Thailand/Laos/Cambodia IV

Luang Prubang cont’d

The next day, I took a bike ride through Luang Prubang and marveled at the beauty of this little town. There were quite a few more tourists than I had anticipated, so I decided to point my bike down a main road and keep on riding towards the outskirts. I passed fields and Laotians harvesters and fruit stands. The greens and oranges and purples and blues looked astonishingly different under the nearly blinding white of the sun. This sun beat down hotter than most of the suns I’ve experienced.

I got lost.

And I ran out of water.

And I needed some shade.

Bowing my head in a little lean-to thatched roofed fruit stand/napping place/home, I smiled at the husband and wife who lay on straw mats. They looked shy and slightly confused by my presence. I bought a bottle of lukewarm water and gulped half of it in huge swigs. Husband and Wife exchanged amused glances while they slowly fanned themselves.

There have been so many flies and ants that have been competing for my food for the entire trip. I’ve had to be really Zen in general about the insects, geckos, and other randoms that have been crawling crawling over everyplace-everything.

As I chased away the buzzing flies from the harvest of fresh pears that sat on a rickety wooden table, I reflected upon how this was a much more honest way of looking at food. Food occurs in nature.

I’ve worked in restaurants for at least a decade of my working years and the prepared vegetable florets and precisely cut ovals of meat is a strange façade. Flies buzz just as greedily in restaurant prep rooms as they do around the taut yellow-green fruit in little thatched huts on the Laotian countryside.

Slices of zucchini, carrot, onion, and tomato are sliced into sharp perfection by white-hatted chefs; they slide off cutting boards in the chaos of the lunch/dinner rush. These exposed vegetable meats soak in the brine from the kitchen floor before they are quickly snapped up by greasy fingers and tossed atop salads. The unaware consumers admire the pleasing geometric design of the edibles on their plates.

Those false lines and shapes—they are so far removed from their origins. The earth. The single-minded instinct of insects. The dusty, calloused hands that plant and harvest. I sometimes forget as well. Food occurs in nature.

This is the flash of thoughts that I had while I brushed an ant off of one of the 3 pears that I had chosen. This seems more honest somehow. Husband nodded his thanks when I paid 10000 kip for the 3 fruit.

I needed directions.

The quiet couple couldn’t quite understand my inquiries about where to find the bus station so I could check the schedule. A few more smiles at my pantomimes. Helpless shrugs and giggles between the 3 of us.

I cycled off into the heat and the green.

Eventually, I meandered my way there and booked my ticket for the next stop—the infamous Van Vieng: Tubes, parties, and everyone getting laid.