One of my earliest, and best memories of my father is sitting together on the sofa watching Jacque Cousteau and National Geographic specials on television. Sometime around nine or ten, I began to make a mental list of all the natural wonders I would love to see, never really believing that I would get to see them. One of those natural wonders is Ha Long Bay in the South China Sea. This labyrinth of “karst” — limestone islands — was carved out of a shallow bay some 300 million years ago. Today, these conical spires, covered in lush tropical forest, and pockmarked with caves, rise dramatically from the emerald-green waters.

We boarded our twenty-five person “cruise” boat in the morning, and discovered, to our pleasant surprise, that our tour company had upgraded us to one of the two nicest “state rooms” on the ship to compensate us for the misadventure with the whacked-out driver earlier that morning. (See my post, A Tricky Morning, for details). In the span of a couple hours we traveled from bizarre, terrifying car ride to utter, wonderful decadence. Post script here: the driver was arrested and his license confiscated. The highway cameras captured his erratic driving.

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As we cruised slowly deeper into the bay, I found myself in one of those surreal moments when a childhood fantasy suddenly becomes reality. Words do not capture the sublime beauty of this bay. The name means the place where dragons come down. The local people believe they are the sons and daughters of these dragons. I hope these pictures capture something of the magnificence and majesty of this place.

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Once again — this will definitely be one of the themes of this Blog — we met a perky, funny, delightfully mischievous young woman (Trang, pronounced Chang) who obviously loves her job and poking fun at us. She was, among other things, a Vietnamese version of Julie the cruise director on Love Boat for those of you old enough to remember that reference. If it is possible to fall in love everyday, I think it is happening here with these wonderful people.

After cruising into the archipelago, we dropped anchor, boarded a smaller boat towed by our cruise ship and docked on the largest of the hundreds of islands in the bay to explore one of the caves. The island has a population of 14,000 locals who make a living fishing, oyster farming and, of course, catering to tourists.

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When we returned to our big boat, we were invited to dive in for a swim. I asked Trang if she was joining us. She looked at me like I was crazy. The temp was in the sixties and the sun covered by clouds. She was wearing a coat. But, she said, “I think it okay for you.” I think she was playing a joke on me, seeing if I had enough “American” bravado to jump in. Even for someone from the Northwest the water was bracing, but with Trang desperately trying to hold in a laugh, what choice did I have? I had to uphold the honor of my country. Melissa took the plunge right after me. I gave Trang my camera and she took, no embellishment, three dozen pictures of us. I’ve culled the herd.

Nighttime on the boat was magical especially because of the huge orange moon, not to mention my smoking hot traveling companion. On the morning of the second day, before cruising back to port, we kayaked in the breathless stillness of the morning waters stunned by the beauty.

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Our dear friend, Margaret McClatchey, loved to tell us one of her favorite sayings, especially when we got carried away with trying to do all the “shoulds” in our lives. She said, “No treasure, no pleasure.” I think I finally understand, Margaret.

Everyday on a sabbatical with Melissa is a nine point something, but some days are tens. As Melissa said in her post, Sticky Rice, Sticky Rice, today was a ten.  When I read her post – and, yes, I am still trying to catch up – I felt the way I feel trying to cross the street in Hanoi or Hoi An, moving as quickly as possible all the while feeling as if at any moment I might be plowed over.  All of you who know Melissa can feel the infectiousness of her joy when she gets like this, and, no, it was not, as she noted in her post, a result of downing a few (smallish) shots of rice wine before noon, one of several stops on the bike tour to visit with local families to learn about their livelihood.

The rice wine stop involved sampling several flavored rice wine shots. A sixteen ounce bottle costs less than a dollar and is more than enough for several companions. Incidentally, one only drinks rice wine with others. Before taking a shot, the group of drinkers raise their shot glasses and say in unison, Mok! Hai! Ba! (one, two three). Then, you click glasses and down the shot all at once followed by a big sigh (ahhhh!) and a knee slap. Melissa had some difficulty with the proper order of things, slapping her knee several seconds before remembering to say ahhh. Yen, our guide, found this quite amusing. We did not try the exotic flavors, pictured below, but I may or may not have had an out of body experience getting back on the bike after the banana-flavored shot. 

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Interestingly, the perfect days like today have less to do with the excitement of being in a new place, seeing things I’ve never seen before, or tasting something I’ve never tasted before (see banana shot above), all of which are amazing.  Rather, I think, the perfect days have everything to do with the people you meet, not just because the encounter is filled with laughter and tenderness, but because the lightness of the interactions – every smile, every peel of laughter, every tender, sincere Xin Chao, reverberates with such power.  In a word, the people I met today filled me with the flavor of love we call forgiveness. Here’s why. 

Today, while biking through the rich green rice fields, the tender new stalks of chilies, the mango trees, and fruit I have never heard of before, we met a couple – she is 87, he is 91 – both of whom fought for the Viet Cong resistance against the South Vietnamese Army.  He was taken prisoner and tortured for five years.  Hanging on the wall of their tidy, small home are their portraits in uniform with the medals they won.

Attached to their house is the family shrine.  Many of their ancestors – 11 generations – are buried there.  Side note: the central focus of the “chapel” as Yen, our guide, called it, the place of highest honor, is reserved for the female Buddha.  Until today, I had been told that a woman could not be a Buddha.  And get this, the woman Buddha, the mother of the first-born person in this family was, wait for it, a virgin!  Hmm.  Something sounds familiar here.

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If you’ve read Melissa’s post, mentioned above, you have a good sense of how delightful, funny and teasing our guide Yen was.  I haven’t laughed this much in a long time, especially not on a bike.  Yet, despite all her teasing, she had a rapport with the older couple that was simultaneously tender, playful and respectful. At one point, as Yen explained that these two quiet, diminutive people were war heroes, I held back tears.  How does this happen?  How do we, two Americans, members of a nation that was responsible for the deaths of two million Vietnamese civilians, over five million civilian casualties, and by some estimates as many as eleven million internal refugees, get invited to spend time in their home, not just to spend time, but to be warmly, genuinely received?  

It is both curious and inexplicably wonderful that a moment as bittersweet as the one with this remarkable couple can generate in me a profound hope for humanity.  To be so blessed as to hold the hand of this woman, my mother’s age, a woman who has seen atrocities no one should have to witness, who has lived through the killing and destruction of everything she held dear, and to feel in her, despite the inescapable weight of that evil, the lightness of her quiet peacefulness is to see clearly with “the third eye” the true, absolute power of love. As Samwise Gamgee said to Mr. Frodo in the darkness and despair of Mordor (Melissa is going to kill me for this quote or at least give me unmitigated grief) “There is still goodness in the world, Mr. Frodo.  And it’s worth fighting for.” 

Today was a perfect ten. Today, I was gifted with unasked for and unearned grace in the form of a beautiful man and woman whose greatest strength, despite everything they endured, is, without question, their ability to love.

Oh My Gosh. Today was so fun! We were doing all the touristy things, but they didn’t feel superficial or inauthentic. We wanted to leave something for the dear people you’ll see in the photos, but they didn’t want more of our money and we didn’t have any food or chocolate. We made a great friend in our guide Yen (pronounced I-en), who is hilarious, and I just wish I could take her up on her offer to go home with her for the Tet holiday next Thursday. She told us that people in her village call us “Hello people” (and sure enough, biking around today, we were met with and exchanged “hello” many times). She calls herself “cat lady” because she is 26 years old, she has a cat, and she is not yet married (tsk tsk). She laughingly said that “language is ridiculous.” I couldn’t agree more.

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Today, we biked the lush farms and villages that sit on the small islands that make up Hoi An. I couldn’t believe all the fruits and vegetables grown here (papaya, bitter melon, corn, rice, pumpkin, chilies, and watermelon, to name just a few).

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In addition to leading bike tours, Yen teaches English and tutors her peers who hope to move out of the kitchen and be servers in restaurants. In contrast to the formal manner of Hoing (in Hanoi), Yen, the woman who welcomed us to the hotel, and our tailor were professional at first, but then either laughed at us or with us. It is so fun to be made fun of and not taken so seriously.

Example: When we arrived, I was done. I had sat next to this man-spreading businessman on the flight to Danang and was tired and hungry (we got in about 8). So when we checked in to Altimay Hotel, I wanted to get the spiel (re dining room, breakfast, local attractions, etc.) as quickly as possible. I thought (okay, hoped) the woman at the desk was finished, so I got up and started to move away. She looked so shocked and surprised, but then her face melted and she couldn’t stop laughing, because she realized that I was just being impatient and she found this very funny.

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Correction of Ignorance: Dear reader, please know that being in a country that you know shockingly little about and trying to communicate all day with people who speak 3-4 languages to your insufficient grasp of English can result in some mistranslated information. It’s similar to how texting on the phone can make or break a relationship, based on the receiver’s understanding of tone. Anyway, farmers in Vietnam garner great respect. In fact, so many of the people we’ve met come from farming families. It’s just that, like anywhere else, parents want their children to be better off than they were. Yen told us today that farmers here can expect to make $150 for 3 months of work, teachers $150 for one month, and office workers, $200 a month.

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Hoing (again, our 45-year-old guide in Hanoi) learned English at first from some magazines her teachers had. Then permission was given for them to record the BBC for learning. Hoing did not have a textbook for learning English until 1994. Of course, we invite everyone we meet to come visit us in Seattle, but this is a pipe dream. To get a visa for travel to the US, Hoing would have to, first, deposit $5-10,000 with the government. Then, she would return in three days to show her passport. Even if she commanded this extraordinary sum, the government can refuse her visa for no reason. The only exception is people 55+ whom, I suppose, the government trusts not to leave the country.

I want you to understand where these fascinating people come from. Hoing (Hanoi guide) is highly educated and dresses smartly; you wouldn’t pick her as a foreign-born on any American city street. She has two university degrees, one in Vietnamese literature and one in English. Her grandfather had two wives (in the 1950s and 60s, having more than one wife was still a common practice) and had 8-12 children with each wife. Rank is very important in Vietnamese families, so her father was son #3 of the first wife and outranked son #1 of the second wife. But those to whom more privilege is given also have more responsibility. The oldest son is expected to live with and care for his parents as they age. She and her husband are both tour guides, they see each other 10 evenings a month, and they rent her uncle’s two-room, 24 sq. meter apartment.

Hoing’s recommended Vietnamese novels in translation:

• Paradise of the Blind
• The Other Side of Heaven
• The Sorrow of the War
• Begins the Red Mist
• Time Gone By Le Luu (with several missing accents, also a movie)

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On the one hand, Hanoi is the new and modern Vietnam. The bicycles that clogged the city streets have given way to scooters,* with helmets replacing the conical straw hat, hard enough to balance on your head as it is; (in a moment of cultural (mis)appropriation, I bought one from a woman on the street and looked ridiculous). Restaurants and hotels are overstaffed with energetic young people who are helpful and easy to communicate with. The economy is bustling, with more American tourists than we’ve seen anywhere else and a mélange of European and Chinese visitors. Our second night, Don and I walked through a narrow alley to an elevator up to a fancy dinner on a balcony overlooking the lake and surrounding neighborhoods (think Central Park).

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*I can imagine getting used to the honking traffic and squatting on the city sidewalk for tasty BBQ pork and rice, with fresh basil and greens. But I’m not gonna lie. Crossing the street in Hanoi is scary. Our guide, Hoing, told us to relax and keep moving, but even so, Don and I – hands in a death grip – had to feint and dodge. I can’t imagine driving here. It’s a constant negotiation between drivers, pedestrians, and other drivers, with no eye contact that I can see. Even small roads are eight motorcycles deep, more or less divided into halves going in opposite directions. It’s no better looking out your car window, because you just know you’re going to get t-boned.

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On the other hand, Hanoi is still paying for the misdeeds of its various colonizers and occupiers. The Vietnamese language was recorded by Portugal in the 16^th century and converted phonetically into Latin letters. Prior to that, China had ruled for 1000 years, up to 1046. China’s influence persisted until the revolution in 1945, when education opened to women and the official language was no longer Mandarin. At the end of WWII, only 2% of Vietnamese were literate. Since then, Vietnam has made great strides in educating its people. The Temple of Literature, with its lush gardens and ornate Confucian temple, sits in the heart of the city. Stylae (stone tablets with the names of the top 3 scholars in each town) can be found from as early as 1435. To this day, rural families sacrifice everything to send their sons (and daughters?) to university. In contrast to the peaceful egalitarianism we saw in Luang Prabang, here we were told that the Vietnamese do not respect the “dirty” work of the farm or factory, but expect their children to land a white collar job in an air-conditioned office. The problem with this thinking is that there aren’t enough jobs. Even jobs at a mall or shop are filled by those with a college diploma.

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“Hanoi” is laughing at the funny names that are meant to attract Western tourists (we stayed at the tri-lingual La Siesta Trendy). It is the French Quarter with its tree-lined boulevards and university modelled after the Sorbonne and the noisy, clogged streets of the old town. Hanoi is also a difficult place to live and work. Corruption is rampant (with “tips” expected for many services, exorbitant taxes, and unstable currency). Yet our guide, at least, separates in her mind the present government from the Marxist heroes who toiled and suffered for freedom. As she explains: “I hear people say, Hanoi could be like Singapore or Hong Kong, but we take the good with the bad; we hold our history and we hope for better leaders. We want Vietnam to be recognized as a free market by the WTO.”

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The hardest part for me today was visiting the prison where John McCain was kept for 6 years. The prison operated as such until 1992, taking up 12,908 square meters. Making our way through the two wings that remain, we were met with walls of Communist propaganda. Only at the end did we walk through a room with exhibits regarding the enemy pilots captured during the “Anti-American War.” This place is the “Hanoi Hilton” only to us; for the Vietnamese, the prison evokes the 88-year struggle to throw off the French oppressors (who built the prison for easily convicted “criminals”). History I never knew – the 1908 “Poison Revolt,” where house servants poisoned their masters’ food, and the 66-day standoff in 1946 when the Vietnamese travelled through holes in the brick walls separating their houses in order to move the government up into the mountains – built a perspective very different from the one I brought in.

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Even our most cherished stories of American triumph over adversity are, at best, not the whole story, and at worst, morally misplaced. I know this is not a complete revelation, but to be surprised by it as I stood there made it sink in more. I didn’t know what to do with the real pain I felt considering what John McCain and those pilots must have had to endure. The NVA showed the world photos of them decorating for Christmas and playing basketball in the yard. But in the “cochot” or dungeon, prisoners for decades had lain with their legs in irons in dark, concrete cells, on slanted floors designed to make their blood flow to their brains. All I could do was shiver. The Vietnamese “said” one thing, yet the thin, scarred bodies of the pilots returning home told another story. These soldiers had been tortured as “criminals” from a country that never officially declared war. John McCain and others eventually reconciled with their captors, probably because they realized that some of our soldiers (not all) were just as guilty of war crimes, and against women, children, and the aged, both in North and South Vietnam. Don and I sat across from Senator McCain a few years ago on a commercial plane. When we stood up, he reached out his left hand to shake Don’s extended one, and I watched this slight, old man maneuver stiffly to get off the plane.

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Hoing gave us space yesterday to process all this information, and we passed a quiet afternoon both at the museum and walking to find the downed B-52 of an American pilot, part of its fuselage and landing wheels resting in a shallow lake now surrounded by apartments, not fields, and a schoolyard of happy, screaming children.

Until this morning, I can recall only one other time in my life when I realized the probability that I could be dead within minutes was something close to fifty-fifty.  I was on a regional jet from Jackson, Mississippi to Dallas, Texas when the nineteen-seat plane suddenly and unexpectedly flew into a violent thunderstorm.  Unlike this morning, the recognition of danger was immediate, chaotic, and blessedly, short lived.  

Melissa and I met our guide and driver this morning for a two-hour ride to Ha Long Bay and a much anticipated two-day cruise on a 25-person boat.  We had the same driver we had used for the past two days.  From the moment we met him at the airport, I had an uneasy feeling about him.  I was not afraid, just unsettled.  I let it go. Not everyone on this trip could be or should be as gracious, lovely and kind as our previous drivers and guides. Maybe he had a bad day.

Our first full day in Hanoi, he drove us short distances through the city, letting us out to walk and sightsee with our guide.  The narrow roads are clogged with 6.5 million motorbikes all jockeying for position like swimmers at the start of the Ironman.  I sensed nothing unusual about his driving.  Everyone dodged and weaved through these narrow streets without traffic lights, coming within inches of one another.  Crossing the street is like finding yourself inside that old computer game called “Frogger.”  Once you start across the street, you do not stop.  You speed up or slow down to avoid being clipped or squashed.  You do not, however, get extra lives.

On our last day, we checked out of our hotel, wonderfully called the “La Siesta Trendy.”  Four beautifully dressed, young employees stood beside our car and waved until we meshed with the traffic.  It was not until we reached the expressway that I realized, not as suddenly, but no less forcefully, that the odds of Melissa, our guide and me dying or being seriously injured within the next few moments had become dangerously high.  Our driver had become extremely erratic, weaving across four empty lanes of the highway. One second we were less than two inches from the concrete barrier dividing the highway.  The next second we were on the shoulder. 

I touched our guide on the arm and asked if our driver was okay.  She mouthed silently, “I am worried.”  A moment later, at 140 kilometers per hour our driver tried to split the distance between a van and car missing the van by a whisker.  Melissa cried out and we both told the guide to tell the driver to pull over.  He protested for another harrowing 100 meters before stopping on the shoulder with part of the car still on the highway.  Our guide, Melissa and I leaped out of the car and I dashed to the rear to open the hatch before he could drive away.  We stacked ourselves and our luggage against the guardrail as our guide yelled in Vietnamese at the driver who, from body language, tried to pretend that he knew exactly what he was doing.  We managed to flag down another van that took us to a rest stop, and then secured a different van to take us to our boat.  

Buddhists believe in Karma. Christians believe in miracles and divine intervention.  Humanists believe, if that is the right word, in luck.  I believe there are moments in my life when confronted with a metaphorical fork in the road, I have managed to choose the option that led to safety. Was it luck, good Karma or my mother’s endless prayers for my safety?  Was it a loving God, a benign Zeus who reached down from on high and planted us safely in another van?  I do not have the answers to those questions.  I find myself on this trip surrounded by beliefs and people who see the world from a different angle than I.  Still, I find the differences illusory, a human-made distinction without substance, like the semantics of insisting on one name for God.  We are safe.  We are alive. We are grateful.  The rest, every single bit of it, is irrelevant. Amen.  Namaste.  Thank you.

When Melissa and I decided to blog about our adventure, you would think that after thirty years together I would have realized that I would never be able to keep up with her.  You would think that I would have foreseen that she would complete three to four detailed, grammatically perfect, fact-checked entries to every one of my rambling, stream-of-conscious, watch me be deep and profound, typo-ridden, poetic license taken entries.

Alas, I did not.  In fact, the only reason I am sitting in the Luang Prabang airport this afternoon writing is because sitting not 17 inches away from me, oblivious to everything around her, is my wonderful wife banging out another masterpiece.  I did take notes today on my phone; I swear.  But I’m too tired and lazy to check them.  Melissa, in just seven days, has a complete version of our trip, a kind of War and Peace of notes, carefully typed into her phone.  Her phone! Do you know what that would look like if I typed those notes?  Let’s just say a monkey banging on a typewriter would produce better.

Like I said, the only reason I am still typing is because she is.  I have nothing to say of any great merit because I know that her next post will put Britannica to shame.  And here’s the real humbling part, I had to ask her how to spell Britannica.

I am what is known as the trailing spouse.  I’m okay with that.  Besides, who among you thousand followers – catch the hyperbole there (and by the way, I knew how to spell hyperbole) – want to read all this stuff anyway, except, of course Melissa’s dad, Jack, who is the kind of person (among other things) that spends hours in a museum reading every single entry on ever single exhibit.  Don’t worry. I doubt he’s reading this.

Therefore, to honor you, my dear, devoted followers (all of whom – God bless you, deserve a better life), I will cease and desist with the writing and let, as they say, a few pictures paint my thousand words.

If you have read this far, make sure to write a bunch of comments on this post.  It will drive Melissa crazy.  Just make up whatever comes to mind.  I’m after quantity here not quality.  Just don’t mention the typos or grammar errors.  Thanks.   

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Sun, Jan 20, 5 p.m, 84 F, sunny and clear: Luang Prabang airport

I’m exhausted as we wait in this modern airport (only 6 years old) for our hour-long flight (on a prop plane!) to Hanoi. Don and I had another early wake-up (5:30) so that we could sit next to the street and put sticky rice and cookies in the baskets of a line of monks (over 100) who came by bus from another village to gather alms; 2,000 monks live in the city itself. Today was a holy holiday, so the monks were newly shaved and dressed in laundered saffron robes. I’m also feeling tender. I know I need to write about our stay and our guide before we encounter the next kaleidoscope of impressions in Vietnam. I am quite sad to leave Luang Prabang. It is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. At the same time, I am so grateful for this sweet man beside me, who handles all the complicated tipping, carries my bags when I’m tired, and keeps all our passports and important letters of entry/visa applications organized and easy to find.

Our guide first. Vong is a walking encyclopedia, with knowledge of his country’s customs, different ethnic groups (there are 49 “tribes”), and Buddhist practices. He is the first educated person I have met (I believe) who appears to be entirely without cynicism, sarcasm, or guile. He is middle-class in a poor country, yet he shows no signs of class consciousness. When he tells us about the people who live farther up the mountains, he speaks with deep respect for their animist cultural practices and self-sufficiency.* As we got to know each other better, Vong showed photos of his wife and 5-year-old daughter; his wife grew up in a small village and carries some of those traditions with her. For example, she eats squirrel, which Vong does not (there is also cooked bat, snake, and rat at the market, if you’re hungry); she also is not comfortable in restaurants, but is herself an accomplished cook. Vong’s brother works at the Tamarind (restaurant) and is just as friendly, bringing us sweet rice cakes after we told him we were stuffed and telling us funny stories about his calm older brother, “Mr. Vong.”

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Warning! Literary Allusion. In The Last Battle (the final book in the Narnia series), the Narnians are fighting the Calormen in front of a barn. Every night the Calormen bring out an ape out to scare them and convince them that Aslan is angry. In the final battle, the Narnians are thrown into the barn, together with the dwarves, who have fought both for and against them, and a young Calorman, who believes in the pagan god, Tash. Once inside, the dwarves sit in darkness. But the Narnians and the young Calorman realize they are in Narnia itself, the Calorman, too, because, although he never knew Aslan, he is noble and pure. Aslan shows up and invites those who can see Him to go farther in and higher up. Before they leave, the Narnians plead with Aslan to do something for the poor dwarves, who are sitting on what they think is dirty straw. In response, Aslan lays out a splendid feast, but again, the dwarves see nothing but rotting food and start fighting among themselves. Being in Luang Prabang has been a bit like getting a glimpse of Narnia. There is a feast here for those who welcome it, and thanks to Vong, we have moved through our days experiencing the spiritual power of his ancient, beautiful city.  

Today, we walked the standard 300 steps up a steep hill to the ancient temple, and Vong stopped us every couple of minutes to share some meaningful truth. What follows is taken from our conversation and told in his voice:

The Mother of Earth often appears alongside the Buddha and always with her hands wringing out her long hair. This is because she has two jobs – to drown the demons that threaten the Buddha and to bring water to the Buddha. In many temples, a wooden gutter in the shape of a dragon carries scented water down a slight slope to the Buddha, where it bathes him before it runs out a drain in the floor. Buddhism, according to Vong, is quite simply, Karma and the cycle of reincarnation. In Vong’s family, one couple was struggling with infertility, but then was asked by a shaman if anyone had died recently in their family. They finally became pregnant, and guess what? – the baby came out looking exactly like the 105-year-old grandfather who had died 2 years earlier.

            Typical conversation: The tail of Trump’s plane is 14 meters tall, higher than a palm tree (we all laugh).

            When we found a natural “footprint”of the Buddha  – five toes carved out of rock and painted gold – Vong said, with no hint of irony, this is “unbelievable.”

            Vong is quite upset about a recent spate of thefts by bandits who break into temples to steal the ancient bronze or gold Buddhas (probably to sell to wealthy Chinese people). But woe be to these people, because if you do something bad inside a temple, soon you will have bad luck. Following the Buddha is all about not fighting, meeting bad people with calm. The hardest thing to learn is the gift of forgiveness. Your enemy is needed to check how good you are, and your friend comes to promote you. Ordinary people pray for prosperity and health, because enlightenment is too lofty a goal; it’s too many lifetimes away (there are, after all, 7 layers of heaven). Vong told us a story of a rich businessman in Luang Prabang who had been a monk as a young man, grew his fortune and his family, and then left his children in charge of his wealth, to return to the monastery. His faithful wife meets him every morning at 6 a.m. with alms. They can laugh and talk, but they do not touch each other.

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            At the end of each of these mini-sermons, Vong lets go an infectious laugh. As we walk down the mountain, we hear the monks chanting from the Golden Temple we can see in the far distance, which is close to his home.

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Luang Prabang means “capital of the royal Buddha.” It was the original seat of the monarchy before the king moved to Vientiane (capital of Laos). It sits at the confluence of two rivers: the Mekong and Nam Khan (“winding current river”) and the heart of the city, including the charming old city, is a UNESCO world heritage site. True to its location, Luang Prabang is where Lao and French architecture meet in a unique combined style and all these tribes live together peacefully. [At the Villa Maly hotel, one of the staff is a young French woman who first came to the city as a volunteer with a French organization. When she flew back to Paris after her few weeks’ stay, she quickly realized that her heart was in Luang Prabang; she has lived here four years. She pointed out to me at breakfast that we were being served by 3 young men who say “Good morning” in 3 different languages. I believe they were Hmong, Tai, and Khmu-the original tribe here, who immigrated from India].

*The ethnic diversity here has perhaps saved Luang Prabang from conforming to a single set of Communist standards. When the State was created 43 years ago, it kept the rules of inheritance whereby a piece of land is privately owned and passed down from one generation to the next. FYI, Laos is a land-locked country slightly smaller in size than the United Kingdom. It has 7 million people, most of them farmers, compared to 68 million in Thailand and 94 million in Vietnam. Today, more Chinese and Vietnamese are moving to Luang Prabang for work. Vong says they are undercutting businesses with lower prices and taking jobs away from the Laos people (I don’t say “Laotian” because nobody here does).

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The culture here is so rich and different that Don and I soak in all we can, knowing that we leave some behind. Laos looks a lot like northern Thailand – lush and fertile, with fields of tapioca, lychee, rice, eggplant, banana and rubber trees. We joked nervously as the two-hour drive east to the Thai-Laos border took us up into the mountains. The highway we were on was the only sign of modernity; twenty years ago, it had replaced a dirt road. We’d been told the border crossing could take two hours, as it is a complicated visa process involving $35 in new bills (they would, indeed, reject several we offered, making us a little worried), a passport photo, and a tiny form we had been given by the customs official in Bangkok. Each of our guides goes by a nickname: Alice, Dang (red), Sam (three), Fuk (pumpkin), La (youngest). Their English is very good and we talk about all kinds of things, from politics to history to regional differences in food and language. Buddhism is like most other religions, in that some people are strict followers, but most are content to respect the spirit of the law. At the same time, it more visibly permeates the culture in Thailand and Laos. This morning, Don and I fell into step behind a line of 6-7 young monks walking into a rural village barefoot and dressed in saffron robes tied with a rope. They carried their bowls (for collecting food) and staffs. They ranged in age from about 6 to 11. One little guy had moved up in line, but he had to scoot to the back when an older boy gave him a shove! I really do not want to generalize, but Buddhism, it would seem, accounts for the gentleness of these people. Thirty years ago, every young man stayed at a monastery (for a few days or up to 9 months) as part of his education. That is no longer the case, but locals still line up every morning at 6 a.m. to give alms to the monks. The spiritual element is apparent in the storytelling, effortless courtesy and easy smiles of these hard-working people.

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We spent two days traveling down river (from Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang) on a long and narrow, but elegantly furnished wooden boat. The Mekong runs through five countries: China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. China has built seven huge dams on it, one in Laos, which has caused a lot of heartache. Farmers along the river are not told when the river will be flooded, so they often lose the gardens they are used to planting at the river’s edge. The watermark on our lodge indicated that the river had risen about 30 feet the last flooding. Yesterday we stopped at a village of lowlanders. On the ground beneath one wooden house on stilts sat a chunk of iron fitted between wooden blocks and used to sharpen tools and knives. It was part of a bomb. Ordinance can be found everywhere in Laos, especially close to the Vietnam border. In the War, the United States (in the “Secret War”) dropped 3 million tons of bombs on this tiny country, and 2 million tons still remain. Every year, 50-60 people are killed by bombs that detonate when they try to move them. In the markets, they sell jewelry and other objects made of parts of bombs. Our guide saw President Obama when he came to one of these villages as a private citizen, in 2016. Obama impressed the Lao people with his humble manner. When he tried to buy a coconut, the vendor wouldn’t take his money and finally Obama just put down $10. Through a translator, Obama asked the crowd that gathered to tell him honestly how they felt about Americans. No one would say anything, until finally one man raised his hand and said politely, “It makes us pretty grumpy.” That emboldened a couple more to contribute: “We hate Americans, I want to kill Americans.” Obama thanked them for their honest answers. When he got home, he raised $19 million to send back for de-mining.

Our guide was hesitant to share this story and any story that we might construe as “negative” (because he didn’t want us to feel “bad”). Yet he did say that many of the girls living in the village would go into the sex trade, because they couldn’t afford secondary school. We also learned that while the villagers appreciated the electricity and primary school the government provided, they used the condoms for anything but contraception, including as covers for Iphones. Boarding the boat to leave, we were met with a tray of rolled-up towels soaked in ice water and a glass of cool water. Don said it reminded him of the Bible verse “be kind to your enemies, because you will be heaping hot coals on their heads.” Yes.

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Staring out at the forest on both sides of the Mekong, I realized that these images were familiar to me, because they came from countless supposedly anti-war movies. Yet while they haunt the American conscience (including my own), they don’t produce any new revelations about the people who live here. The reason Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was so perfectly adapted to the Vietnam War is that we’ve only ever looked into a mirror here in Southeast Asia, finding only our own ugliness reflected back to us. American GIs knew this, which is why they, too, were a Lost Generation, returning home from a drawn-out conflict (1964-73) that they had little to no stake in, only (for some) the innocent belief that the American leaders that put them there knew what they were doing. Vietnam (and Cambodia, Laos) was not theirs to protect or defend; there was no gold to enrich themselves with, no larger purpose worth fulfilling, just a bunch of fishers and farmers eking out the barest existences and already exploited by the French and Chinese. There’s that scene in “Apocalypse Now” of the boat going up the river, with Pvt. Lance is holding foil trays up to face to tan; he will later be ordered by Col. Kilgore to surf the waves in the Mekong Delta. I now have my own sense of what the bored but tense GIs felt. There’s no there there in the jungle. You can look and look, but the canopy of trees is impenetrable. Hidden dangers lurk, filling you with fear and unease, but all you hear is the loudness of your thoughts. Even now, years later, we are well-meaning tourists like Mrs. Moore in the caves in A Passage to India, well-meaning but completely out of our depth.

Jan. 19: Luang Prabang. I am absolutely charmed by this vibrant, colorful town of 60, 000 along the Mekong River. It really is Shangri-La, with French Colonial hotels facing the river and pastoral scenes of bamboo bridges, fisherman’s boats, and mist-covered mountains. I have never seen so many shades of green. Any claim we as Americans have to our superior lifestyle shrivels and dies in a place like this. For one thing, the food here is some of the best I have ever eaten: fresher, more delicately seasoned than anything I eat at home. For another, the people are soft-spoken, kind, and gentle.

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Today, our guide took us to an incredible set of waterfalls carved out of limestone, which turns the water a beautiful turquoise. Our picnic lunch was a veritable United Nations feast, from the dried fish and chilis our guides Vong and Pan brought, to the varieties of milk products from the water buffalo farm: feta, yogurt, babaghanoush, blue cheese, buffalo mozzarella, together with French ham, mushroom, and pickle baguettes and the freshest salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, croutons, watercress and lettuce.

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The Buffalo farm deserves its own paragraph. It is the brainchild – and ambitious social enterprise – of an Australian couple who realized on a visit to Sri Lanka that water buffalo could be used for milk (not just plowing fields and meat). Water buffalo udders are shorter than cows’, so milking is a lot harder. Once you decide to put in the effort, you get 2-3 liters of buffalo milk a day, compared to 40-80 liters for a milk cow. To improve this, they are crossbreeding Swamp buffalo with Mira buffalo, which produce 10-15 liters a day. All this work is happening in a culture that has no milk or dairy products! According to our guide, most Laos wouldn’t touch our picnic because they thought we were eating animal fat. They think that yogurt comes from fruit; they also don’t realize that you need a calf for yogurt, because that’s the only time a cow lactates. God love this couple, though. They’re trying out all kinds of products in their kitchen; apparently, the first camembert had to be used as fondue. I was sorry we didn’t get to meet them, because they are doing something no one else thought of doing. I also wanted to thank them for the feast they gave us for lunch. Dwight, our farm guide, is from Calgary and volunteering for 2-3 weeks through an organization called Work Away. In addition to being a good source of nutrition, with 8-9% more fat and tons of vitamins and minerals, the farmers who rent their buffalo to the farm get free vaccinations for the cows and training in better agricultural practices.

If you come to Luang Prabang, you will see small birds in bamboo cages for sale (they are caught on farms where they are pests and sold to tourists to release), eat yummy sticky rice stuffed into bamboo sticks and sealed with banana leaves, and wonder at the forests of teak, rosewood, and mahogany. You will walk clean streets, spend big (last night our dinner cost us 313,500 Kips, or about $30), and have your choice of apple pie, basil, or tamarind buffalo ice cream. For dinner, you will eat “larb,” a dish of minced beef and rice with spices, or perhaps, perch from the river steamed in a banana leaf with greens and basil, lemongrass and rice powder. You will rise at 6 a.m. to hand out sticky rice and cookies to monks – under trees, that are also wrapped in saffron sashes, because they are believed to be monks who stand tall and serene on city streets – absorb symphonic birdsong and touch the most exquisite silk cloths. These fabrics are dyed using a variety of natural plants like lemongrass, teak, and the sappa tree. To deepen the color, natural dyes are mixed with rusty nails and turned into intricate, brilliant patterns.

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You will stand quietly and admire the slight Hmong porters who climb the stairs from the river carrying several pieces of luggage or carry heavy loads of sticks on their backs from the mountains to the markets. You will smile every time you see a laughing Lao child. You will be mesmerized by the graceful dancing hands that morph into birds or the morning glory or gardenia. No wonder ancient explorers traveled great distances to amass the treasures of “the Orient.” Don and I walked at sunrise through the awakening town, picked up our stinky clothes – now smelling sweetly of lemongrass – at a local laundry, and ate mandarins that redefine “orange” for us. Now close your eyes and imagine the town at night. There’s a full moon peeking out from scudding clouds and lighting up the bowl of the sky. Elegant hotels beckon with trees full of white lanterns and lighted globes. The pleasures could not be deeper, nor more simple.

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In Chiang Mai (“city new”), we visited Doi Suthep. All these temples come with stories that our guides recount to us eagerly and in great detail, despite the fact that they retell them every day. In this one, monks loaded an elephant at the bottom of this mountain with a sacred relic (part of Buddha’s brain) and followed it as it meandered its way up. It stopped twice before reaching the top. Temples were erected at each site, the highest one consisting of several structures, including a burial site under a banyan tree that supposedly grew from a cutting of the tree the Buddha sat under. We ascended to Doi Suthep up a staircase of 300 steps, bordered by a banister of a long serpent’s body, tail at the top. When the Buddha decided to leave his life of wealth and leisure, serpents protected him against the demons who assailed him. A brief word about death: Each village has a crematorium, and traditionalists still burn bodies in open concrete pits. Our guide scooped up whitened bits of bone to show us.

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We spent the evening with a middle-class family who helped us cook our own Thai meal with the herbs and oils from their farm. This was a great experience, as it allowed us to relax and laugh with our hosts, who so graciously introduced their entire family, from their 2-year old to their 91-year-old grandmother. Everyone (but the toddler) was working, with the grandmother rolling banana leaf cigars at the fire (pounding and drying the leaves, then rolling them with tobacco). Our proud host showed us the upstairs of his house, with one bedroom kept empty as a sacred space for past family members, all of whom we had “met” in the entry hall photos. He sat us on the floor and gave us tea leaves to chew with a little salt (in the old style) and a betel nut (both were bitter). We were there with a lively French couple from Nice. While her husband spoke a little English, she didn’t, and my being able to translate words and phrases for them made the evening even more fun. That, and the fact that every piece of food we put into our mouths was so fresh and succulent.