Letter home from Laos and Thailand on June 27, 2008
Dear family and friends,
I hope that you're all well and happy.
The healing pace of life in Luang Prabang, Laos, was just what I needed to help recover from the food poisoning and dehydration I got toward the end of my expedition in Cambodia.
Brimming with curiosity, I was anxious to begin a rustic two-day, two-night Mekong River journey.
I spent most of the past few days literally off the grid, floating up the Mekong on a ramshackle wood slowboat from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, in Laos, and then ferry ride for the water border crossing into Chiang Khong, northern Thailand.
Days with no access to technology (or much electricity, even) gave me time to reflect on my journey so far.
Luang Prabang gave my body time to decompress and the Mekong gave my mind time to decompress.
I stayed at several places that were $3–$5 a night in Laos not so much out of budgetary constraints, this time, but because of infrastructure limitations. In some locations, that was literally the going rate.
But what that means, of course, are the understandably dingy conditions: no flushing toilets, the necessity of keeping my own toilet paper and hand sanitizer on me at all times, no bathroom sinks in one of the guesthouses nor in a local restaurant, which helps explain a violent aftershock case of food poisoning I got in the middle of the night in Huay Xai, Laos.
Off the grid and on the Mekong
The limestone karst scenery, steep jungle-covered mountains and lush tropical fruit crops were most plentiful just outside of Luang Prabang.
During the two-day Mekong river journey, the slowboat would make the briefest of stops at tiny nooks so remote that when the local Lao passengers wanted to disembark, the slowboat would pull up close to the shore and the local would leap from the slowboat onto the dirt and grass, then begin walking uphill, presumably toward a village.
Because the slowboat doesn’t travel when it’s dark, you have a mandatory overnight stay in a tiny village nestled along a remote shore of the Mekong, called Pakbeng.
The guidebooks say next to nothing about Pakbeng, so I didn't expect anything other than barebones guesthouses with cold showers.
What I found was a tiny, peaceful, slice of heaven.
Not only was it nice to stretch my legs and get to walk around on solid land, but the river view from the balcony of my villa was the stuff of dreams.
And, at $5 a night, I could hardly complain about the cold shower (not enough electricity from the generators) or the showerhead that was more of a liability than a utility.
I figured out quickly enough that more water was pouring from a compromise in the seal of the shower hose than out of the showerhead, so once I used that instead of where the water was supposed to come out, I was in business.
In the jungle, a limited cold shower is always better than no shower.
I was also stunned to find a lovely, authentic Indian restaurant in Pakbeng serving omnivorous and vegetarian food.
It was called Hasan, and was the first major restaurant I encountered on the right when I came up from the pier.
Even though I ordered a feast of spinach and potatoes, fried vegetable patties, garlic naan, and rice, the bill only came to about $4 before tip.
The gracious owner, Hilu, came out and started speaking to me after he saw my little "Vegan Passport" book that I'd shown to the waiter.
The book explains that I am vegan in 58 languages (59 after I asked an employee at the Peace of Angkor Villa to handwrite a translation in Cambodian) but it's also missing Lao.
The waiter spoke Lao and Thai, so I showed him the Thai page. Adjacent to that was Tamil.
The owner saw that and had to know who had the little book with his native language in it! He flies the spices in from India.
The cuisine reminded me of Pakwan, back in San Francisco. Moments like that make you even more homesick than you already are.
Ambassadors for our countries
What impressed me even more than the delectable, authentic Indian food was Hilu's professionalism when dealing with a group of incredibly rude travelers.
One of the customers at a noisy table was a vegetarian and realized that chicken was in her dinner.
Rather than politely bring the mistake to the staff's attention and ask for a replacement meal, she stormed into the kitchen and started screaming (I am not exaggerating about this) at the staff so loudly that all activity in the restaurant came to a screeching halt.
She yelled that she's been a vegetarian her entire life and that they served her chicken, and that she ate some of it.
She said that she wasn't paying for the meal and began to berate the staff with words and in a tone that were insulting, disrespectful and inappropriate under any circumstances but that were especially jarring in a peaceful and quiet environment like the remote Mekong.
As a vegan, I can empathize with her being unhappy about being served meat. Apparently, very few vegans are in Southeast Asia. During my trip so far, I have accidentally been served and momentarily ingested shrimp, eggs, milk and fish.
My internal radar would go off and I'd alert the waiter that something off-limits was in my meal and I'd politely ask that it be replaced or I would reorder and have him bring me something else.
Yes, I have been unhappy when this has happened, but I don't expect the world to revolve around me. Veganism is not common here. People are doing me a favor when they make me a special meal and I have genuinely thanked them for this.
The rude woman's table of friends were no better.
When it was time for them to pay, they each started haggling with the management over the bill, claiming that they'd been overcharged and refusing to pay for items they ordered and already finished, for example claiming that they should only pay for four Cokes even though six empty cans were on their table.
Other patrons in the restaurant were staring. I was staring. They didn't care. They were aggressive and had an ugly sense of entitlement that I've seen in people before but is always a shock.
No matter where we are, no matter the cultural differences, logistics or circumstances, we owe each other human decency and respect.
Whenever we travel, we are ambassadors for our home countries.
These rude travelers left a very negative impression of their country and culture not only on me, but on everyone else who was in the restaurant.
Several of us (me and the other patrons) went out of our way to thank the staff for being so gracious, especially in light of what they were dealing with.
We were embarrassed for those travelers even though they would not recognize that they were wrong and disrespectful.
I hope that I have been a good ambassador for the United States (and for Chinese Americans, as locals throughout Southeast Asia continue to ask my racial heritage everywhere I go).
The Thailand ricochet
After ferrying into Chiang Khong, Thailand, I took a rickety bus the few hours to Chiang Rai. This is a pretty major city up north. It has traffic, pollution, technology, urban infrastructure, and a river running through it.
Although urban lodgings abound in the city center from which I'm writing this e-mail, I'm staying at a humble rural riverside retreat in the jungle.
It's called the Akha River House, part of the community organization for education and cultural advancement, and it's $3 for tonight. I chose it on a whim while traveling with a European couple I met on the Mekong, Margarita and Victor.
I've definitely missed being able to communicate seamlessly with people. Just after our slowboat journey, I realized that they speak perfect English and Spanish, so it's been a real treat to converse with them in two of our overlapping languages.
They spend seven months of every year working and saving money so that they can spend five months traveling. Can you imagine?
Hitting the showers
Much of my quality of life here can be summed up by the infrastructure of my showers.
In an attempt to minimize the number of times I wonder to myself, “is that awful smell coming from me?” I’ve persisted in nightly showers even through less-than-ideal circumstances.
The Akha experience required the most bravery.
Set in the jungle, the outdoor shower was exposed to the creatures of the day and night.
Before diving in, I had to mentally accept the geckos climbing the walls and ceiling feet from me, the leaping cricket-looking insects flying around inches from me, and the constantly buzzing mosquitoes plotting their next blood meal by hovering over my exposed skin.
I don't think I stopped flinching every time a creepy crawly or flying creature of the night buzzed by me, but it did feel so good to rinse the humid and rank day off of me.
Southeast Asia homestretch
Tomorrow morning, I depart overland for a nine-hour bus journey to Sukhothai, one of the ancient Thai capitals.
There, and at its sister site, Si Satchanalai, I'll find giant Buddhas in open-air temples. They’re vast sites, similar to Angkor in terms of spread-out logistics.
Now at the end of my expedition, I'll only be able to squeeze in a day, maybe two, before I need to get back to Bangkok for my return flight home on July 2.
I knew that spending so much time at Angkor (nine days) would truncate everything else but I'm content with my decision.
If I'd had the budget, I could have spent the entire three weeks at Angkor, truly a spiritual and photographer's paradise, but the continued costs of the access pass and tuk tuk driver weren't feasible.
It's hard to believe that my expedition is already nearing its end. In ways, it feels like a lifetime has passed and in others, it's like I blinked and I'm at the end.
A heartfelt thanks to everyone who's written, shared updates on your lives and learned from my experiences. Those familiar voices have meant the world to me and helped keep me going during the difficult moments of my travels.
Be dignified, be respectful and be gracious. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
www.leahlau.com
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