A Sane, Tranquil World is Still Possible

[Don Det, 4/1/23]

During my two weeks in Stung Treng, Cambodia, I stayed at two hotels. At the second, Ly Hueng Guest House, the owner was a police colonel who had spent three years in Vietnam. Though his Vietnamese was limited, we could communicate. On my last evening in town, the colonel drove me around on his motorbike.

He pointed out a Vietnamese built hospital, and a stretch along the Sekong where Vietnamese used to squat. Since colonial days, Vietnamese in all professions have flooded into Cambodia and Laos.

The colonel took me to visit Stung Treng’s richest man. Owner of a rice mill, he had a grand house where even the servants were fashionably dressed. A former army colonel, he, too, had been trained in Vietnam, though only for three months.

As we ate noodles and drank ABC Stout, a Singaporean brand, the colonel Skyped his Vietnamese “family.” They had embraced him during his time there. Some had visited him in Stung Treng, and he stays with them whenever he visits that country.

At 14-years-old, the colonel was actually in the Khmer Rouge. In 1976, males in Stung Treng didn’t have much of a choice. Throughout history everywhere, people are simply snared, trapped or tricked. Keep that in mind.

If you came of age in Kabul, say, after the US invasion, it’s only natural to join the Afghan Army. Plus, how could you resist the freedom and democracy jive from Uncle Sam? Of that myth, Americans themselves are the worst suckers.

For working class Americans, to kill or be killed for war profiteers and/or Israel has become an honored rite of passage. Brits, too, are just as stupid, and that’s why both shitholes are not just sinking, but stinking up the entire world. Shrewder Brits, though, have jumped ship. On Don Det, there are two Brit-owned bars.

A BBC headline on 3/24/23, “Iraq war 20 years on: ‘I lost my leg, but I’d do it again’.” Quoted is Janet Riddel, who also has this uplifting message, “I came back from Iraq with severe PTSD—I was angry with everyone and angry with the world—but there's always someone else worse off than you, so I decided to pick myself up.” At least Janet didn’t return in a human remains pouch.

It was dark when the colonel suggested we visit the mayor, but I had to beg off. I had been up since 3:30AM! Driving by, I marveled at the mayor’s magnificent residence, but it was only a rental.

The colonel adapted to not just survive, but thrive. Like most people, he’s not guided by ideology but common sense. Likewise, his friend the rice mill owner.

Americans, though, are not content to just live and let live. Fanatics, they must crusade, most often with violence, for freedom and democracy, wokism, Black Lives Matter or transgenderism, etc. They can’t help but torch or bomb one place after another, to save it, of course. As Colonel Pogue says in Full Metal Jacket, “We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every gook, there is an American trying to get out.” Jews do crack the best jokes.

I’ve just spent a week in Don Det, an island on the Mekong without cars or crimes, not since five Vietnamese construction workers were arrested seven years ago for stealing. After they were brought in to build Green Guesthouse, things went missing, including, depending on whom you ask, dogs or even cats! Since these Vietnamese were in Laos illegally, they were quickly deported.

They got off easy, I’d say, but Laos didn’t feel like feeding them in jail. Laos was also mindful to maintain good relationship with her stronger neighbor. Fourteen thousand Laos study in Vietnam, and Vietnam has also given Laos hospitals, schools and even its $111 million parliament building.

On Don Det, a Lao crackhead stole a cellphone from a British tourist, and three more Laos were arrested for similar crimes, but this is as safe a place as you’d find on our fucked up planet.

I write this from Datta Banana Leaf, where this afternoon I had beef kottu. Yesterday, it was chicken biryani. At first, I thought the three teenaged girls on the staff were sisters. Now, I know one has basically been adopted by the owners, a Sri Lankan, Tony, and his Lao wife, Leana. The girl’s father is in jail.

Born in a remote village way up north, Leana remembers her first encounter with a foreigner. Only six or seven, she converged, like everybody else, on the first non-Lao to stay there overnight. All others had only floated by on boats. After this man left, he sent a photo to the village and, what do you know, Leana was in the picture!

Studying in Vientiane, she met Tony. With knowledge gleaned from the internet, she has pretty much cured him of diabetes, and she has done the same for an old woman on Don Det.

When borders were closed during Covid, Leana gave free English lessons to kids. Hearing about this, a French supporter sent money not just for a writing board, but lunch for all the children, so the class grew from five or six to 25!

Like all Don Det eateries, Datta Banana Leaf is, ah, casual. You’re expected to leave your shoes or sandals outside. Chickens wander in. There’s a turkey too fat to hop up the four steps, or he’d be a regular. Every so often, a wild partridge, smelling food, casts a stoic glance in your direction from a safe distance. In the Mekong, laughing angels swim with plastic bottles as floats.

Here in Don Det, American songs gain new resonance, so Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” playing right now, is more than enough to make you tear up. Last night at One More Bar, Freddie Mercury sounded outright religious with his grateful “Fat Bottomed Girls.” A sweeter and more innocent America is what the world will recall. Always say thank you, ma’am or sir.

Most importantly, never bomb, shoot or inject poison into people who have done you no harm, and threaten you not at all. So basic, even retards can grasp it, you’d think.

In this world of infinite diversity, there are those who think they’re God’s chosen, though, or living in a shining city on a hill!

If you tell them, “Actually, I feel pretty good where I am,” they become indignant or even offended. That’s not just madness, but Satanic, no?

Inside each of them is a psycho not trying to get out.

[Don Det, 4/1/23]

[Don Det, 3/29/23]

[Don Det, 3/31/23]