As we pulled away, the woman in the front seat was very curious about me, and the United States, and what I was doing there, etc. Effervescent as ever, I bubbled off answers and asked her the same. Traveling along roads that I had never seen before, but heart raced, hoping that I would be returned safely home. (more…)
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“MUONG SWA!!!!”
Dylan and I were like children at Chuck E. Cheese as we entered, holding hands and jumping to the multi-colored lights dancing around in the darkness of the club and the sound of the live band! We found the people we had met earlier. They seemed very surprised that A) we actually came and B) that we found the place! However, the music was far too loud to actually carry on a conversation- Dylan and I were shouting at one another, repeating “WHAT???” and eventually just gave up to go dance. The Beerlao kept flowing and we kept dancing. Suddenly, a song came on that prompted the club to break in to a line dance (a trend that in my observation is very popular in Southeast Asia… there were a number of Buddhist temples that I’d walk past where people of all ages were practicing line dancing variations inside). Dylan and I remained on the dance floor, following (poorly) the movements of the people all around us. Most of the time, we just tripped over ourselves and giggled.
As the night was coming to a close, I was concerned about getting back on the motorbike, especially after a few Beerlaos. We were way too far to walk back, and Dylan would inevitably have to return for his rented motorbike again in the morning. Dylan and I discussed it and decided that the most ideal thing would be to pay way too much for a tuk-tuk to take us back to our hostels, and tomorrow morning, he would return via tuk-tuk to retrieve his motorbike. This was a good plan, but then things got complicated
Let me preface this section with ‘do as I say, not as I do’… I am not proud of the way things went down, but the truth of the matter is that traveling alone is risky. (more…)
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As the lights became fewer and far between along the road as I rode on the back of the rented motorcycle of Dylan, the Chinese filmmaker I had just met, on the main road leading out of Luang Prabang, Laos. Keeping his promise of going bicycle speed as I wore his helmet, riding on the back of his motorbike (as he kept repeating, ‘Of course I will be careful- we have bright futures!’) we made our way farther and farther outside of town, until there seemed to be no lights at all. Other motorbikes whizzed passed us, and we stopped whenever we crossed another living soul, hoping they would know what we didn’t know we were looking for.
We knew that ‘Nightclub’ and ‘Local’ were the important messages to get across. An old man sitting outside his home under a lone light on the outskirts of town seemed perplexed by our questions. Through my travels, I have noticed the various ways outsiders and insiders interact. Dylan was super jazzed from the excitement of the evening, so I am afraid that his enthusiasm and focused energy was misinterpreted as urgency and hostility to the Lao man. To a culture that is even tempered and wears a serene smile, I began to feel that we were a little much.
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AHHHH!!!! YOU MEAN WE GET TO PLAY IN IT??!?!
so much fun!
As the five of us walked upon the Tad Sae Waterfall, the vista before me looked like something out of a dream. The way that the water rushed over the round edges of the rock made it seem as though the water were halfway to a vapor, flowing mystically a centimeter above the surface. However, water has to get hot to become a vapor, and this water was anything but that! (more…)
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Sitting down to a modest wooden picnic table inside of one of the larger dirt floor establishments in the village, I felt two sets of eyes peering at me from outside of the glassless window. When I looked over to the source of the stares, I caught a glimpse of two tiny heads scurrying away with laughter. If I maintained my glance, the eyes would re-emerge, followed by a similar sequence of scurrying and laughter. My guides effortlessly switching between their native tongue and English were talking with the man whose house we were eating in, and sharing details of Lao culture with me. They handed me a piece of sweet, dried meat, and my eyes lit up as I exclaimed “Like Jerky!” I can remember introducing some of my British friends in Romania to Jerky for the first time, and noting that they didn’t like it. My enthusiasm seemed to rub off on the villagers well as they continued to offer me the other parts of their meal. Venturing around the markets in Laos, I had noticed these small, woven cylinder boxes that resembled purses, but after a few meals, I had come to realize these were actually carrying, serving and storing containers for the Lao favorite sticky rice.
This is probably one of my favorite pictures from my entire trip
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Tracts of gray, speckled with pink freckles and deep, heavy creases creating noticeable folds in the canvas, my eye wanders across this endless leathery space until my focus is caught by a deep-seated marble that captures my attention; the marble is looking back at me. Appreciating the fine details of the animal and then backing up to adore her in all of her majesty reminded me of the story I had heard when I was younger, about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. One man had felt her trunk, comparing her to a snake; the other had felt her legs, comparing her to a tree, and the last one felt her ears, comparing her to a palm leaf. Sometimes things (elephants included) are just too big to take in all at once… and here I was, in the jungles of Laos, climbing to the top of one.
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I have something I have been keeping from most people.
It was something only my very closest friends knew about me for the first two years. It’s been going on for almost four years now, however, I have had to come clean slowly but surely as people began to get more curious as to my whereabouts for sometimes 20 hours a week… so, I am finally coming out of the closet…
I am a HelpLiner.
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Living in the United States, it is easy to forget the level of cost of living we are accustomed to. For $10, in the US/Western Europe you can get a modest lunch; in Luang Prabang, you can be treated like royalty. This unlikely group of three (Middle aged Norwegian man, thirty-something developing community nurse and a young, ambitious misplaced Texan) found us engaged in interesting conversation about national security and health care in the company of nearly a thousand water lilies at the Roots & Leaves Restaurant. The restaurant that we ate at was as fine of dining as the best restaurant in Manhattan, with superior service and beautiful, natural scenery.
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The overtly verbose, rough around the edges Norwegian man mentioned that he was going to the ‘Brown Mouse House’ that morning, and I jumped at the opportunity to accompany him. The Mouse House is a learning facility/book donation center that encourages English speakers to come between 9:00-11:00AM to practice reading and speaking with Lao students. My student named Hue was studying economics at the local university. We read a book together that was about a first grade reading level. Reading along with him as he sounded out the words, mispronounced a few and asked me the meanings of many; I really appreciated how difficult the English language is, and regained a new respect for those who learn it as their second language. Studying Mandarin for the past semester, I felt it better prepared me for assisting in his understanding; I don’t know much about linguistics and language learning, but it requires tapping in to a rarely used part of the brain. So often, our brains absorb knowledge and not necessarily skills, and there doesn’t seem to be a level of intelligence associated with language learning. If anything, I have learned that the mastery of a language comes out of necessity; I have always been told that if you didn’t learn a language as a child, date someone who speaks that language, and nothing will make you learn faster…
Where the English learning happens
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‘Is it LAO, or LAOS?’ my friend Anna asked me one day. We were planning on meeting (which never happened) in Luang Prabang, a quaint town just south of the border with China.
‘The people are LAO, the country is the Republic of LAOS.’ I answered her. I always do my homework before traveling anywhere. My advice for a good starting reference is www.wikitravel.org.
Checking in for my flight at the Hanoi International Airport, I was surrounded by a sea of red, sprinkled with yellow stars; the Vietnamese National Badminton team was flying with me to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, for the South East Asian Games. For the next few weeks, eyes in condos and shanties alike would be focused on Laos, supporting their countries and watching ‘obscure’ sports like Pencak Silat, Sepak Takraw and Finswimming. I watched the opening ceremony, completely focused on the beautiful country of Laos (this was their first time to host the games) with the family and friends of some kind Laos people I had met in the night market. (more…)
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