Same same but different

My sister and I travel well together. Hell, many people even think we're twins.  She’s  more the daredevil between the two of us. We balance each other out and get the other to do things we wouldn’t normally do. Things of course that the other ends up totally loving and is ultimately glad we did. 

 The main thing Mari wanted to do in Laos was ride elephants. While that seems all great and fun I don’t know if I mentioned about health care?? The older sister in me was having terrible visions of some horrifically violent, elephants-gone-wild-in-the-circus type of incident. Inevitably, I would be the one to survive, then would come the shame of returning to tell my parents… Anyways I somehow managed to push that idea out of my head long enough to buy a ticket and jump on a rickety (come on, they are never not rickety) truck out to ride some elephants. 

Our short ride outside of the town brought us to rural villages. Here the homes where fascinating. They were not just straw huts. The walls were complicated woven rugs. Aesthetically they were more pleasing and complicated than one would expect from this type of a structure. Some of the homes seemed  to be built on good and sturdy foundations. The weather is such in Laos year round that there is not a great need for complete insulation. I would have thoroughly enjoyed being invited to sit with the groups of women we saw preparing food for the nights meal I can only imagine sitting around gossiping about the neighbors or tourists atop elephants.  

Elephants are amazing animals. Any American school kid has seen an elephant, but to stand right in front of one and stroke its trunk is another thing. These animals are so large yet so calm. Being in this animals presence is like being next to a dinosaur. Or, maybe like holding a newborn baby, the world is full of potential. These majestic animals are so lovely that the thought of someone harming them seems so pure evil or at least insanely desperate. 

 Sauntering down the road, bareback elephant riding is a pretty cool place to be. I kinda felt like the Sultan from Aladdin making my grand entrance minus all the jewels and what have you. As predicted the creature would want a dip in the river.  Swimming with elephants, of course, why not? Please don’t question the safety or sanitation. 

Wow, just starting to realize why my sister was not 100% giddy when I told her my fun activity.  Laotion cooking class. Come on, totally fun and totally as cool as riding elephants, for real. She was a good sport though and I think she did end up having a pretty good time “cooking” as well. Our guide took us first out to a market. The market is almost a mandatory stop in any country. Having a guide was surprisingly useful. Without him there where many market wonders we would never have learned about. Here’s a few to give you an idea. Flies, sometimes you want them and sometimes you don’t. While fish sauce can ferment up to a year, a good one won’t have flies hovering around. Little critters which are sundried, on the other hand, more flies, more flavor. There were also bags of white powdery stuff that looked like some type of processed grain. This we discovered was lime, as in ground limestone. People use is as we would use chewing tobacco and with a similar high. More commonly it is used among women because women smoking in public are highly frowned upon if not completely unheard of. It will eventually make your teeth black and  fall out.  Lastly there where round frisbee like discs of black stuff, if I had to guess I would say it was some type of molasses, maybe on the idea of piloncillo. I couldn’t have been more off, it was something compiled from ants nests and was used as glue. Good thing I didn’t grab it to give it a taste.  

sticky rice baskets.

dried critters.

From the market we were whisked to an open air cooking resort. Our guide was not short on jokes or flirtations and under his lead we whipped up some pretty impressive stuff. Part of the time I felt like we were in a Mexican cooking class. We used a molcajete,  a common instrument in Latino kitchens, for spice grinding and sauce making. As well as finding ourselves using banana leaves to wrap food for steaming, another technique widely used in Southern Mexico.  These moments are what I like to call, no, no, no, not seeing the Mexican in everyone! I call them “world bonding moments.” No matter how far you go you find more things that make us the same than things that make us different. 

Laotian Molcajete

Walking in a Laotian Wonderland

Saying farewell to our gracious host and friend Dan, Mari and I hopped a cab to the airport where we would be heading to our next stop Luang Prabang, Laos. Our head-space at the time was unanimously odd . Mari was anxious about a “break” with her man. Me and mine…well we left on a bad note you could say after fighting the day before his departure.  So while we were excited about the new land and exploration, there was this kind of uncertainty and discomfort in the back of our heads about our world back home. We tried to keep it in the back of our heads however as we leaned in and poured over the guide books. We had a few activities roughly noted as possibilities but what did we really know about this town or even this country? I’m gonna say, not-a-thing. Is it terrible to admit the paragraph I read on some crap website at home had sold me and made me feel like I must see this land for myself? Descending for landing I knew deep within I had made the right decision. Mari and I both gasped at the vision below. There was bright green foliage everywhere, so super bright, and wet and glistening. Among the vibrant foliage were roofs of red tiles. The contrasting colors and textures made the decent different from all others to date. It wasn’t all nature and it wasn’t all architecture, but both were present competing for your glances attention. The combo at once had my imagination racing. 

When I travel I do tend to be a bit of a romantic. Oh, how ideal life is here! Oh, how lovely the people! How tasty the food! But on occasion I do snap back to see the reality. The beautiful architecture I was fawning over on our descent was not in the traditional Laotian style. It was French mixed with Laotian. This French influence doesn’t come in because the Lao people love French decoration, sadly this was a colonial city. On the other hand this little town is so happy (uh-oh the romantic is taking over again…) the people are soo warm.  It’s a subtle warmth, no touching or eye contact but you can still see the smiles as people chat among themselves. The vibe is really genuine. Most people here are Buddhist and practice living their life in the middle way. Meaning extremes in emotion or otherwise are not well looked on. Plus, Mari and I concluded (the results of hard fast scientific research of course) the boys here are by far the cutest! Oh..yea, reality, my apologies. My sister and I learned that health services in Laos are practically non existant, meaning if something where to happen to us we would need to be flown to Thailand. That being a luxury likely only a foreigner could afford.  As someone pointed out to us, “Look around you. Do you see many elderly? When people get sick they die.” Also a reminder, that bartering on a small item might be buying some bad karma.  

Before we could blink, our tuk tuk had dropped us off in front of our hostel. We could only be excited for our adventures to come. The place looked way more comfortable than either of us had envisioned. In the end when we where leaving for our next country, we only had a few hundred bed bugs bites. Or some freakishly giant cousin of the bed bug that we saw crawling on our beds. Nothing like some scars on the back of your legs, to make for a cheap and memorable souvenir (sorry no photo-it was too gruesome for the younger readers).