blowin' in the wind

tha kaek, laos

regional saying: the vietnamese plant the rice, the cambodians watch it grow, and the lao listen to it blowin' in the wind. having gotten my toes wet in each of the these countries, i will attest to the statement's accuracy with whatever limited credibility i may have. with regard to the latter country, there is room for a potato/potahto disagreement. to some, this evokes the attribute of laziness. to others, like myself, this suggests that the people in question are "chilled out." however, to the first group, anyone who employs "chilled out" in their vocabulary is nothing if not lazy and then we're right back where we started.

the point is that there are certain places where we say some derivative of "island time" and laos is one of them. if the siesta were an internationally-recognized sport, there would be a lot of these polysyllabic names floating around dinner tables during the upcoming london games [and the siesta would definitely be a part of the summer olympiad rather than the winter.] drivers set up hammocks within their tuk tuks. one bus driver prolonged a rest stop fuelup for ten minutes so he could watch the rest of a kickboxing match. an inevitable part of any meal is standing up to fetch your own water or beer. sometimes, this is because the staff is so engrossed in whatever music video or soap opera is pixellating on their television screen. usually, it's because the bartender/server is eight years old (and most certainly does not know how to make a proper old-fashioned.)

what is so surprising about this phenomenon is that it does not make sense, at least regionally. china's directly north and it's hard to characterize them as passive when they're presently blowing the dust off the triangular trade playbook. to the east is vietnam, home to people who spent weeks in tunnels fighting the world's superpower and still tended their fields. cambodia is to the south and they certainly share the blithe disposition, but they're also a couple grains of time's sands after a genocide and can be granted leniency for not wanting to take life too seriously. geographically and culturally, laos seems to be spooning thailand to the west and they're also known to be sunnier than a detergent commercial. but not so fast: thailand is experiencing massive economic growth and occasional political unrest, so they're a tiger (raaaarr!) in disguise.

when we look inside the borders, it's almost more baffling. for one, it's inland. the heartland of any continent is home to the milk-drinkers and sun-up-to-sun-down type crowd that frequently appear in car commercials. the people on the coasts are the ones wearing sunglasses and using words like, "bummer." furthermore, this place is pretty far from ethnic homogeneity. there is a dominant group (you guessed it: they're called lao), but the country is comprised of over forty ethnic groups with a population of only six million. they were colonized by the french almost as an afterthought, so it's not as if there is some unifying experience to tie all the groups together. when you factor in that it's one of the planet's poorest countries, it seems an almost perfect recipe for divisiveness and chaos. instead, it's.....

imagine going to a wedding where bride and groom are each other's respective third marriage and each of their parents is on their second spouse with several kids from each union. everyone is invited, everyone attends. the sound system breaks, the caterer only has rice cakes, and the officiate is slurring his words early into his very long, disjointed, and borderline offensive sermon. the tents collapse and grandma soils herself and still, at the end of the evening, everybody links up with arms around each others' shoulders and sings "(i've had) the time of my life" with full projection and mean every single bar and word of that song. put some palm trees and a slow river in the background, and that's laos.

i have a feeling i'm going to like it here.

that's local

pakse, laos

it was a late lunch following the first day of touring the dmz in vietnam. the four of us tourees all ordered our standard fare, the driver joined us at the table and had his own. ours arrived and looked familiar. his arrived and was recognizable as something we would never demand. seated next to the driver, my travel partner accepted the invitation and snagged a piece of pork from his plate, giving it a quick dunk in the red paste. how was it? "that's local," he said with a smile, thus telling everything i needed to know and beginning an idioglossic catchphrase that lasted through his stay.

"that's local" is more than a statement, it's an attitude. [yes, as a matter of fact, i do hate myself for having written that sentence. it felt like the best way to describe it and i am truly sorry.] it is the way in which we acknowledge that a particular foodstuff both does taste terrible and that we are glad we tried it; that a particular leg of transport will leave us sore the next morning but forever remain warm in our hearts; that we really wish we did not see the cockroaches, but who are we to complain when the room saved us a dollar? in short, it captures the mindset one must maintain to enjoy traveling. try everything? yes. acknowledge that something is not viscerally enjoyable or does, in fact, suck? that too. maintaining a sense of humor about the whole thing is what makes these moments of lucky charms so magically delicious.

none of this is new, and i might be making such pithy observations tired and weary through this forum alone. still, it's germane. as mentioned, our bitter-tasting (literally) and sweet-remembered introduction of a catchphrase served us two weeks of inside jokes. we began saying it more as the trip progressed and it took a while to realize that it was not that the joke was getting funnier, we were simply presented with more opportunities for local experiences.

the reason? an international border. it's not that laos is more authentic than vietnam so much as that the demands of the previous month of travel negated some of these "local" opportunities. i want to yoke up a buffalo and mush my way around as much as the next guy, but going between hanoi and ho chi minh on a flight costing less than $50 was too much to resist. i could have really pushed myself to embed in the farthest-flung and least-served communities, it just would not have been as much fun as pulling up the proverbial stool at the cheers bar known as hoa's.

which is all to say that you play it as it lies and what lies before me is a golden opportunity to get to know a place in a way that has eluded me of late. there are no trains here. the distances and prices seem to eliminate the want of tray table- and packaged peanut-travel. perhaps most importantly, southern laos appears to be serendipitously overlooked looked by those (like me) trodding along the banana pancake trail. on the not-too-distant horizon are copious interactions with marauding bands of aimless members of the lady gaga generation. the ones who come to thailand to "find themselves" through spending four weeks on the same island experimenting with the human tolerance for ecstasy and methamphetamines.

not that all are good here and all bad there. some wonderful people pass through thailand and some insufferable "bros" find themselves here. still, bangkok and its surroundings seem to suffer from the deadly combination of having an efficient airport, cheap booze with no drinking age, world-class beaches, and international recognition. the hangover sequel will likely only exacerbate the situation. but that is then and this is now. i have a precious window of time to eat under tarps and use the empty plastic chair at my table to scare away the nearby rats. i can still walk into any local barber and blow their minds by asking to trim my gnarly beard. it's time for a little more sawngthaew and a little less bus. a bit less ipod and, [gulp], a little more of the asian power ballad.

i don't know how long it will last and i'm not undertaking an oath of self-torture. i'm simply saying that now provides a unique opportunity to be here, and that the whole thing is no laughing matter.

savanakhet to don det

don det, laos

luckily, we really couldn't do too much after the lady with the home depot-esque apron knocked us out with that rich food in that public square the night before. sleep would come early and easily, the ensuing 7 a.m. wakeup the same.

through either serendipity or prearrangement with the guest house owner, a tuk tuk was present and ready to carry us two kilometers to the bus station on the outskirts of town. we could stare out at the quiet early morning streets and try to figure out which trees were bougainvillea. the 8 o'clock bus was going to leave at 9, giving us time to take a baguette with scrambled eggs and a coffee. i was about to order a second round, but my travel partner passed the rest of his over to me. he had time for a couple round-trips to the toilet (1000 kip) because he was coming down with the shits. there would be a later bus, but he said he would be good to go.

good thing too. a six-hour bus ride will call your bluff, especially this one. he had a good view from his window seat, but just so happened to be right behind the only broken chair on the bus. my legroom was ample, but the aisles soon filled as we picked up passengers every kilometer or so. they had a plastic stool that they could sit on. the guy in the aisle beside me had a black shirt that read, "memory of a time: america" and had a big bald eagle on it. i spent a fair amount of time thinking about the designer.

it got hot. a dry, stanky kind of hot. we were all crammed in comfortably (travel partner the exception) and the trickles of sweat on the forehead and pools on the stomach actually felt good. i felt like i was earning each drop. the girl in the broken seat was wearing a pink parka (with one inch teddy bears) and wool gloves. she kept them on the entire trip.

there were a number of other westerners aboard and we all got off when we got to pakse. somebody just said that, "pakse" and we disembarked. it was some nameless street and there were a pair of tuk tuks waiting. we were skeptical that we had to get off but everyone else was, so we did. the tuk tuk charged us 40,000 kip for the ride to the bus station because it was eight kilometers. we arrived at the bus station a good ten minutes before the bus we were just on arrived.

there would be no more buses down to the landing for don det. there was a sawngthaew that would leave so soon as there were enough passengers. if you don't know what a sawngthaew is, just look at the word and that should tell you enough. we had time to get some soup soup at the bus station, next to a stall selling a t-shirt featuring abe lincoln in a g-unit hat, among other wares. the soup was delicious.

it only took an hour for the sawngthaew to fill to capacity. we were in the covered back bed while the warm, late afternoon wind rushed through us from the open sides. we went probably 300 meters before stopping to fill up on gas. then it was time to hit the road. or, rather, to backtrack 100 meters to pick up another passenger. then it was time to turn around and hit the road. and stop about six kilometers later at some roadside market for a still unknown reason. i bought a pair of doughy pastry things instead of the grilled chicken on a stick. the lady who went to buy oranges came back soon enough. we had to wait ten minutes and then drive another five minutes around the market to find the other missing passenger. she came back with a watermelon and some vegetables.

it was comical and i was delirious. i reasoned that at the present rate of travel, we would be halfway toward our destination by nightfall. but the early stops were the aberration. we had two, maybe three stops through the rest of the trip south. we couldn't see the sunset, but we could feel it. not only in the dimming of the light in the world around us, but also on the local faces relaxing into sleep or rest. passengers turned from conversation to idly staring out at the passing terrain. the cute five-year-old girl staring at me throughout the trip eventually returned my goofy smiles.

we arrived. it was pitch black and we were told to follow the girl in the green shirt. the driver pointed at her, looked to us, and said, "don det." why stop trusting now, we reasoned. we carried our bags and each grabbed one of her watermelons and stepped into the darkness. there was a landing below and we could see at least two steps in front of us by grace of the starlight. there were some distant lights and somewhere between here and there was a big body of water. the boats came into view.

the lady in the green shirt approached the "captain" and we got into a small, four-bench wooden boat with a cover and a motor. we pushed back and were out in the mekong. my ass was sore, body covered in congealed sweat and grime, mosquitoes and various insects flying in my face throughout. i was more than a little bit tired. but there was something about that water. the ride couldn't have been more than ten minutes, really just skipping over a pond.

but it was the moment that had the moment. every now and then, these moments come through where the past, present, and future all align within me for a very poignant, brief period of time. it's really hard to explain. i'll just say that we were pushing out in the warm, dark, tranquil water of a place i had been yearning to be, and everything made sense. everything. it was that feeling that you're returning to some special place you've never been to, one to which your soul has always found itself attached. and it's like all those days of longing converge upon that one sweet memory that just so happens to be right exactly now.

p.o.w./m.i.a.

dong ha, vietnam

one of my high school history teachers was an all right-enough guy. he too liked the colorado buffaloes and said that everyone who took his class was "touching grace." he had a buzzcut and coached one of the lower levels of scholastic baseball and i remember him as being a bit of a benign tool. his classroom was the first place i had ever seen a p.o.w./m.i.a. flag.

it was hung above the door. you probably know what it looks like. it's white on black with the silhouette of a young man and some military camp with barbed wire in the background. it spells out the initialism, "prisoner of war, missing in action" and says something akin to "gone, but not forgotten." when taken with a certain chuck norris series, i looked at this flag and thought that there were still american soldiers being held captive in vietnam. if you presently find yourself having the same thought, i would like like to gently cut in and have this proverbial dance.

let's say you want to find the lost camps where the captive american soldiers are still being held forty years later. you're clearly not as amazed as i am that a developing country would spare the food and manpower to continue such an operation, but i'll leave that aside for now. it sounds like you need an audacious search party and some big guns. you could lease an aircraft carrier and have some helicopters on standby, ready for the cover of night and fog to get the job done. or, maybe it would be more cost effective just to fly into vietnam. you'll need a visa, but you can get that in washington d.c. (or have it mail-ordered or even fill out the paperwork online) then you can take united or delta or any number of airlines into ho chi minh city. or hanoi. as you prefer. you'll get fed a couple times going over the water.

then, once in vietnam, you could organize the cavalry, get some tanks ready upon arrival, right? or maybe you should just take a flight up to danang. or the train. or the bus. again, as you prefer. that way, you could have your forward operations base closer to where the soldiers, the missing soldiers, that is, are. now that you're in danang, you can organize the assault. or go a little further north to hue, maybe dong ha. it might even be a good idea to book one of the dmz tours, you can even organize a specific one for yourself (like we did.)

of course, the tours will only take you so many places because they don't want you to see where the prisoners are, right? if you test that theory, you'll find that the real reason certain territory is not shown is because it is: 1) jungle and/or 2) littered with unexploded ordnance that could still explode. if you still believe vietnam is holding americans captive, i invite you to test this theory for yourself.

i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but since noone else will tell you: those soldiers are dead. i have no idea as to how, i just know that 30 days in this country has shown me that vietnam has moved on, even if you haven't. for some in denial, this is a bitter pill to swallow, as those six letters represent someone very near and dear to them. you have both right and reason to experience whatever range of emotions tinge your waking hours and dreams. for a few others, you are wasting your goddamn time. take up a new hobby. talk to a girl (the internet does not count.) yours is part and parcel the denial and ignorance that has left every american generation for over a century depositing some of its best blood in foreign soil.

i'll admit that, before arriving, i was prepared to rekindle my american guilt (hello, old friend.) i was sure i would encounter some bitter sentiment from the fact that we, you know, bombed the ever living shit out of their country because of something called "containment." i've spent the past month seeking conversations about the war and looking for any form of physical evidence forty years after the fact. what i've found is hard to classify. the ubiquitous craters in certain parts of the country still bring a shutter. it was definitely not fun to be sworn out at that petrol station near the my son ruins nor to be told that americans had to pay five times the rate for one moto ride in hoi an. i don't know what they have seen or what happened to their families, so i am in no position to judge.

but what if i told you that those were the only two instances of backlash? what if i told you about the veteran i spoke with who returned to the village he fought in and was told to leave his western guilt behind because that was not his war? what if i told you that even the museums here are able to draw a distinction between the young kids on the ground and the robert mcnamaras? what if i told you that the vietnamese people have forgiven and are ready to move on? i, for one, would not have believed such proclamations.

but it's true. and so is the truth that none of it had to happen. i could only shake my head in conversations with u.s. veterans. for one, i couldn't believe what they endured, both in combat and in the subsuming guilt that many experience even today. for another, i couldn't help but feel so proud to be in their presence. mostly, it was just an utterly wrenching sensation to listen as they spoke about their experiences and wondered what they were fighting for. the security of the united states? vietnam posed no threat whatsoever. so that even if the war in vietnam was a mistake, at least the next generation would not have to relearn the lesson? i need not remind you of iraq and afghanistan.

and so i leave the country at a crossroads. on one hand, i come away with an enormous respect for the fighters on both sides of the conflict here. they gave their all for something they believed in and that is more than i will ever do in my life. i also come away with a stronger disdain for the trumper-blowers and jingoists whom i call my fellow citizens. if they could stand on the foggy hilltop that was khe san combat base and tell me that all the neckless dogtags, the empty helmets, the names that were subsequently etched on to a wall in d.c.; if they could do that and tell me that some barren plateau on another continent was worth all that valor and sacrifice, i would consider them worthy of being committed.

do you care about the troops? i mean, truly care about them? do you shake their hands in an airport or have a bumper sticker or did you start a facebook page? congratulations, you haven't done a fuckin' thing.

if you truly cared about the young men and women serving the armed forces, you would march in a protest the next time somebody proclaims some bogus reason for conflict. you would go visit a wounded warrior at a hospital. you would spit in a lying politician's face and do everything in your power so that these young souls would be the ones inventing the cure for cancer or the solution to oil dependency instead of putting their lives on the line for something they'll be regretting for the rest of their lives so soon as they get home.

if that's what we can do for our own, there's also something we can do from the comfort of our couch: leave the vietnamese out of it. leave them alone, even if it's only in our minds. we can start by not flying those stupid p.o.w./m.i.a. flags and wearing those stupid t-shirts. i am truly sorry for every soldier who died and every family that has an absence, but the blame does not lie here. the fear factory in washington carelessly sent those boys into slaughter, as it did again and is probably trying to once more. the vietnamese defended their homeland and they defended it well, as anyone would do. they earned their sovereignty and our respect. let's give them both. we can then free ourselves to let their fighting inspire our own. we can elect the alternatives to the aggressors, grieve for our departed, tend to the wounded, and otherwise free ourselves from unmerited victimhood.

i have more work to do. we all do. since i've put my words down, you can hold me accountable. and since this is my platform, i would like to issue you a challenge:

come to vietnam. eat this delicious food. relax on these pristine beaches. tour the museums that will surely make you uncomfortable and challenge your identity. but mostly, speak with the people. learn the basic greetings. smile til your face melts. take it on the chin when someone offers a mildly acerbic comment. relearn forgiveness from the most resilient people i have ever had the pleasure to meet.

hoi an

china beach, vietnam

he walks these mean streets. the sun beats down from above, the cracked concrete pokes like little daggers from below. he crosses wooden bridges and ducks his head beneath the tarpaulin above the market stalls as the old ladies in the conical hats call out, "you buy someting?" "khong, cam on," he replies. the sun is a little too hot and the wind may be a little too strong, but he stays humble and keeps his feet to the ground with his bamboo and rubber sandals (55,000 dong.) sporting an army green t-shirt with a gold star (70,000 dong) he sends the message that he is at the vanguard of the revolution. the fashion revolution.

he has seen too much. the chill of the early morning nips at his ankle as he sips his cappuccino and tries to forget. he tries to erase the memories, but they are too many. he tries to forget the terrible norwegian techno from the night before; tries to forget that somebody decided to play smashmouth at the aussie bar. he wants to collect his thoughts and prepare for the day and shields himself from the rays of the early morning sun with his bamboo conical hat (us$1) and stays warm and graceful with a navy blue wool coat (us$50) tailored to accentuate his grace.

i am the one you were warned about. you know that i am bad news, but you can't help it. here i come, a man who has been to all the places you were warned about, done all the things you were accosted for. i am the one who sold moonshine out of dixie cups while you were still on kool-aid. i am the one who set your grandmother's pigtails on fire. and i am the one standing in front of you, staring at you with hungry eyes and ready to seize you like hitler's at the gate, stalin's at the window, and the whole precious fate of humanity depends on us making sweet love tonight. and i'm irresistible in my full linen suit (us$don't ask.)

my friend

hoi an, vietnam

i like to be alone. i don't really get in too many of those don't-talk-to-daddy-when-he's-upset types of quiet, but i definitely have my times and places to be away from other people. it's one of those "it's not you, it's me" type of situations. conversation and being around others is both what i live for and enervating. for me, there's no better way to bookend a fantastic evening with friends than a good book in a coffee shop and a long walk with my earbuds through the cold streets of new york city. this craving for anonymity is partially why i moved to the big apple and it's probably why i still live in a neighborhood quite distant from most of my friends. i'm sure it's got something to do with the whole travel thing i seem to enjoy.

a reasonable conclusion from all of it is that i'm not that great of a friend. i wouldn't know, i've only seen it from my side. i really do care about people, ones i've known for decades or just met or somewhere in between. i spend each day wondering about how everyone is doing and hoping that so-and-so gets that promotion and that so-and-so can finally meet someone that will make them happy. but i don't do the small things. i'm not the one that picks up the phone. i don't send the postcards. since i'm so frequently saving to go across the globe, i don't pick up the tab and i don't make the nice gesture of visiting. [i'm kind of an asshole, aren't i?]

for the next two weeks, i'll be with one of the guys who has tended to pick up the slack in our own relationship. i told him i would be traveling, he cashed in some vacation days and bought a ticket to join me. he makes for an excellent travel partner. we can throw back beers and swap stories all night as well as stare spacely and silently out train windows. we both intuitively pull out the camera and respect the other's artistic eye. we both appreciate the local culture and recognize a good storyteller when we find one.

those are some nice tangibles. perhaps more importantly, dude needed to get out of dodge. let's just say that one young lady said 'i do' and then went and did, and so now their 'they are' has become a 'he is.' sometimes, people turn out to be exactly who they are. sprinkle in a few kidney stones, top it off with lyme disease, and i can know at least one person who will not be purchasing the 2011 yearbook.

shame for anyone, a true shame for this guy. i am well aware of our gender's reputation and can vouch for its authenticity. it doesn't take long to come across the name of a good friend who i would severely bludgeon were they to put the moves on a close female friend. but not him. this is the guy you go drinking with, go to war with, the guy you want to work for, and the guy who you would be delighted to have as a brother-in-law. he's a rare one who defies the mutual exclusivity on my character list.

and i could say that i have a job to do these next two weeks. i want to show him some beaches, take him on a moto ride, stuff him full of spring rolls and make him forget the hard times. help him remember who he is and all that he deserves. i may also walk over to a table or two of cute aussie girls and grossly exaggerate his high school playing days, but it'd probably be more fun to get ruthless at pool. he's out shopping now, maybe getting measured for a new suit (hoi an has fantastic clothing.) i should probably go find him; it's not as much fun being alone.

expatriates

saigon, vietnam

bittersweet. we use the word to explain situations. we can all think of a few: hearing that a cure for sickle cell anemia has been found- by your former high school bully; a litter of adorable labrador puppies eating the remainder of your exposed entrails; going to disneyland to find that those are not the seven dwarfs and those sticks they are poking you with are actually quite sharp, but the lady at the front gate only charged you the student rate.

beyond situations, the word is limited. taken generally, which for this case we must do, it is hard to ascribe this description to a person, place, or thing. but bittersweet describes the personality of an expat in asia to a tee. let's start from the positive because they really are sweet people. they have to be. the cultural gap is so large between west and east that there has to be some sticky, dulcet softness inside even the hardest soul to make it here. you still have to kill with kindness. a smile is still the most accepted bride. one can follow the pendulum of their moods like anywhere but it is simply ineffective and bad practice to be a sourpuss.

and for the second part of that compound word? yep, that's present as well. there's a certain get-shit-done-ness to the western life that does not seem to translate or does so at a different pace that will always be foreign, no matter how many years immersed. imagine the frustration of not having your expectations met at restaurants and in professional settings for years on end and you can see how even the bubbliest spirit can spoil.

in and out of saigon over the past few weeks, i have had the front row barstool's view into the minds of expats for a few nights. going to an expat bar is like going to karaoke night as a guest at your friend's country club. sure, you could sing, but it's best for all involved if you let the regulars tackle "the rose." the atmosphere is that of a fallout bunker in central canada; you are invited and it will be safe, but it's not entirely warm.

get in a room of three or more expats and the conversation will follow the gentle arc of dank, dark humor about local customs. what do you know? nothing. you just crossed a border and maybe, maybe snapped some great pictures of some ruins or a bay. that funny story you have about your misunderstood order at the street food stall? they have those too-from nine years ago. telling your impressions of the host country would be like if i were to tell cal ripken about my only season of playing little league baseball. they've been there, done that, and even got to chew tobacco.

which is not to say that they know all. they know a lot, but the sad thing about the expat is that between all of those comical observations and instances of unintended innuendo, they lost their innocence. generally speaking, of course. having spent time as both an expat and a traveler, i can see the gentle balance that must be maintained between the two. while an expat will always be able to trump your best card and suit at the host country story game, there's something fun about being innocent. there is always the possibility of enlightenment should you choose to stay longer, and maybe it would be a terrific idea to reach that bodhi and get out before you lose track of what it was all about from the beginning.