With Dr. Vinya’s arrival, the other SAILers and I were overjoyed to see a familiar face. Though his stay in Vientiane was short, we were able to have dinner with our teachers and spend a day on the Nam Ngum River.  It was fun to see a whole “other” side to Dr. Vinya, Michael, and Ryan. I wish we could’ve had music on the raft. It would’ve been that much better.

On the morning of July 13th, we were off to Khon Kaen for the 3rd International Conference on Lao Studies. We were fortunate enough to ride along with 12 prominent professors from the National University of Laos.  They shared stories with us while we entertained them with our singing skills.  The conference was great too. I was astounded by the different research that has been done on Laos and as Grant Evans noted, the great research yet to done. I left there thinking about the possibilities of my own research and how I could contribute.

Though we didn’t go out much in Khon Kaen, I felt like the spirit of the Lao people of Isan at the conference–in the warm smiles and hospitable gesture of the staff and volunteers.  I think I should share a certain experience I had.  While I was in Khon Kaen, I had the opportunity to do some shopping. I remembered that Dr. Vinya said that he refused to speak Thai in Isan. With that in mind, I spoke Lao to almost everyone I met and consequently shocked by their response in Thai. Dr. Vinya later explained to me that Thai was a formal language, whereas Lao was reserved for more intimate, personal “spaces” (perhaps a future topic of research). Overall, I was quite impressed by the quality of presentations, both receptions, and the comradery I always feel at these conferences. I can’t wait until 2013 in Wisconsin!