoid being sick since I know I can eat safe food and will go back to a town full of safe food. :o Ed, Courtney, and Robyn ordered cooked rice and or noodles with vegetables. Good for them haha. Once I saw the deer meat filled with shit on the menu I couldn't do it. The menus were also filthy and covered in dirt. Dad would have definitely never even stepped foot into a place like this.

It's 10 to 4 now and the thunder has already started so that will be interesting if it starts raining while were out. I think I'll bring my rain jacket.

Later Laos time

It didn't rain.

Matt took us on a walk of Luang Prabang to the oldest temple in Laos. It is called Wat Xieng Than. It was beautiful. Matt said it was built out of mahogany wood. You can really see this on the inside. The outside is covered in colorful, shiny tiles. There is an elephant head on one side that is 3D and covered in grey shiny tiles. There are lotus flowers covered in blue shiny tiles surrounding the temple and the back of the temple has a colorful tile mosaic of the tree of life. It is really impressive, especially to think that this was built 500 years ago. It is a really stunning temple.

A lot of people are templed out I think but I am not yet. Literally all the temples are so different when it comes to the architecture I love seeing them still.

Inside the same complex as the temple, there are a few other smaller temples as well. And there is the stupa for the king at the time as well as a building showcasing the royal yacht from a long time ago. It was really extravagant. There was lots of gold and there were many snakes coming off the front (protector style).

We then went to get a drink at a river side cafe. Bart got sick on the way there. We sent him back to the hotel on a tuk tuk... Well, we tried the tuk tuk. It wouldn't start so he ended up going back on the back of a motor bike. Dropping like flies one by one as Robyn said.

For drinks I sat with Matt, Robby, and Zara. Matt and I were sitting forward in our chairs and at one point, Robby said to Matt to watch out behind him. We looked around and there was this HUGE spider. Like big. And it had super long legs and it actually wasn't hairy but it walked really creepily. It had 2 small legs or small fan looking things as well. It was pretty creepy. Matt had no idea if it was poisonous or not so after taking photos he picked it up by its web and chucked it over the ledge.

While we were having drinks, I started asking Matt about the elephant riding. He had been telling us about tomorrow for ages and how it was going to be an amazing day and the highlight of everyone's trip. The day consisted of waterfalls, bears and elephants. For the elephants we were bathing and riding them. Obviously, all of this went against what Lek really taught at the conservation project. I told Matt my concerns and a brief synopsis about why I felt strongly about not riding them and he reassured me that the elephants were treated very well at the all Laos elephant camp and that they don't use hooks. I then talked about the training process used on Asian elephants that they don't normally talk about. He pretended to know what I was talking about but I don't think he knew because at first he seemed really confused. In the end he essentially told me he thought it would be fine and that he thought Leks dream of trying to bring elephants back to the wild was stupid and that minimizing human contact with them would never happen in Asia. He made me feel like I was a silly girl. At the market he asked us who was doing it because he was going to book it. I agreed.

After drinks, we obviously paid one by one, Matt took us to the night market but took us to where we could get good street food for a great price. Down one of the side streets of the market area there were many food stands lined up. Selling meat and fish on a stick and spring rolls and noodles and a bunch of other things. The stand Matt stopped had a number of different spring rolls and noodles and vegetables to choose from. They also had meat. You could get a plate and fill it full of as much as you wanted for 10,000 kip. Meat was an extra 10,000 kip. Not bad! He then let us go. (Saskia, Sarah and I ended up coming back to this food stand later. The 3 of us weren't hungry at all so we ended up splitting a plate of food between the 3 of us... Pretty cheap of us since it was only a little over a dollar to begin with. And we almost got away without paying. No one collected money from us for it when we got our plate. We ended up giving them money though because we felt bad about it. Kat was still feeling ill and wasn't wanting to eat.)

I wasn't hungry yet so I joined up with Sarah, Saskia, and Kat and we roamed the night market. The market is so cool! I love markets and this one is really impressive. It has a bunch of stands and some of the things that are sold are so original and cute! I think it is all artisan made things. Very cool. Once it gets darker there are little light bulbs hanging from the top of each tent so you can still see the selection of things they are selling. Each vendor is in a red tent. There are tents upon tents down one of the main roads lined with scarves and clothing and lanterns and light covers and jewelry and paintings and a million other things. There was one thing that I didn't buy that I wish I would have. I don't even know what I would do with it but there were these very tiny pillow looking things on a pin with words on them. There was one that said "I love you long time". I don't know why but I thought it was so cute. The lady wasn't budging on her price and Saskia wanted to find ones that were cheaper so we didn't get it and I didn't see it again. It's okay though because like I said, I have no idea what I would have done with it.

You basically haggle with everyone. Some vendors would go down a lot, some wouldn't really budge. It was pretty funny because if you bought 3 or 4 of one thing you could usually get it for a lower price than if you were buying one. Not just a lower price but here's an example... I bought 4 pairs of earrings for 50,000 kip and she had originally wanted 30,000 kip per pair. We bought 4 mobiles for 100,000 when she wouldn't go lower than 70,000 for 1. And a few people with me bought t-shirts for 25,000 each but I was getting 3 so I said 60,000 total. She said no and I walked away and she called after me, "okay okay for you." I heard a lot of, "For you, special discount".

I think I'll probably go back tomorrow night too. Haggling is actually pretty fun. And it sounds stupid because sometimes you're arguing over cents but its one of those things where you just don't want to overpay. Spending $3 on something is enough for a meal and sometimes things aren't really worth that, even though you feel silly because it is so cheap. You have to think about what you're willing to pay and basically start lower than that and work your way up. If they say no you just walk away or you continue saying the same price. Sometimes they will agree and other times its too low for them and you lose out.

After I got back to the hotel, I continued thinking about my decision to ride the elephants and I was having a really difficult time coming to terms with it. I thought when I was talking to Matt that maybe it wouldn't be that bad and I would be able to handle it. I really want to ride an elephant because I think it would be cool to be able to say I have, but now that I know the reality behind all of it, I can't do it. I just don't agree with it at all. Giving the company your money continues to support them in their mistreatment and misuse of elephants. I talked to whit and she said I might never have another chance and that in the grand scheme of things it was only a little decision. I talked to mom and she basically said do what you feel and it sounds like your gut is telling you not to do it. I talked to court and she was pretty adamant about the fact that she probably wouldn't do it if I were me and that I wouldn't be able to stomach it most likely. Everything inside me was telling me that I shouldn't do it. I knew it would go against my morals. I also didn't want to have to explain myself to everyone as to why I wasn't participating and have to miss out on what would probably be everyone's most favorite experience. I decided to text Aunt Cindy because she is usually really helpful in talking to me and helping me figure out what I want to do based on what I'm saying. She was so helpful and I was so glad I asked for her help. She basically told me that it was okay to decide I didn't want to do it and I think that was really all I was looking for. She also told me all I needed to say was that I had already had my life changing experience with elephants. When I was at the camp, I knew Lek and the elephants had left an imprint on me. I had no idea how big that imprint was until now. I was literally in tears over this. It seemed like such a silly thing to be upset over. Especially as upset as I was. I had no idea if I would be able to get my money back but I knew that I would rather lose the $40 than participate in something I full heartedly disagreed with. I was not looking forward to the next morning when I would have to tell everyone.

I had to read for a few hours before I could fall asleep. I haven't cried because I've missed home. Even when I was scared shitless on the sleeper train in India, I didn't cry. But, I was in tears over riding an elephant. It's so funny to me but it is also really exciting to know that that experience was so life changing and made as much of an impact on me as it did, even almost a month after leaving. I couldn't get all the stories about Lek and the individual elephants out of my head. Hope, the elephant who lost her baby while working illegal logging, Leks family disowning her on national television because she was standing up for a cause no one supported. Huge imprint on my life. Definitely an experience worth paying for.