Laos----Khmsouk

 

 

We spent a month in Laos backpacking through the country, it was such an amazing place and on our journey we spent a week in a town called Laung Prabang which is home to so many temples well over 50 of them and every morning hundreds and hundreds of monks walk the streets collecting Alms ..It really is an amazing place and on our second day in Luang prabang we rented peddle bikes and grabbed a map of the town and we set off on a temple finding mission. The temples are always open to anyone who would like to go there, and as we were at a temple on the North of town we meet a monk named Khmsouk. There was none at the temple and he was outside sweeping the grounds and he took a minute to talk to us and invited us back to the temple that night at 6:45pm for the monks daily chants and prayers. We gladly accepted his offer and that night when we came back we spent 40 minutes inside a small temple with 9 monks as they chanted there prayers in unison..It was so overwhelming here we are in Laos immersed in this hypnotic wave of heat just trying to take all this in --it again was one of the best days ive had and i keep it close to me -----

 

-After the chants were done Khmsouk came over to us and asked if we would like to join him outside and we could talk to him. So we went and sat on this old wooden swing under a mango tree and talked for over 3 hours khmsock explained so much about Buddhism and how he had been in this temple from the age of 13 and he was now 21 and this was his last year of studies and he was to make a decision if he wanted to stay in this temple and become a monk for the rest of his life or he could leave in 5 months after his studies were done --He had spent 8 years in this temple and said he loved it so much but its just hard in these days now to be a Monk when the world is evolving so fast outside and everything has changed in the last 15 years in Laung Prabang --how its hard for the monks to collect food in the morning at alms as less people are helping them as traditions slowly fade away ---It was so sad to hear him talk about that and he said that most Monks now are leaving the Temples in search of there new life --Its not a bad thing he said and it just makes life different and he said we all must embrace change and having good people out there in the world that were monks is just as important for the reason on how he said he would do good in a different way just by being a good person and helping people out people ----Khmsouk invited me and tam back the next day for chants and again we spent hours sitting in that wooden bench talking --he would ask us about Canada and how our country is and how we live here and we would ask him about Laos tradition and Buddhism---It was such a humbling experience and we spent 5 nights riding our peddle bikes 40 minutes across town to meet up with Khmsouk.....It was such an important part of my life for me ----

 

 

Specs ---Side note did i really get to light paint a monk? for real--That was awesome ----one of the days when we were there Khmsouk was asking me about my job and i told him i was a photographer back in Canada and as we started talking i asked him if i could do a Light Painting photo of him --He was more then willing and i explained what light painting was and how you have your camera on a tripod at night in the dark and then you take a long photo and move around lights during that photo --ahaha that was confusing but he was in to try it out so i got all my gear and i light painted Khmsouk sitting in the wooden swing where we hung out every night ---I choose the blue colored smoke for that color combo of the Orange robe he was wearing

 

no photoshop

 

A huge thanks to Khmsouk for all his thoughts and teachings and for effecting my life in such a positive way

Done