BY JOHN McCORMICK | Moonshine Ink
Sometimes in life you just have to go where the wind blows you. To be unsure of something is really to be afraid and being afraid won’t get you anywhere in life. So in April of 2013 with my back to the wind, I set sail and found myself in the middle of Laos with my thumb out on the side of a two-lane highway. My buddy, Ollie, from England, and I had just been dropped off hitchhiking on the side of the road in central Laos. Coming from Thakek in the morning, our goal for the day had been to get to the Laotian capital of Vientiane by way of hitchhiking. Instead, we found ourselves standing at a fork in the road. We had a decision to make — the left road would take us to the kingdom of Thailand; if we veered right, we would end up in the former communist country of Laos. Having already spent two weeks in Thailand, Ollie (who I had met in Thakek) and I decided to head right and continue our journey north through Laos.
My trip to Laos actually started in Singapore about three weeks earlier. Fresh off a 24-hour flight from San Francisco, I drowsily found a hostel by myself. Over the next three weeks I would travel through Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia before finding myself at the crossroads of kingdom and communism. I had come to Southeast Asia by myself with no itinerary, no flight back, and a pocket full of cash. Total freedom. At the ripe old age of 19 I had the world at my feet.
What I had known about Laos before coming wasn’t much. Being in the middle of famous Vietnam to the east and even more famous Thailand to the west doesn’t exactly help Laos’ tourism flow. In school we never studied Laos and back home no one ever talked about it. In fact, everyone I talked to before coming on my trip had only been to Thailand, so everything I knew about Laos was just backpacker hearsay. But with images of an Anthony Bourdain episode dancing through my head, I knew I had to go. Plus, the visa to Laos was free (a visa to Vietnam cost $35). As I crossed the border into Dong Det in southern Laos, I had no idea that this country would reshape some of my deepest-held beliefs.
During the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973, the United States dropped 270 million bombs on Laos — that’s a planeload every eight minutes for nine years, making Laos the most bombed country in the world. An estimated 80 million bombs never exploded. As a result, unexploded ordinances kill two Laotians every week. Bombing and death of this magnitude is something that most countries never face, and it seems that Laos has come up with its own special way to handle the devastating losses.
People have come together and just slowed down. It’s as if the constant bombings have shaped Laotian culture into something impervious to speed or hustle. People here do things at their own pace, they do things together, and, most importantly, they go above and beyond to be kind.
A perfect example of this is the day I spent hitchhiking from Thakek in central Laos to Vientiane. Starting at about 10 a.m., it took Ollie and I five car rides and all day to get there, but each ride was an exceptionally great example of the simplicity of Laos. Our first ride was from a Laotian who had lived in France for business and came back to Laos periodically to visit. His description of his first arrival in Paris was that it was alarmingly chaotic. Growing up in Laos he had been raised in a relaxed environment and admitted that even after years in France, it was still hard to adjust. Our fourth and favorite ride of the day was from a Laotian business owner. He spoke zero English but was very kind. After about 20 minutes of driving we pulled over at a market where he bought loads of food, but what surprised us the most was the 3-foot long branch of bananas he bought. Despite already having spent enough money to stock a small restaurant, he handed the bananas to me and said “you.” We ate the bananas for the next three days and the amount of thanks we gave to our new friend as we got out of his Toyota couldn’t have been enough.
In northern Laos, I went on a three-day, two-night trek through the jungle. Starting in Luong Namtha, the group I was with hiked up and down hills through sweltering 80 percent humidity. When our group (which consisted of me, an Israeli girl, an Irishman, and our guide) arrived in a village at the end of the first day, we rejoiced at the sight of a river and dove in as fast as we could. The village itself was typical Laotian style. Surrounded by green mountains cleared of foliage for planting rice, the village was quaint. There was one dusty dirt road in and out, and somewhere there was a crappy Rihanna song playing. Up and down the street farm animals ran about. Piglets played tag and dogs patrolled the pathways through town. Mothers and daughters sat in hammocks and braided each other’s hair. The houses themselves were made of wood and stood on stilts to prevent flooding. As I looked around with my gorgeous Israeli friend, Yarden, who had easily convinced me to come on this trek with her, I couldn’t have felt farther away from home.
Later that afternoon when I was sitting on the porch of our “five-star hotel,” as our guide Si liked to joke, I realized something beautiful. This little village in Laos seemed to be happier than anywhere I had ever been. What the people lacked in material items they made up for with the company they kept and the camaraderie they brought to each other. The scene in front of me totally countered what I had been taught. Growing up in the United States, and more importantly being raised in Tahoe/Truckee, I was brought up to believe that you had to make lots of money to be happy, that the only way to learn was by going to college, and that you absolutely had to be the first one in line at KT on a deep, powder morning. Laos showed me a different way.
As my journey continued through Southeast Asia, and eventually to China, I learned that no school would ever be able to teach me the lessons of happiness and peacefulness that I took from Laos.
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