Around the corner from where we are staying the monks make their morning rounds and the local residents provide alms, a Buddhist ritual. This takes place at around dawn when they quietly linger down from the monastery in small groups. They're given sticky rice, and perhaps some other food, but I'm not quite sure what. All around Luang Prabang there are signs asking people to please respect this process by being discreet with photographs and making sure to remain lower than the monks as they walk by.
Admittedly, here I am, a tourist taking photographs of this process and already feeling a bit guilty, though discreet, low and still I was. At the same time, I couldn't believe what a group of middle aged French tourists were doing. Coming out of nowhere they practically ran at the monks snapping pictures with a flash directly in their faces. One group actually took turns so that each of them could have a shot standing in front of them as they walked by. It was a chaos of flashing, shouting, laughing and posing, which to me, seemed like a throwback to the colonialism past. Why the hell you would want a picture of yourself in front of them with a big shitty grin on your face is beside me.
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