Sandy Does Southeast Asia

I haven’t been writing much…I know, I know!…but that’s only because I want to spare you, my dear friends and family, from having to read this over and over every day: “Today I woke up, ate breakfast and journaled with Caroline, read, ate lunch, laid in a hammock, wrote, ate dinner, socialized, went to sleep.” If you’re ever curious what I’m up to, just come back and read that sentence a few times.

Yesterday was an exciting day though – I made my first visa run! It wasn’t half as glamorous as I was hoping it might be (what is though, right?) but it did break up the routine. I started off first thing after breakfast with a tuk-tuk ride to the Thai customs office at the base of the Friendship Bridge (about 10 minutes from Mut Mee) that spans the Maekong between Thailand and Laos and is the official border crossing in this part of Thailand (which is also why there’s so much farang traffic in Nong Khai – everyone moving between Thailand and Laos down here has to pass through town).

At the customs window, I handed the official my departure card and got a Thailand exit stamp in my passport. Then I followed the crowd of people onto a waiting bus that drove us over the bridge to the other side of the river, which is Laos. I got off the bus, was given some paperwork to fill out by the Lao customs official, which I handed back in along with $35 US dollars. About five minutes later they called me up and gave me back my passport with a fancy Lao visa pasted into it. (FYI for anyone planning to travel in SE Asia – I’ve noticed there’s still some doubt surrounding this on the Internet, but it is 100% officially true that you now get a 30-day visa-on-arrival for Laos instead of a 15-day one like before.)

Then I made a quick tour of one of the duty-free shops. Even though I’ve only been away from the States for a month and the shop I went into was like a teeny-tiny Macy’s, there was so much stuff and it was all so organized and so clean that I really felt like I’d been transported to another world, a world of opulence and abundance. It made my head feel funny but in a good way.

When I’d had enough of the novelty, I went back out to the Lao customs window, got an exit stamp, got back on the bus, and crossed the bridge back to Thailand. Got out of the bus, filled out entrance/departure cards, handed in the entrance card, and was given another visa waiver Thai entrance stamp in my passport, like the one I got at the Bangkok airport when I arrived. Then I got back in a tuk-tuk and returned to Mut Mee.

Altogether the whole process from leaving the garden to sitting back down with a fresh cup of coffee took less than two hours. The funny part was not so much that I was going through this charade with the Thai/Lao officials but that there were no less than 10 other Westerners doing the same thing at the same time. Those officials must feel like they’re on a farang merry-go-round. Regardless, I am now set for another 30 days.

Two other fun things from yesterday: In the afternoon, American Justin (as opposed to Irish Justin, who left yesterday for the islands so I guess I can just call American Justin ‘Justin’ from now on) mentioned what a good speller he is so of course, us both being ugly Americans, we had to face off in a spelling contest. I’m sure he thought he’d win just because he has a PhD in, like, science or whatever. It was a heated contest with more than its fair share of psyche-outs. But I won!! Barely. Then we had another quick contest about who could be the least gracious winner/loser and I’m sorry to report I swept that one also. I’m just glad Justin’s Thai wife wasn’t around at that moment to see the full glory of his national heritage. I’m sure he was, too.

Last night, Caroline, Simeon, Justin and I went to this Australian place called – imaginatively enough – Outback for their all-you-can-eat Friday night pig roast. Not pork roast but pig roast, as Caroline the vegetarian pointed out in disgust, as Simeon, Justin and I shoveled crispy pork skin fat into our faces. Mmmmmm. It was magic.

That’s all the news for now, folks. And if you honestly aren’t satisfied by my scintillating tales of crossing bridges, winning spelling contests and eating pork fat…well, there’s just no satisfying you then.

Nearly every evening, I walk out the back gate of Mut Mee, along a path that leads to an open pavilion overlooking the Mekong. Thai families lay on the cool rose-colored marble. At the bottom of the steps boys play soccer. The setting sun casts a silver blue sheen over the river that is brown the rest of the day. The colors of the river are brown, silver and finally pink, with Laos always green on the opposite bank.

There is a story I often think of while I sit alone watching the river, a story that someone must have told me once although I cannot remember who it was or when. In this story there is a man who loves a woman very much and she loves him equally in return, and so great is this love and so great is their relief at having finally found each after a lifetime of searching that they promise each other that they will be together always. Sometimes though, they are afraid of each other’s love. There are many silly, terrible things that grow from this fear. I cannot remember the details but the important part is that eventually the man does not want to be with her anymore and then what would have seemed unthinkable, that he does not love her anymore. She can still feel his love like a phantom limb. At the end of the story, she goes on and on for the rest of her days always being alone in her heart.

I know that this story, although it is familiar like a dream, cannot possibly have happened to me. But where did I hear it? And why, every time I think of it, do I feel a pain like death at the core of myself? Sometimes I strain to remember but really, it does not matter. All I know for sure in this time of forgetting is the pale yellow light of evening and the yells of boys playing and the river sliding past like memories sliding slowly and calmly into oblivion.

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