Lao “Disco”
Last night a lively 50 year old woman that teaches kindergarten in Alberta Canada, a young woman from California who is a consultant to a California educational testing company, an even younger woman from Germany, Gabe a thoughtful young guy who is translocating from Washington D.C. to China to study Mandarin and two charming Lao trekking guides and myself all piled into a tuk tuk to go to the local Lao disco.
Traditional Lao dancing looks like a cross between Western line dancing, folk dancing and sometimes a slow salsa except that the hips don’t move much. In fact nothing moves much. Very Asian. Little feeling showing up in their bodies…but they are having great fun. We try it…stepping all over ourselves. Then suddenly…old fashioned DJ techno starts up and we are all on the floor…the Laos not changing their moves much. They are very sweet and refreshing…feels like a middle school prom in the States. I suspect that in years to come this will change.
We walk slowly all the way back on the dark road to our guesthouses…sharing travel experiences and insights.
The others walk me to my guesthouse first…I protest but I guess they are deferring to my age. Good grief! It is only 11:30pm and the metal gates to my guesthouse are closed. Oh F___k! This happened to me one time in Hanoi and I had to go find another guesthouse for the night. Look, the gates aren’t locked one of my friends says! Thank goodness…I pick up my key…the last one left in the bowl on the table in the darkened entry. After a CNN/BBC check on the Thai election results I fall into bed. When traveling in Asia, after fighting heat and humidity and noise, I am usually finished by eight pm. This morning my knee hurts. I am afraid we might have made a spectacle of ourselves last night.
Tags: Conversations, Dancing, disco, Lao, Laos, Luang Prabang, Music, Transportation
Zoe