Yikes, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here. In part, that’s because my brain was numbed by two weeks of administering English language proficiency assessments followed by countless hours of composing report card comments. I seem to be suffering from a cranky restlessness that I chalk up to an obsession with summer vacation overlapped with the frustration of a long pre-departure to-do list.
I’ve been typing for about an hour, but I keep deleting everything. I suppose all writers have days like this. My wry commentary just sounds mean. My witty observations aren’t funny. My reflections sound whiny and crabby. I’m heading to the Russian Circus tonight. Surely, I’ll find some inspiration there.
Just when you’ve worn a new pretty frock from Bali to the European Film Festival …
Just when you’ve enjoyed a splurge of a dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant with a splendid glass of red wine …
Just when you’ve closed the cover of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and sat reflecting on the horror and beauty of the prose …
Just when you’ve batted the ball around with your tennis coach at a rented court …
Just when you’ve spent a few hours holed up in your study with the air conditioner cranked, lost in Facebook …
Just when you’ve practiced your lines for the brilliant radio play “Under Milkwood” by Dylan Thomas, which you’re performing next week …
Just when you’ve shelled out a fortune for a haircut in a swanky salon …
Just when you’ve downloaded new music from iTunes …
… just when you trick yourself into thinking you live in a world of Western conveniences and culture, you step out into your yard to find the remains of a primitive-looking fish kebab. With tiny sharp teeth, fat gray scales and ant-filled eye sockets, the fish seemed to say, “Ha! Where do you think you are? New York City?”
Most likely, it was our night guard’s dinner, but as a Pisces, I can only interpret this fish as a sign.
With five weeks to go before summer vacation … before I can head home to cooler temperatures, cuddles with my nephews, dinners with my parents, views of the lake, Michigan four-berry pie, visits from friends and family, neighbors who speak English, Sunday newspapers, shady bike trails, crispy bacon, sprawling book stores, and everything else we miss during the school year … with just five weeks to go, that fish is telling me not to wish away my time but to embrace those things I love here and to acknowledge that I am one of the lucky ones.
For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.
I’m afraid I beg to differ, Mr. Luther.
As I’ve mentioned before, tuk-tuk drivers often congregate outside our front gate, where a full leafy tree provides cooling shade. They’re usually friendly, sometimes jumping up to open my gate when I approach on my bike, but more often than not, they’re just annoying. Sometimes they actually park directly in front of our gate, so we have to drive the motorbike around their tuk-tuks to get to our house. Most weekend mornings, they rise with the sun and crank their tinny pop songs. Lately they’ve been dumping trash under the tree, which would be the final straw if I knew enough Lao to have a confrontation.
In late March, the shade tree lost all its leaves and looked near death. Tony and I did a little happy dance but immediately felt guilty for rejoicing in nature’s destruction. The tuk-tuk drivers found other places to park, and we savored the peace of our foliage-free front gate. Unfortunately, we underestimated the power of tropical regeneration. Within about two weeks, the tree stood tall and proud and superfoliaceous. (I just found that fabulous word on synonym.com!)
So the drivers are back.
Mr. Kek, our favorite smiley mango-stealing driver – who likes to take detours by his own home to show passengers “Mr. Kek house! Mr. Kek dog! Mr. Kek baby!” – has even rigged up a hammock between his tuk-tuk and that temptress of a tree.
So, Mr. Luther, I will take that gold-and-silver tree, please.
If you’re looking for an enormous cricket, the no-evil monkey triplets, a nasty concrete crone with a chicken cage full of scared people, and a massive reclining Buddha, have I got a temple for you!
Wat Chom Phet, located at the southern edge of Vientiane, is not your run-of-the-mill Buddhist temple. Just a short bumpy ride off the busy Tha Deua Road, this place resonates a mystical, whimsical vibe.
I pedaled here with Tony and my friend, Catherine, early Sunday morning at the recommendation of a friend. Parking our bikes inside the temple gate, we were greeted by a strange collection of sculptures. A Lao man was lighting incense at an adjacent Buddha statue, so I asked him in Lao if he spoke English (an essential phrase to learn here!). He did, kind of.
We asked him to explain the unusual yard art.
Gigantic cricket with a man in traditional dress yanking on one huge cricket leg? Hmmm … he rambled about how the name of the village translated to “cricket” or something like that.
Skulls with red-painted fire and large aardvark-ish animals? Well, er, maybe those came from another temple.
Creepy looking witch with pendulous naked breasts guarding an overturned basket with three crouching captives inside? Ah, this one he could explain! The monks use this sculpture to teach that it’s easy to fall under the influence of evil people like this scary woman … or maybe not.
At least the hear-no-evil/see-no-evil/speak-no-evil monkeys were self-explanatory.
After chatting with us a bit more, the guy finished his prayers and drove off. We wandered around the temple grounds. The main attraction was the reclining Buddha, rumored to be 21 meters long and the biggest reclining Buddha in town. (I say “rumored” because nobody seems to know much about much at local temples.) I especially liked that Buddha rested his elbow on an elephant’s head; that was a creative touch.
Buddha’s bed was decorated with a menagerie of animals, including more elephants, a cat, chicken, naga, turtle, ox, dog, tiger and a couple I couldn’t identify – maybe a hyena or monkey?
There must have been some special event very early this morning. Ladies were cleaning up inside the big room, stacking trays used for eating while sitting on the floor.
Catherine and I sat down in the shade to chat, and we were soon joined by a novice monk and an old man.
The monk, named Som Chith, spoke some English and asked whether we had any questions about the temple. Turns out he didn’t have any answers, though. Fortunately, the old man, named Du Peng, had some institutional knowledge. He would relay long stories in Lao to our monk friend, who would then pause and think for a bit before giving us much abbreviated versions in English.
According to the guys, most of the temple was built on donated land in 1942, although the big gold stupa was older, maybe from the early 1900s. We asked about the crazy sculptures, and after a particularly long Lao explanation from Du Peng, the monk told us a traditional folktale about a character named Khatthanam. Catherine and I think the story goes like this: The evil witch captured people and ate them (hence the cage and the skulls on the BBQ). Khatthanam got word that some of his friends had been captured, so he came to their rescue. In an ending reminiscent of Hansel and Gretl, he tricked the witch by replacing the people with crickets. Gigantic crickets like the statue? We never got a clear answer to that. And, to be honest, we may have completely misunderstood the whole thing.
I tried to find details on (a) the temple, (b) the cricket story, and (c) the big Buddha, but as usual, I came up empty-handed. I find it very disconcerting how little of the local history and culture is documented in an accessible form. When I mentioned this to the first temple-goer, he shared my dismay. He said the government is deeply suspicious of the internet and wants to keep its secrets private. Well, they’re doing a good job.
Lady Gaga. Edward or Jacob? Celebrity reality shows. Farmville. The iPad. Know what else is hot?
My toiletries.
We have air-conditioning units in our dining room and bedrooms, and that’s it. Today’s temperature is 100°F, so anything not located in the dining room or bedrooms is getting broiled. Sometimes it’s nice to slather warm body butter on my feet before I go to bed, but when I start sweating straight out of the shower, I don’t really want my facial moisturizer to heat up my skin like Ben-Gay.
Just for kicks, I conducted a little experiment on our toiletries, and the results were surprising. I’m sure some brainiacs out there could explain this phenomenon, but I did not expect to see such a range of temperatures. I mean, all of these products live in the same sweltering room. Why didn’t they all have the same temperature?
Here’s the rundown (my thermometer only gives readings in Fahrenheit, so I apologize to those of you in the metric world): Our toothpaste got the hottest with a blazing temp of 97.4°F. Shaving cream stayed the coolest with a relatively chilly temp of 95.7°F.
Feeling very clever, I took my experiment one step further, using the scientific method:
(1) Ask a Question – Is there a relationship between the tap labeled “cold” and the actual temperature of the water?
(2) Construct a Hypothesis – Turning on the “cold” tap will release cold water out of the faucet.
(3) Test the Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment – I turned on the “cold” tap and used my thermometer to measure the temperature of the water. At first, the water temperature was 90.4°F, which I believe would universally be considered not cold. After letting the water run for a bit to get the hot water out of the pipes, I measured the temperature again: 92.7°F. It actually got hotter.
(4) Draw a Conclusion – It seems there are two potential conclusions. (a) My hypothesis was wrong, and there is no cold water in Laos. (b) My hypothesis was correct, and “cold” in Laos is a relative term defined as being around 92°F.
Sure, I could cross the street and buy some fresh fruit to make a frosty delicious shake. But then I would have to peel it and chop it and walk to the market next door to buy ice and get the blender out of the cupboard and later rinse out the blender and my glass … in my non-air-conditioned kitchen. Sweat is collecting on my brow at the thought.
Instead, I like to head into town to House of Fruit Shake, a little stall run by a lovely Lao woman named Nui, who will do all the work for 85 cents.
Here’s Nui making our fruit shakes.
Even though it’s 99F/38C here in Vientiane today, I feel quite comfy sitting on a sofa with a fan blowing in my face while I read a book and sip my lemon-and-mint shake. Today, Tony tagged along and sucked down a banana shake (he went off Diet Coke cold turkey three days ago; it hasn’t been pretty).
Usually, I hang out here and read for awhile, occasionally pausing to chat with Nui or order another fruit shake. Tony’s not one to linger, so we cut it short today. Can you tell how much I wanted to read that book? It’s a real page-turner!
I know I talk about fruit a lot. I just can’t overstate how much I love it.
For the last couple weeks, I have been eating mangoes from the tree in my yard. There are many varieties of mangoes here in Laos; ours are pale yellow and green on the outside and bright orange on the inside. Yum. The mangoes hang very high in the tree, but when we come home from school we find that our tiny housekeeper, Daeng, has somehow managed to pick them. She wraps the mangoes in newspaper and stashes them in cupboards until they’re perfectly ripe.
Our mangoes dangle close to the front gate, taunting the tuk-tuk drivers who park in the shade there. Once Tony caught our favorite tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Kek, sneaking in to steal one! Yesterday, I had crossed the street to buy an iced coffee from my beloved street vendor, Saeng, when Mr. Kek stopped me to ask if he could have a mango. Happily slurping on my coffee, I felt a little compassion was in order. “Bo-pen-yang,” I told him. No problem. I opened the gate and let him in. He immediately shimmied up the mango tree (in flip flops) and then precariously inched out onto a limb to grab a piece of fruit. Back on the ground, he showed me the mango had a bit of sap on it. “Baw dii,” he said. No good. I think he just wanted me to feel relieved that he took a defective mango, when in reality, it looked pretty darn perfect to me.
Another source of mango-ey deliciousness here in Vientiane can be found at Kung’s Cafe, a quirky little restaurant tucked in a back alley, where you can get a pancake made from sticky rice with chunks of ripe mango inside and drizzled with honey. But that’s a story for another day.
This morning, I walked across the street to the fruit vendors and bought a honkin’ big papaya, a bunch of sweet bananas, a kilo of mangosteens and a few imported apples (for Tony, who doesn’t like tropical fruit – freak!), all for about $5. It was so pretty, I had to take a picture.
