aBigForehead

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Phansavan, Laos

I was eating at a restaurant- spring rolls- when I got curious about the balloons being put up.  I asked the teenage girl if there'd be a party and she said there would. Her brother had temporarily returned from study in Vietnam- their grandfather was Vietnamese- and it was the New Year. She then invited me to come along. A Swiss nurse(steady now boys) I had met days earlier who had saved my life by providing me with post-op. anti-nausea tablets on a gruelling 12 hour let's-break-down-thrice-in-the-first-2 hours journey through never-ending mountains, was by now sitting with me and the invitation was also extended to her. She suggested we invite a seventy-something year old  French man who was on the bus with us and later that evening we arrived to a lavish spread. I could not believe how much food there was and most of it sea food or vegetarian. I ate and laughed like a pig. All evening.  The Swiss girl and I talked in English, she talked with the Frenchman in French whilst I tried not to eavesdrop(easy in French) and the locals smiled and gestured.

It was interesting to note that the young men and women did not mix- the parents sat together. The young men tried to speak English and barely got beyond hello. They said hello, paused, gave up and blushed over and over. They were shy or were allowed to look shy;  they would cover their mouth and giggle. The Swiss girl and I couldn't belive we could induce such a reaction and we howled non-stop. The birthday boy was one of those extraordinary creatures- good looking, young and photogenic. The party was energetic in a polite sort of way. We took so many photos; the ache in my face by night's end was more due to the hilarity of the situation- a Somali, a Swiss woman and an old Frenchman in the middle of Laos having the time of their life than the never-ending posing and smiling for pictures!

Curiosity  gets you into parties!

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Phonsavan

I walked into a school. I couldn't resist it. It looked empty, silence and dust covered everything. I peered into classrooms and found them childless, blackboards chalked with Laos text, sunlight streaming threw the shutters, drawing long lines on the wooden desks.

Suddenly from nowhere, boys! Lots of them. They crowd around me curiously and I talk to them and gesture them towards the wall. They break into smiles and gather themselves enthusiastically. I laugh and smile at their infectious faces and snap.

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Luang Prabang

Exquisite town.  I always walk endlessly in beautiful places. I followed the river as it twisted and watched bathers, lingerers and dogs, bought food fried on the street, stopped and examined wooden buildings and tried not to bump into monks- they were everywhere, orange robes wrapping them in their world.

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Phonsavan

I waked away from the main highway- this place looks like a ghost town- and found an area that was more village-like and deprived from the rest. The locals came out and stood with me.  I asked with gestures if I could take pictures and they nodded and smiled. They posed. They offered to take a picture of me with them and it's somewhere, me smiling back, looking tall. I shared chewing gum with them, hung around for as long as I could and walked away to find this. There was something about it that made me stand there for too long and look.

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Vientiane

The capital of Laos surprised me. It looked more like a small town; the pace slow, the people shy and quiet.  I found the mosque, built by South Indian Muslims in the 70s, easily enough. Laos itself does not have a native Muslim community other than some Cambodians and the rest from further away.

I walked in and was immediately welcomed by an Indian man. I talked to him about India, Laos and the mosque. I love mosques in unexpected places.  The man was so proud as he told me about it. I can't remember if we spoke in English or some broken Hindi-English verbal manufacture, only that I was ridiculously delighted to be able to pray there on a Friday. He took me upstairs to where the prayers were held.  A curtain hung in one end of the room, forming an inviting space behind it.  As I stood there a man walked in and soon talked with me. That converstaion would lead to another where he'd ask me to ring a man whose wife he was determined I should meet before leaving town. I was leaving the following day! Instinct took ove and I agreed, if she would meet me that night(and she knew nothing of my existence) I would see her.

I called the number feeling like a madwoman but eager to follow my instinct. I spoke to a man about his wife and got invited to dinner at their house that night.  He said he was proud of his wife and that she was somebody worthy of knowing. I was now determined to meet her! I went to my room, washed and changed. That evening I stood outside the doors of a huge house and waited.

And what beautiful people they were. When I later returned to Vientiane on the way out of the country, I met her for a coffee and I remember her saying that the expat community did not know what to make of her- blue-eyed, hijab-wearing driving a Jeep. She was simply an inspiring, joyous human being. I don't know. Sometimes I think God loves me....