Sticky Rice Extravaganza

Fire Breathing Dragons:

Hello and welcome back to my life after, what I admit, was far too long of an absence on the bloggosphere.

In first creating a blog I promised myself very little other than that I would never once start a sappy blog entry with some self-important apology for not writing. This is for two reasons: first, your precious minutes are far more worthy of philosophizing on the important topics of the true creation of human beings, the significance of man, fat-reduced avocados and Trader Joe’s bird’s nest appetizer deliciousness. Second, while I would love to consider this blog fundamental to your daily going-ons, I will shy away from such conceit until I too bring an invention such as TJ’s birdsnests to play in the world arena.

Yet here I am, groveling at your feet: sorry for not writing.

This being said I will now inform you of a new pledge. I will write one blog posting per week and shoot it out into cyberspace come rain, heat, gecko turds or scantily-clad monks. This is my gift to you, oh dear ones, to improve your procrastinating, unproductive moments and give you a slice of life from the border.

A final note on this blog, which I will make part of its permanent description: please share this prose with anyone and everyone you please. My experiences and information are not to be sheltered from the world in my arms alone. The issues, joys, pain, and humor to which I am exposed are facts of the world and deserve to be shared as such. This blog gives you, dear reader, the opportunity for a grassroots glimpse of life in a place likely to be upside-down from your own experiences, and I welcome you to jump in and share it with others. SPREAD THE GOOD WORD.

Ah hah! Now on to the juice:

Laos: Great. A lovely adventure allowing me time to gain perspective on life here at home as well as open my eyes to another country in this region-- its customs, personality, beauty, and the particular issues that plague it. It felt both wonderful and strange to be a backpacker-- wonderful to become anonymous for a few weeks and act on my every whim, and strange to be one among a sea of tourists often much wealthier than those inhabiting the actual land under our feet, outfitted with cameras and passports and ready to be taken advantage of by those willing to take it. I therefore feel conflicted about writing much about Laos, as I know the vantage point of a traveler is limited, and conclusions drawn from cultural interactions are often premature.

Foreward aside, I will now list for you some rather charming/ fascinating aspects about this “Jewel of the Mekong:”

1) The land is unlike any I have ever seen. Due to the rain, a lush green cloaked everything in sight and water seemed to dribble and spill out from everywhere, giving the natural environment the mystique of a long-lost waterworld, inhabited by dinosaurs and mosquitoes so large they ate rats. The limestone karsts jut out from everywhere, adding a sense of drama to each bus ride and rice-field tryst. Rice paddy lines the landscape as far as the eye can see. The beauty of the water now coating these fields is a thin disguise for the pain this earth endures in the dry season-- a close inspection reveals earthquake-like cracks in the land just below the water’s surface.

2) Just as the water spilled over upon everything I encountered, so did the sticky rice. Every meal was served with a delicious bundle of the white and gooey staple, encased in a cloth inside a small or large bamboo basket. The cap of the basket was to be replaced every time you took a walnut-sized ball from it, mainly due to the bad luck that was sure to find you if you disobeyed, and secondarily so the rice would not lose its heat and general deliciousness. The sticky rice was so copious it even found its way onto the sides of the golden and glass-laden temples, left there as a prayer ritual for Buddha. Other diet staples include the delicious lapp (a dish of sticky rice, water buffalo, fish, or chicken meat in a flavorful marinade), water buffalo jerkey, spam wrapped in banana leaves (ehem… this one can be placed on the “let’s leave it in Laos” list), dried and fried rice cakes, dried and fried Mekong river moss, and baguettes, baguettes everywhere, leftover from the Frenchies during their tenure at the Laotian helm.

3) The only things possibly more plentiful than the rice were the bomb carcasses—both alive and dead— planted like seeds in northern Laos from the U.S. offensive in the 1960s. In order to contain Vietnamese guerrillas, the U.S. dropped a record number of bombs in Laos, leaving many dead then and many still dying today as they take an unlucky, unsuspecting step in the wrong direction. Remarkably and not surprisingly is the reaction to the bombs littering the Laotian countryside. Like so many people I have met here in Sangkhlaburi, nothing goes to waste, including old tools of devastation and death. Instead of shunning the metal meant to destroy, Laotians have recycled successfully dismantled bombs into tables, tools, monastery bells and more.

4) Aside from being resourceful, the people I met were friendly, beautiful, and accompanied by a sense of humor both charming and mundane. The friends I made in my short stint there seemed far less interested in “saving face” as they are here in Thailand and to a lesser extent in Burma, and I found this gloriously refreshing.

5) And lastly, the monks reigned supreme. The few cities to which I wandered were dotted with monasteries and temples every few blocks, the image of orange robes cleaned and hung to dry pervading my line of sight. Giving to the monks in the morning was not the humdrum and poorly attended routine on my block at home, reserved only for the most faithful and earliest to rise. Indeed, giving to the monks was a full-on ceremony at 5:30 AM in which entire families, armed with coconut-sweet rice wrapped in banana leaves, lined the streets and a show of orange clad men, shaved heads, and serious expressions prodded along, receiving donations and chanting a prayer from time to time. Come 6:15 the show was over and any unsuspecting tourist hitting the streets at this moment would have no idea of the activity which existed just moments before.

And that, my dear friends, is my wound-up, spout-out, round-about version of Laos for you. For a true taste pack your bags and hoard your U.S. dollars (accepted everywhere there), and hop the next flight to Vientiane.

And as my gecko Stanley makes his mating call, so I sign off for another bloggo entry.

To the moon we go!

Laura