The Lady Goes Back to Laos - Part 1

I’m listening to a recording I made at the airport in Pakse; notes about my return to Laos six years after the pandemic forced me to leave.

In the background, I can hear the noises you associate with airports everywhere…those chimes that precede a flight announcement, the click clack of footsteps, conversations drifting in and out. They trigger other memories: the hollow gong of a temple bell; the soft bouncy tones of phrases in pasaa Lao; the hopeful call of a tuk-tuk driver angling for a fare.

I arrived on Thursday evening, well fatigued after a 12 hour flight from Milan, a fast change in Singapore for Bangkok and then a long wait for my connection to Vientiane. One more time I successfully saw myself through the visa process to find that nothing had changed in the arrivals area—least of all the heat.

FRIDAY:

Skeins of silks at Lao Textiles

I met up with Penny,  author of the absorbing memoir Love Began in Laos, which tells the story of how she came to know Laos as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1962—and stayed. Penny is 85 and radiates vibrancy. I want to be her when I grow up.

We’d arranged to meet at Carol Cassidy’s Lao Textiles  and from there we went straight out for coffee and baked treats. The conversation flowed as if we’d known each other for longer than ten minutes. We wondered whether similar experiences as international volunteers might be the unifying thread as both of us are EFL teachers.

After coffee we returned to Carol’s weaving studio and showroom, housed in a historic French colonial villa just off one of the main streets. I used to admire the building from the outside when I lived here so it was a treat to finally cross the threshold and have a look around.  For decades, Carol’s work has helped raise international awareness of Lao fibre arts and, in that time, she has amassed a living archive of culture and skills.

It was fascinating to wander through the workshops and watch the weavers at their looms. In one corner, a sample was being prepared for a Coast Salish client due to arrive for a consultation the following week—an unexpected reminder of how far these woven threads travel and how far I’ve travelled since last August!

My favourite part of the visit was the dye room, bursting with skeins of silk in every colour imaginable. Each shade had  been created from a particular Carol Cassidy formula, drawn from one of her well-worn “recipe” books.

Too soon it was time to say goodbye to new friends as we headed in different directions for the afternoon. For me, that meant some time at the hotel pool—always a welcome break in this climate. Later, a French guest pointed me towards El Cubano which, despite its name, is a Lao restaurant.

Walking there at dinner time, I realized that cities announce themselves through  their smells too:  the pungent fermentation of something-or-other; meat grilling over coals on sidewalk barbecues; an occasional whiff of sewage – those sensory markers that let you know you’re back.

And of course the muscle memory from six years ago kicks in as I cross streets en route to El Cubano. To navigate the traffic, you just keep walking, steady and predictable, and eventually the vehicles come to a stop . Dinner is delicious: a plate of pad Thai and another of papaya salad. The waiter asks if I want it really spicy, and this farang remembers  to ask for it bo pet (not spicy).

SATURDAY:

I got up late but still made it to breakfast (a plate of fresh fruit, an omelette and a cup of

Sihns at the Morning Market

pandan tea), then slogged through suffocating mugginess to the Morning Market, buoyed by the fact that it’s air-conditioned throughout. Once there, though, I quickly lost interest in everything for sale and escaped back into the noonday sun. Cue “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” I thought, and briefly considered summoning a tuk-tuk to take me back to the hotel pool. But it’s important to get some steps in, I told myself—remembering there was a lovely airy coffee shop with free Wi-Fi down a nearby street.

So that’s where I spent the next hour or so: drinking something refreshingly icy and chatting with a retired Englishman—bad teeth, plummy accent—named Rupert, who was on a visa run from Thailand. At some point, almost casually, he said, “I’ve only got the one son. We aren’t speaking at the moment,” It’s at moments like these that my wild imagination takes over and the Ruperts become the protagonists in the runaway bestseller I’m going to pen. Back at the hotel, sinking into a long soak in the pool, I felt grateful for chance encounters with people I’ll likely never meet again. They feed my traveller’s soul and, who knows, maybe I nourish theirs.

Lights along the Mekong at the Night Market

Darkness comes early in Laos, and I decided to test my new phone camera on the lights at the Night Market down along the Mekong. I found myself taking photos of the same subjects I’d captured six years earlier: bamboo chicken-coop cages turned into light fixtures dangling from the trees ; the flashing colours of the little Ferris wheels at the amusement park; stalls of clothing a size (or three) too small for an average-sized Westerner like me; and rows of street barbecue fare that my doctor has suggested I not eat. There used to be a woman down here who sold grilled bananas. I looked for her, but I guess she’d moved on to other things.

SUNDAY:

I pull on one of my smarter summer dresses: lunch today is with former students and I don’t know exactly who will show up—which is half the fun. Laos PDR: People Don’t Rush. Plans here often feel last minute but they always click into place.

In the end there were seven of us at Khop Chai Deu, a long, laughing lunch full of stories about the Institute of Foreign Affairs—its characters, its mischief, the memories that keep making us chuckle. Ms Ta made sure we had plenty of my favourite kaipen, the Mekong river weed that is sun-dried and seasoned with garlic and sesame. Mr. Vee didn’t seem to mind being the only man at the table.

Sunday lunch

We kept thinking we were winding down, and then another round of remembering began. Four hours—that might be a record.  We took a final photo outside, and Ms Nan dropped me back at the hotel. By then it was too late to join the ukulele group; the afternoon had slipped away as it does when you’re relaxing with friends.

I thought about getting into my bathing suit but then the skies opened. First rain—hard, tropical sheets—then hail, violent, the size of  baseballs. Easy to stand in awe and gape from the safety of your hotel room. Later I heard the numbers: 2,000 homes damaged and neighbourhoods devastated across Vientiane.

MONDAY:

I flew down to Pakse late morning and shared a tuk-tuk to my hotel with a Lao-American man and his elderly father. The sky is hazy here and I miss the big blue Greek one I've got used to. I can’t tell if it’s humidity, or fields being burned off by farmers preparing to replant. I swam, watched the sunset, then ate a bowl of seafood tom yum near the Night Market.

I'm on my own here so I relish the small exchanges that stitch a day together. Tonight I found myself stepping in when a man—probably deep into his Beerlao—started bothering the two young women from the Netherlands who were at the next table. For a moment the mood tightened; travel, as ever, isn’t all postcard light. But the waiter guided him back to his seat, the girls and I picked up our conversation, and the evening found its balance again. Earlier, up at the rooftop pool overlooking the Mekong (and it certainly is mighty at Pakse), I’d chatted with a group of women from Paris and with a German couple nearing the end of a three-month tour of Southeast Asia.

And to sleep. The next two days will be spent touring and my guide has confirmed he'll be meeting me in reception after breakfast tomorrow. (To be continued)