For the ceremony, lay people bring a container of food and then kneel on the side of the road. The monks pass by, carrying their own, initially empty, containers. The lay people then put some amount of their food into each monk's container.
Back home, it was very rare to see a monk or nun on the street. In Laos monks are a very common sight. Their bright orange robes stand out, of course - much more so than the brown or black robes of Christian monks. I wonder if there are really more monks in Laos than in Europe, or if they are just more present on the streets, and more visible?
Since the alms ceremony was over after about an hour, I went back to bed to get some more sleep. In the afternoon, I went to visit the national museum. Wait - national museum? Hadn't I just seen a national museum in Vientiane? Apparently Laos has more than one national museum. But while the one in Vientiane dealt with history, the one in Luang Prabang consisted of the old royal palace and its furnishings. Photography wasn't allowed inside this museum either, but it was much more beautiful than its Vientiane counterpart - full of splendor and rich decorations, just as you would expect of a royal palace. There was a temple on the palace grounds whose outer decorations were just as splendid as the palace's interior:
