My Laos is Itchy .... by Adam (2003)

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Happy New Year! Okay, so it’s WAY into the year already. But as Lady Time and I dash, hand-in-hand, toward the golden years of ear-hair and swinging arm-fat, the days pass swiftly. I am only 30 (-s), but it seems like just yesterday I was jumping up and down on Mommy’s lap, three fingers up a nostril, screaming “poop-filled stinky winkles!” Okay, that was yesterday, but you get my point. Time is unravelling faster than a turban at a JFK Airport security desk. Anyway, this lame attempt at philosophical introspection is really about me making excuses so that you will still read about my now-irrelevant New Year’s vacation in Laos. Competing for your time with war games and new respiratory plagues creates an added level of distress to my snivelling demands for attention.

In the West, we have little room in our thoughts for Laos. Like Eritrea and Titicaca, the word “Laos” does not immediately divulge itself as a place, a disease or a body part. The Western ear could just as easily agree to “I bought that jug in Laos,” as it could, “My laos is swollen and red,” or “The doctors fear the laos has spread to his titicaca.”

Nestled amidst Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and China, Laos is an impoverished, landlocked, communist nation of 5 million people of assorted cultural birthrights and goofy ethnic garbs. I had less than two weeks for my New Years vacation, so I passed through three spots: the gleaming temple town of Luang Prabang, scenic riverside village Vong Vieng and the drowsy capital of Vientiane.

Originally planning to travel overland from Thailand, I reconsidered on hearing of harrowing speedboat rides to Luang Prabang that feature mandatory helmets, adult pampers and intermittent stops for passenger corpse disposal.

The other option, the jam-packed slow boat, involves two days of standing chest to breast with stenchy, dred-locked backpackers. As much as I longed for 48 hours listening to Australians and Israelis grouse over the fourteen cents their “thieving” tuk-tuk driver charged for the ride to the terminal, I decided on my bourgeois backup – air travel.

The Lao national carrier has a slightly better safety record than most methods of capital punishment. The in-flight magazine assured me that Lao Aviation’s staff is, “Number one in the industry in jungle survival skills,” but I still felt uneasy. And since Lao is a language dangerously similar to Thai, I would probably understand the cockpit cries of "Jesus…Jesus - we're gonna hit that!" 

But I safely deplaned in the serene and picturesque Luang Prabang. I am leery of towns peopled by more than 50% foreign tourists. There were more white faces in Luang Prabang than at a Rib-B-Q at the Bush ranch. Having lived in Asia for almost 5 years, I have grown a snobbish distaste for the white man. Well, ok, it has nothing to do with skin colour (or gender – I just like the sound of “the white man”). But from afar, most Western travellers make my hair curl back into my skin. I even had my mom hating foreigners by the time she left Thailand. The clincher for her was hearing some probably-American guy at the airport Burger King shouting, “An’ gimme a fresh one – don’t gimme one that’s been sittin’ there!”

There is little to “do” in Luang Prabang. Most people spend their days temple-gawking or staring into coffee mugs at the abundant French colonial cafes.  I generally like traveling alone, not having to endure the messy businesses of compromise and inane chitchat. But it occasionally spawns fits of loneliness and self-reflection. Encircled by tables full of laughing revellers, my magazine can seem an unsatisfying companion.  The feelings of isolation were underscored at night, listening to my guesthouse neighbour’s three dollar hooker yelping rhythmic squawks of “Ooi!… Ooi!… Ooi!… Ooi!…”

But each solo-vacation is the same: grouchy seclusion gives way to encounters with other beings. I spent my favourite day in Luang Prabang smoking cigarettes and gossiping with a group of monks at a hill temple. Like Thais, most Lao men adorn the carrot-coloured bed sheets and hairless scalps of the Buddhist monkhood for a time.

The life of a Lao monk seems dull but tranquil. Between naps, they rest on benches, smoke menthol cigarettes and laugh at fat Westerners. While my Thai language skills are fairly childish, we managed to have some fun sharing jokes and trading double entendres. They even delegated me to whack the ceremonial temple-gong, but I declined in shyness as other foreign visitors hurled scowling allegations of pretension in my direction.

Amidst the graceful temperament of Laos, I did encounter life’s usual foul malformations. They always fascinate me more than its beauty. One particular little tyke in Vang Viang haunted me for days. Swathed in a restrictive, fabric package and fastened to her mother’s back (like most “hill tribe” babies), the little tot peered at me through a red tube held to her eye. “Watcha got there little one, a toy telescope?” I thought. “Oh, I see… that’s… YOUR EYE…!” I realised after inspection that her face boasted a large, bloody bundle of thin, raw sausages bulging from where her left eye should have been.

I studied the lesion and contemplated forcing baby and mother to a clinic. But after noticing that the ends of the gory protrusion were charred and black, I guessed the wound had been cauterized by the village MD and was ship-shape. I pronounced the child healthy and assumed that she was content scrutinizing the world through her crispy blood and tissue telescope. Then, like any good liberal, I went back to my banana pancake and laboured over how to blame American foreign policy for the occurrence of gruesome, tubular eye knobs in village children. (Perhaps I could tie it to the millions of tonnes of bombs America dropped on startled Lao villagers during the ‘60s.)

Only slightly less unpleasant was witnessing Lao men use tweezers to yank hairs from their chin and face. This is not a place for Gillette to expand its market reach. Laura Bush has more facial hair than most Lao men. On bus trips, my ribs endured the occasional elbow thump as the passenger next to me jerked whiskers from his womanly mug. Like Thais, Lao men are just as pretty as the women, with faces smoother than the back of an infant’s leg. Some might say that physically they are essentially female, apart from that whole “penis and testicles” versus “vagina” hang-up.

The Lao diet is very non-discriminatory. In Vang Viang’s lively market, I witnessed vendors hawking squirrel and bird corpses, half-dead bats strung together like Halloween tree ornaments and something that looked deliciously similar to a human hand. Dead rats sell for 5000 Kip ($.50) - at least that is the price they quote hungry foreigners.

After Vang Viang, I rode a rickety, chicken-filled bus through the stunning hills and rocky outcrops of inner Laos to sleepy Vientiane. This city has to be the quietest capital city on the planet. My toilet sees more traffic than Vientiane. Rush hour consists of a dozen flatulent motorbikes, four or five limping beggars and a wind-blown plastic bag.

Dreaming of subdued, backwards Laos as a New Year’s party destination is a bit like your first sexual encounter with a farm animal: it never comes to mind until suddenly it’s upon you. And it ends up being quite fun in the end. On the night in question (NYE, not the farm animal night), I managed to get myself invited to a house party. Bars in Laos close at the repressive, communist hour of 1130 PM, so it was good to have a house where I could gulp down Lao whiskey, stuff sticky rice into my mouth and laugh at my new Lao friends’ Karaoke skills. (I endured attempts to sing along to what must be one of the worst bands on the planet: “Happy Lao”.)

My popularity at the New Year’s gathering was enough to score an invitation to a Lao wedding party that weekend. I arrived on the back of what must be among the oldest motorbikes in Southeast Asia. Missing several important structural bits - including a place to put my feet - I struggled to maintain a gap between the pavement and my heels as we sped off. The exhaust coughed black gunk onto my ankles until we reached my friend’s house.

The estate boasted several grass‘n’tin huts and fancier wooden and concrete shacks housing toothless infants, gumless elders, crimson-lipped uncles and other familial extensions. Rusty tables were papered with old newsprint and out came the sticky rice, weird salads and bottles of Beer Lao. And there it was: a Lao wedding party.

Dinner was rather testing. I like to wash my hands before I eat – especially before sucking rice from my fingers. However the only water I could find was the brown muck coating a bucket in the outhouse. I figured it might be better just to have one of the dogs lick my hands clean.

For hors'doeu-vres, Dad’s callous-shingled hands blended crumbled instant noodle packs with chilli peppers and pig veins. But I am a fairly daring eater and there were several things I could have subsisted on. This included the 47 glasses of beer I was obliged to bottom - the price of my Western celebrity status.

However my Lao friends presented me with a plate of what they hoped would inspire gastronomic glee from the weird foreigner: dry vanilla cake ringed with medallions of white pork sausage, all slathered in condensed milk. Each set of eyes arrived at my end of the table, demanding that I gorge on my special meal. I poked at the semi-edible concoction, forcing some of the less dangerous corner bits onto my spoon. After a minute, attention shifted back to the beer mugs and I secretly re-navigated most of the “cake” toward the mouths of the two dogs circling my chair.

The next morning my hangover and I boarded my return flight to Chiang Mai. Despite my chatty seatmate – a Quebecker who doubled nicely as a display case for flesh-coloured moles – creaky Lao Aviation brought me back home safely and happily.

And I will stop my email right here with a thud. Judging by the amount of responses my emails yield, few have read this far anyway. Take care of yourself in this time of war, plague and Nicole Kidman Oscar nominations.