I’ve been getting very culturally and spiritually in tune with Laos over the last two weeks. Generally, this means I gawp and shift from foot to foot as something ancient and precious plays out in front of me.
For two weeks I rode past it, gaping at it’s height and decoration, conducting an unrequited love affair with the structure. Finally, I got to be the tourist and climb it (I would have said "enter her murky depths" but I think I’ve made a few too many lesbian insinuations in this post already). 
Next on our spiritual trail was the Buddha Park just out of town. It’s like entering a non-sequitur. Huge statues and monuments seemed to have just been collected and dumped by the Mekong for tourists to gape at.
The first of these experiences was at Noi’s Village party. The tiny town is situated about 20km out of town and, as always, I had to ride there on the back of my Dad’s motorbike (another thing that isn’t sexy). When we arrived, Dad was practically tackled by a tiny elderly Laos woman - the sort of character you’d find covered in traditional finery and surrounded by a rugged and hilly terrain on a postcard for Tibet. Noi yelled from where she was being accosted by her brothers and sisters that this wrinkled firecracker was her mother. I was pulled inside their 2 bedroom home and plonked on the floor. In front of me lay the remnants of a party which had started at midday, with rice and beer being the two main condiments. The family began bringing out more food for Dad and I; a fresh grilled fish, soup, sticky rice, pork and papaya salad. Noi’s older brother, who was pretty passed it by that stage, began trying to show me how to use a spoon. I explained, “I already know how to use a spoon.” He just kept on in some kind of Russian dialect that no one could understand.
Later in the night, a sense of paranoia began to pervade my tipsyness as I sat with a bunch of middle aged Laos people who couldn’t speak English. I got very friendly with one girl, who I thought was my age, even going so far as to call her my best friend and saying she should visit me in Australia. It later turned out she was about twenty-four and could hardly speak English. This paranoia steadily increased as a gathering crowd stared at me unblinkingly. Maybe I’m exaggerating again, but it felt like the latest Sophie Meyer atrocity was screening on my face. This all came to an unfortunate end when I tripped off to the john and was watched peeing by a creepy random village man. It certainly freaked me the fuck out because I then slurred at Dad “I wanna go home! I don’t wanna stay here.”
Looking back this may have sent the wrong message to Noi’s family, but I was feeling pretty vulnerable at the time. So, we sped away into the night, back past the SEA games site and into the city again.
The next highly tradition rite I participated in was a cross-cultural ceremony involving stuffing my face with sushi. I love sushi. In fact, the only thing stopping me from marrying a California Roll is my concern about the effects of wasabi on any conjugal relationship. That and I’d be tempted to eat my own spouse… but red-back spiders do it so why can’t I eat my raw fish honey bunny?
Anywho, Dad had arrived back from Thailand unexpectedly so Noi and I gathered together our hunting gear and went in search of nori rolls and tempura goodness. We found these elusive beasts at the best Japanese place in town and proceeded to order about 15 things off the menu to the delight of the Laos waitresses.
The wait was long and the hour late by the time everything was packed and ready to go. It was only then that we realised we had 15 large, styrofoam boxes of Japanese food to hall home on a tiny, vesper-like scooter. Shit! I held two plastic bags, one in each hand, and Noi managed to fit the other four in strategic positions on the bike, before we set off into the darkness of late night Vientiane.
Typically, Dad was asleep when we got home, as the movie we’d left him watching had already finished, and the TV had been hijacked by Mud.
Temple wise, the serenity and ancient spirituality of these structures is always made slightly comic by the typical 80 gawping tourists posing for pictures, asking inane questions and silently judging everything they see. That Luang Temple is the biggest in Vientiane and probably Laos.
The building isn’t actually that big inside, but its enormous reputation clearly comes from the 20m high, golden spire jutting from the top of the temple and into a once virtuous sky. Now, I’m not gonna judge it’s creator but (to quote everyone’s favourite ogre), someone is compensating for something.
Maybe it's this guy...
The next ginormous monument I visited was Vientiane’s own Arc de Triomphe, Patuxai. Definitely one of my favourite tourist attractions, Patuxai’s arch way frames one of the main roads in Vientiane.
For two weeks I rode past it, gaping at it’s height and decoration, conducting an unrequited love affair with the structure. Finally, I got to be the tourist and climb it (I would have said "enter her murky depths" but I think I’ve made a few too many lesbian insinuations in this post already).
I thought it was piss your pants funny that the first two levels, before reaching the crenellation (look it up bitches!), were filled with tourist shops. These housed enough knick-knacky junk to make Andy Muirhead jizz; creepy electronic dancing Laos dolls, photoshopped photos of the Naga (which I bought thinking it was real, only to find out the American army had engineered the whole thing), rubbishy jewellery and a ridiculous amount of postcards.
The hilarity of those first two levels was balanced by the amazing view at the top. I got a bit overexcited; talking to randoms (who probably couldn’t speak English), looking wistfully into the sunset and taking way to many tourist pics.
On our arrival back on land, we were suddenly accosted by an aging French man on un velo. He couldn’t really speak English and my concession of being able to speak “un peu de francais” prompted him to prattle on in rapid French for a half hour. I understood about a third of what he was babbling about; he lived in Marseilles and worked with the police as some sort of trainer and had 3 bicycles, 3 cars and 3 motorbikes (or something along those lines).
He then asked if Noi was my guide. Of course I’d forgotten the word for wife so I tried “Elle est ma mere.” He looked pretty astonished so I tried to explain further. “Elle est la companion du mon pere.” If I’d said the same in English ("she is my father’s companion") it would have sounded like there was money changing hands, but thankfully he seemed to get the gist. In the end, I gave up and said (in English because I'd been frenched out) that I had to leave. He scrawled his details in Marseilles on the back of my Lao dictionary and wished me good luck.
This experience was followed by a number of nights out on the town. The first was a bit of a shock to me (having had limited experience of clubbing in the first place) but I still managed to bogey-on-down until about 4am after visiting first a cocktail bar then Bor Pen Nyung(the most popular place in town) then the gay bar GQ and then Don Chan Palace (the late late night clubbing destination).
It wasn’t until my second night of “party party” that I began to get into the swing of things. And by “the swing of things” I mean drinking too much, getting hit on by randoms, failing at sexy dancing and waking up the next day feeling like shit. By the time we got to Don Chan I was pretty passed it, but I still managed to have, what I like to call, the “traveler's convo” with 3 guys. This is a series of questions to determine where you’re from, why you’re in Laos and how long you intend to stay, shouted over doof doof music. Usually it’s broken by slurred complements and unco dancing.
It was in this way that I met a young Laos guy who I couldn’t understand and accidentally brutally rejected, a French-Canadian with a bushy beard that tickled my face as he yelled into my ear and a big American I thought was German, who gave me a shoulder massage as I swayed unsteadily in the light of my tipsyness. I only found out he was actually from Boston when we were leaving and I yelled at him from the back of a bike “DEUTSCHLAND!” He frowned at me and yelled back, “We’ve already been through this. I’m American!” So the night ended on a confused note but was no less enjoyed because of it.
I spent the next couple of days in trouble for wearing shorts at the temples on the Mekong. I look like a real foreign dick in the traditional Laos skirt; just like all those westerners who go to Hawaii and Bali and get their hair braided like a white idiot.
So, every time I forgot to wear the proper attire I had to shimmy on a sin. No matter what anyone said I still felt a twit and because of this maybe didn’t pay enough attention to the temples we were visiting.
Sure, it was interesting and I got some classic douchey tourist pics, but the whole place reminded me creepily of the White Witch’s collection of frozen woodland creatures in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
This visit ended with me getting viciously mauled by a rabid local dog.
Later that day, Noi announced she had to go and see “the Gypsies”. I tagged along thinking it would be eye-opening and shit. Turned out it was just two elderly Laos women, sat in a dark, dusty room, surrounded by the kind of stuff magpies and lyrebirds collect; empty fanta bottles, shiny plastic thingies and hundreds of little orange candles.
When we arrived another woman was being… treated? The gypsy women mumbled incoherently and stroked the patient’s hair and back. Then the egg came out. First they rolled it around on her head a bit and then ooooh, they cracked the egg and then looked at the egg and then everyone got to look at the cracked egg. I interpreted this ritual as being an aid for one of two things, fertility or hair growth.
Then Noi was up. As we moved further into the space the main gypsy started chewing bark and leaves. I later found out this was betel nut, but at the time I thought she was spewing blood. If you’ve never been to Asia and seen the locals participating in this disgusting habit, it’s like watching someone masticating the stuff you find on a forest floor and sporadically spitting out profuse amount of dark red liquid. I thought the nanny was about to depart permanently, the amount of “blood” she was drooling out. After 10 minutes of mumbling, chewing and spitting I’d gone a bit green and couldn’t watch anymore. When we finally left, I didn’t even ask what they’d predicted for the New Year. I just wanted to go home and eat a block of chocolate and watch HBO.
