Tour of the Bolevan Plateau.

I’m putting the “tour” in tourist today. I haven’t yet gone on a bonafide tour while on my travels, but today’s the day. I am going on a tour of the Bolevan Plateau. A Spanish couple, a couple from Holland and a girl from France and I will share a minibus with an English speaking tour guide named Boun (meaning luck in Lao).


Boun.
We will see coffee and tea plantations, visit two ethnic group villages (one coffin makers and one weavers), and see three waterfalls. It has been raining non-stop for three days, and today is no different. It’s the rainy season in Laos and we are near the part of Laos that gets the most rain. The couples complain a bit about the lack of sun, but the rain doesn’t seem bad, just appropriate for the season.

The first stop is at Tad Fan, the highest waterfalls in the Bolevan plateau. Boun suggests that we skip these falls, even though they are the most magnificent, because the rains will obscure our view of the falls. As a group, we decide to visit anyhow on the off chance that there is visibility. When we get there the mist curtain is so thick that it's like we are in a cloud. The falls are completely invisible, but I can still feel the force of falls in the deafening sound and I can smell the mist. In my mind's eye I can imagine the 120 metre drop and the water carving sharply into the rockface and then hammering down into the floor of the valley below. It was still worth the visit to hear the falls.

The second falls are visible, but the winds and mist are intense at the bottom where we want to go.

None of the other tourists want to go down the final set of flooded rocky and slippery steps with me as we near the foot of the falls. One girl already fell and we are all slipping on the mossy rock surface - all except for Boun in his flip flops of course. I am concerned too because I can't see anything as I get closer. I give my glasses and camera to Boun and tell him that I'm heading down. The glasses are of no use cause I can't see anything in the blinding white mist water. He tells me to be careful.

All I can do is squint to keep the pelting water out of my eyes. At some point during the descent it becomes difficult to breath because the water is getting so thick. I cup my hand over my mouth to create a pocket of air. At some point I can no longer see the steps in front of me and I stop my descent. I am by myself and very near the bottom of the waterfall - I feel a huge thrill as I grip the slimy wooden railing to prevent myself from getting swallowed into the falls...I try to breath the water-air without drowning. The water takes away the sound of my laughter and I feel so alive.

I am drenched now, and the raincoat becomes a joke but keeps me warm.

It's been raining for several days and the dirt roads are very muddy. Our minibus gets stuck on an uphill and we all get out to push it. Gwladys from France slips and falls front first into the mud. This is just two minutes after we had talked about how the red mud acts like a stain. She's a bit upset but tries not to let it get her down. The van just spins and spins in the mud and doesn't progress any higher on the hill.

Then Boun gets the idea to tie a rope to the front of the van and get us to pull it.

The girl from Holland refuses to pull and gets frustrated and says "This is stupid, it won't work. Why are the Lao people so full of pride. He can't admit that it won't work. We're stuck." I'm not sure it will work either, but we really don't have any choice but to make it work. Boun is still very positive and full of cheer and he's barefeet in the mud at this point and encouraging us all to pull harder. Eventually the van moves out of its rut and up the hill and we all let go except for Boun who continues to pull and run up the hill. I laugh because he looks like he's flying a kite, except that it's not a kite, it's a two ton van! He doesn't seem like he's full of pride; he just seems like he's a person who's determined to make things work, even in the face of adversity, and he's not about to get too worked up over it, especially if solutions are possible. If this is pride, then this is the type of pride I like!

The last falls are also beautiful as you can see.

We pass by some women selling produce on the roadside and I stop to buy some cute minibananas. I notice that a couple of women are passing something back and forth between each other. They are smoking something in what looks like a bamboo bong. I crouch down to get a closer look and the woman atomatically passes it to me. I think...what the hell...

I have no idea what it was, (most likely tobacco mixed with something else?), but it actually was pretty smooth and enjoyable.

In one of the villages we have a chance to see an ethnic group do some weaving. The loom is made up of a few sticks and the extended legs of the woman make up the frame to form the loom. I buy a piece of fabric from the woman. I'm digging myself into a deeper and deeper souvenir hole.

Piglets.

A child holding a child.

Another child holding a child.

This is a common sight in rural Laos. There are so many kids being born that they have to take care of each other and don't question this responsibility as well as others. I wonder if I will be less tolerant towards my own students after seeing so many kids here being independent and resourceful. It just goes to show that if given responsibility with a set of expectations (implicit) they live up.

Alone. I love bike!!!!!!!!!!!! Roach Attack.

Today is my first day in Laos without So and Ramsey. They went to Bangkok to run some errands and I decide to deposit myself in Pakse for the two days they're gone. I don't have a sense of Pakse yet, so I decide to rent a bicycle ($1.50) at the hotel I'm staying at (for $8.50/night). It's my first time on a bike since I left Toronto. The bike is way too small for me and the seat is at its lowest point on the post. I feel like one of those clowns in a circus riding a tiny child's bike. It is also candy pink. Despite these setbacks, I can't help but smile stupidly as I ride around. Man, I am always surprised at how I am always surprised at how much I love riding my bike...if that makes any sense. I love cycling, but don't know how much I love it until I'm not doing it for a while. I'm wary of the many unpredictable motorbikes swerving around the streets and this adds a bit of fear spice to my ride. I have a heightened sense of my environment. As I ride around Pakse, that cool thing happens where the brain begins to draw a map of a new place as it becomes more familiar with it. (This doesn't often happen at home because I don't usually go far from already familiar neighbourhoods.) Pakse begins to take shape - I slowly begin to figure out the orientation of the main drag and accompanying services, the ATM machine, bank, food and hotel establishments, the post office, the market and grid pattern of the city, and the waterway that shapes the town into a cul de sac. My bike route is like the lines of an etch-a sketch populating the screen and drawing me a picture.

I manage to find the market and spend an obsessive-compulsive three hours deliberating and haggling for handcrafted textiles. Textile laden, I don't look forward to my uphill ride back to the hotel on little pink pee wee, so I take the bike to a nearby motorcycle repair shop and pantomime my need to raise my seat at least nine inches higher. The mechanics look at each other and laugh. To my defence I point out to them that I am taller then all of them, and damnit, I need my seat raised. I think they felt a bit embarrassed, like it's beneath them, as if they are brain surgeons being asked to lance a boil on a buttock...but one guy finally does the job.

On the way back I stop for the BEST PAD THAI eveh! It's not slathered in sickly sweet red sauce.

I stop at that "Best Indian Restaurant in Pakse" to get an ice-cream. I've come to the conclusion that an Indian restaurant is a sound business idea in any part of the world where you have Western tourists. Most big Western cities have Indian restaurants and Indian food has become a well-loved cuisine for most cosmopolitan palates. Many of the tourists here forego the more unfamiliar (and therefore scary) Lao food for the Indian food. Every seat in the house is taken while Lao establishments across the street look empty in comparison. The owner said he came here eleven years ago from India and has Lao relatives in Vientiane.

I'm at the internet cafe now and this is not worth mentioning except that my emailing is accompanied by a giant two inch flying cockroach dive-bombing me and causing me to scream and make a complete fool of myself. Some of the other internetters laugh at me, but I can't help it...I'm now really hyper-sensitive (two levels below hysteria) and my startle reflex is on high. The giant flying roach has flown by me a couple of times and now it lands and scuttles and hides and scuttles in and around my computer terminal. I try to concentrate on my typing but I step on a piece of plastic and hear it go crunch and I scream. A loose strand of hair brushes by my bare arm and I scream. I can't take it anymore, my nerves are on edge and I get the internet owner guy to come remove the creepy arthropod and he laughs and just steps on it. It's so protected in its tough exoskeleton that it doesn't even squish; it just flops on its back with its shiny sectioned legs akimbo. I keep on eyeing it periodically to ensure it's dead - I have this paranoia that unless you see a roach's guts splattered about, they can always reanimate. After twenty minutes, I see its antennae begin to move about and it's somehow moved from its last "dead" position. Is this the immortal soul of the grasshopper I ate in Bangkok come back to avenge itself? Damn Southeast Asia and Karmic Buddhism! I'll take the four inch spiders, scorpions, ants and moths I've been sleeping with every night in the library over these two inch flying (flying!) cockroaches any day.

Phew...safe in my bug-free hotel room...I hope.

To and from the Waterfalls

Today Ramsey tells me he's taking me to see some nearby falls...they're ten minutes from the school. So doesn't want to go, because she generally doesn't like hiking, or getting dirty. It's only ten minutes, how dirty can we get? As we make plans, So reminds us that Ramsey can't go with me alone because it will look improper to the villagers without a chaperone, Ramsey refuses to take students out of the snacks workshop to accompany us, and in the end, So reluctantly agrees to come along. She is not overjoyed, but it doesn't kill my enthusiasm.

Ramsey's idea of ten minutes turns out to be forty...fifteen of which is spent trying to cross a fast-moving stream with slippery rocks. Did Ramsey even mention this stream crossing to me? Nope...of course not...that would've been too easy. At the stream edge, Ramsey tells me to leave my camera behind because I am going to fall in. No way am I leaving my camera! I strap my sandals onto my belt loops and tie my camera close to my neck and wade into the water. I am determined to surmount the stream with a bone dry camera. At one point I get submerged up to the shoulders and have to hold the camera strap with my teeth, but of course I make it - did you doubt?! Crossing is a little challenging and a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to re-crossing the stream on the way back.

On the other side of the stream, we pass by coffee plants - the Robusta variety they grow around here. (There seems to be a lot of controversy and misinformation about Robusta vs. Arabica vs. Robusta-Arabica hybrids in the West. A book I read about the history of coffee, called Black Gold, may have misled me a little. A lot of the mainstream Arabica out there, though claiming a more refined lineage than Robusta, and marketed as superior, is actually inferior to many Robusta varieties at this point in their domestication and cultivation.)

We see children all going to the stream to collect water in various containers. I swear, parents have so many children here just so they can collect water and steal fruit from trees.

We trample through woods and farmland and each pick up two pound of mud on the bottom of our feet. So eventually takes off her flip-flops and walks barefoot.

Corn on one side and rice on the other.

Pretending to be a rice farmer...um...I think.

I always love the approach towards waterfalls. Before you can see them, you can hear them, and as you get closer the soft buzz of them becomes increasingly louder, then before you know it, the last scrap of foliage parts before you…and there they are…the roaring sound of them enveloping your head. In this case they are small, but still nice. I see a thin little bridge that some villagers have put across two rocks for crossing. It doesn't look like it would support human weight. Ramsey suggests we try crossing the falls and I agree and feel intrepid, scared and excited. So tells us it's a really stupid idea and Ramsey looks reluctant and decides not to go ahead and I feel both relieved and disappointed. I think we could've done it.

At the falls, So washes her feet. I find this silly and tease her.

Why is she doing this when she knows she’ll have to walk back in the mud on our return. She tells me because washing her feet makes her feel good. All the Lao people have a foot washing obsession. They brush their feet with this extremely harsh brush very vigorously when they bathe. I can't even stand the feel of its abrasive bristles on my skin. It feels like my skin is being ripped off by tiny hooks. Many of them use this brush on their whole bodies. Lao skin must be different. I refuse to use the brush - I'm content to be only as clean as my hands can make me.

On the way back, Ramsey machetes the trunk of a rosewood tree to reveal the "blood" sap that gives rosewood its colour. It truly looks like it's bleeding. Rosewood is being harvested from "protected" forests at an alarming rate. This poaching goes unabated as more affluent Lao create a market demand for rosewood furniture.

I hear laughter and squealing and I turn to see this perfectly quaint and delightful Huck Finn moment. A bunch of cute, shoeless and carefree kids running and rolling tires up the hill with sticks. Am I in a movie? They get shy when I ask them for a picture, but they like it when I show it to them after.

We take a different pathway home through Gong's village to see how he's doing. I'm a bit disappointed that there's no need for another stream crossing .

Here's a family in Gong's village.

Gong says his foot is a bit better, though he is still limping badly.

Here we see his pouty little sister again. It's pretty uncharacteristic for children to be so emotionally coddled in Laos, and this kid is going to be spoiled for sure. Her father is the chief of the village, her family is the richest in the village, and she's the youngest of eleven kids. She's going to be a heart breaker.

Coconuts and Blind Candy

In the afternoon, Ramsey challenges me to do more "agricultural tourism". It is my turn to open a coconut with a machete. As you can see, the side by side comparison of my attempt to open a coconut and Ramsey's attempt reveals a deficit of sorts on my part.

It is difficult to hold onto this little round coconut with one hand while needing to put all your might behind the downward thrust of a machete in your other hand. I keep on feeling like I'm on the verge of cutting off my digits and this takes the force (and effectiveness) out of my chops. I have to concentrate quite hard to aim at the same cut twice and not gravitate towards my fingers. Eh...though it's not pretty, I am happy with my success. Coconuts of the world, beware.

This evening I decide to lead the students in a directional kinesthetic activity. In this game they learn the English words for turn left, turn right, go up, go down, big step and small step. So the aim of the game is to learn these words by both giving and following directions in English. They get into teams of one direction giver and one blindfolded direction follower. All directions must be in English. Their goal is to find candy that I have placed somewhere in the school. They compete in pairs. It is pretty ridiculous and fun as the followers blindly try to find the candy.

The last hidden candy is put high up in some vines growing on a pillar in the school. Fullmoon finds it and looks really happy.

I haven't seen Gong all day, and at night his mom shows up at the school and says that she wants him to come home. She found him in his house crying - he's in a lot of pain. She won't allow him to have his toe lanced because she thinks this type of injury, if punctured, will lead to an infectious pus that will cause other areas to become infected. She makes him traditional Lao medicine instead as a poultice for the wound.

Bugs, Snacks, Boils and Oral Sex

There is this cool iridescent blue bug I am fascinated by here. Evidently it's very common, but I still can't help examining it closely and being excited. It's very beautiful and cute. Look at its multi-sectioned foot pads!

So and Ramsey have paid for a five day workshop for the students. This whole week they will be taught how to prepare and make eighteen different snacks. This is something they can prepare in their own village for sale.

At night Gong limps into the kitchen, his face looks tight and he doesn't have his usual smile. He shows us his toe. It is swollen, and throbbing and hot. I think it's full of pus and it’s headed for a lancing. Gong is very afraid of this suggestion and quickly limps away. He then sits back down and lets us examine it more closely. It is very tender and painful. He said it's been hurting for about a week but has gotten really bad today. I am worried and afraid it might go septic. Then everyone in the room tells stories of how they have had similar things. Evidently boils, or something like boils, are commonplace here. Even Ramsey's had some. They all seem to swell and burst on their own or just subside after a while. No one goes to the doctor. San said she had one on her foot that caused her to cry in pain for three days. Shitty. My fingers are crossed I don’t end up with one.
In the evening So, Ramsey and I hang out on the floor of the library. We talk about sex and Lao culture (which is many different cultures because of all the ethnic groups). But in general, though Lao culture is conservative regarding male-female touching before marriage, they joke about sex a lot. There’s almost a slight undercurrent of male conquistador machismo here. So's mom has talked about sex to her children and is not shy about talking about it with friends...I'm not sure if that's just her mom's openness or if this comfort with sex talk would extend to more Lao people. So says that she will teach the students the following method of birth control: sex is allowed during a woman's period and for the week after, then no sex for ten days, then sex again. This formula is a bit crude, but if followed, it should be effective in cutting down eleven children households to two or three - which would be a huge improvement on quality of life. Many women in the surrounding village have expressed a desire to learn this method, but they are too shy to come to the school. I think it may be good idea for So to go to the villages and do workshops for the women there.

So says that this method of birth control is difficult for couples to follow because of the men. It's a culture where men dominate sexually. I tell her to tell the students that though they can't have sex during the ten days, they can "do other things" that don't lead to babies. She says she can't do that. I ask her why not and she says she can't "teach" them these "other things" as options. I found this odd. Then this funny thought occurred to me and I asked. "Do Lao people have oral sex?" I felt a little foolish asking that question because I had assumed all cultures would have that as a part of the sexual repertoire and psyche. After talking for a while, I got the impression that oral sex isn't that common, and only with the infusion of Western media have the city youth begun talking of oral sex, anal sex (only among homosexuals), or even foreplay. Ramsey points out, that they never joke about these aspects of sex though they do about others. I'm still left wondering if Lao people just don't talk about oral sex, or if it just doesn't happen much.

Many of the men in Lao are not very faithful. Both Ramsey and So feel that Western men actually trump Lao men in faithfulness. It seems par for the course that Lao men will visit prostitutes before as well as after they're married. So says that a few of her female friends just accept that this is what naturally happens. It also seems common that men will leave their families to take on second wives and have more children with them. Two of the students, Wen and Compeng, both have fathers who have left their families to set up new households. This is such a weird additional misfortune to the cycles of poverty in rural (and urban?) Laos.

The Cat, the Lotus, the Bra, and the Basket.

A note about the school cat. His name is Sutlaw which means "maximum attractiveness" in Lao. I rename him something more appropriate...Keecan...meaning "lazy". Other than the one time I saw him slowly ingest the bottom half of a mouse (no chewing, just swallowing like a boa constrictor would), he cries all the time for people food. They sometimes cook him eggs mixed with rice, and if it's not cooked right he won't eat it. So spoiled! I've never seen this breed of cat before. He has a short curly-cue tail. I want to squeeze him just a little too hard - he's kinda cute and very amenable to being picked up.

Ramsey comes back from Pakse today with a fistful of some odd looking plant. It's a lotus plant. In Toronto, I've only ever eaten the seeds, (they look like green embedded acorns in this picture) but I've never seen them in their plant context. They look alien...really cool.

Ramsey says that he spotted me running this morning while he was waiting at the bus stop. He overheard a Lao woman say “Why isn’t she wearing a bra?” The answer to that question is that I forgot to pack one so I’ve been running in my not very supportive bikini top...eh...it sorta works.

One of Gong's relatives has been commissioned to make for me a bamboo basket with a handle to hold my bathing supplies when I bathe at the stream. All the Lao people have one, but these days it's more likely than not to be a cheap plastic container made in China. Ramsey advised me to get one of the traditional bamboo woven ones to help out the local economy here. When the old man comes by to give me the basket and collect payment, he requests less than a dollar for his efforts. I give him more as a tip even though I know Ramsey disagrees with the policy of tipping. He thinks it breeds a disingenuous interaction between service provider and client. It causes people to work for tips instead of being what they already naturally are - very friendly and helpful without tips.

At night there’s a bit of an armwrestling game going on. Ramsey defeats all challengers including me as well as Oye in this picture. At 6'2", He's the biggest person here by far! Let's just say he uses his longer levers to his advantage.

I, of course, beat all the minigirls.

Settling in. Musical Interlude.

From inside the library I hear the girls from the school house. They are laughing and squealing and yelling. I wonder what's happening; they don't usually cause a ruckus like this. I go outside and I see that they are playing. Yesterday I bought a whole bunch of elastic bands and got one of the girls to make a jumpsee rope from it. I asked them if they played it in Laos, and evidently they do, but only when they are little. I thought my offering was a bit of a bust in that respect. But now that I see them playing with it with such delight and joking and laughing...it makes me really happy. I haven't seen the girls so carefree and physically expressive before. I want to play too, but I know that I am so much taller than the girls it wouldn't be fair, on top of that, I've always been good at jumpsees. Okay girlfriends...when I get back, we're playing jumpsees…game on!

I teach the students how to knit in the round to make a hat today.

I'm setting into a groove, and each day seems to go by in this languid way. I never know what's really scheduled and that's okay with me. There always seems to be time for me to insert a lesson in the afternoon or evening when formal classes are done, and it's up to me when I want to do this. Ramsey and So have been really chillaxed about what I do here. I have gotten into the habit of being the last to sleep at night (11pm or 12am) and the first to wake (5am or 6am) and I take a 1 to 2 hour siesta in the afternoon. Sweet. I feel like I'm on vacation. Nothing much needs to happen and I'm content with the routine of the school. I have a lot of free time yet somehow it all manages to occupy itself in some relaxed way or another.

Even though I am in a sarong, and the streambed is slippery with rocks and the banks are muddy, I now look forward to my twice a day baths in the stream. I have also grown to enjoy squatting and the compost toilet. I am now a disciple of the squat - it is the most agreeable position for easeful voiding...and composting my humanure is a good reminder of my connection to ecological cycles. I really like gathering water from the well and filling the large metal barrel each day. It usually takes me 10 minutes and at least 15 pulls/buckets. I have well calluses on my hands now...it make me feel strong like bull! I've gotten into the pattern of washing the clothes I wear everyday to take maximum advantage of drying time and to minimize the red mud-dye damage. I also really like foraging for greens and eating them (the food I will miss the most when I leave Laos). This is the closest I've ever gotten to my homo sapien hunter-gatherer ancestry. Something primordial and familiar has clicked in and has begun to root.

It's almost time to turn in and I'm listening to Chopin's Nocturne For Violin and Piano. It's beautiful. Tonight is the first time I've listened to music in three weeks. I didn't bring an MP3 player on my trip with me, nor do I have any music on my net book. This evening So hooked up speakers to her laptop and I've been scrolling through her play list. I've been lying on my mattress on the floor for the last couple of hours and listening to Nirvana, Bob Marley, Coldplay, Roy Orbison, Sinead O’Conner, Radiohead, Leonard Cohen, John Lennon, Neil Young, Chopin and Beethoven, etc. and I've been really enjoying the experience. For those of you that don't know me very well, I don't listen to music, so for me, this is out of the ordinary...and very welcomed. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is playing now and it seems appropriate that it is accompanied by the almost musical sounds of insects outside the library.

I’ll leave you with today’s sunset from the library porch.

Ratten Ball and Gender Politics.

So and Ramsey have hired a teacher to do workshops on mushroom growing with the students for the next two days. I wish I could understand because I would be interested in the topic as well.

After today’s workshop the boys play rattan ball. It employs a volleyball court set up but it uses a rattan ball (about 10 cm in diameter) which is hit with either the foot, off the knee, head or shoulder (almost like in hacky sac). It requires a lot of leg agility and flexibility for those high kicks.

Ramsey explains rattan ball. Wait for that wicked high kick at the end.

I immediately want to try, but only boys play this game (or any other aerobic games it seems), not girls. Even though I indicate that I'm interested, they don't encourage me to try. I tell Ramsey to play one side and I will play on the other, so that each team is equally handicapped with unskilled players. This is met with the boys saying that the court is full already. I see the deal. Ramsey also says that he doesn't want to play because he's not good at it and the rattan ball hurts his feet. Bah.

When the boys' game is over, I take the ball and try some of the moves. I encourage some of the girls to try to play with me. Been and San show interest (they are the most adventurous and outgoing of the girls). Gong has been conscripted to teach us girls (and Ramsey) rattan ball. Been and San hike up their long Lao skirts into "diapers" and give it a go. We have a lot of fun. Later a volleyball is fished from the roof and we play that as well (I have bruises all up my forearm from this.)

Gong is a very encouraging and patient teacher. The ball gets stuck in the roof again and this time Ramsey attempts to climb the pillar to get the ball. He gets to the top,

but can't make it over.

Gong eventually rescues the ball with his monkey style limbgrip. Later on, Been and San tell me they are tired from having so much fun playing. Yes...girl power!

Roadkill and Big Tang Finding Little Pants

So and I go to Pakse to run some errands. We pay for a ride on one of the small trucks that transports people and their goods to the market in Pakse. So and I are lucky and get the front seats. This helps with So's car sickness. On the way there we see a pink baby pig on the roadside that walks out onto the road. As the truck approaches it begins running across the road. The driver doesn't slow down and I see the piglet disappear between the two front wheels. I think maybe it got lucky until I hear a squishy crunch and I feel the truck's back wheel go over the piglet. So and I are silent for a while. I feel a mixture of revulsion and pity. I ask if the loss of the pig will impact greatly on the family that owns it, she just responds, "for sure they're going to eat it." I guess when you don't have a lot of money, you can't afford to let a protein source go to waste. Most likely that pig was destined for market to earn the family some money. The families of the students at the school are too poor to eat chicken, eggs or fish, let alone pork or beef. They mainly catch small animals for protein, like lizards, mice, rats and insects and hunt for birds in the forest (hence the decimation of wild bird populations).

Other sights on the road. Two white guys on touring bikes asking for directions in the rain. I felt an immediate kinship towards them and was reminded of my bike touring in Cuba. I remember having to stop many times to ask for directions, often in the rain due to the summer wet season. I kinda wanted to catch their eye and give them an encouraging thumbs up, but the truck went by too quickly. I can understand why they would want to bike through Laos, the road we're on is only a couple of years old, in really good condition and the ride from the Salavane province to Pakse is really beautiful. I miss biking.

Rural Laos.

The more I travel, the more I value packing light. For my trip to Guatemala last summer I just brought one backpack, not even that big (less than 18 lbs when weighed at the airport). I have been priding myself on being a smarter traveler in that respect. This has backfired on me for my trip here. I have never had to hand wash and air dry all my clothes on a long summer vacation before. The mixture of weather, physical activities and long drying time for clothes has made it necessary to have more clothes than I brought with me. I've basically been cycling through the same pair of pants and a couple of pairs of shorts. So's sister gave me a pair of pajamas to add to my quick dry artillery, but now I've come to Pakse to buy at least another pair of pants. How does a giant like me by a pair of pants in Laos? It's not easy. Even the large is a bit tight on me, and stuff that is extra large is too big at the waist, but I still can't get the pant legs over my calves. Evidently the average Laos woman is not only very small, but has very spindly limbs, and if they gain weight, it doesn't seem to distribute into their legs. My legs are too muscular for Lao pants! So directs my attention to some Falang pants that she says all foreigners buy because they can't fit into anything else. It's these horrible cotton-lycra stretchy and baggy jogging pants that are cinched at the cuff and end mi-dcalf. Yuck. I see a few foreigners sporting these pants on the streets - they probably think it's cool.

Red Earth, Birth Control, and Twinkly Sky

After a twelve hour (overly air-conditioned bus ride that does nothing good for my cough) return trip from Vientiane, we're back at the school and it's a downpour. The dirt path leading to the school has been turned into a flood plane and there's red mud water everywhere. I wonder if the library has been flooded. Luckily it hasn't.

Oh yeah, the red mud. The soil here is all red (lots of iron). And it gets everywhere, under your toenails and fingernails and in your clothes. No problem I thought, I'll just wash it out...erm...turns out that it doesn't work like that because the red soil is a dye as well. Given time, everything tends towards that terracotta colour. It takes some effort of scrubbing to get the colour off my skin, and even more effort for my clothes. It doesn't much help when you bathe and wash your clothes in a stream that is sand banked by this red earth. In a way, its pervasiveness is a constant reminder of the soil, and ultimately food production and ecosystems. Even as I fight against it, there is something reassuring about its presence.

Ramsey has been coughing and sniffling. He's stuffed up and blames me for making him sick. I feel fine for the most part and just have a bit of a cough, and no sneezing and congestion like he has. He still teaches however, but only one class today.

In the evening I ask the students how many children they would like in the future. Most said three children, and some said two. I was surprised by this, considering that some of them have seven or eight siblings and their parents probably even more. So taught them the connections between family size and economic and environmental sustainability. Most of these students are really poor, and doing the status quo - having a lot of kids - will just doom them to a cycle of continuing poverty. They are learning a lot at the school, but if there's one lesson that may have the greatest impact on their future wellbeinog, it may be this one. However, deciding to have fewer children, and being able to make that happen is another thing. At the end of the semester, So will teach them a sensitive subject, birth control and family planning. Education does work!

As I step outside the library to brush my teeth, I hear the now familiar orchestral hum of evening insects, and I see something that takes me a while to register. With the rainy season, the skies at night have been too clouded over for viewing stars, but now there's a brief reprieve and I see them...and they twinkle. Though I know stars are supposed to twinkle, I have never actually observed this before. I look for the big dipper, the only constellation I can always find. I can't find it, but then all of a sudden I see it! It escaped my search earlier because I was looking for something that was a lot smaller than what is before my eyes. It's the big dipper as I've never seen it before...it's gibungus! (No, this is not a chilli-induced trip.) It is the biggest I have ever seen the big dipper - it takes up a full quarter of the sky in my field of view. I geekily announce my finding to a lacklustre audience inside. I guess they're used to it here; I'm impressed however. It seems as if the sky has fallen closer to Earth, or else the Earth has ascended a little closer to the heavens. It's enchanting and impossible!

Goodnight.

Lao Crafts, Prostitutes and Culture

Today I went to a big market in Vientiane to get some textiles. The craftwork done in Laos is very diverse because of the ethnic groups here. I am amazed by the Lao weaving. It is very different in style to the Guatemalan weaving I saw last summer, which I also liked, but the Lao stuff is much more intricate, has a polished touched to it and an attention to detail which is unrivalled (though I like the Guatemalan colour palette better). I keep on thinking the weavers must have gone blind making such elaborate stuff. I only have an hour at the market and am overwhelmed by the vast ocean of woven textiles. This is why the quilting catches my eye. A few shops have crafts from an ethnic group called the Hmong. I don't often see quilting in Canada, but what I have seen has been all straight lines with geometrical shapes. The Hmong master quilters, quilt in intricate spirals and circles as well as straight lines. I've never seen this type of quilting before, all hand made. I buy several items of Hmong quilting as well as some Lao woven scarves. I wish I could have spent more time to look for a woven wall hanging.

Before we leave, So's dad makes something for Ramsey to take back to the school. It is some sort of neat tonic made up of this very bitter plant soaked in a bottle of honey. I suppose the honey is there to preserve it and make it more palatable. The plant is an anti-malarial, anti-diabetic and an overall longevity promoter. Of course, anything that good for you, must, and does taste horrible. I am sure the sweet ants will love the honey though...I hope Ramsey's not planning to keep that stuff in the library...I'm not sure how many more ant infestations I can deal with.

As we head for the bus station to take the twelve hour bus ride back to the school, Ramsey points to a bunch of storefronts on the street, he says that they are all prostitution dens. The way you can tell if a place is a brothel is if there are Christmas lights hanging outside. Since it's getting dark, Ramsey tells me to look for the lights. You will never see a working girl selling her assets on the streets - the modesty of the Laos would prevent that (a complete opposite of Thailand). Then someone tells us that the government outlawed the Christmas lights recently, but since the red light districts are set, there is no problem figuring out which places sell sex.

I have been resting on my laurels. Being with So and Ramsey in Laos has made the ins and outs of Laos so easy for me. I feel a bit sheepish to admit that I haven't even opened my guidebook until now. My guidebook for this part of my trip is a guide to Southeast Asia...Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the Greater Mekong (which includes Thailand and the Yunnan Province of China). The book describes the Lao culture as being very different than either the Chinese or the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese and Chinese are described as entrepreneurial and intense, whereas the Lao are much less so, and really laid back. Ramsey confirms that Laos is laid back and thinks that Thailand falls into that category too. The Lao view toward life is that no intense passions should be stoked, but that all things are not worth doing unless they contain at least some element of fun. Ramsey breaks it down for me like this...if a Vietnamese person has a goal, she would try much harder than a Lao person to reach it, and be much more upset if she failed. Another difference is, if two Lao friends were to get into a big disagreement, they would never speak to one another again (versus risk further confrontation), whereas two fighting Vietnamese friends will get really angry, beat the crap out of each other, and then be found later laughing and reminiscing about old times over beers. I am half Vietnamese and half Chinese, ethnically I'm from more hot-headed stock, but most likely being raised in the West has been the greatest influence on my temperament, more so than ancestry at this point. How many of you have seen me angry? Though I have been known to be industrious sometimes - I may yet create that fresh soy milk empire in the West when all this is over.

Eating Dogs and Durian

So's family asks me if I'm willing to try new foods. I respond that I am willing to try most things at least once as long as I don't find it too objectionable. They tell me that the restaurant across the street from the house serves dog. Though I am intrigued, (because I just have this thing where I wonder what all living things taste like, even human babies...suckling, roasted and honey glazed...mmmm soylent...I'm told that humans tastes like horse, and horses have sweet tasting flesh...I know first hand) I don't think I'll be able to face Bryanna if I ate dog. This is especially the case here because so many pets go missing because of poverty and the "pet food" industry. The family's third black and white cat has been missing for two weeks and they assume him captured and eaten, but he turns up today to prove that he hasn't met his fate in a human gullet. The day So's sister's dog went missing (never to return) she went across the street and ate some dog. I told Ramsey at least she didn't eat her own dog, and he said that she probably did. No one seems too shocked by these proceedings here. I for one will not eat any dog while in Laos, I mean, I'm gustatorily adventurous, but I don't eat people's kidnapped pets. Ethically farmed dogs would deserve consideration however.

Instead of eating dog, the family serves me up something that some people find even more disgusting, but I find absolutely intoxicating and delicious. Durian fruit - the king of fruits! It's a fruit people either love or hate. (Half of the people I know in Canada who've tried it either don't like it or think it's vile.) If you're one of the haters, it can often be so noxious in smell that you want to throw up (it's been described by some like an open sewer). It is so offensive to some people, that the government in Singapore has banned the transport of Durian fruit on public trains and buses. I for one can't relate at all because I think it both smells great and tastes great. I think that there is a gene that regulates the olfactory reception of the fruit.The reason why I say olfactory is because the people who hate the smell of it, may be able to eat it, and even like it, if they plug their noses while eating. These people got one allele of the gene, and I, luckily got the other. I, like the orangutans of Borneo, can't get enough of the stuff.

Fruit, Tightie-Whities, My Own Su Kwan

The morning conversation is about the corruption in Laos. Every government official, police officer, tax collector (they go door by door collecting the actual money), and teacher is corrupt. Teacher? Now it's personal...they tell me that you can pay to get good marks, and are often forced to pay to move up academically. I tell them about the time I was earnestly offered $2000 from a rich student to pass her on her final exam. I laughed and told the student that she should keep her money and concentrate her efforts on studying. Lucky girl got a 52% on the exam...if you call that lucky. So's family tells me there's no way any teacher here would have passed up that bribe. Corruption is omnipresent in countries where people have so little money or power.

So's mom, sister, and So and Ramsey take me out to see some sights in Vientiane. I see their version of the Arc de Triomphe. The informational caption has Ramsey and I in stitches.

Ramsey and I have a Titanic inspired argument over whether or not diamonds can be blue...a first.

I end up buying three big bags of fruit - mangosteen, rambutan and logan - which together cost me only $8. This would have cost me at least $40 in Canada.

A note on the marvelous mangosteen. It is this perfect balance of sweet and sour - a complex taste wrapped in a springy purple package that contrasts against the white juicy sectioned flesh inside. The little flat flower structure on the bottom of the fruit has the same number of petals as the number of fruit sections inside. You can find these in Toronto's Chinatown, but of course they won't be as fresh and will cost you a pretty loonie.
The day is sweltering - the hottest one on my vacation so far. Everyone is feeling it and melting. It's a good day for a haircut - my hair reaches my lower back. I go to get it cut and end up with the worst haircut I've ever had, you know, the kind where you feel like you end up with MORE hair than you had before. I feel like an upside-down broom. Something about me, vacations and haircuts. Last summer in Guatemala, I got these horrible cornrows done (long story) and then I hated them so much and got so desperate to remove them, that I cut them off two days later with a some guy's army knife. I lost about six inches of hair, but even that was better than the haircut I have now. No accompanying picture of this monstrosity will be forthcoming. I guess you get what you pay for when you go and get an el cheapo buck fiddy haircut. Luckily it's still long enough to clip back in my usual updo. I will have to rectify this situation as soon as I can find a hairdresser that speaks English.

Tightie-whities, sex drives and population booms. How are all these connected you ask? You know the idea that tightie-whities keep the testes too close to the core and therefore heats the sperm to a temperature that decreases fertility...well...the men in Laos only wear tightie-whities, and yet eleven children households are common. What's with that? Ramsey has a theory that the tighties prevent the free movement and accompanying desensitization that boxers promote...this keeps the testes restricted and in a state of heightened sensitivity which plays out in a more vigorous expression of sex drive...ahem...bada bing, bada bang...eleven children.

Back at So's family house I smell what I identify as some strong incense in the air. It turns out to be burning plastic. Many of the Lao start their stove fires by burning plastic bags (which are everywhere). They don't know about the health and environmental hazards of this, they just know that it burns fast and is effective at starting fires.

I am told by Ramsey that the family is planning a Su Kwan for me this evening. This is in honour of me being a guest here and Ramsey's friend. This ceremony is intended to give me good luck for my trip and life. I am honoured but have no clothes appropriate to the situation. I am the tallest and biggest woman on site, so So's mom fashions me with some of her traditional and formal clothes. The top is really ill-fitting and this isn't much rectified by a strategically placed clothespin. Luckily I'm sitting down on the ground throughout the entire ceremony so the ill-fitting clothes don't factor much, especially after I get the sash put on me. So's mom does the speech. She looks right at me and I don't know what she's saying, but her soulful brown eyes and gentle smile make me feel like the words are special. I feel a bit sentimental, as well as extremely warm and sweaty in so many layers of clothes.

After dinner, So's older sister asks me if I live alone in Canada. I say yes and she asks me if I ever get lonely. I say no, I like living alone because I always get to see my friends and family anyhow. Ramsey's reply to the same question is that when he's lived alone in the past, he's never been lonely, he's always had his books...then he laughs.

Tuckered.