If the power is out in Luang Probang, which has been the case two out of the three nights I’ve been here, especially after torrential pre-monsoon middle of the night electrical storms, then your electric fan will be out, and there is no sound aside from the quiet chirping of the house geckos in the utter darkness, and around 5 am (as a westerner would count) you just might hear the gongs of the morning bell from the temple at Wat Xieng Thong as you search for a cool spot on the sheets to try to squeeze a few more hours of sleep out of the morning.

As long as you’re awake, you might as well rise early, as the Lao do, and pay alms to the Buddhist monks from the monestary as they walk the streets in safron robes with wooden bowls for the food that they receive each day from the community. It may not be good for the bags under your eyes, but your karma will get a boost.

Luang Probang is dead quiet by about 11p each night, thanks to a national curfew law leftover from the communist days. But don’t let the fact that they’ve scratched out the hammer and sickle fool you: this still is the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and bars must close by 10:30p. And while some Falang can often be found finishing their last Beerlao as late as 11:30, if you haven’t found a tuk tuk back to your guesthouse by midnight you will walk the streets alone. This makes the ancient capital a lively place in the early morning. By first light, I walked into a street already swept clean of lastnight’s market and I saw streaks of orange robes down at the end of my street.

I found the main thoroughfares lined with citizens already dishing out clumps of sticky rice, and little banana leaf packages of laap, the national dish, a mixture of minced meat, Asian egglpant, vegetables and spices. I was happy to stand at a distance as the procession of monks, most of them young boys, walked briskly in bare feet down the rows, clamping their bowls shut atop each donation. Then three women gestured for me with a pail of sticky rice and some laap in banana leaves. They beckoned me urgently and I felt certain they had my karma in mind as they exhorted me to get in line and put the offerings into the monk’s bowls.

So I did as they said. The boys barely made eye contact and I was a little slower than the Lao folks in line ahead of me so they had to slow up at my pail. When the first pail was empty, the women promptly refilled another for me. “Khap jai lai lai,” I said. “Thank you.” And when that round was depleated, they produced a box of sweets that we gave out like candy on Holloween.

When the procession of monks began to dwindle, just after six, I figured I’d had my moment, and returned the pail to my benefactors. That’s the point at which they made it clear that they expected to be paid for saving my karma. Oh, well, certainly, I thought. They went to all the trouble to get up an make all this food before dawn. I got out my wallet, and asked how much. Hearing at first, “two thousand kip” my offering of two 1000 kip notes brought on embarrassed laughter from the three women.

“Twenty thousand kip,” said the first woman in perfectly clear English.

“Wow,” I said. “Twenty thousand. Alright.” I fished out a bright red 20,000 note. This too produced some embarrassed tittering. The first woman then pointed to herself. “Twenty thousand.” Then she pointed to each of her companions and intoned, “Twenty thousand, twenty thousand.”

“That’s sixty thousand,” I said, a bit incredulous. “That’s twice what my dinner cost last night.”

They smiled in affirmation. This may be an officially communist country, but I just learned the hard way that the capitalists get up pretty early. Meanwhile I’m rewarding myself with some extra Beerlao tonight. My karma should be able handle it, as long as I’m home by curfew. Tomorrow I’m sleeping in.