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Laos

How to make a dream come true

May 11, 2020

First: Make a list of things to do before you die. Realize that you are always inching toward death and still haven’t done a single thing on that list. This is the same thing your mom did; she put things off until it was too late.

Decide to do something about it.

Quit your job. Leave home. Book some flights.

Tell yourself, “If I make it to Ha Long Bay, this trip will be a success.”

Go to Peru. Go to Bolivia. Go to Argentina. Check some things off the list.

Meet a couple of Americans and drive around South Africa with them. Live in a village. Learn to carry buckets of water on your head. Go to Uganda. Ride across the country in a minibus with 24 people and a pregnant goat. Find work as a country-western DJ for the local radio station. Learn to harvest rice.

Go to Rwanda. Spend your days teaching English to genocide survivors. Cry. Teach them to play bingo. Laugh.

Fly to Egypt and immerse yourself in ruins. Find out your grandmother died. Find out your mom is dying, really dying. Fall down a tunnel of darkness. Hole up in a yoga camp on the Red Sea.

Go to your mother’s funeral. Wrap yourself in grief. Return to Egypt on the day a revolution begins. Feel yourself unraveling.

Take a boat to Jordan. Leave when protests begin. Go to Bahrain. Leave when protests begin. Get the nagging feeling that you are creating a trail of destruction around the world.

Go to Ethiopia, an extraordinary country, and plod your way through it. Feel like you’re something less than human.

Go to India, where something in your soul clicks. Love it. Embrace it. Drink in every hot day, every fragrant spice, every bit of eye-popping color. Move into an ashram. Pray.

Go to Thailand. Work with elephants. Meet a friend from home in Bangkok. Travel with her to Cambodia. Stay with more friends. Say goodbye.

Take a bus to Vietnam. Battle Saigon’s scooter-clogged streets and get a feel for the city. Slurp down bowls of noodles. Take a bus north. When the bus breaks down for 12 hours, sleep at a bus station. When the bus works again, it’s the hottest part of the day and the air-conditioning is now broken. Sweat. Make an unplanned stop in a beach town just because you desperately need a shower.

Take more buses. Take a train. Sleep in a dirty train car on soiled sheets. Arrive in Hanoi. Ride on the back of a motorcycle with a man even sweatier than you.

Schedule a boat tour. Pack up. Get picked up at 7 a.m.

Go to Ha Long Bay.

Wake up on a boat in a bay where everything is still. Everything is perfect.

Write that story.

Go to grad school to really dig into it.

Write that story again and again, edit it, excavate it. Work on it in scraps of time between your day job, when you stay up late, when you rise at 4 a.m. to have 20 quiet minutes before the baby wakes.

Sell it.

Have the perfect editor push you where you need it. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry, but most importantly, he makes you better. He reminds you to slow down where it hurts.

And then one day, poof. You have a book.

Your story, between two covers.

It comes out tomorrow.

Enjoy.

PHOTOS: Bikes around the world

August 7, 2012

My sister has been obsessed with bicycles lately, to the point where she wants to redecorate part of her home with a cycling theme. It’s a really cool idea, especially since she’s so passionate about her own bike.

But I couldn’t stomach the thought of her paying a lot of $$$ for a framed bike photo from World Market or Target — especially when I took thousands of photos of everything around the world. I was positive I had something she could use. And I was right!

Here are just a few of the bikes I encountered on my travels.

 

Lone red bike in a neighborhood in Hoi An, Vietnam.

 

A line of rental bikes in Sukhothai, Thailand, because bikes are THE best way to explore the ancient city’s ruins.

 

It’s like Jem and the Holograms took over this street in Vientiane, Laos. Pink and purple power!

 

A mustard home on a side street in Hue, Vietnam.

 

Pretty bike on a New Orleans street.

 

I love this one the most, even if the bike isn’t the most photogenic, because we are two sisters.

 

This last one I wouldn’t put on any wall in my home. But I still marvel over this man in Mumbai with a seriously impressive stack of eggs. He is the eggman! He is the walrus! Or something.

Bowled over in Laos

June 20, 2011

Laos has this informal curfew that is more of an irritant than a strict law.

I never saw police enforcing the rule. However, all the bars close up shop early. Bartenders tip your bottled beer into a plastic cup and shove you out the door around 11 p.m. Generally everybody is off the streets by midnight.

That’s when the taxi drivers creep up to you on the street corners and whisper, “Bowling alley?”

My friends and I thought it was secret code for “opium den.” And so we jumped into a taxi, of course, headed straight into the unknown.

About 20 minutes later, the taxi screeched to a halt in front of a dark building.

A bowling alley.

Now this is right up my alley.

 

This, it turns out, was the epicenter of Laotian nightlife.

There were two drink selections on the menu. Beer was 20,000 kip for a large bottle — nearly double the price of what you’d pay at a bar during normal hours. But a full liter of Lao whiskey was just 30,000 kip, which is less than $4. Our choice was a no-brainer.

Then my friends Sam, Rose, Nick and I started throwing around gutter balls.

King pin.

 

The funny thing about bowling in Laos is that nobody wears the questionably stylish shoes — which is, in my opinion, half the fun of bowling. We simply shucked our flip flops and skidded around in our bare feet.

Shoes to spare.

 

We stayed out until 2 a.m., though the bowling alley keeps rocking until 4 a.m.

I don’t even remember who won. (Perhaps my mind was curdled from all the whiskey?) But bowling in Lunag Prabang ranks at the top of my list for wacky fun in Southeast Asia — breaking the law, Dude-style.

 

Luang Prabang is fabu-Laos!

June 17, 2011

During this trip, there have been a few places that crept into my bones and became another home. Dahab, Egypt. Kigali, Rwanda. Every bit of Cambodia. India.

Now I can add Luang Prabang, Laos, to that list.

With a strong cafe culture, a distinctive arts scene and a laid-back vibe, the city feels like the New Orleans of Southeast Asia. There’s also water, stunning architecture and food you won’t find anywhere else.

It’s the kind of place where you want to curl up and die — but first you want to crack open a cold beer, sit on a patio and watch the river flow.

It was love at first sight. See for yourself.

 

Tidings of joy

June 15, 2011

Every morning in Luang Prabang, as earliest dawn winks at the navy-hued sky, monks prowl the neighborhood like an orange-clad street gang.

Their alms bowls are slung over bare shoulders, empty vessels waiting to be filled.

On the road, the devout unfurl bamboo mats and squat on their haunches. Vats of sticky rice are ladled into woven containers. Plates of fruit are arranged.

The monks wag their way down the street, a caterpillar made of robes. The air is electric, but silent. I think the birds even stop chirping in a display of respect.

The people fill the alms bowls with fistfuls of warm sticky rice and bananas the size of thumbs. Along the way, others toss in packages of instant noodles, candy, juice.

The Buddhist monks exist because of what is given to them. They live off these alms, eating only until noon each day, eating only the things that end up in their bowl.

If there are no believers on the pavement, the monks go hungry. But day after day after day, they are always sustained.

The daily ceremony is a perfect symbiotic moment. Where giving and receiving are the same. Where offering becomes accepting. Where everything is one.