Please pardon this rant, but I’ve just left the longest and most excruciating two-hour flight of my life. Was it rough air, you ask, that made it so miserable? Did the flight attendant unload the newly brewed contents of a coffee carafe in your lap? No, it was worse than either of these. Misery was two-and-a-half feet of mobile terror, cleverly disguised by a seraphic face and a copse of platinum hair. Misery sat right behind me, a sugar-fueled fiend in a yellow jumper.
I’ve come across, and sat within an ear poke of, every possible kind of kid in my travels. There have been plenty of complete angels, of course. But that’s not the kind I’m concerned with. I’m talking about kids with vocal cords of solid titanium. Burgeoning kung fu masters engaged in mortal combat with the back of my seat. Children gifted with the ability to project bodily fluids over great distances and with frightful precision. But this one had a knack for chaos clearly imparted from on high.
He was a bonanza of irritating noises: from the brash clacking together of plastic toys and seat belt parts with his havocking little hands, to the soul-wracking squeals that would outdo a stuck pig in a sack, to the favored electronic game whose sole redeeming qualities seemed to be its ability to mimic an ambulance siren and its eternal battery life.
Where were his parents? Across the aisle, leaving the monitoring and reigning in of this viking-in-the-making to his overwhelmed grandmother, whose meek castigations were rebuffed with the glee of a defiant dictator. And speaking of dictation, midway through the flight he filled our collective ear canals with a tantalizing taste of his in-progress work of literature, surely the first to be composed entirely of ‘goos’, ‘ghees’, and ‘ghaas’, and punctuated exclusively by exclamation marks!!! He ended the oratory with a wholly unexpected and murderous scream. As with all great art, my reaction to it was a visceral one.
OK, I understand that it’s developmentally important to let kids express themselves and exercise their creativity. But I also think it’s necessary, just as a precautionary measure for a select few tyrannical tykes, that airplanes, restaurants, and theaters be equipped with sound-absorbant pods, lockable from the outside, in which these kids can be placed when the “creative” urge strikes. This way, they can develop the expressive aspects of their personality and their sense of independence. Everybody wins. I’m only one-eighth serious, of course. The other seven-eights of me thinks the parents should be thrown in there with them.
I was still fantasizing about my idea as we began our descent, when a pointed jab caught me in the underarm. I turned to peer through the gap between seats, catching brief glimpses of a whirling, yellow column of air and, behind it, a resigned look on his grandmother’s face, as if to say, “Oh well, what can you do?” I responded with a look that said, “Get a pod.”
Thanks for reading. See you next week…
The rooms are compact and angular, to a somnambulator’s chagrin; the bathrooms are chic and clean; and the bedding is pristine, with “King Koil®spring mattress beds with pillows, pillowcases, bed sheets and 250-thread count duvets.” For a small incremental fee each — ranging from $2 to $5 — you can upgrade your stay with a towel and toiletries, a/c, wi-fi (though they have a free internet cafe in the lobby), and travel insurance. I recommend this last one from personal experience, especially if your itinerary is subject to change; without insurance, if you have to cancel a reservation, your prepayment might as well have been a donation.
Well, the thing about traditional foods is that they often come cooked in 3 inches of pig grease. Or the “authentic” experience now includes a recipe with half a can of condensed milk. That’s the real province these days, so don’t look down on fusion cooking. Embrace the flavors and enjoy the lovely villa. You can get an authentic experience with a bus ride alone. And, truth be told, eating fried tarantulas takes guts anywhere, posh ambiance or not.
“K”
Next you’ll head Elsewhere. Mostly known as a stylish bar and night spot (complete with a plunge pool! Yes, they’re everywhere here. Enjoy it while you can…), my favorite things about Elsewhere are its cute clothes and bags. This is, hands down, my favorite place for incredibly versatile, delicate cotton tunics with innovative design. And they’re cheap ($15 to $30 for shirts)!
Determined not to be thwarted by the weather — or sucked into the vortex of must-see TV — the next morning I rode ten miles (and a couple extra, thanks to some illegible kilometer markers) out of town to see two guidebook-recommended caves. Due to the unrelenting rain, however, the river was too swollen and the current too powerful to safely cross. So back I rode, soaking and cold, to my guesthouse, where I retired with a book until dinner.
(…continued from previous post)
The climbing left me hungry and in a lather, so I wandered over to 
Tourists weave through the narrow lanes between them, browsing and bargaining for handmade jewelry, silk scarves and tapestries, wood carvings, handbags, and of course, the ubiquitous “Same Same But Different” T-shirts and hats peddled all over Laos and Thailand. After an excellent dinner at Tum Tum Bamboo Restaurant — a perfect tomato salad followed by catfish stewed in coconut milk, a dish formerly prepared for the Lao royal family — I headed back to my guesthouse for a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow I was bound for Vang Vieng.
Ten hours after my bus left Vientiane, and with Luang Prabang mercifully near, there was an explosion in the undercarriage directly beneath my seat. “Was that a sniper?” begged the girl in the row ahead of me. Unless we’re all unwitting extras in a forthcoming Tomb Raider movie, it was probably just a tire blowout, I thought.
After a short tuk-tuk ride from the bus station, I set off on foot with my guidebook in hand to find a room for the night. The first three places I tried were full, and as the last traces of daylight disappeared, the rain started to fall. In another minute it was coming down with vigor. Getting doused and desperate, I ducked under the arch of the next guesthouse I found, sprinted up its open-air stairs, and put my name on its only available room, a triple that would cost me $30 for the night. More than I wanted to pay, yes, but worth it to escape the monsoon.
I found and crossed the gapped pedestrian bridge that straddles the mud-colored Nam Khan river, then pedaled out to a tiny village past the airport. The paved road gave way to a dirt path cratered with puddles and serrated with rocks. Fearing another tire puncture and a long walk back, I got down and pushed the bike on foot. A half dozen incredibly cute kids followed me down the road for a few meters, shouting “Sabaidee!” and giggling amongst themselves when I tried to reply in kind. I kept walking until the path narrowed and became thick with growth on both sides, when tomorrow’s newspaper headline flashed through my head: “Disoriented tourist, inexplicably pushing perfectly sound bike, gobbled up by jungle cat previously thought extinct. Town celebrates jungle cat.” So I turned back.
As I approached the Nam Khan again, I caught sight of a gleaming, golden-spired pagoda up in the hills and decided to pay it a visit. The sign spanning the entrance read ‘Wat Pa Phon Phao’. I rode up the driveway, parked and locked my bike, and removed my shoes before entering the wat’s Peace Pagoda. Inside I met a few Buddhist nuns who invited me to have a look around. The octagonal pagoda has four levels, each one smaller than the last as you climb, with walls covered 360° with vibrantly painted panels
see if it’s available for the dates you need. Shown above is a renovated 
If you’re still on the fence about the privately owned vacation rental, perhaps it will help to know that VRBO®’s 
Hanh arranged a bent iron rod over the fire to serve as a range, then filled the kettle full of water and the pot full of rice and water and set them on the rod to cook. Next he went outside to shave down a thick slab of wood with the machete; in a couple of minutes he’d fashioned a clean cutting board. Back inside he went to work on the potatoes I’d peeled, carving them into thin slivers while Khoa and the other hikers chopped vegetables and cut the beef into strips. My contribution was to shower their workspace with camera flashes in the dying light. I was invaluable.
Hanh had brought along some cocoa powder and made hot chocolate for me to fight the cold. Instead of a mug he sliced a water bottle across the middle and handed me the upturned, capped end. I thanked him in Vietnamese and he said something in reply that I didn’t understand, but it probably meant something like, “This is how Macgyver drinks hot chocolate.”
fantastic, and the from-scratch tomato soup was unbeatable. Even the mystery meat from the can was delicious — Khoa said it was pork of some kind, and I thought better of getting him to clarify any further — with a taste and consistency similar to goose pâte. We washed it all down with swigs of locally-made rice wine, the kind that tickles your throat, widens your eyes, and warms you up immediately.