Luang Prabang

Pink blossoms and bean pods hang from the leafless tree at the top of the hill. The golden pagoda that caught my eye from across the city sits majestically at the apex. Birds flit by in the afternoon air but I miss their tweets, drowned out by my heavy breathing. I turn over the cranks one more time on my faithful squeaky steed, before huffing to a stop, sweating everywhere. I deploy the questionable kickstand and await Erin's arrival, cooling off in the light breeze.

The multi-storied structure is captivating and unique. A stroll around the octagonal exterior reveals delicate flowers, relief carvings on doors and awnings, and expansive views of Luang Prabang. Upon entering, I am greeted by two nuns dressed in plain robes. They smile and welcome me in, asking that I write my name in their log book. I deposit my belongings along the inner wall and gaze at the paintings surrounding me.

The walls are covered with depictions of the realms of existence. Fiery hells, blank, barren expanses filled with wandering ghosts, our plane fraught with war, conflict, and starvation, limbo states, heavenly kingdoms. I walk slowly and deliberately, utilizing the technique Phra Sinlapachai taught outside of Chiang Mai: Heel up. Lifting. Moving. Lowering. Touching. Pressing. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Cognizant of each footfall and the relative positioning of my body.

Mindful steps guide me throughout the sacred space. I make my way through the lowest tier, taking in the rich displays of various realities, borne of one's karmic action forever propelling the spirit into future rebirths. I ascend to the second tier and find extensive murals portraying Buddha's life and travails on every vertical surface. Colorful displays of compassion and hardship, birth, life, and death; of pilgrims paying respects, travels and discourses. The reverence is palpable.

The older of the two nuns approaches me from behind as I am walking. She walks up and with kind disposition offers me a purple, braided bracelet. I present my left wrist and she obliges. Once the knot is firmly affixed, she gestures for a donation, and offering for her efforts. I immediately feel used, cheated of something greater. I begrudgingly hand over some money and she bows and hobbles back downstairs. I can't overcome this feeling of debasement, of a higher ideal being abused and sullied. Is it ever possible to separate the spiritual from the monetary, the mundane? I continue my walking meditation and do my best to observe my conflicted feelings.

A narrow stairwell leads up to progressively smaller chambers. The roof slants inward over my head and the aqua blue hue of the room creates an atmosphere of oceanic bubble essence. The scenes here are fewer in number and more abstract, amalgamations of geometric shapes and Buddhist symbols. The quiet is almost oppressive. Small portholes allow narrow beams of light passage inward, illuminating select spheres of artwork.

A final spiral staircase bears me skyward, into the last and smallest of the four levels. An alcove with an altar is tucked into the top spire of the temple structure. Several Buddha figures sit atop the altar in their lonely abode, with offerings scattered about the standing and seated forms. Tiny slits in the walls allow spare glimpses of the world outside. The complex panoramas from below are absent, the walls mostly void of decoration.

The space compels me. I hum, adjusting the bass in my voice until I find a resonating range that shakes the molecules all around me. I stop and absorb the fading vibrations. I repeat the exercise, approaching greater decibels each time, a smile growing on my face, my cells vibrating in unity with the air enclosing me. Fingering the bracelet on my wrist, I let go of the anger and frustration I felt. Although initially attempted to throw away this representation of the fouling of the sacred, I decide instead to wear it. Let it remind me to not be blinded by expectations. To be fluid in accepting when appearances and assumptions do not match reality. To not become too attached to this idea of "spirituality" and what that should mean, how others should act within my own framework of what is good and right.

I release the soft threads from between my fingertips and once more lose myself in universal vibrations.

***

It was the pizza. That cheesy, oily deliciousness smothered in greens, was the culprit. It had been so good. So satisfying. Gratifying in all its pizza-glory. Who would have thought the only Western food I've eaten in weeks would make me sick?

I lean over the toilet and empty my stomach once more. Erin is even worse off. I've been able to pull my sorry carcass out of bed and move about the bungalow, but she is fully bedridden. Moaning accompanies moving from within a tangle of sheets. I do my best to share some sympathy with her sad state. My last stomach illness had afflicted me in southern Thailand, keeping me from climbing, but this is way worse. Standing is challenging. Guts rebelling against verticality and locomotion, I push through their wrenching tightness and out the door, promising Erin I'll be back to check on her soon.

With concerted effort, I lean aggressively up the street toward L'stranger coffee shop, where I hope to ingest something nutritional and keep it down. I tote a copy of The Zahir by Paulo Coelho which I intend to utilize as an escape mechanism from the icky feelings permeating my body.

I sit in an comfy chair on their patio and order some green tea to match my green face. Food will have to wait. Whispering leaves encircle the porch, shading me from the hazy white sky. I crack open The Zahir.

He is troubled but doesn't know why. He wants to break up with her, but she accuses him of running. "... this scenario will simply keep recurring for as long as I refuse to risk everything for what I believe to be my reason for living..." (p. 21) Which for him is writing. Writing books. I hear a voice in my head saying, That's you, too. Stop waiting, making excuses, and follow your dream. You know what it is. I nod and read on.

He is struggling with a need for an individual journey of discovery, and a relationship that he is unwilling to give up on. "Esther, however, was the only woman in the world who understood one very simple thing: in order to find her, I first had to find myself." (p. 35) I find in his writings some insight and comfort toward the anxieties I am feeling about being away from the woman that I love. Seeking avidly, but unsure what I am looking for. Weighing being apart versus being together. Feeling sensitive to slight disruptions in our connections across tenuous lines, so distant. Unsure of the future.

I have been feeling anxious about Erin (my partner, Erin Fleming, not my traveling buddy) and recent conflicts in our communications. I feel clinging from both sides, longing for something neither of us can have right now. Intimacy. Unrealistic expectations. Are we too different to understand what the other is going through? What the other is thinking? "That is the Mongolian creation myth: out of two different natures love is born. In contradiction, love grows in strength. In confrontation and transformation, love is preserved." (p. 91)

I order a light breakfast of eggs, fruit and toast. I am feeling less green.

"I had forgotten that one has to continue walking the road to Santiago, to discard any unnecessary baggage, to keep only what you need in order to live each day, and to allow the energy of love to flow freely, from the outside in and from the inside out." (p. 230)

Letting go of unnecessary baggage... concepts of what should be, what could be... what love looks like and how it should be shared... if I deserve it, if I am giving enough... and to allow it to flow freely.

He explores an esoteric idea he refers to as the acomodador, or giving-up point. "This fitted in with my experience of learning archery - the only sport I enjoyed - for the teacher says that no shot can ever be repeated, and there is no point trying to learn from good or bad shots. What matters is repeating it hundreds and thousands of times, until we have freed ourselves from the idea of hitting the target and have ourselves become the arrow, the bow, the target." (p. 238)

Is this not like meditation? Repetition to purify the mind of conceptual separations? The giving-up point implies a threshold, one that can only be reached through practice and application, or some critical mass that demands release. Relinquishing preconceived notions, assumptions, expectations.

I am feeling a little less sick and a little less confused. But still an air of unease hangs about me. I close the book and put it away.

"My day was good, let night fall." (p.174) 

Floating the Mekong

DAY 1

Another slowboat passing us on the river.

A gray haired man teases a small Lao girl with a leopard puppet. The prowling hand-cat lurches out across the space between them and then retreats as the young girl giggles gleefully. Her brilliant white hat bobs back and forth as she mirrors the faux predator’s movements, leaning out into the aisle and then huddling back for cover. Mom watches with smiles.

Golden afternoon light cascades through the glowing cabin. Pale gold tassels dangling from drapes shift and shine in the breeze and reflected sun. The motor thrums in the stern. Eddies and waves caress the hull and return to the river.

A man works on his boat in the setting sun.

Women clean grains in wicker baskets at the water’s edge while their children wave frantically to boats passing by. Hamlets tucked beneath crumbling limestone walls appear cut off from everything but the river. The jungle swells around rock and home.

Small canyons and tributary valleys spit streams, tumbling waterfalls down stepped rock embankments and into the Mekong, the mother river.

Children roll down sand dunes in their underwear, then climb hand-and-foot back to the top to do it again. They tug at their friends and siblings, good natured pushing and shoving. They spin with flying roundhouse kicks and lift their shirts over their heads.

Water buffalo sleep in the sandy floodplains, their ears calmly and resolutely flicking away insects. Grazing cows navigate crumbly cliffs to get to the river’s bank and have a drink.

Bright red flowers adorn an otherwise leafless tree. It’s stark white bark shines out into the valley, an absence of color amidst a saturated landscape.

The reverie is intermittently interrupted as speedboats buzz by, their passengers’ faces cloaked in masks to keep off the foam, spray and wind.

DAY 2

A riverside golden abode.

Heaping sandbars pile up out of the water’s edge, the work of countless years of molding, carving, and transporting by water. Their steep flanks are pockmarked with prints of all the valley’s inhabitants, two-legged and four-, wild and domestic, as all flock to the river as a source of life, the central artery of existence.

An elephant lopes along the shoreline, his mahout treading behind him. Gray, fleshy, muscled legs carry his lumbering mass while sail-like ears flop and flutter in the valley breeze. The imagined thumping of his great flat feet syncs in time with the firing pistons of the slowboat engine. A wondrous mammal.

Bones, turrets, spines of dragons, molars and canines of rock jut up from the swirling waters. The boat deftly navigates the otherworldly obstacles.

The largest land animal lopes along.

White, yellow, black, and orange streaked karst towers erupt from the dense green landscape, crowning the horizons and crowding the river. A small temple with Buddha images is tucked into a large cave in a cliff. White washed steps lead up into and then past it. Monks wait in longtail boats below.

A Wrinkle in Time

After deboarding, visa administering, and a gut wrenching race to the squat toilet, I am approached by a man garbed entirely in pink. Glowing softly in the afternoon light, he asks me if I want to buy slow-boat tickets to Luang Prabang, two days downriver from Houaysai. I say yes indeed, I need two. I unload what seems like an absurd amount of money, hundreds of thousands of kip, having just exchanged my Thai baht for the considerably more inflated Laos kip. He tells me to show up tomorrow at the pier west of town. I tell him I want a receipt. And then watch him run away up the street with our cash.

The slowboat that will take us to Luang Prabang

Mildly perturbed by his hasty departure with such a massive wad of our funds, I walk back to where Erin is lazing and inform her of the interaction. She appears unfazed. Something about the quiet river and her disposition and the air hanging about us just oozes with relaxation. So I succumb to this unseen power and plop down to await our fate.

The man in pink soon returns with the desired documents, bids us a pleasant evening, and wanders off on some further entrepreneurial endeavor.

Ascending from the riverside we come to what appears to be main street. A quiet avenue with shops lining both sides, people leisurely walking and talking, a few vehicles scattered about. The two story buildings along the narrow roadway show the gentle touch of time, built with native construction materials and indigenous architecture. A bucolic riverside town.

Laotion flags hang above the pier

There is also a stillness in the air; as if upon uttering a word it gets sucked into a vacuum and disappears. I find myself speaking in whispers so as not to disturb the tranquility, the soft silence. Chiang Kong’s previously pleasant hustle and bustle now seems harsh and strident, a bare cement room of rebounding acoustics compared to this comfortable den of throw pillows and drapes.

There is a profound feeling of having traversed back in years, the Mekong functioning as a portal between ages, a wrinkle in time.

We pass a brilliantly painted gateway marking the entrance to a long flight of stairs ascending a hillside. The undulating walls adjacent to the steps are forest green dragon torsos, their gaping white-toothed maws and wide-eyed faces spilling out onto the street where we stand. Young monks in bright orange robes traverse the upper reaches towards the dragons’ tails.

We continue on to seek lodging.

***

Dusk approaches and the serpentine barriers guide us onward and upward. Our feet carry us up the long flight of low angle steps while child monks play with cell phones and harass each other nearby. At the terminus appears a central temple surrounded by a courtyard and a ring of smaller structures. Some serve as living quarters and dining areas for the young inhabitants, and others contain golden images of Buddha, his disciples, and various figures I don’t recognize.

Dragons leading a large ritual vessel, Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang

Several of the buildings have intricate, striking paintings on their outer walls, linking traditional Buddhist images with animistic influences. Like many regions that Buddhism traveled to after leaving India, the pre-existing local beliefs were integrated into the new faith, creating a geographically and culturally unique strain of the religion. The elemental, protector, and malevolent spirits of Laos animism shape local belief systems, and more than half of Laos’ present population practices some form of animism. The artistic style of these paintings reflects a raw kind of pulsating energy, with bold colors and defiant figures. Quite different from the generally more subdued and refined art I saw in Thailand.

Erin and I wander separately about the grounds, taking in the various features of the temple surroundings. I amble around the front of the building and gaze upon the lazy Mekong below, breathing deeply as the red orb of the setting sun approaches the horizon in the distance. Suddenly, swarms of young monks come scurrying from all corners of the compound, answering the bell calls emitting from the center hall. I make my way toward the main entrance of the temple proper and look in at the young ones seated in front of a tall Buddha statue. Some fidget in the back while others settle onto their cushions toward the front.

An elder monk guides the congregation and they begin to chant.

Buddha images at Wat Xieng Thong

The combined voices rumble through the sacred space and pour out into the twilight. Their words carry weight, and I can feel them press over my body. I am moved to sit on a stone step at the temple’s edge and close my eyes, absorbing only the sound and shutting the other sense doors. The mutterings resonate through my eardrums and fill me up, an empty vessel slowly becoming saturated with warm vibrations. Aromas of incense and night time flow into my nostrils. I sway gently to the song of the youthful, the faithful.

A timeless trance.

When the chanting halts, I open my eyes. Unable yet to move from my perch, I mirthfully observe the interested and genuinely surprised stares from the children as they file out around me. Erin is gone. In time I stand and begin to walk slowly down the hewn steps. I glance once more at the hill top refuge and move quietly into the comfortable darkness.

Crossing the River

Mountains and jungle, streams and plain blur by for hours. Small limestone escarpments jut out from the forest, tangled roots and vines leaping from the cliff tops to the forest floor below. Small villages and fields of assorted crops spring into being whenever the mountainous landscape subsides. Dusty roads bud off of the main track, wandering outward. Our put-putting bus crawls up and over steep mountain passes, and often walking seems like a swifter option.

Looking across the Mekong to Houaysai, Laos.

Having flown from Krabi Province to Bangkok, and then taken a night bus from the capital to Chiang Mai, I had yet to see much of Thailand’s countryside by the light of day. Rolling along through this lush landscape, I begin to fill the gaps in between the destinations, to better understand the makeup of the landscape and envision what the lives of the people must be like.

Chiang Kong is the final stop. The mighty Mekong cuts along the northern edge of town, and Laos begins on the opposite bank. The People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, and specifically the village of Houaysai, is our destination for the evening but lunch comes first. Having foregone any serious breakfast and it now being well into the afternoon, we are famished. We wander about until finding a small pair of tables and chairs under an overhang, bedroom visible in back, small kitchen spilling out into the street.

A lovely old woman offers us a seat and I take the final opportunity to indulge in some (more) Pad Thai while still in the dish’s motherland. Glorious rice noodles, bean sprouts, and lime! Erin laughs at the little dogs trotting the streets, adorned in extremely diverse size, pattern, and color sweaters. She has been fascinated by the absurd quantity of sweatered dogs since Chiang Mai (this is a tropical country), and has proposed several times to chronicle the Thai sweater-dog culture in a photo-essay. I offer my full support and she grabs her camera and chases out into the street for a coveted shot.

Our boatman prepares to guide us across the water.

Supplementing our extremely limited Thai with large smiles, we thank our hostess and move on. A final Thai Tuk-tuk trucks us to the boat ramp. Stamps and nods, passports in hand we hop into a longtail boat, my first international river crossing. This passage also marks my return to the Mekong and my fifth crossing of this mighty river, although the first along the water’s surface.

Three years ago, I undertook two separate journeys into the high peaks of northwestern Yunnan Province, where the Mekong (known in China as the Lancang Jiang) runs swift and narrow through the towering Hengduan Mountains, and along the eastern flank of the sacred mountain Kawagebo. Throughout this region, giant snow-capped peaks descend dramatically thousands of meters into narrow gorges where some of Asia’s greatest rivers rage in close proximity. The Mekong, Salween (Nu Jiang in Chinese), and Yangtze Rivers flow southward off the Tibetan plateau through this extreme landscape, running parallel to each other in a three hundred kilometer corridor. The region is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and protected area for its amazing topography and rich biodiversity.

Gateway to another realm.

Each crossing of the river was a unique and transformative experience. The first began with perceived threats from some drunken Tibetans with a club, a forced march across the prayer flag-laden bridge in the middle of the night, and ended with shots of baijiu (rice liquor), cigarettes, and chatting about Saddam Hussein in their military surplus tent on the banks. The third crossing was the starting point of the circumambulation of Kawagebo. I was left standing on the eastern bank, dropped by a bus in what seemed like the wrong place. Despite my misgivings, I traversed the footbridge to find three large waterfalls cascading down the walls of a narrow canyon cutting into the mountains, as if a gateway into another realm. Awe-struck, I left the churning Lancang Jiang behind and headed up-canyon on what became an epic journey. The fourth occurred while I was stuffed in the back of a multi-day bus, a stowaway amidst bulging, dirty baggage and sweating Tibetans, so I have no recollection of the actual moment we crossed the river. I was being smuggled out of a closed region of Tibet by my friends and guides I met on the pilgrimage, the final stage of that rigorous journey. The following morning I awoke at sunrise to look across the deep cleft of the Lancang River valley to the sacred peak I had connected so deeply with, shining white in the morning light.

The motor of the longtail fires up and our boatman shoves us off. Four weeks in Thailand come to a close. As the river surrounds us, I reflect on my shared past with the mighty Mekong, and smile at this infinitely more casual crossing of the calm waters, sitting comfortably with a friend, legally entering and exploring a new land, a new people. I run my fingers through the cool, muddy waters, and excitedly await whatever the opposite bank holds for me.