When we got in from the bus station, then first thing we saw was a near-fatal accident involving a pick-up truck and a scooter. The guy didn't move for a while. He seemed ok by the time we left.
We walked up and down the town center seeking an affordable room and discovered that we are not exactly in a backpacker town, more of a Chinese tourist destination. One hotel that looked quiet just turned us away. We were not welcome. Another said they were full. Alfie said, "you're full?" And she said "I don't know, yes." I guess if Chinese tourists saw gweilo staying in their hotel they'd go somewhere else. Another was 78$ a night. Finally we found a room with three beds for about three dollars a piece at what - we learned later - is considered a bit of a "red-light" joint. We got what we paid for.
By far our dingiest room yet. Scary plastic wrapped beds and a whole colony of ants living just inside the door, yellowing newspaper plastered over the windows as makeshift blinds and every ten minutes a squawking that must be a gecko but sounds like a parrot. Utterly survivable.
We went and had dinner and wandered around to get acclimated. Not wanting to karaoke, we wound up heading back toward our hotel early, around 10pm. Before we got back to our street, we were called over to hang with some locals drinking beer on the stoop.
One was a soldier who spoke pretty good English, the one who had shouted to us from across the street. The other was a cop with a strange laugh who found us pretty amusing, offering us ample opportunity to appreciate his cackle. The third was a wheelchair-bound electric repairman - televisions, computers, refrigerators. We'd already heard that the Laos people were famed tinkerers, many can disassemble and reassemble very complex things, often machining spare parts by hand with limited equipment. Serious talent.
They were nice guys. We played the Asian courtesy game, pouring each other small glasses of beer back and forth and teaching tidbits of our respective languages. The soldier wanted to know where we were from, what we though of Laos, what we did for a living, and if we wanted him to arrange a tour or possibly a young Laotian prostitute for us. The electrician guffawed and the cop cackled. We politely declined and gracefully extricated ourselves with lots of handshaking and kob-jai-li-li's (thank you very muches).
We've been chucking a saying around jokingly, it goes, "these people are so beautiful, they really know how to live." Someone said this to us in full seriousness, without a glimmer of recognition of their cliche, of the complex story they were truncating.
It's bullshit. These people are people. I've met people. They're capable of anything, acts of sincere beauty and acts of ragged and unflinching ugliness. If you believe they "know how to live," I think they'd happily trade. I agree there is something infinitely compelling about the "simplicity" of life - but if I've learned anything, it's that one form of simplicity breeds another form of complexity. Denying this denies everything interesting about humanity.
Location:Tha Khaek, PDR Laos
Love this:"I agree there is something infinitely compelling about the "simplicity" of life - but if I've learned anything, it's that one form of simplicity breeds another form of complexity."
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