Vientiane: Monks Doing Stuff

In Vientiane, sometimes it seems like Buddhist monks outnumber regular people... they're everywhere, walking around in their orange, mustard and saffron colored robes.  With so many of them out and about, you see them doing interesting things (that are really not that interesting, but are somehow made more interesting when you see a guy swathed in orange cloth doing them).

This monk below is illustrating the local practice of using an umbrella to guard against the ridiculously hot sun, a practice that I myself happily adopted:

These monks were doing a thorough cleaning of the area surrounding Pha That Luang, Vientiane's big, gold stupa.  The monks were sweeping, scrubbing Buddhas, and generally tidying up:

Across from our hotel was a temple and monastery - the monks lived in this cute yellow building below, hanging their monk-wear out to dry on laundry day:

Here is another view of the monastery... the monastery that played a loud, deep drum repetitively at 4:30 am, we think for the harvest moon, perhaps?

If you look closer, you can see that the monk in mustard colored robes is shaving his head:

Monks as tourists, checking out and taking photos of Patuxai/Victory Gate/Vertical Runway:

Other things we saw monks doing:

- Riding bicycles

- Weed whacking