{"id":3034,"date":"2010-05-06T06:46:24","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T11:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=3034"},"modified":"2010-05-06T07:11:25","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T12:11:25","slug":"panic-in-lao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/?p=3034","title":{"rendered":"Panic in Lao"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify\">Pi Mai Lao &#8211; the Lao New Year. It&#8217;s the Lao interpretation of the New Year on the same calendar used in Thailand. The Lao, usually a quiet, modest, and polite people, take this opportunity to descend into  madness and debauchery, soaking each other relentlessly with water,  powdering all in sight with tapioca, and smearing black gunk over their  faces and those of passers-by.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><iframe class=\"aw-video\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Travel video\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/c8xppjT4au4\" allow=\"fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">The idea of watering came from the legend  of King Kabinlaphom, whose seven daughters kept his severed head in a  cave. The daughters would visit their father&#8217;s head every year and  perform a wetting ritual to bring happiness and good weather. About the  white powder and black-face, I am still searching for the cultural  significance, so if any of you readers know, by all means please share.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">My  Pi Mai Lao experience started bright and early, when spurred by some  inner failsafe, I shot out of bed, thinking in a frothing panic &#8220;Where  is my backpack?!!&#8221; I ravaged through the room, turning on the light and  waking Stewart and Scott. &#8220;Oh no, oh no&#8230;&#8221; I paced the room. &#8220;How could I  be such an idiot?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">Stewart propped himself up to 30 degrees  from horizontal and addressed me through the phlegmy veils of slumber.  &#8220;Relax. I know this is hard to believe, but this is Lao. I think we can  get your bag back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;You think we can get it back?!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;Yeah,  we lost a bag full of money once on a Dragon&#8217;s trip here, hundreds of  dollars, left it at a street vendor, and they hung onto it for weeks and  returned it untouched.&#8221; I was still skeptical and panicking. Motta  continued calmly, as though speaking in a trance, &#8220;What time is it?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;5:00 am,&#8221;  I was cold sweating.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;Wake me up at 6:30, and we&#8217;ll try to find  your bag.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">I tried, but sleeping was out of the question, so I  took a long shower and paced and waited for 6:30 to roll around.  Eventually it did, and I shook Mr. Motta to life. We grabbed the Speed  TRs from where we had folded and stashed them under a staircase the  night before, and headed out into the city.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">It was the first day  of Pi Mai Lao, and preparations were well underway. To get to  the location of the night market, we needed to go through a giant  morning market where everything from caged birds to giant catfish and  beetles were for sale. The place was packed. Lao is definitely an early  morning society, and today was no exception. Everyone in Luang Prabang seemed to be  out and about. Despite the propellant of clenching fear and volatile  hope that churned in my stomach, we had to dismount and walk the bikes  through the thick crowd.<\/p>\n<iframe class=\"aw-video\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Travel video\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/W41A3OCuWgw\" allow=\"fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">When  we finally got to the street market, we found it a ghost town. Only  one woman was there serving food, maybe four stalls down and across the  walkway from our stall of the night before. She was serving up the Lao  interpretation of Khao Soi. In the north of Thailand, it is a coconut  curry soup, creamy and thick. In Lao it is a tomato and ground meat  soup, with a semi-translucent reddish broth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">Stew began explaining  to the woman, in Lao, what had happened to my bag. She smiled and  expressed her regrets, and we were about to move on when she had a  thought. She called to Stew, and we turned around. She started asking  follow-up questions: Was it a young girl or an old man? Was she selling  drinks or meats? Finally, she seemed to have narrowed it down, and  looking satisfied, she called to her two daughters, who had been helping  her wash vegetables, and told us to follow them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">We followed  them, walking the bikes behind the two tiny Lao women, as they picked  their way onto a side street holding hands. The two of them walked  slowly, and were so dainty and frail as to seem weightless. In the  strange gray morning light, filtered through the smoke all around us, I  felt as though I were in a dream. We walked the Speed TRs behind them  along the uneven pavement, and I felt separated from reality, afraid to  hope, but not yet willing to despair.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">We turned another couple of  streets and found our way to a small concrete building, where some  people were sleeping on the linoleum floor. One of them got up, an old  man, while his younger wife (or daughter?) pulled out two chairs for  us. Mr. Motta and I removed our shoes and entered the home.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">The  old man slowly climbed up a creaking ladder made of large bamboo poles  toward the attic of the building. He then reappeared with&#8230; my  backpack! I was so excited I nearly bit my tongue in half. I thanked  him as much as I could in Lao and English, and after a brief counsel  with Stewart decided to give him about $5.50 as an appropriate thank  you. The man smiled and bowed to me with hands pressed together; I  awkwardly returned the gesture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">As we walked away, with the bag on  my back, I felt as though I had been given an undeserving gift by the  gods of wheeling. All morning my mind had been playing over the  ramifications of my lost passport. We would have needed to spend another  week at least in Lao, getting a new one, and then we would have needed  to re-populate it with visas&#8230; it would have been a huge investment of  time, effort, and capital&#8230; but no need for that now. I had my bag,  here it was.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">We stopped back at the Khao Soi place for a  celebratory bowl of noodles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/khaosoi.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3177\" title=\"Lao Khao Soi\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/khaosoi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/khaosoi.jpg 700w, https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/khaosoi-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">I opened by bag and rifled through it.  Everything appeared to still be there. As I put my bag down on the seat  next to me, Stewart commented&#8230; &#8220;I think I know that bag from  somewhere&#8230;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;Well,&#8221; I replied &#8220;Martin, my step brother, used  it throughout most of highschool.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;No&#8230; I think it was mine at  some point.&#8221; This was not at all out of the question. We were both from  the same small town of Grinnell, Iowa, where most things have a way of  circulating.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;Well, now it&#8217;s coming AsiaWheeling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/P4107371.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3176\" title=\"Coming AsiaWheeling\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/P4107371.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/P4107371.jpg 700w, https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/P4107371-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">&#8220;Cool.  Cool,&#8221; Motta replied.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">Cool. Cool. Indeed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pi Mai Lao &#8211; the Lao New Year. It&#8217;s the Lao interpretation of the New Year on the same calendar used in Thailand. The Lao, usually a quiet, modest, and polite people, take this opportunity to descend into madness and debauchery, soaking each other relentlessly with water, powdering all in sight with tapioca, and smearing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lao","category-woody"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3179,"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions\/3179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiawheeling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}