Stop and breathe.

In the glow of clear dusk, I wandered narrow alleys and across a wooden footbridge. I watched games of petanque and stared at colonial style French and Lao architecture. And all this, before I stopped and found myself within a pristine temple ground that by setting sun was saturated in color; moreso than any other house or structure on the meandering route by which I had come.

If someone had freshly dumped buckets of paint in the minutes before my arrival, buckets of paint upon the walls, trees, flowers, and even ground and sky, but leaving not a smear, drip, or drop of imperfection -- no white of wall fallen upon green of grass -- this is what it would look like.

Cloud white walls of many rooms border lush grass blades that sheathed the earth, and a stupa glinted in sapphire reflection. Temple fringes burned in cherry wood grains, and a golden Buddha sat beneath the royal shade of a single purple blossomed tree.

The grounds were empty as novice monks disappeared into the temple for evening chants. I turned in a circle and stepped back, trying to swallow what my eyes and ears were feeding my mind.



Nothing seemed outside its proper place. Pieces of fiery orange robes hung from strings tied across open windows and outdoor hallways while few others draped over railings. Umbrellas with curved handles leaned in corners. Even the cat, that laid at the feet of cement steps looked as if it should be nowhere else but here.

Without a footstep other than my own, and without a sound other than tonal prayers that echoed upon stone within, I stopped and I breathed through my eyes and my ears.

Observations from a Laos bus.

On a weaving, winding, whirling bus ride through the Lao countryside, I scribbled brief thoughts down into my journal. Here are my musings; without the scribbling.

[11:08 a.m.]

I am on a local bus from Vangvieng to Luang Prabang and I am the only foreigner. I love it.

[11:16]

Our bus does not slow down for people, it just honks fasters.

[11:20]

The mountains are wearing crowns of silver mist before their subjects of field and fowl on the ground below. I almost expect them to stand up in their lush green robes. Suddenly though, in a jerky movement they appear to be doing just that! Oh wait, thats just our bus hitting a ramp at 70 kph.

[11:30]

I have shared a picture of my family and exchanged the minimal amount of Lao words to carry a conversation, or the maximum that I know, with the man sitting beside me. "Hohk kuhn!" he tells me, (six kids). He passes the photo around to adjacent seats, probably belonging to his family and after returning the picture to me, he offers me half of a small orange. I gladly accept. Together we enjoy the citrus fruit; me throwing seeds out the window and him throwing seeds in the aisle.

[12:15 p.m.]

We are entering another small village, but maintaining speed. Our driver lays on the horn. An oncoming bus blocks the opposite lane and a small bicyclist pedaling a cart along (well, small compared to our polluted, jumping behemoth) is on the right. I notice, we are not slowing down. More honks. Then at the last second our driver sees his opening. He cranks the wheel left in the immediate aftermath of the other bus and then follows this maneuver with a speed racer cut across to the right, dodging the bicycle, its rider, and the cart. Our bus sways left and right like a boat on the water, and I laugh to myself. What else can I do?

[12:39]

At a lunch stop, the same man who shared his orange with me now also shares a midday meal of sticky rice and dried beef, (well... it tasted like beef).

[12:58]

I think that the next bus ride I go on, I will buy oranges; just to share.

[1:07]

I snap some photographs from my window and show them to my new friend who shared his lunch. "Ngarm lai," he says, (very beautiful). I ask if I can take a picture of him, and answering my question, he poses.

*Click*

I show him the picture -- "Ngarm lai," he laughs, joking.

[1:32]

Beautiful velvet-headed children peek out from the shadows of an open window frame, as our bus passes by houses of thatch, wood, and corrugated tin.

[1:35]

These roads wind and curve so much that small plastic bags are being passed around for those who can no longer hold their sticky rice down. Just down the aisle, a girl professionally hurls into one of these bags.

[1:41]

Same girl, more sticky rice; only now its out the window. Our driver continues to smoke a cigarette and nonchalantly navigate, all while Thai and Lao music plays.

[2:04]

A flurry of smells seeps in through the windows. The mountains smell of spice and rain. In moments I am left breathless at the sight of beauty in simplicity of the people who live in the midst of these peaks; these hanging gardens in the sky. Fences constructed from sticks, not of a greater width than my thumb, keep tiny pigs in, while other pens house calves and chickens.

[3:16]

I have met a man named Kham Kheuang; his nickname is "Nick." He works with community development projects in the mountaintop villages. I thought about it for a minute, and then not wanting to miss an opportunity, I asked for future permission to follow him into the villages and see his work. It seems that I have been given a chance. His first instructions, were minimal, but pleasing: get off the bus in Phoukhoun and ask the locals where to find him.

[3:55]

I search the pages of my little-used guidebook and after asking "Nick" to check the town province and name for me again, we see that Phoukhoun is not listed; much to my delight.

[5:14]

After five hours, I am beginning to feel slightly queasy.

[5:35]

I have made it to Luang Prabang, and I did not throw up.

My dream is to have a farm.

Kham; one of the few I have met while traveling that has spoken openly about dreams and has referred them to her heart. She is 26 years old. For seven days a week, she cooks, cleans, and even manages the family-owned restaurant, all while taking care of her "mama" and "papa", and holding onto her dream of a farm.

"Lao style," she tells me. "Four hectare, with room to grow vegetables," and not to forget, a house near the river where she can catch fish. The cost for a small house and land, probably about $2,000 to $3,000.

She laughed at me when I first told her its good to dream like this.

"I am crazy!", she said to me, with a beautiful smile and a laugh. "But its what I want in my heart."

I ask myself, how can I help? That is the question.

Maybe just in this conversation I have strengthened her hope, and maybe that is the best thing that I can do, but now I wonder, is there more? I would spend all my money in a course of days across the countryside if I knew a proper interpretation would follow through with the deed. I do not doubt, that this is a long process.

Mechanics and all aside, there is an analysis made by the heart that needs no other honesty. It is something you can feel and know through the eyes; and this defies scientific interpretation and mind mathematics. True dreams speak loud to those who listen.

There are ideas you will only hear if you listen, and only see if you search. This is the essence of dreams. Not mental ruminations of leftover meals that meet in your slumber, but hidden aspirations that appear in the glint of an eye. It is the dreamers of morning and evening, that by the coming of night, have owned the day.

Keep dreaming Kham. This is for you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Too many thoughts have already been etched in ink upon paper. You are somewhat behind in my journey, so in a parenthetical, or bracketed form, here is a slight update.

I am in Laos.

I am walking in the footsteps of the Khmer kingdom, and not avoiding a phrasal cliche, the "mighty" Mekong, which is just 160 km north. For its historical importance, as well as its natural beauty of striated cliffs and hanging jungles, I think it is deserving of the word "mighty" in conjunction with the word "river."

Unfortunately, where I am in Vangvieng (on the Nam Song river), pastey drunken wildlife inhabit the banks and bars. Much of this waterway is left for exploration, but directly in front of me, is one of those traveler's checklist, "must do" experiences -- also known as, "doing" the river, in an inflatable tube... drunk.

(I was merely an observer).

Many beautiful sights suffer from to do lists, and the people that all too often follow them, are not really traveling; they are "checklisting"; (I probably just made that up). "Did you do the pyramids?" "Did you do the wats?" "Did you do the Taj Mahal?" "Did you do Khao San Road?" "Did you do the Louvre?" "Did you do the Nam Song?" This is a terrible lingo. Do not learn it. Do not "do" it. Seek truth in culture. Understand why a people cry, or where they worship, or how they build, or what they feel; but you must not, cannot, "do". This is the "checklisters'" lingo. This is for the guidebook-is-my-bible believers who only see culture when it falls into their lap.

We are all looking for paradise, but too often, when we find it, we change it. Good is never good enough.

I will find culture though. I will learn and I will be changed. It is not that only I have an ability, but merely that I use it.]

Happily conversing, learning, feeling, and dreaming,
Seth

(Be sure to check back soon, for what will hopefully be a picture of Kham).

28 bicycles.

Today was a day to remember.

Arriving by motorbike at Nongkhaokowitpittayakom school this morning (the school's full, tongue twisting name), I chuckled as my eyes and mind together registered twenty-eight bicycles parked horizontally across the pavement. Some with baskets, bells, and seats that hovered over the rear tire for extra passengers; each one had a personality of its own. For a moment, I thought back to when I was thirteen years old and embarrassed to ride with my noisy family of six. Thankfully, things have changed, and now, this was pure bliss.

Today for an English camp field trip, we would tour Nongkhao village.

I laughed wholeheartedly as I joined the motorcade of 13 year old Thai teenagers, and I announced my presence with horribly rusted, squeaky brakes. Everyone laughed. I sounded them again, just to get a reaction.


Passing up invites to ride in the middle of the pack, I took up the rear with a supervisory role. "Okay, let's go!", Miss Yuparat said.

Sixty legs now began to pump up and down upon plastic pedals and a line of bicycles that must have stretched for 100 meters took to the streets. It was quite a spectacle.

Let me tell you, if anyone had harbored the slightest bit of doubt, or maybe plainly did not know, that there was a white man in their village, they surely knew now. Together with the students, we slowed down traffic, stopped a busy street, and garnered curious looks and many smiles. I laughed for much of our ride.

In Nongkhao, directly across the street from my home away from home, there is a bullhorn-styled loudspeaker that plays that Thai national song at eight in the morning, and airs the news by six at night. Tonight, an announcement about the English camp made its way across the village. In a summarized form, all of Nongkhao village was welcomed to join in the English learning opportunity tomorrow morning, the students were asked to bring food, and everyone was told about the new foreigner in town.

Its incredible that almost one month has passed since I first stood in front of 30 Thai students, and incredibly disappointing that on Thursday I must leave.

Due to my expiring visa, I will be leaving Thailand on the 14th, and making my way, via bus, to Nong Khai, where I will cross into Laos. I am disappointed that I must duck out of the English camp one day early, but I will cherish the memory of these beautiful Thai children and hope that somehow I have impacted them for a greater good -- for the future.

My time here has definitely not been all sunshine and clouds with silver linings. I have struggled. Its not easy to be lacking in communication -- to not have anyone to share the truth of my heart and my emotion. My journals have quickly filled with ink and notes in the margins. They are a survival tool of self-awareness. I struggle with infrequent occasion, but when depression hits in a culture of unfamiliarity, a single occasion can seem far reaching.

Even though my time here is short, I will remind myself to look forward to the blessing of tomorrow; the blessing of another morning to live, the blessing of another 28 bicycle tour, and the blessing of a beautiful people and their endearing personalities.

A literary drought.

Good books provide pleasant company. I love to surround myself with friends such as these; with all their opinions and vocabulary that stimulates and nourishes my thirsting mind. But, for two weeks now, a famine of literature has struck the land in which I live. The village of Nongkhao is severely lacking in English language novels. Obviously, this is not surprising.

A lack of reading wears on my mind, and like any practice, irregularities can cause a lag in understanding. Already, within two weeks I have noticed that my writing suffers, and now I frequently consult the thesaurus for inspiration. Maybe it is extreme to say, but something is amiss. My brain's neurological circuitry feels disconnected. There is a block in my head. A pathway is pinched, and while it is not permanent, I feel there is only one cure -- literary stimulation.

My palate has become accustomed to the succulence of freedom. Up until now, here is what I have read:

***Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts.

This is a partly autobiographical account of one man's life as a fugitive hiding within the complexity of India. Escaping from an Australian prison, and eventually seeking refuge among Mumbai's 13 million souls, the story's protaganist becomes a man of many faces, out of both necessity and love.

Surely an epic novel, not only because of its size (nearly 1,000 pages), but also because of its breadth and scope, Shantaram gloriously portrays the colors of Bombay; from its dark shadows to its most lively bursts of beauty. This novel has more than earned its place on my shelf of favorites.

***Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.

Following my obsession with the complexity of this most diverse country, Midnight's Children follows the life of Saleem Sinai; one of the children born at the very stroke of midnight on August 15th, 1947 -- the exact moment of India's independence. Like any human, he struggles with youth, adolescence, and adulthood, but most importantly, Saleem is faced with a fateful connection to a country on the verge of something altogether new. Along with a myriad of other characters born in the seconds, minutes, and hours after midnight, Saleem must fight with issues of inadequacy, and the populous' expectation of something great.

In terms of literary style, I found Midnight's Children a challenging but rewarding read. To some, Mr. Rushdie's style may seem particularly drawn out, but in reading this book, I have gained an appreciation for his lofty style and see it as a reflection of India's cultural complexity.

***Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

A read purely for pleasure, this fantastical novel is a portrayal of two 19th century magicians, who through the years shift between both competitors and friends.

Some have described this book as a Harry Potter for adults, but I did not find this to be so. I can see where certain characteristics provide it with this likeness, namely the use of magic, but instead of creating a land of unicorns and centaurs, Susanna Clarke writes her story against a backdrop of historical England. The characters are lively and their development is wonderful; each earns a place in your heart.

***Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

In his last days, a dying father writes a letter to his almost seven year old son. Intended as a way for a son to know a father, this book, is that letter.

Gilead is one of the most moving and powerful works of fiction that I have ever read. It is both raw and touching, full of examples that illustrate the humanity in all of us.

Marilynne Robinson writes this chapterless novel from a first-person perspective, and as you sound through each sentence of "I..." and "My...", you hear and find a connection in human triumphs, as well as the paradox of death and the mystery of grace. For those who have grown up in the Midwestern states, Gilead is a snapshot of growth in smalltown America. I was disappointed that this book reached its end.

***A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke (a struggling, infuriating, work in progress).

Having found the only English language novel in the house, I am reluctantly slogging through this non-fiction piece of travel writing. A humorous attempt (note the word "attempt") at a year spent working abroad in France, this piece of work is a British perspective of life in the midst of Parisian culture.

Thus far, I think this book is a sexist, monotonous portrayal of culture. The only reason I am still reading, is because I am a completist, and therefore, I must finish; even though it is a battle almost every step of the way.

Of course, you may form an opinion for yourself and evaluate this work on a completely different basis than me, and I beg you to try; but at this point, I doubt that I will be swayed.

Hoping to soon find a monsoon of literary inspiration,

Seth