Dancing Buddhas in the Rain

So I feel that this is a pretty creative title! especially for me. I didn't really see statues of Buddha dancing in the rain, but these three words encompass the things I will be writing about today! :)

Last Sunday we went to Buddha Park. We (Julia and I) met Mon, Jiam, and Mon's roommate and sister at the bus station. We hopped on a small bus/large van that only had standing room left. The buses are equipped to hold as many people as possible with handrails on the ceiling. It works pretty well for us tall Americans, but it is a little unfortunate that when we (Americans) hold on, our armpits are right at face level with most standing Lao people. :S Anyway, the bus was way better than I was expecting! All the windows were open so it was very cool and breezy! There were also some adorable kids riding too! There were three monks riding in the back of the bus. One of them had to get off of the bus, but since monks aren't supposed to touch women, all of us females who were standing in the aisle had to get off to let him pass. The bus ride was probably only 45 ish minutes.

Buddha Park was created in 1985 (or thereabouts). It was just some random guy who decided to make a bunch of statues of Buddhism and Hinduism. Some were sorta creepy, but it was a fun relaxing day to spend with our new Lao friends! We had too much fun taking pictures imitating the statues. This one they are entering the mouth to hell and opening their mouths like the statues.

It's kinda hard to see the statue behind us, but Mon is also making a pig face like the statue!

A statue with many arms. I told them to go in front of me so I didn't block them all, but they didn't listen.

This is Jiam again. We didn't realize until later that she wore socks with her flip flops so that she didn't get a flip flop tan! She walked around like this all day to protect herself from the sun! While Julia and I were encouraging the sun to darken us and sweating in our tank tops, jeans and sock-less feet.

We sat around outside of the park when we were finished and waited for the next bus to pass to take us to town. We got to sit down the whole ride in. We just had lots of fun relaxing and chatting with them! We found out some interesting differences between Lao and American hygiene/beauty tricks: some of them pluck their armpit hairs! They don't shave their legs, but some shave their arms. They don't pluck their eyebrows, but some will shave their eyebrows.

We got drinks from a street vendor. Julia's is green and mine is pink and they had the little tapioca? bubble things in them. It was pretty tasty!

After going to a wedding last week and not knowing how to do the dances, Mon and Jiam decided they should teach us. We went to their house and they taught us some traditional Lao dances.

They had videos to help teach us. Most of them were dancing in lines with specific steps. Julia is learning.

I think they said this was some freestyle dance... (and yes, my friends, I sweat Lao dancing too) But we learned a few dances which will come in handy when we go to another wedding in October.

We taught them a little American dancing too. We didn't have music, but we sang and showed them how to dance to Party in the USA! :)

It is rainy season from July to the end of September, and it has been raining! It usually rains from 10 PM to 10 AM, so it's not usually a huge nuisance. But we rode bikes to Jiam's house - about 4 miles away, and it was pretty rainy. We bought ponchos the other day, but we got ones that close in the front, and apparently you're supposed to get the ones that close on the sides so that the rain doesn't run down the front and fall on your lap as you're pedaling your bicycle or sitting on your motorbike. This is Julia and I all ponchoed up against the rain.

Julia has her backpack on under her poncho so it doesn't get wet.

And I have my purse under my poncho too so it doesn't get wet. This was the first time we've had to wear ponchos, most of the time we're out and about it's just spitting. Hopefully we won't need to wear them too often! But thankfully we have them to keep us dry!