james: i think the best restaurant view ever, are these women butchers. anthony: chef james syhabout earned his michelin star in san francisco. james: this is the first thing i eat. get off the plane and i i m just gonna find some khao piak sen. anthony: he learned to cook from his mother, and never looked back, until recently. james: that s crispy pork, sliced pork. anthony: blood cake? james: blood cake in it. anthony: beef broth? james: beef broth, yeah. ah, it s like steaming hot. anthony: james family, like many, fled the fighting in laos and the communist takeover that followed it. james: mmm! anthony: nowadays, things are looking up a bit and some like james are returning,.
rice. anthony: with wan ok phansa approaching, today is super alms day. a once a year halloween like bonanza, where in addition to the usual sticky rice, monks are offered all manner of treats. mr. see: i was a novice, come from my home village to live in the temple in luang prabang. i finish a monk. anthony: in orange robes, the whole bit? mr. see: mm-hm. anthony: now, do most young men go to the temple to ah mr. see: to get education, yes. james: it s a little like public education, just to become a novice. mr. see: yes, yes. anthony: ahh! james: yeah, unless, unless anthony: so everybody. james: everybody, yeah. that s where you learn english. mr. see: yeah. james: and you speak french too? mr. see: no, no. anthony: mr. see lives with his extended family here in this compound, on the outskirts of luang prabang.
anthony: when you get off the plane james: yes. anthony: what s the first sort of recognizable smell that registers? james: wood smoke and grilling. river, as well. you know, it s just like the mekong. anthony: diesel, or whatever the fuel is here? a little bit of james: yeah, yeah. anthony: from the first time i heard of laos, i was hooked, and filled with a desire to see the place. once a storybook kingdom of misty mountains and opium. at one time, a protectorate of france. mysterious landlocked nation bordered by china, thailand, cambodia and as fate would have it, vietnam.
james: yes, ah, they re doing rice and also growing some vegetable. anthony: northern laos enchantingly beautiful, sparsely populated by remote mountain villages. for centuries, home to ethnic minority hill tribes, like the hmong. this is where the cia recruited, trained and armed over a hundred thousand fighters. translator: they, ah, start to build this road since ah, 1983. anthony: before that, how did you get up and down? walk? mr. lee: by foot only. other villager: using only a rocky trail with a very steep drop off. anthony: in these same mountains, but on the other side of the conflict, there were people like mr. lee, now in his 80s, who fought for the communist pathet lao. he is hmong. and during the secret war, he fought other hmong.
mr. see: ah, three years. anthony: three years? mr. see: yes. james: well what s the minimum? can you just stay as a novice? mr. see: ah, minimum seven days. james: seven days. holy moly! anthony: wow, that s easy. mr. see: easy. anthony: i, i don t have time. anthony: what s life like at the temple? sleep on the floor? do you sleep in a bed? mr. see: normally we sleep on the floor. ah, lately i sleep on bed. yeah, bed. james: one meal a day, right? anthony: one meal a day? mr. see: two. james and anthony: two. mr. see: breakfast and lunch. james: oh, yes. they get a snack from, ah, almsgiving. mr. see: yes, snack and drink. coffee, ovaltine. anthony: coffee and ovaltine, did he say, yeah? mr. see: ovaltine. james: yeah. mr. see: this one in here? james: he got it, here s the cup. there you go. mr. see: oh, ovaltine. james: yeah. [ laughter ] mr. see: cheers! [ monks singing and chanting ] fact is, every insurance company hopes you dr