okay, i've been in laos for about a week now. gone about 800 and something kilometers on betsy in laos from the boarder to pakse to paksong to two other towns i don't know the name of, to vientiane capital. what a journey! it was a long one, but amazing. i ate some cricket, i was pulled into a lao neighborhood party where i learned how to dance lao, i've met village councilmen, i've drank lots of beerlao with lots of lao people even in some shanty towns, i've been to lao disco, i've stopped at roadside chicken boxing spots, i went looking for a cave and got lost for two hours, and i saw a great wall of some kind (it was pretty enormous). oh yeah, and i took a lao sauna. which is fucking sweet, they have it like lemon essenced, it was super great and the only time i've had hot water (sort of i guess, but i'm counting it) in months???
i spent the last 5 days making that journey, no map, no phone, and most of the time with no idea where i was. only maybe an inflated confidence level that i can figure anything out. betsy had a bit of a hard time on the last day of the journey, yesterday, and i had to take her to two shops to get fixed up. it was a 200 km travel day though, usually i only make about 150 a day. not a long way, but i like to stop at all sorts of places and check out shit and talk to the people.
lao people ask me 4 questions right off the bat, usually the first is where are you from? the second is then, speak lao? a couple words, i feel like my brain is packed and i have so much khmer now in my head that i keep reverting back to it. like i used to try to speak spanish to any foreigners because that's the only other language i know. but i've got a few words down now: thank you, hello/how are you, goodbye, hahahah; that might be it. i'm still trying to learn though, because the people love it when you can speak a little bit of their language. the third question is, beerlao? of course, you gotta be careful cuz it's a lot stronger than the lager in vietnam and cambodia. and the fourth is always, are you single? if they can they usually ask why. or they try to hook me up with chicks. i don't know if it's standard or what but i've had a village councilman tell me i "could" take a lao wife and move to laos. like he approved of me enough. dudes are also trying to hook you up with girls all the time, it's a little weird. the women are way more upfront here too, than in vietnam or cambodia. i've been told, i love you by a handful of girls; from old ladies to younger ones my age. i've also been told i'm handsome from many women and even some dudes. and that i have a beautiful nose. laos is doing wonders for my confidence! hahah. the women also smoke and drink beerlao. i didn't see any women smoking in vietnam and only maybe one or two in cambodia. when i was chilling out in the sticks in a shantytown outside of pakse; i was hanging out with some dudes and some women that were getting after it. putting the beerlao back.
oh yeah, and it's also cold here. not terrifically cold but cold enough that's it's forced me to stop riding by about 4. i think the first day i encounter the coldness i got a little bit of hypothermia. not bad but i was shivering while riding and as soon as i got to a guest house i got in the bed and tried to warm up. this was partly due to the wind in central laos. man, it was windy, i almost got knocked down a few times one the bike and had to lean so much to the right while riding i might have permanent lean. i've been shedding items from my pack along the way too. and a few weeks ago in kampot, a few hours from sihnoukville, i got rid of all my long underwear, an extra warm shirt and my rain gear. i miss those items now, but i'm okay. i've kept one light type jacket and a sweatshirt and my beanie. but the only pants i have are some really thin, hippie like, traveler pants and the ones i got custom made in hoi an. and they are not very thick. so it goes...
okay so i know that i've said this before, but these people, the lao, are now the most friendly people ever. maybe it's just me being open too, but i swear. my first night in pakse, i was GRABBED off the street and PULLED into this lao community party. like a block party sort of. i was immediately handed a glass of beerlao and again PULLED onto the dance floor. no one spoke english, i didn't even know thank you at the time. but they just speak to me anyway and i usually nod and laugh or shake my head and shrug my shoulders, saying i don't understand. "no speak lao." but it doesn't matter, they still talk to me and teach me a few words and i try to learn and sometimes will repeat what they say back to them. it's really kind of amazing. at the community party a whitey was finally pulled out of somewhere and it was this lady lanna who had married a lao dude. i was a little confused at first since the dude she said is her husband looked to be about 22 and she looked... well a lot older than that. i learned later on that she was 49 and he was like 35. she has been living here for the past 11 years. she moved because it was so much of a simpler life here. she said it's becoming more like ours though, still a far way off but changing. her husband was very jealous of my beard, which since then i've gotten a lot of. the dudes always try to feel it and mention it to me at rest stops and anywhere else. the husband had a little bit of a goat tee and he had been growing it for years. i've got a fairly well developed beard by now and i told her not to tell him it was only two months worth of growing. they were super now though and wanted me to wait around for the weekend and they would throw a party and eat either some duck or some goat. i don't believe that i've tried goat yet; but then also, i've eaten a ton of mystery meat. i don't know why i didn't wait around to go to this party they wanted to throw for me but i felt a need to hit the road. since i've been emailing lanna.
the next day while riding i passed a little town and noticed that there was a ton of motorbikes parked at this one outdoor restaurant. i knew they had chicken boxing here because i'd talked to other travelers that had mentioned that. so i stopped because i knew at least something was going down with all the bikes. i was right, it was chicken boxing! now this was truly a enlightening experience. i had always thought it was pretty cruel and barbaric, and it might be, but these dudes LOVE their chickens. i mean love. i'd always thought it was a fight to the death, but this is not so. i couldn't really understand but i guess it's til one chicken gives up by trying to jump out of the ring. i'm still not really sure and i've been to a couple of these roadside chicken boxing matches too. okay, so it's pretty much like human boxing, theirs fucking rounds, who knew. AND in between rounds they doctor the chickens up. i saw a dude suck swelling or blood or something off his chickens neck. they wipe them down with hot wash clothes and water. i even saw some medicine at one of them. i had no clue! it's madness! they always laugh and smile at me when i show up too and kneel down to watch them doctor up the chicken between rounds. it's really interesting though, fascinating.
that night i stopped in paksong. as i was walking down the side of the road their were some high school aged kids riding in the back of a truck type vehicle, hooting and hollering and just being kids in general. they had a long canoe back there as well. i walked by them twice while looking for a place to get some food. they yelled hello to me the first time i walked by. the second they told me i had to row, not in so many words mind you but more gestures. so i walked across the road to talk to them. i was immediately handed a glass of beerlao and ushered into a seat. asked if i speak lao, no, but then someone always speaks "a little" english. they emphasize this whenever someone usually speak english. "i only speak english a little." normally it's pretty decent though. they played american songs off their phones for me to listen to and danced with me for a minute and fed me some shish kebabs, which you dipped into a little bowl of oil with hot peppers in it. i thought some of the meat was chicken heart and liver; but i have no clue what it is. i've eaten it for dinner a few times now too. it's pretty good. anyway, the kids had to go home so i walked to another kiosk to get a beerlao. there i sat with some other people who owned the shop and was told i love you and have a beautiful nose. i always tell them i love them back too. anyway, i bought them a beer and we sat around drinking them and talking what we could, one of the dudes spoke decent english. after a while he said we go to disco lao, okay? what the heck, okay. so we head over to this outdoor party with a big stage all setup and food vendors and lights, it was pretty cool. we got some more beerlao and then i was told it was time to dance. now lao dancing is pretty simple, which is good because i'm very self-conscious about dancing. but this you just kinda move your feet, sway your hips and and kinda roll your wrists around. after a while, i was told that i dance lao very good. which was cool. i one point we were sitting down when the dude that spoke english had me get up, i assumed it was to dance some more. i was wrong. he started to go around the stage and i just thought he was introducing me to the band. i was wrong. we did meet the lady in the band but then he walked up on stage. i followed, i mean i guess what else was i supposed to do. we get up there and he says we're gonna sing. hahahhaha. he pretty much sang the song and i danced around on stage. it was fucking wild. i mean, i don't think i would ever get on stage and dance in america. but i'm trying to make it a point to be brave here, and do things i normally wouldn't do. it was really cool. people in the crowd would come up to the stage and shake our hands. and when the song was over, i felt elated, pure joy. and i thanked the dude profusely for bring me out to this disco lao. by now, as the only whitey there and going on stage and the lao people being as friendly as they are, i was a hit at this party. i had people coming up to shake my hand and ask where i was from, taking cell phone pics of me, one gorgeous girl told me she loved me (boo-yeah), i was invited to a couple other tables to drink beer. i visited another table for a bit but made my way back to my friends cuz they had brought me. after a lot more dancing and sharing some quail eggs and beerlao, i was told it was time to go home and go to sleep. okay. it was one helluva night. on the way out the dude that spoke english asked if we were friends, i told him hell yeah we're friends, it's not even a question. best friends.
it was a pretty mellow journey after that night for the next couple. i met a monk in training the next night and he taught me how to eat lao, with your hands after washing them, and we spoke about lao and his plans for what he's going to do when he graduates from monk school. he didn't know. i spoke to his brother, he spoke, "a little bit" of english. he was in high school, he played soccer. i let him drive my motorbike, they taught me how to say goodbye in lao. the next day, when i stopped for lunch, i was invited to eat with these dudes. this is where a couple of them decided that i "could" move to lao and take a lao wife. i took it as an honor. i spoke with one of them, a mechanical engineer working for a mining company about lao and how it's freedom now and happy and good. he'd gone to school in germany. we spoke about other things, he wanted to show me around his province. he would always translate to the three other dudes what we were talking about. they taught me how to eat lao pho. with the veggies on the side, you just pick up the green beans and lettuce and cabbage and eat it with your hands. he told me the other three dudes were farmers and i asked what they grew, rice. and one was village councilman. he gave me his address and phone numbers and said in ten days he has some time and if i could come back and he would like to show me around his province, as it's very beautiful and in the mountains. again i felt honored.
last night in vientiane, i found a local soccer game and watched them play. it was great! afterwords the ref and i had beerlao (they seriously love beerlao) and we tried to speak, he knew no english and me no speak lao. but we had a good time. he gave me his phone number and then had me sing karaoke with one of the teams that was in the restaurant next to the field. when he left i sat down with the team and sang some more karaoke and we spoke because one of them spoke "a little bit" of english. i was translated that one of the dudes liked my style and i let him wear my beanie for a bit. we talked about being friends and i have noticed that this is very important to the lao people, to be friends and friendly. i told him of course we're friends.
okay, that's it for now. i think i've been in this internet cafe too long.
PEACE!
You are the best, Nick! I am so proud of you! Love...Mom
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