Bus Rides are Just the Best - 1/26/19

Beautiful waterfalls in Luang Phrabang

Eating with Elder Eckersley's cousins

Hello everybody!

Welcome to this week's installment of Communist Adventures with Elder Ridd. This week has been pretty wild, but it was definitely a good time. 

The bus ride back from Savanakhet was definitely interesting. There were random Lao girls around us who kept taking pictures and facetiming their friends to show them that there were white people on their bus for the whole 10 hours. Not annoying at all lol. Also the buses like to stack as many people as possible into the bus. So we had a normal bus load of people plus stools placed up and down the entire aisle with some sitting two people to a stool. Good times. The majority of Lao people apparently get really car sick easily too, so it's pretty much the perfect recipe for disaster hahahahaha. It was a really fun trip though. 

On Sunday, the 1st branch had two baptisms, so that was pretty neat. Early Monday morning, we once again donned our best disguises and hopped on a van. We took about an 8ish hour van ride to get to Saiyaburi, which is where Elder Eckersley’s family resides. We got there and were introduced to a bunch of his family up there. The next day we went around the village and saw his grandparents and some more uncles/aunts/cousins. We also got to visit a cool English teaching school run entirely by a really good English speaking Lao guy. Those kids were the best English speaking Lao people I've ever met. We did a cool Q&A with them about America and learning English. 

Then his cousins decided it would be fun to drive us three hours away to Luang Phrabang, which is the biggest tourist area in Laos. It is a wayyyy beautiful town. It's got a lot of French architecture there and it has huge night markets too. It's also in the middle of the jungle surrounded by massive mountains. We got to see some really cool massive waterfalls there. Pretty neat. I got a very nice communist shirt there. After going around the city and eating some sausage on the street, we went to bed in a nice Chinese guesthouse full of smoke. 

The next morning we got up and hopped on yet another bus. This one was definitely nicer and full of random European tourists. Then we had a lovely 13-hour bus ride home through the mountains. 

This bus ride would probably be the bane of my mom's existence hahahaha. It was pretty much going through these huge mountain passes right on a cliff for the majority of it. It also had switchbacks the most of the way with big potholes and no paved roads haha. It was way fun. 

Then on Thursday and Friday we did the usual visiting members. Always a classic. 

Today we will be going to a funeral because one of Elder Phasay's 94-year old great-uncles passed away the other day. I've never seen a Buddhist funeral, so it should be pretty interesting. 

Welllll, that's pretty much been my entire life for the past week. 

I hope you've all had fairly interesting times! Keep being the besssst.

<3

Comrade Ridd

At a Buddhist temple in Luang Phrabang

Night market

Elder Eckersley with his cousin and grandma

The English school

Celebrating in Savannakhet - 1/19/19

Random, terrifying statue

Handing over school supplies to lots of children

Random airplane we found

Huge abandoned stadium

The wedding venue

Hey Everybody!!

This past week has been pretty wild, but also really fun. Right now I'm writing you from Savannakhet, which is about 9ish hours south of Vientiane. 

Let's see, on Monday we had a handover for Vientiane Rescue, which is the first emergency response team in Laos. They have volunteer firefighters, paramedics, etc. DIC (Deseret International Charities – the charity organization with which Elder Ridd volunteers) donated a load of money and partnered with another organization that donated tons of equipment. It was way cool. Something even cooler that came out of it is that Laos Rescue wants to do more work with DIC. Something they've been thinking about is having the four of us young volunteers receive paramedic training with them and then going out to help them with calls and responding to emergencies. We are wayyyy interested in this, so that may be an opportunity soon in the future.

On Thursday, we drove down here to Savannakhet with Elder Phasay's uncle and a bunch of other family members. It was a looooong ride haha. We arrived and then visited with Phasay's family and roamed around the city. This city is wayyyy nice. It's super relaxed and is way more clean and modern-looking than Vientiane, but that's not really saying much haha. It's more spaced out and has a more relaxed feeling to it. We were able to donate a bunch of school supplies to a school down here also, so that was way fun.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to a wedding for one of Elder Phasay's cousins. That was pretty wild. It was extremely Buddhist and had lots of drunk people. People down here in Savannakhet have also pretty much never seen white people so there was a tooooon of staring and picture taking happening. I've probably taken more pictures with old Asian women in the past two days than I ever thought I would in my life. Fun stuff. 

Today we are heading back to Vientiane. We're gonna be going back on a bus, so that should be interesting. Tomorrow is gonna be a solid day, and the first branch is going to have 2 baptisms which will be cool. On Monday we will be back on the road going to see some of Elder Eckersley's family in a northwestern province called Sayaburi, so that'll also be an experience.

I hope you've all been doing well! I love and miss you all. I'm pretty tired from lots of traveling, but other than that I've been great!

<3

(undercover) Elder Ridd

We had to be undercover outside of Vientiane otherwise we'll be arrested. We wore nice stuff for the wedding though.