Sao Darly

When my parents told me about their plan of going to Laos in late January or early February of 2007, I said to them that I want to go along. I have always wanted to go back to visit my great grandmother and my grandmother. I made plan to go back to Laos in the year 2000 but sadly my great grandmother passed away in 1998 and a year later my grandmother passed away the day before Thanksgiving in 1999.

Since the passing of both grandmothers I no longer felt the urgency to go to Laos. I am the only one in my family that is still fond of Laos because I was born there and spent the early years of my life there as well. I even thought about doing some volunteer there for at least a year after my graduation, if possible.

When I found out about the passing of my Grand-Papa, I wanted to attend his funeral but there was not enough time for me to just pick up and go to Laos since the funeral was the day I flew back to the Netherlands.

The good news was that my Grand-Mama is still alive. She is 87 years old and I have no idea of what she looks like. I can only recall having met her once at my sister’s funeral. She took me to a house by the Mekong river and I spent the night there with her. The sad news was that she fell down and injured her knees a couple of months before my Grand-Papa passed away. She was not able to attend his funeral.

Grand-Mama wanted to do Boun Loy Vanh (100th days of the passing memorial service) for Grand-Papa. When she heard that I might be coming to Laos, she told everyone that she will wait for me to do the event when I get there.

I thought it would be the best time to go to Laos to meet all the relatives and help Grand-Mama with Boun Loy Vanh. At the same time I would be able to meet a few of my aunts from the west coast. They wanted to show support for my cousin who will be graduating from the university in Thailand in January of 2007.

Making the decision was the easy part. Preparing for the trip is going to take some time. At least I got a good start on some reading on Laos Travel Guide at LP.