Laughter in Laos
Vientiane
January 2, 2002
I’m head-over-heels for this country. Its beauty, people, food, landscapes, textiles and customs are amazing. I know I’m being dramatic, but I don’t know how else to communicate what it’s like traveling here.
Actually, maybe there is a good way. Here’s a story (warning: it’s long):
New Year’s Eve in Laos
January 1st is known as International New Year’s Day in Laos. It’s celebrated, but it’s not the big deal that it is in the Western world. I wasn’t too bent on doing anything special. I’d made some friends among the staff at the guesthouse (a guitar is great for that!), one in particular, a university student named Sombath studying English at Lao’s National University. I hung out with him and his friends that previous day (a story better told over beer than here), and he invited me out to some parties with him that night.
So I spent that day wandering around Vientiane, looking at Buddhist temples and taking in the vibe. Everywhere I’ve been in Laos, people smile at me and greet me with “Sabaidy,” the Lao greeting, usually accompanied by palms pressed together at the chest. It functions as “hello,” “good morning,” “good afternoon,” “how are you?” and “I’m fine.” Children are especially apt to greet a foreigner this way, and they are gleeful when you reply in kind.
This gorgeous day was no exception, and I was in a good mood as I sat to rest my legs at a stone bench under a tree by the Mekong River. The Mekong separates Laos from Thailand and has dramatically different levels in the rainy season and the dry season. Currently (dry season), it’s planted with crops in the dried-out parts of the river.
As I sat on the bench, an older gentleman on a bicycle stopped to ask me where I was from. He’s a doctor here in Vientiane and was glad to chat for a few minutes in broken English, but he was disappointed I didn’t know good enough French to communicate. Like many older, educated Lao men, he spoke French well as a result of Laos’ colonial history.
Not long after that, a young man named Leum pulled up on his bike, leaned it against a tree and struck up a conversation with me in decent (for Laos) English. He’s a 20-year old student studying English on his own time. He had a Lao-English dictionary with him to help him through snags in the conversation, and had come out that day expressly to practice his English. I offered him the seat next to me and we talked for a while, breaking only for him to buy us a snack of a some type of white root vegetable less bitter than radish that everybody peels and eats for snack here. Leum was curious, like many people I’ve met here, about the WTC attack, and he expressed his sympathy for me and my country.
After a while, he gave me some pointers on the surrounding areas and I walked around some more, had some lunch (noodle soup), and went back to the guesthouse to take a quick nap before meeting Sombath. He knocked after short but helpful nap. I went downstairs, chatted with the staff and other travellers, and then hopped on the back of Sombath’s motorbike.
The next few hours consisted of trying (mostly without success) to round up friends and figure out party details. Nobody has cell phones here, and few people have landlines. Socializing and planning is consequently much more difficult. The general strategy is this: stop by on your bike and invite someone out, go run an errand or invite someone else while they get ready, then go back and pick them up. Not efficient, but sufficiently interesting for me.
We stopped by the dormitory for female medical students where his girlfriend stays. (As a side note, gender relations and equality seem to be quite good here, from a superficial perspective at least). She had some bones to pick with him, though, so that didn’t go too well. Other friends had left already and plans weren’t looking good. We were hungry so we went for dinner.
We pulled up on a side street that sported about a dozen food vendors with carts on wheels and bought, from various stalls, some sticky rice (wrapped in banana leaf), a mixed salad of cooked greens, a cold noodle salad, and a roasted and salted fish, whole on a stick. Each purchase went into the basket on the front of Sombath’s bike and when we were through, we went back to the guest to eat. The total cost came to about 15,000 kip, or about US$1.60. We shared it and it was delicious. Both are standard here.
There were some issues about the possibility of Sombath needing to work at the guesthouse that night to fill in for another employee (who is also the boss’s son). Needless to say, my friend wasn’t too pleased by this prospect, but in the course of the night, we stopped at a few places to call in and confirm that he didn’t have to go in.
Back on the bike, the night wind and dust cool on my face we headed to the first party and noticed along the way that the streetlights were out. Indeed, all the power seemed to be out. People sat in houses and shops with candles, and things were a bit quieter than usual in Vientiane. Noticeably missing was loud Lao music playing somewhere nearby. (People listen almost exclusively to Lao and Thai music here.) Only the din of traffic and chatter continued unabated.
Our destination was a dirt courtyard with a few dozen people hanging around in the dark. We stopped for a while as Sombath and a friend attempted to chat up some young Lao women. During this the power came back on, to the great delight of everyone and the squeals of children. The flirting was predictably unsuccessful (even I could tell they weren’t interested, and I speak about 10 words of Lao) and soon we were back on the bike.
We stopped for a beer at a place that had several stone tables outside and Lao karaoke VCDs playing. I should explain the Lao style of beer drinking, although it works better in a group larger than two. There’s one glass and a large bottle (or several) of Beerlao, Laos’ domestic brew and, by far, it’s leading brand. The first person pours themselves a bit of beer and raises his glass to his companions, getting their attention and often a gentle nod of the head. He finishes the glass and pours each person a bit of beer in turn. You can’t refuse the first round, and you’ll have trouble refusing later ones too, though it’s acceptable. After the glass goes round, the next person pours. It’s a great way to drink, though it has the obvious drawback that people with various tolerances are forced to drink roughly the same amount.
Afterwards, we were back on the bike (I know, I know, not the brightest move in the world, but par for the course here and I was thankfully safe on the road), stopped at a few other places including a men’s dorm (I think it was 20 cots in one room…) before heading for what was to be the most interesting destination of the evening.
Read Part 2
