Again the weather was clear and hot. I decided to cross the Mekong to Chomphet District; I needed a boat to do this, and I paid too much for a boat ride and didn’t negotiate at all. I’m that soft: I’ll give someone 50,000 kip (US $6) to boat me across that broad brown water [...]
All posts in category Laos
Luang Prabang forever and ever: My best fiend in Chomphet District
Posted by melaniejoya on June 10, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/luang-prabang-forever-and-ever-my-best-fiend-in-chomphet-districte/
Luang Prabang forever and ever: Ban Xang Khong and the mystery monks
I thought I would spend lots and lots of time in Luang Prabang, visiting temples and walking around in an unstructured way. As it turned out, this came to entail biking around the city and to surrounding villages, helping various children and teenagers learn English, and sometimes luxuriating like a fancy European. It’s January 2011 [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 9, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/luang-prabang-forever-and-ever-ban-xang-khong-and-the-mystery-monks/
Oudomxay, which is dreamy and wide awake
The main road was built by China and is traversed by heavy trucks. I felt important in Oudomxay, a witness to this economic permutation as it happens, this convergence of countries that once had closed borders. Another part of Real Lao: the palpable economic and cultural transformation effected by China’s rising influence juxtaposed with people [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 7, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/oudomxay-which-is-dreamy-and-wide-awake/
From the mountain to the river: second day of trekking around Muang Khua
I wondered if these villages had names—what you call the place you were born if you so rarely leave it—but forgot to ask. Some take five days’ walking to get to. Since the one we slept in is connected to a good wide dirt road on the other side, it’s not so remote after all—a [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 6, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/from-the-mountain-to-the-river-second-day-of-trekking-around-muang-khua/
From the lowland rice fields to the mountainside rice fields
Early on we came through rice fields just planted or about to be; it was raining and all the fields were submerged under rectangles of brown water. Boun Ma said lowland rice fields differ from mountain rice fields, and that we’d see both that day. We approached a little bamboo shelter on stilts and climbed into [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 5, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/483/
Muang Khua: Real Lao
Independent travelers want the “real” of a country, the authentic. We want to be tourists in a place with no other tourists, even though those of us who hesitate to express such wishes aloud or in writing know know how absurd and problematic that sounds. Especially in the low season, Lao is equipped for this: [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 4, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/muang-khua-real-lao/
Nong Khiaw, on being a free bitch
I listened to Lady Gaga on the minibus ride to Nong Khiaw and was compelled by the mantra I’M A FREE BITCH, BABY. In The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen writes: This is closer to my own idea of freedom, the possibility and prospect of ‘free life,’ traveling light, without clinging or despising, in calm acceptance [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 3, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/nong-khiaw-on-being-a-free-bitch/
Tat Kuang Si
Most people take a tour to the waterfall, most often an informal thing where you pay a guy to drive a group of you there in his tuk-tuk. The problem, though, is that you’re on the driver’s and everyone else’s schedules then, and maybe get an hour or two at the falls and surrounding area. [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on June 2, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/tat-kuang-si/
Weaving days 2 and 3
I still wake up at 5:30. Is it jet lag or the tropical earliness of the sun or just needing to be awake for everything that could happen in daylight? Luang Prabang officially shuts down at 11:30p.m. and I’ve been falling asleep early—with all its brilliant colors, it’s a city I prefer by day. So I walk [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on May 31, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/weaving-days-2-and-3/
Ikat weaving, day 1
In the morning, I woke up at 5:30 so I could watch the monks collect alms. They are young and barefoot and wear brilliant orange robes. They walk down the street in a line with their containers held open, and people give them rice and other food. This is happens every morning just after dawn [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on May 30, 2010
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/ikat-weaving-day-1/
My novella, City in the River, City in the Forest, available from Hag's Head Press
Incident at Love Canal, with Christine Shea!
