Riverside, Laos
Share Article Tourists passed through Riverside in north Laos.
They stayed 2-3 days exploring villages up river, crawling through deep dark unconscious caves where Lao lived for nine years when Americans bombed them back to the Stone Age; trekking through mud with leeches sucking hemoglobin, climbing vertical granite mountains overcoming unknown fears and relaxing.
Lao became refugees in Thailand. 200,000 plus immigrated to Minnesota. Colder than the Plain of Jars in Jan you wary.
This is the life, said an Italian girl morphing into a blue, yellow and white monarch butterfly with wings of light. She flew away on a soft breeze.
Tourists find. Travelers discover.
Traveling isn't fun, said a French father to his whining son, it's an adventure. Yeah, yeah, said son, smashing his fragile heart on a sheer granite stone face rising over a roaring brown river feeling loss and confusion leading to wisdom and delight.
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What am I doing in this primitive natural place dancing with orange, blue, black, brown, white fluttering butterflies? I could be home playing with electronics. My dad drags me around Earth. Life's a bitch. Fat chance said dad. We are here to get out of our comfort zone. Shake rattle and roll.
How did I grow said a fluttering black and blue butterfly. White orange sunsets gathered clouds for a conference. Sky mind, cloud thoughts.
Three neurotic American women sat in the restaurant one morning. Dalao the cook said, the buffet is here, gesturing to the sideboard. Oh, said one woman, we were waiting for someone to bring us something. So it goes in their prejudicial world of expectations, sense of entitlement, profound paradoxes and innate lazy stupidity.
Ha, ha, said laughter laughing, life's fateful joke is on you. Do it yourself.
The stranger said eating well is important for a balanced diet. They found this funny. Momentarily. Time stopped.
Lapsing into personal quicksand they loaded up china with apples, bananas, dragon fruit, bacon, potatoes, eggs, yogurt, and bread. Expectations slathered their small short Laos experience with anxiety. They resumed looking at gadgets. No speak.
Lost human connection.
Isolation, alienation, boredom and fear's patience noted their neurosis.
I feel alone, said Isolation staring at a mirror seeking Beauty who had no tongue. She was the mother of death.
I don't fit in, said Alienation. Smiling talking visitors appear to know someone. Nobody talks to me or likes me.
Boredom said, don't be fooled by appearances, they are all strangers to themselves. Schizophrenics seek solace in the company of other strangers. I'm bored. Pure and simple and I need an AI electronic fix.
What's AI, said Fear's Patience.
Authentic individuality, said Boredom looking for time. I know it's around here somewhere I know I packed it. I should travel lighter being light.
Space-time folded.
The Yankee Doodle Dandies plugged personal electronic gadget DNA into a wi-fi signal. They ignored each other. Now we feel human.
One morning a Spanish man said, my boys love playing in the mud here. We don't have mud in Barcelona only cement. I've never seen them so happy for hours.
A relaxed European man seeing life's river flowing smiled, This is my Shangria-la. There have been a couple of places where I feel this. I don't need to go anywhere. I sit contemplating the river, mountains. I explore. I meet the people. I experience the essence of real life here. I slow. Down.
A French father of two kids said, this is a positive experience for my children. They've seen people making things with their hands; baskets, clothing, boats, bamboo walls for homes, slingshots for hunting birds. My kids' artificial world is pre-packaged junk in supermarkets and department stores with labels, "Made in China." They've seen the real world here. How people live.
One morning the English facilitator watched the man and his wife, son and daughter eating. The boy, 15, got up walked around the table and gave his father a hug. The father's right arm embraced his son. They held each other for eternity. The stranger cried seeing this love.
We are decompressing from cities, said a French mother of three, 4, 10, 12. Sharp mountains wearing forests welcomed floating clouds. Rising water above, flowing water below.
How wonderful, she said, three weeks with no electronics.
The stranger and French family with three kids sailed up the Nam Ou. They stopped near a village in a jungle. They walked through sand and up a steep path. The four-year old studied trails of black ants.
Bamboo homes, orange satellite dishes, packed earth, forests, community. Local girls gravitated to new friends, holding hands, laughing, plaiting French hair and sharing flowers. Language lived outside boundaries. Childhood. Instinct.
Village girls walked new friends to the shore to wave goodbye. Our future is now. They returned to the jungle past footprints collecting memories.
Kids sailed through narrow passages of streaked rocks, past rising karst formations, thick jungles and tenuous black gnarled roots submerged in rapid brown water to Supjam, a weaving village.
Shy women displayed their cotton and silk scarves, rainbows of color waved on bamboo poles outside homes. Soft sell smile.
Sky watered Earth. Shelter from the storm.
Rain lashed everything. Looms clacked as girls compressed threads. Black and white ducklings waddled through puddles enamoring kids. Mother bought a white diamond silk scarf. The facilitator discovered a blue piece. Children mesmerized by looms, hands and feet playing gentle treadle rhythms. Music.
Water melodies danced off PSP roofs.
Puddles muddy paths. Life.
The world is a village.
Cry me a river, I'd like to see you cry me a river.
I'm tired of crying a river over you.
Now you say you love me.
The current carried them down river through rapids. Father snapped images of jungles, trees, mountains, river, moments in time. We'll look at these memories when we get home. Freeze a memory.
They evolved in a Zen painting.
Be the water.
Be the brush.
Be the ink.
Be the paper.
River said, where are you going?
Children sang, row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Mountains, clouds, forests, spiders, butterflies joined the chorus.
