Friends In Deed

Holed Up

Well well well. You never know what dodgy potholes will suddenly appear in the road.

Only one day before Sam, Tondi and Otis were due to fly from Oz to meet me and some other friends here, Otis was struck down by a nasty gastro bug, and is totally 100% out of action and unable to travel. Major bummer.

Sometimes the universe has extremely peccable timing.

So they’ve had to delay their trip by a few days, which means that, as a whole group (minus Michael, who’s coming later), we won’t have all that long to be all together.

So, you know, we'll all just have to roll with it, and, as usual, take the path of least resistance.

More Advientianing

I’ve realised that pretty much wherever I go, the longer I stay in a place, and the more I discover within it, the more I seem to like it. To a point anyway.

So it’s great to be back here in Vientiane, as it already has that familiar feeling.

It was a cruisey trip back over the border from Nong Khai in Thailand to get here. It’s the third time I’ve entered Laos this year, and they don’t seem to mind how many times I come riding into their country. So nice of them. As long as I buy an entry ticket, that is.

Thailand, on the other hand, will only allow tourists to enter visa-free with a 30 day stamp twice in any calendar year. But it’s free. Luckily for me, the first time I went there this year I got a visa beforehand, and the limit doesn’t apply to that trip. It’s important for me because I need to enter Thailand again in a couple of weeks.

Travelling the way I am at the moment, my visa status is often the one thing that requires me to plan ahead.

Back in the cattle streets of the capital. Very India-esque (although cows aren’t sacred here).

Michael and Jenni were out when I finally got to their house at night. They left a key for me, I dropped off my bike and gear and headed off on foot for somewhere to eat, in the direction of Xang Jieng Market, the big Chinese market right next to their place.

I passed a Chinese brothel on the way.

A closer look inside. Churns your stomach doesn’t it.

Chinese men would arrive in cars, walk in, walk the line, and choose a girl on the way through.

It’s seriously Chinese around these parts, there’s only Chinese script (hànzì) on the signs, and prices are in Chinese yuan on the restaurant menus and market stalls.

I had a beautiful veg dinner, including lotus root and snow peas, but it was overpriced, as I guess it was priced for gullible Chinese tourists.

Wheeling through the streets of Vientiane is a pleasure, if you’re not in a hurry. There’s so many beautiful wats, Chinese temples, and grand historic buildings.

As I moved around to get a good angle for a pic of this temple guardian, his eyes just kept following me around.

There’s a big old-school shopping centre in town, Talat Sao (girl market). I didn't see any girls for sale, they're in another district. Really.

This shopping centre would’ve been really modern once, and is now so dated, it feels all musty and pokey. I way prefer it to the newer cloned ones.

Every colour under the blinding sun

I spent a lot of time here, at the most amazing café in world history, Coco & Co.

For reasons like this. I’ll never be able to fully explain how good it feels to eat a meal like this right now.

Rue Setthathilat, one of the main streets in the old city, cuts through the embassy district, and is the site of other important buildings, like the Presidential Palace.

Royal Brunei embassy, funded by crisp wads of petrodollars

I came around a corner, and what did I see? A photo of a beautiful village in France that Brigitte Shamani Lali and I visited once, Moustiers Sainte-Marie. It's the most beautiful place ever. I really didn’t know what the hell that pic was doing there, until I realised I was walking alongside the French embassy, one of the most imposing complexes in the whole city, and there were beautiful pics of France everywhere.

One long edge of the huge embassy grounds

Surprisingly, there appears to be a fairly relaxed attitude by the police to the smoking of ganja, despite it being illegal. Some locals and expat residents just fire up spliffs in certain cafes, outdoors, without fear. One expat resident, Joe, told us that the size of the government (including the army and police force) is quite small in Laos, and so they really don’t have the resources to particularly bother about small issues like marijuana usage. They’ve got bigger fish to grill.

This new place is going up right in the leafy part of town. Yeah, I superimposed a little pic of myself on the far right, the original pic didn't look quite right without me.

Arvoglow

Most of the new property development in the city is Chinese funded. The Sino-dollars are generally invested into building hotels, offices and oversized shopping malls.

Blank

Imprisoned co-creatures

My kinda footpath

I love these original wooden buildings. Not sure about the bakery ingredients for the pain au chocolat though.

Roses are red, Pepsi is blue

They must light loads of candles in this temple

It's called Ho Kang, and is actually very beautiful

Jewish brolga

Amazing carved column

Fireworks burner

Night market. Full of new cheap Chinese clothes and jewellery. And not much else.

Beautiful wat near the river, Wat Chan

Traditional building, used to house monks, in the wat grounds.

Local mantis

We went to the Bengali place at the back, Dhaka Restaurant, a couple of times. Such amazingly good food. And cheap too.

Pha That Luang

This stupa is probably regarded as the most important national monument in Laos, and is a well-known national symbol.

Right in the heart of Vientiane, the stupa is said to have been founded in the 2nd Century, and has undergone many reconstructions and transformations, as the result of countless invasions and battles over the centuries, including being plundered of its treasures by the Chinese, Burmese and Siamese (Thai).

Nah, it’s not all solid gold. The pinnacle is though.

As in many historic religious sites in the country, Pha That Luang houses a huge array of historic Buddha statues, from as early as the 8th Century.

Buddha’s particular posture in this statue is the “stop fighting with relatives” posture. Good luck with that one.

Many of the Buddha statues had shiny lips. Not exactly sure why, but it made me wonder. So did the nipples.

Khmer Buddha from the 11th - 13h Century

King Jayavarman VII, a 12th Century Khmer king, who was one of the earliest royal devotees of Buddha.

Particularly well-endowed sandstone lingam in the Mon-Khmer style, from the 9th-12th Century.

Bit of midriffing going on here.

Whatever you do don’t zoom in on that bit.

Yeah, of course you did, I knew you would.

Painting of King Sayyasethathirath’s major reconstruction of Pha That Luang in 1566.

Painting of the That Luang Festival of 2017. Wolf and I went to one of these festivals in the 90s. It was amazing.

My two main memories of the festival are of eating steamed duck foetuses (by mistake, thinking they were run-of-the-mill boiled eggs - and it's not the last time I’ve made that mistake), and secondly, of watching a bunch of villagers huddled around a black and white television, enthusiastically staring at tv for the very first time in their lives. What a moment to witness. Sort of the beginning of the end. Television only came to Laos in 1983.

There’s many beautiful wats and monuments and other buildings around the That Luang grounds.

Modern That Luang Festival (from a poster I saw in town).

Another strange custom. You pay money to this woman and she releases a bird, which is good for the bird and therefore your karma.

But then she just goes and catches another one.

Technically, her catching the poor bird again has nothing at all to do with your own personal karma, just hers. It doesn’t seem to matter that by giving her money you’re encouraging her to go and catch birds.

The devil’s in the detail.

A Steady Trickle

And then suddenly it was time to say a temporary goodbye to the wonderful Michael and Jenni, and also to my dear Black Bewdy, my tried and trusted black bicycle. I’ve left her in Michael and Jenni’s warm and caring arms for a while, while I head off with my wonderful (and bikeless) friends.

The first of my soul siblings to arrive was Craig, a beautiful and dear friend whom I’ve known for over 20 years. He flew into Vientiane one afternoon, after travelling for an infinitely long number of hours, all the way from Armidale in NSW, via Bangkok.

It was so amazing to see him.

We haven’t spent any time alone forever, and had a whole 24 hours to hang out before more of the team hit the pitch.

Craig is an amazing man. So warm, caring, sensitive, thoughtful, generous, and basically perfect. You should introduce yourself sometime. A celebrated writer, director and actor, Craig also runs a very successful massage business, whilst also recently completing a Physics degree, specialising in the area of Density Relativity. He has a major new theory on the topic, which he’s totally developed himself, and is enthusiastically working on.

Density Relativity has nothing to do with comparing Donald Trump to your average woman-on-the-street, but rather to a concept in the scientific world of relativity that is not what I would say is particularly straightforward to understand. For example, the very first paragraph of Craig's own website on the subject succinctly explains the concepts behind it in this way:

“The premises behind density relativity (DR) are, one: if there is a finite limit and relativistic effects to external-spacetime – causality, as established by Einstein, there is a finite limit and relativistic effects to internal-spacetime – density; and two, that time is limited to an emergent effect of causality. DR is intended as an innate extension of Einstein’s relativity. The indicated outcome concurs with Einstein’s belief that interpretations of quantum mechanics had heuristic value, its emergent nature described here as coming from a fundamental relativistic causality superimposed with relativistic density.”

Try explaining that to The Donald.

Or to me, for that matter.

And that’s just the first paragraph.

But if you’re confused about it all, you can just use the formula, it’s super easy:

So I strapped my backpack to my back, for the first time in months, and walked closer to the city centre and checked into a dorm, so I could be nearer Craig’s hotel.

There’s always beautiful wats, monuments, parks and other temples to see all over this city, as you walk around.

Very secure mailbox

The photoboard at my cute little hostel

Homemade rice cakes drying

Delicious dried vegan snacks, including dried river weed with nuts and sesame seeds (a little sweet, and delicious)!

Miss Earth, an entrant in the Miss Universe competition, which, btw, must be a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to organise. Let alone judge. I mean, how can you compare Miss Earth with her competitors from Mars, Saturn or Jupiter?

Let alone Uranus.

Great to see a bit of greenhouse-reducing technology here.

Craig’s guest house wall. Styrofoam bricks. He happened to stay at the very same guesthouse that Sue, Mia, Lali and I stayed in when we came to Vientiane a few years back, the Mali Namphu.

Craig’s brain, deep in a space-time continuum, demonstrating its infinitely small density relativity. A beacon of rationality in a world of chaos.

Cosmic thought bubble bursting.

Yes. I did it. Bubble icecream. Actually, there’s no need to try it, it was quite disgusting I must say, way too sweet, even for me. Basically, it was sweet soft serve icecream, with an even sweeter caramel sauce mixed in, and tapioca balls all over the bloody place.

But of course I had to eat it all.

Later that evening Craig and I had no choice but to eat Indian food, it was impossible to resist the exquisite smells of the Dhaka Restaurant again, as we strolled along, which is situated right across from the night markets.

It was amazing food. As usual.

Puffed-up Preaching Predators

At the restaurant Craig and I had a long and revealing conversation with Joe, an Aussie in his sixties who’s been out of his home country for most of his life, and has lived in Laos for at least a couple of decades, and speaks the local lingo fluently.

He’s quite a personable, confident and friendly guy.

One of the very first things Joe told us was that he’d spent 4 years in a Zen monastery in Japan in his twenties, and then sorta hinted that therefore he’d already learnt and understood the true meaning of life way back then, and immediately felt the need to explain it to everyone else, as they just didn’t understand what life was really about.

Whoa Silver, the red flag’s up, right there.

Joe’s life philosophy appears to be very much about doing whatever you want, and in fact he’s written a published book all about it, which his American friend Mike said is a bestseller. I’m not sure if that’s actually true or not (I’ll be back there at some point soon, so hopefully I can fact check that one).

Joe believes that we all need to accept that life can be brutal. Brutality happens all over the world, and so that is our true nature.

Hmmmm. Well, yes, life can be brutal, that’s true. But our true nature? It can definitely be one aspect of our nature at times for sure, in my view, but definitely only one of many.

Throughout our discussion Joe seemed to extrapolate his concept into a justification for people being brutal themselves, because we’re an animal species after all, and that’s what animals do. We just need to accept that that’s actually what we are, and then we won’t feel so bad about doing the things we do.

Now he’s moved into very dodgy territory, as far as I’m concerned.

Joe, Craig and I discussed politics, travel, science and philosophy over the next couple of hours. He had an opinion about pretty much everything, and it was the right one, if you know what I mean. He seemed to have thought about it all before, and had come to the ultimate understanding, so we couldn’t really add anything much of great value to the conversation.

Somewhere in amongst all that Joe announced that his current mission was to try and get as many local women into the sack as possible. Younger ones.

More specifically, his target is young single mums, as they’ve been left by their husbands, are vulnerable, and need support. He acknowledged that they needed something from him, and that because they live in a society without social welfare, they were quite desperate.

Joe, the man who has found the truth, is, it appears, willing to use his confidence and well-honed ability to understand and relate with people to manipulate young local women into having sex with him.

He was quite open about the whole thing, and even appeared proud of it. Unfortunately I got the impression that’d he’d had at least some success in his grubby quest.

Not only that, but it appeared that he was feeding off his success, and that his 60+ year old ego was revelling in being attended to by young women, as if they wanted him because of who he is and what he could teach them about life, and not because what he could possibly give them materially in a time of need.

Yeah yeah fuck off. I mean, you know, why on earth would a 25 year old woman want to have sex with a man old enough to be her grandfather? Really?

I mean, it’s not impossible, it happens for sure, but it’s pretty rare.

More importantly, if Joe’s intention was to support a young single mum, why on earth would he have sex with her, knowing how vulnerable she is in her current situation? Why would he take advantage of her desperation?

It’s not like he has any plans whatsoever to support the women he sleeps with in any really practical way whatsoever, which is what they're really after.

I must say I’m glad I’d finished eating by the time we got to this part of the discussion, because what Joe was saying was becoming pretty nauseating.

And American Mike, who arrived a little later, and who greeted Joe as Boddhisatva,* made it clear that he’s on the same road, albeit in a different lane. Mike’s current target is “women in cars,” whom he describes as older wealthier expats who work for aid agencies/NGOs in Vientiane, and whose employers almost always provide them with a nice car.

(*A Buddhist term for someone who's able to reach Nirvana, but delays doing it out of compassion for other suffering beings).

Good one Mike. Nothing like a bit of good ole objectification of women when you’ve got nothing else to do. There’s not enough of it around.

Mike explained that his target group is a great demographic to aim for, as there’s lots of these women around Vientiane, and they’re lonely, as most expat men of their age don’t even look at them, because they can get as many young Lao women as they want.

“And not only that, “ Mike continued, “but most of the women in cars have hairy pussies, which I love.”

Yep, it’s true.

Not necessarily the hairy pussy bit, I can’t comment on that particular observation, but the fact that these guys actually openly said all of that to Craig and I.

Unfortunately, it appears to me that Joe’s theory of the brutality of human nature is all just a clever ruse to allow him to confidently do whatever the fuck he wants, and not feel any sense of responsibility for the potentially very hurtful impact of his actions.

And he definitely can’t blame it on being young and naive.

Unfortunately, I have no doubt at all that any book which espouses Joe’s theories justifying such behaviour could easily sell well, as there seems to be a whole army of misguided misogynist men out there who want to describe themselves and the world in this brutalistic survival-of-the-fittest way, so they can justify carrying on with their own abuse of women and girls, or their demonisation of the LGBTQ+ crew, or greenies, migrants, refugees, indigenous people, the unemployed, members of certain religions, or whoever else they wish to target on a particular day.

I mean look at how popular the American-British social media celebrity and misogynist Andrew Tate has been with teenage boys globally. It's not at all a surprise that he's been charged with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group in order to sexually exploit women.

In our society, women, girls, and members of any minority group know full well that brutal and anonymous online vitriolic abuse is common, and, despite the fact that it destroys lives, there’s currently very few consequences for the perpetrators whatsoever.

It’s remarkable that in Australia we still tolerate the fact that online platforms can continually publish content that blatantly defies the Anti-Discrimination Act, and that the platforms are still under no legal obligations to filter it in any way.

And the current situation, ludicrously trumpeted as “freedom of speech,” is mirrored globally, except for in the EU, which has introduced new legislation which greatly limits what social media platforms can publish.

And that’s before we even begin to talk about real-life verbal, physical and sexual abuse and violence, which also, almost always, goes unpunished. Perpetrators are basically free to abuse again and again and again, with virtual impunity. And the lack of consequences even often encourages them to do more of it.

That’s not an exaggeration, unfortunately.

In Australia, for example, only 1.5% of reported sexual assaults ever result in a conviction. And if you add in the number of unreported assaults to that equation, which is 10 times greater than the number of reported ones, that conviction rate reduces dramatically to about 0.1%.

Yes, that’s right.

Only 1 out of every 1000 sexual assaults in Australia ever results in a conviction.

The other 999 times almost nothing happens to the perpetrator.

And 1000 out of 1000 times the victim suffers. Many times that suffering is indescribably brutal, and many times the impact will affect the victims for the rest of their lives.

So guys, may as well go out and abuse the fuck out of everyone. The chances of having any consequences whatsoever are almost zero.

Yeah, we’re such a sophisticated and developed society aren’t we?

Look, I know there’s a lot of amazing intelligent and dedicated people, particularly women, trying to change what’s happening. And they’re having some success. But they’ve really got their work cut out for them, because that’s exactly where we’re at right now.

In many places around the world.

It’s just such a shame that puffed-up predators like Joe and Mike left their home countries in the first place, all those decades ago.

It’s a crying shame.

For unsuspecting women in Vientiane, that is.

To The Northern Kingdom

So Craig and I headed north, on the brand new fast train, to Luang Prabang, a beautiful and very historic ancient capital, about 300km north of Vientiane.

The new train, which travels at speeds of up to 160km/hr, was designed and built by Chinese companies, and only commenced operations in 2021. The track runs from Vientiane right up to the Chinese border at Boten, from where passengers can continue on to the Chinese city of Kunming.

It was strange to be on there. Not because I hadn’t been on fast trains before, but because it was in Laos. I’ve never seen this type of modern infrastructure project in the country before. Anywhere.

They were fussy about security.

I hung out at this spot for ages, don't ask me why.

Heading off from the brand new train station, which has been inconveniently built about 20km from the city centre.

Swanky uniforms, with traditional Lao designs

And before we could say, “wow, it actually does travel quite fast,” we’d already pulled up in Luang Prabang.

Mothballed

Craig and I took a Loca (Lao Uber) to town, we checked into our guest houses, and went out for food.

The Nam Khan, which runs into the Mekong at Luang Prabang.

The view from our little eating place

We didn’t have too long to wait before April and Somalie arrived in town.

April is one of my closest friends, and Somalie her nearly-30 year old daughter. We all met at the same time as I met Craig, in the backblocks of the Mullumbimby Alps, way back at the turn of the Millennium.

They’re beautiful people, warm, intelligent, interesting, and lots of fun. They’re also incredibly generous, inspiring and amazingly artistically and musically talented. All the good things.

All of that really shouldn’t be of any surprise to you, as they’re my friends, and you should know by now that my taste in friends is impeccable.

April and I have been really close for many years now, and she's been incredibly caring and supportive of me and my kids through many good and many really difficult times in the past couple of decades. Shamani, Manu and Lali all love April and Soms to bits. As do I.

So we all met up and immediately headed to the river, the Mekong, which also runs through this small city. This amazing river seems to be the lifeblood of so much of the whole country, and, more personally, has been an important part of my own trip for months now.

Over the next couple of days we were determined to spend lots of time chilling out, so we took it real easy, slowly exploring parts of the town and the surrounding areas, and waiting for Sam, Tondi and Otis to arrive.

We spent a lot of time on the river, doing this sort of thing

April doing her gecko impersonation

Somalie doing her sucker-thing-that-they-use-at-dentists impersonation

Weird-arse plant pots

One day we ventured to the old Royal Palace, which is now a museum. It’s a beautiful colonial building, and the extensive grounds also house a concert hall (where they host traditional Laos dancing in the evenings), as well as a very important royal wat.

King Sisavang Vong, who lived in the palace until his death in 1959.

The palace itself. Pics inside weren’t allowed.

This Royal wat houses the Pha Bang (which Luang Prabang is named after), which is an 83cm high Buddha statue, and probably the most revered religious image in the whole country. It was cast sometime in the 13th Century, has Khmer design features, and was brought to Luang Prabang (known then as Lan Xang) in 1512, as a gift from the Khmer monarchy.

Wat Xieng Mouane, a magnificently muralled wat just around the corner from where the crew were staying. Every night novices would chant in here, and the adult monks in a larger sim nearby. A sim is the main building in a wat complex, used for chanting and teachings etc.

This whiskey looks as if it’d have a real bite to it.

Btw there are king cobras in Laos. Their venom is not the most deadly in the world, but they can inject so much of it in one bite that they can kill an elephant. Ouch. It’s actually enough venom to kill 20 adult humans.

Or one Buddhist human 20 times.

Antique cycle rickshaw. Could be my career when I run out of travel money.

Old motorbike with side car

There’s dogs around. Sometimes they follow you for a few hours, like female Ralph did. Don’t ask me why Craig named her Ralph.

Cutest moppets in all of doll history. Somalie bought an elephant doll. April initially thought it was a koala. I suggested she get new glasses.

Tat Sae

One day we headed off on a tuk tuk to the beautiful Tat Sae waterfalls.

After a long ride along some beautifully scenic and sometimes dodgy roads, we arrived at Ban Ek, a small village on the Nam Khan.

There’s a beautiful wat there.

Then we took a small boat for 10 minutes to the falls, which cascade into the Nam Khan river. It’s absolutely stunning.

We walked up for awhile, and had a beautiful swim. The water was cold. Well, cold by SEA* standards.

Stunning natural calcified rock falls, deposited over millennia by water flowing over and through the limestone.

Three of a kind.

Actually, no. More like the Queen of Hearts and 2 Jokers.

Craig and I walked further along, up a steep hill, across a higher ridge, and then eventually down again, to another fall. The swimming place there was also stunning, quiet, deep and small.

Thrashing about

Heading upstream

We finally reached the upper reaches

Large millipede. These guys are harmless. It’s the large centipedes you have to watch out for. Their bite is extremely painful, way worse than a scorpion’s (apparently).

There was a centipede near my room at the monastery in Thailand, when I did my meditation retreat a few lifetimes (months) back. Luckily no one was bitten before I flicked it into the long grass with a water scoop.

My nearest neighbour and fellow retreatant at the monastery, right next door to me, almost had a conniption watching me do it. A silent conniption that is, as we had to keep our lips sealed.

*Southeast Asian

More Worldly Heritage

Luang Prabang is an exquisite small city, and was the first capital of Laos. Founded back in the 9th Century, it became the Royal capital of the Lan Xang kingdom, the “Kingdom of the Million Elephants,” during the 13th to the 16th Centuries. It was given the name because there were herds of wild elephants all through the surrounding forests and valleys in those days.

In 1560 the King moved the Laotian capital to Vientiane, but in the early 1700s Luang Prabang itself seceded from its southern kingdom, and the city became the capital of a new, independent kingdom, also called Luang Prabang.

When France annexed Laos, Luang Prabang became the royal capital of the whole country, and after World War II, when Laos was declared independent, the head of state of Luang Prabang, King Sisavang Vong, became the new head of state of the Kingdom of Laos.

Luang Prabang remained the capital until 1975, at the end of the brutal civil war, when the Communists (supported by the USSR and China), finally defeated the Royalists (supported by the US and its allies).

The King, Queen, Crown Prince and the King’s brothers were then sent to reeducation camps, where they eventually died or were killed (that bit’s still a secret). Other members of the royal family moved to Paris, where these days, apparently, they’re in normal jobs and just scraping to get by, like everyone else. (I find that last bit a little hard to believe, but you never know, history does these weird twists and turns sometimes).

The beautiful old city of Luang Prabang is a grid of laneways and small streets, sandwiched between the Mekong to the northwest, and the smaller Nam Khan river, which runs parallel, further southeast. It’s an amazing place to wander.

Magnificent wats and shrines sit tucked away down side alleys, and big old trees tower over ancient walls and wooden houses, and stand as beautiful and revered sculptures along the river frontage. Boutique cafés, restaurants and stalls sell all manner of delectable food and drinks, and beautiful art and locally produced clothing and crafts are sold from small shops in old colonial buildings and at the large night markets.

The old city has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, for its unique architectural, religious and cultural heritage, which is no surprise, as, no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get away from all the heritage, it’s all over the place.

Another temple guardian

Garden Buddhas

One of our fave laneways. There’s a great massage place in here. A full body massage is 100,000 Kip, about $8 Oz. Sam and Tondi bought me a beautiful hot herbal compress massage for my birthday. Not to mention meal after meal after meal. And a T-shirt. And and and. So generous.

Heuan Chan heritage house, a traditional Laotian tribal longhouse.

Monkeying around

Collecting alms. At dawn all the monks go around the streets collecting food for their one daily meal. This used to be a beautiful and quiet early morning ritual in Luang Prabang, as there’s so many monasteries and monks around, and the laity are quite devoted.

Unfortunately these days it’s become a bit of a thing for tourists, and trigger happy visitors seeking the perfect photo sometimes get right in the monks’ faces, which, I imagine, annoys the hell realm out of them.

Insensitive touts masquerading as respectful locals will also offer food baskets to unsuspecting tourists, so they can give them to the monks, only to then be completely overcharged for it. This happened to April and Soms.

Ah, greed has no bounds.

Luckily, I avoided the touts by hiding in my bedroom for the whole event, pretending to be asleep.

Utopia is inaccessible indefinitely.

Batik dyeing, with natural indigo

Beautiful local wares

Night market strolling

Per minute! Well that's uncharacteristically strict for this place.

Looking upstream along the Nam Khan

Image of one of the many hill tribe women in the district, who wear distinctive traditional clothing, unique to their tribe.

Wat Xieng Thong

This beautiful wat complex was built in the mid 1500s, and remains one of the most important temple and monastery complexes in Laos. It’s a showcase of traditional Lao architecture, with magnificent murals and exquisitely decorated temples and shrines all over the shop.

The main wat itself was a royal temple, used for coronations and important royal events, as well as for worship by monks and the laity. Important Buddha relics are also held within a shrine there, there’s a library for important ancient manuscripts, and a number of important festivals and religious events are held there every year.

April sending her enlightenment out to all us mere mortals

Beautiful scenes of everyday life, and of regal events from centuries ago

Extending Family

So Sam, Tondi and Otis finally made it, after Otis had unfortunately suffered a nasty bout of gastro that delayed their trip from Australia for a few days.

It was amazing for us to be all together at last (minus Michael). It’s been forever since we’ve all had the chance to be somewhere, as a group, in a place like this.

Sam and Tondi and I have been friends for decades. But early on in our friendship we somehow inadvertently lost touch completely, until a totally chance event brought us together again some time later.

Well, non-hippies would call it a chance event.

I met Tondi in India, at a Vipassana meditation centre in Dharmkhot, in the early 90s. We became close quite quickly, and chatted for hours in between (and during) retreats, which we both sat as retreatants, but also worked at, as cooks, cleaners and support people for all the meditation students.

It was a beautiful time of life. We were all young and open in those days (as opposed to old, bitter and twisted), and at that time we were discovering eastern spiritual philosophies and practices for the first time, so it was really big. It’s not an exaggeration to say that discovering these new ways of experiencing and perceiving the world around us was completely mind blowing for all of us, and changed all of our lives in a really positive way.

In our discussions Tondi told me about her partner Sam, whom she’d been together with for quite some time already (off and on), and whom she’d known for many years, as they’d both grown up in Kenya together.

As happens when you travel, people go their own ways, and after spending some months at the retreat centre I headed off elsewhere, and so did Tondi.

A year later or so, I met Sam at the very same retreat centre in India, and we became friends. The funny thing is, for quite some time I had no idea that he was Tondi’s partner, and he had no idea I knew Tondi at all.

Again, we both went off our separate ways, and, as there was no internet or social media in those days, we completely lost touch with each other, and sadly, as we had no real way of contacting each other, that was that.

A couple of years later, I moved to Brighton in the UK, with Carmen, my partner at the time, as she’d been living there and working as a nurse, and had a bunch of friends living there.

One freezing cold night Carmen and I went to the “Burning of the Clocks,” an amazing festival which celebrates the Winter solstice, and includes a colourful parade through the streets of the seaside city, culminating in a massive bonfire on Brighton beach.*

*Well, it’s sort of a travesty to call that thing a “beach.” It’s more like a rocky pebbly coastline, which hugs a refrigerated ocean that you wouldn’t dream of swimming in more than a couple of times a year, in mid summer, and only if you were feeling particularly brave, were totally drunk, or were desperately trying to impress a local.

So anyway Carmen and I were on the side of the road watching the parade, when a Calypso drumming band danced past us, followed by a whole string of hangers on, dancing to the irresistible grooves.

And then who should dance past but Sam and Tondi! What a stroke of cosmic luck! We had absolutely no idea we were living in the same place.

So that completely divinely intervened chance meeting led to our reconnecting, we hung out together in Brighton over that time, and have been super close friends ever since.

They’re the warmest, most thoughtful, most loving and caring people you could ever meet, and I’m not saying that because I’m biased. It’s a universal truth. They’ve both been there for me through many difficult times, and have developed beautiful relationships with my kids over the years as well.

Not only that, but the relationship they have with each other, and their amazing parenting of Otis, who’s 8, is totally inspiring. Otis himself is an incredibly warm and intelligent boy, sensitive and honest, and full of beans. And he’s a great trickster, and apparently quite a good wrestler too, according to him.

So, basically, in summary, all of my friends are perfect, and I’m the luckiest being in the universe to have had the chance to remain close to them for all these years.

The Obama coconut stall. He came here once, bless his little Chicagoan socks.

Note the size of Oti's head compared to the coconut

Starman relieved to have finally arrived

Tondi chatting with a local

Trinketting

Another brekky at Saffron

From samadhi to sugar.

Don't you know, we're talkin' 'bout a devolution.

Cute city

Overprivileged

So I’m gonna have my friends here with me for at least a couple of weeks. What an absolute blessing for me.

We’re planning on heading north to a place called Nong Khiaw, a beautifully situated little village a few hours away, which snuggles right up alongside the upper reaches of the Nam Ou, another river that runs into the Mekong just north of Luang Prabang.

I’m looking forward to telling you all about it, and, more particularly, to telling you more about how perfect my friends really are.

You ain't seen nothin' yet❤️

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