The Expedition

I hear screaming in the morning. It's Meuoy screaming as one of the boys chases her with something in his hand. It turns out to be this beautiful caterpillar.

On the first day to the school I had pointed to a mountain and told Ramsey that I wanted to do an expedition up one of those mountains. He said that a few of his students lived at the base of one of the mountains near his school and that they may be willing to take us.

Somehow, a month later, my request is coming true. So, Ramsey, Nick, the students, and I are going to climb the mountain today. The students of the mountain will lead the way for the others. Yesterday the students had prepared enough food for all of us, and the plan today was to picnic when we got to the top. The approach to the base of the mountain is a 1.5 hour hike, but we get a pickup truck to take us closer to the foot of the mountain.

Approaching the mountain at 9am.

The students are carrying up fish, salad, rice, noodles, spicy chilli sauce, water and condiments, as well as containers to serve and eat the food in. I notice that Somat is also carrying his guitar up!
It will be a 4 hour hike uphill and through some very slippery, muddy and uneven terrain. A machete will be needed to hack through some of the brush. The guitar seems ridiculous to me, but at the same time, it seems such a positive act that it brings a smile to my face every time I catch a glimpse of him with it. Everyone except for Nick (in Keens), Ghet (in sneakers) and I (in runners), is wearing flip flops for the expedition. Again, this seems a bit crazy with the slippery footing. A bunch of them have also brought umbrellas in case it rains, and some of the girls are wearing their traditional Lao skirts. In Canada, this type of climb would have people in their Gore-Tex windproof, waterproof breathable rain gear, hiking boots, hiking poles, water packs and strategizing to pack as light as possible with processed foods in gel or power bar form.

On top of that San has been having bad menstrual cramps all yesterday night and today. I can't believe she still decided to do the expedition. I can tell by the tight look on her face that she's in pain. I show her some ibuprofen and motion to her stomach and said "medicine", and she responds with "I want eat" and takes it from me gratefully. Here's San with Somat's guitar after the painkillers take effect.

As well, Fullmoon and Apple have diarrhoea. This climb must be hard on them, and they don't look all that energetic. I am surprised and touched at the solidarity.

Some scenes on the way up.

Rest stop.

Fungi.

Nick loafing.

A snail.

What?

Chameleon or lizard?

Whoa...A single marijuana plant!

At the top I had expected a huge forest, but instead I am greeted by this weird rocky landscape covered in lichen and moss. There are marshy areas as well as wildflowers and individual trees sprinkling the landscape. Though it hasn't rained yet, the sky is looking murky now and there is a mist in the air that predicts fog and possible rain.

As I approach a white wall of mist where the students seem to have lined up, I notice the wind getting much stronger. I then see that we've reached a cliff. We're at the edge of the mountain. As I approach a jagged part of the edge, I have to get down on my hands and knees to reach it because the wind is gusting so strongly that I feel in danger of being blown off the mountain.


So windy!

Other scenes from the summit.

We sit down for our picnic and it's very misty and cold. Everyone is in good spirits and huddled around the food. Near the end of the meal the wind begins blowing harder and it begins to rain. Some of the students are very poorly dressed and get drenched and are cold. As it begins to come down hard, we all abandon our picnic and food and run to a nearby cave. This cave turns out to be located down a vertical drop and most of us are reluctant to go down so we stay huddled and cold underneath shared umbrellas. Though I kinda feel bad for the shivering students, the situation is also kind of funny. I am wet, but fairly warm and cozy in my rain jacket, scarf, and brimmed hat. I came prepared for once!

We finally make the decision to collect our picnic and go down the mountain. Hiking down warms everyone up and I am surprised that everyone is still smiling, laughing, some singing, and still in good cheer. I give San two more ibuprofens and she still manages a smile and a joke as we descend. I'm really impressed by her spunk, determination, as well as great attitude; many people would let their periods, let alone cramps, be reason enough to excuse themselves from a whole day of mountain climbing. These kids are amazing!

They keep asking me how I am and I honestly answer "very happy". They are reassured that I am having a good time and I begin singing and humming and making nonsense sounds on the way down. There were a couple of hairy moments when I almost fell off of slippery down slopping logs that served as bridges over the thick brush. Mai caught me once. At one point a log was placed across a 4 meter wide and 7 meter deep crevasse and I thought I might slip off, but I tried not to over think it and just crossed without getting psyched out. Ack...I have no travel insurance!

Mai, Apple, Fullmoon, Somat and I get separated from the group at one point and we get a bit lost, but rendezvous with the lead pack later on.

We pass by the marijuana plant again and Apple takes a fistful of branches with him. I wonder what he will do with it.

Students also collect snails, and we collect corn as well at the base.

There is no truck waiting for us this time and we have to walk all the way back to the school. We don't make it back until 6:30pm and everyone is tired and hungry. The corn is delicious.

An awesome day.

Nick Comes to the School - Disco Night!

Nick and I take a Lao bus to the school. As we board we notice that the walkway between the seats is filled with rice bags waist high. We have to climb over them to reach some seats and when we do we see that the floor space in front of the seats is also filled with rice bags.

This seems comical and we are in high spirits with the absurdity of the situation. I tell Nick that this isn't so bad compared to when Ramsey and So took the same bus but they had goats and pigs tied down onto the roof of the bus. The were bleating and oinking through the ride and then of course it began to rain and the goat and pig "juice" began leaking through the roof and onto the passengers. Wow, perhaps that would have been less comical. I consider Nick and I lucky just to be inconvenienced by space, and not by livestock run off.

We arrive at the school and one of the students greets us at the gate, Sai says hello and shakes Nick's hand - progress! The other students also greet Nick, and I see that they seem a lot more confident then when I first met them. Nick is great with the students and encourages them to interact with him in English. They are very interested in another falang at the school. The girls seem to be especially interested in Nick, and Ramsey comes over to tell us that the girls all find Nick hot. Ramsey has said that the Lao usually find him ugly so he suggests that Nick is considered more attractive because he is lighter skinned, with a smaller than usual falang nose, and because he is clean shaven (the Lao women don't like facial hair).

Nick sees the students playing rattan ball and decides to join in. The students seem impressed by his attempts and he manages a few good moves. Ramsey watches for a while, and even though he refused to play when I asked him to play with me earlier (claiming it hurt his feet) some sort of male competitive pride sets in and Ramsey decides to play on the team opposite Nick.

In the kitchen I challenge Nick to eat a whole hot chilli pepper in front of the students. He does it without much difficulty and they are impressed. Later Ramsey said that he had to do the same thing cause Nick set the bar, but Ramsey was feeling a bit of gut rot as a result. Male pride strikes again.

Nick experiences his first night time bath in the river; he is taken aback at the strength of the current and the unevenness of the stream bed. He has a lot of difficulty getting his footing and I can't help but laugh at how odd he seems just falling everywhere or being stuck not knowing where to move next in the stream around the slippery rocks. I warned him it was tricky!

They have planned special food and a dance in my honour since I'm leaving in a couple of days. They have retrieved an amp and music system from another village and have set up the school into a disco. You have no idea how weird this seems. On top of that, it is the full moon tonight.

They are all wearing their best clothes and all of the girls have foundation and powder on their faces to make them look whiter. I have seen a few of the girls do this before, since they prize white skin over dark, but all of them wearing it at once seems really strange - they all look like weird ghosts. Even So has put on some makeup for the evening.

They play Thai folk music, Lao music, Southeast Asian dancehall as well as American hip hop. Ramsey takes my flashlight and proceeds to wave it about frantically to mimic a disco ball scattering light on all the dancers. His ability to keep this up during the night is a bit absurd in combination with his frantic style of "freedom" dancing as I call it - I can't stop laughing every time I see him spasming around.

The girls keep on surrounding me and mimicking all of my dance moves en mass. It is a bit unnerving so I begin to dance with the boys who are doing more hip hop moves and robot moves. I'm not sure how they learned this stuff but it was more fun to try to dance this way.

What the heck…I get Nick’s belt off of him and get the students to limbo under it. They find this very amusing, especially as they fall.

Very surreal evening.

Fan Yuan - Sweet dreams.

A New Falang in Town - Nick Arrives

Ant infestation again. I wake up to lots of them biting my scalp, neck and shoulders. I brush them off and examine my bedding with my flashlight. Yep…crawling everywhere…and I’m not surprised or really even irritated. Only tired…it’s 4am. I mosquito-proof myself in long pants, socks, a sweater and scarf for my face and go to sleep in the hammock until Ramsey wakes me up to go get the bus.

While waiting for the bus to take me to Pakse I turn around and notice this small tot on a motor bike. They are expected to be independent quickly in Laos.

I have come to Pakse to pick up Nick who's coming in to Laos from his one month vacation from Korea. We're going to travel for the remainder of our vacation together. Of course he regales me with stories of cute and unnaturally young looking Asian women. As I type and read aloud the last sentence to Nick he says "great, I need perspective on how I appear to outsiders, like a sick sick man. What healthy man could possibly be interested in cute and youthful Asians?" He says it with a laugh. No offence taken. He's accepted his ecological niche as an rice packer. He's 6'3" and stands out like a sore thumb in Laos.

We solicit a street vender for information on an authentic Laos restaurant in Pakse. She says there's one two kilometres away, and recommends that we take a tuk tuk, but we decide to walk instead. The Laos hate walking unless they have no other choice. We order enough food to feed a family of eight Lao people.


Beerlao isn't so bad Nick says - even decent. I can only take his word for it.

In the restaurant we order enough food to feed the equivalent of eight Laos people. The waiter doesn't seem surprised by our order, perhaps because Nick is such a big and tall falang. The only thing I can manage in Laos is Bah mach bang nua - "don't like MSG". The food is good with a couple of authentic Laos dishes, though I think they watered down the spice to adjust for Nick's obvious falangness, though Nick likes spice.

The Spell of the Sensuous

I have begun reading “The Spell of the Sensuous” by David Abram. He writes “The simple premise of this book is that we are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human...Direct sensuous reality, in all its more-than-human mystery, remains the sole solid touchstone for an experiential world now inundated with electronically generated vistas and engineered pleasures; only in regular contact with the tangible ground and sky can we learn how to orient and to navigate in the multiple dimensions that now claim us.” This book is helping put words to the shapes of ideas and feelings I have had on this trip, and at various points in my life.
I wade into the stream to wash my clothes on the rocks. This is my first time attempting this, like the locals would do. All the other times have been at the well. Some of my clothes are very dirty and are on their way to being permanently dyed by the fusion of hot baking sun on the red dirt. The water is very high and fast today (since the last three days have been rainy) and threatens to dislodge my footing, but I find my rocks and settle my feet into the stream bed. I feel the water rushing past my thighs and hips but I lock-in my legs. For one hour I wash my clothes. I think of nothing else but feel the sensation of the moving water, small pebbles underfoot, slippery soap, coarse and soft fabric and the hot sun pouring down on my neck, back and arms. The sound of the stream is the soundtrack to my efforts and mayflies dance around the rocks. I smell the fragrance of the soap and the fresh coolness of rushing water. My leg muscles are engaged and tense. My arm is tiring. I've never been so immersed in doing my laundry.

Outside the kitchen, I find this millipede, and it is beautiful. I pick it up in my hand to feel how it walks. Its method of locomotion is precise, rhythmic and...perfect. The sensation of its legs on my arms and hands is that of fluid Velcro...gripping and lifting in segmented waves.

I spend a long time watching and analyzing one of the species of ants on the vines outside of the kitchen. I wonder what they are doing there and try to figure them out. Their antennae float about as they cluster around the base of each leaf, where it connects to the petiole. Where the ants are, the leaf is more translucent. There is a set of relationships between the ant, the vine, and most likely a myriad of other elements, but I cannot fathom what they are.

I decide to feed the chickens some corn kernels. In the cluster of chickens I notice one rooster who seems to be having a difficult time holding onto his kernels when he finds them. Inevitably some other chicken will charge in and peck it out of his beak, or he will drop it right in front of himself and the other chickens will scramble for it. The rooster is the biggest one, so I don’t understand how he could be so incompetent at securing food. I keep on feeding them for quite a while to figure out the relationship between the rooster, and these other chickens. Out of twenty or so attempts, he only manages to eat one kernel for himself. Aha...he’s feeding the other chickens! Obvious now that I think about it. What genetic or social relationship to him they have, that I don’t know, but there is something going on that is very paternal. I never thought chickens had these types of relationships. As small domestic food animals, I don’t think much about a chicken’s social interactions or hierarchies. It’s a bit strange to observe them in action.

And so my day goes. More and more days have become like this, occupied by the fine focusing onto the specific actions of subjects around me. The enjoyment of sensuous experiences of touch, sight, sound, smell and taste. The attempt to understand the relationships between things, and the essence of acts or behaviours. Though the veil of mystery lies between me and all other subjects (a gulf of understanding) I feel a sense of connection through observation and an attention and openness to the minutia of experience.

I feel, not so much as less interested in people, but more like they've taken on a background note as my attention gets grabbed by the non-human. My initial focus on the Lao people and Lao culture has shifted in favour of the non-human subjects and sensory experiences. Things have distilled and I feel more inward and peaceful. I commune with the forces of the waterfall, the sunset, the starry sky, the winds, the insects and the birds. Time marches forward in a rhythmic spiral.

Two strong thoughts come into clarity today, almost like mantras:
1) I align myself to no tribe or nation, my allegiance is to this Earth.
2) Who am I? I am my body.

Pubic Hair and the Runs

There are a lot of papaya trees at the school. It is the beginning of papaya season and two huge papayas are ripe on the tree outside of the kitchen. Both are over a foot and a half long. The students get one for me and we share the tree ripened fruit. I’ve never had such fresh papaya before. It is delicious and I eat more than my fair share despite the previous warnings of So and Ramsey that the fruit is a laxative. They restrain themselves to one slice. I have four large slices since I have eaten a lot of papaya before and it doesn’t seem to have this laxative effect on me.

This is a picture of Wen really high up on a tamarind tree. The Lao people like how sour the fruit is and eat it dipped into….of course….chilli sauce.

When naming children in the West, most cultures look for names that will have a positive meaning or at least will help their child avoid teasing by their peers. No such protective ideas have evolved in Laos. Besides giving their children unfathomable English names like Rambo, George Bush, ABC, and OB (as in obstetrics), they also give their children Lao names which have the literal meaning of Fatty, Bad Luck, Vagina, Balls, Small Balls, Sweaty Balls, Pubic Hair etc… These aren’t even nicknames, they are given names. So says that it shows affection and familiarity. It’s difficult for me to imagine naming my child Vagina or Pubic Hair.

I am about to go to sleep but my tummy feels funny. I wonder if all my confidence of not getting into intestinal trouble has jinxed me. Gurgle gurgle blub blub goes my liquidy guts and I make a run to the compost toilet just in time. Then I remember my greedy ingestion of the papaya. Ramsey says that the papaya I ate today was probably the ripest and freshest I’d ever eaten and I had way too much….eh…lesson learned…well, at least papaya runs are better than parasite runs.

(Mis)advising the Falang.

So and Ramsey are supposed to come back to Laos today and pick me up in Pakse. Before they find me, I see them and yell for them to come over. I spot them while sitting in the reception area of the massage parlour. I just had a one hour massage. When they see where I'm calling from, they have this look and smile that communicates "of course, where else would she be."

On the bus taking us back from to the school, the last two passengers board. I am commenting on something in English and one of the passengers says "Hey, you speak English!" I turn to look and there are two falang settling down in seats behind us. They are two guys from Portugal on their way to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They seem excited to talk to me, and I think it is because they think I'm Laos, but can also speak English. I disabuse them of that notion quickly, but they and Ramsey and I get talking.

They inquire about the safety of the food and one guy expresses regret that he hasn't tried the fruit or street food because of fear of getting some illness. Both their doctors have given them the regular tropical shots and malaria pills, and warned them not to have "non-hygienic" ice, or eat produce. Ramsey tells them there's not too much to worry about. They counter by saying that he's basically a local at this point and wouldn't be affected. I tell them that I didn't get any shots, and didn't take any pills, and I eat everything on the street including the fruit. They asked me what my doctor advised, and I told them that I don't have a doctor, and didn't go to one before my trip. I accepted that getting something intestinal in Southeast Asia would probably be likely, but I also knew that Ramsey could take care of intestinal illnesses with the plants that grow around the school...there's also easy access to Western medications if I need them. But so far so good - It's been one month and not even a twitter of my tummy...I'm not sure if any parasite could survive the spicy chilli environment of the food I'm eating, perhaps adapting to local spice levels has been a bit of a protection against intestinal illness. I've probably ingested tonnes of microbes (these are the most unhygienic conditions I've ever lived or eaten in), but just enough for my body to adapt to them, but none of them have taken a foothold yet. Knock on wood.

I think talking to us has given them the encouragement to try the local foods and fruits. The two guys are economists and Laos probably seems (as do all countries) a case study of incentives, desires and resources. We touch upon everything from Nietzsche, to economics, to linguistics, to food, to sexual politics, to "small-c" communism, to mushroom growing to etc. It was nice speaking in English again and bumping into tourists excited about travelling.