Bony Kids, Dogs, Hot Pig and Beerlao on Elephant Island

[Don Sang, 4/5/23]

Over two visits, I have spent six weeks in Laos, Land of a Million Elephants. By vans and buses, I’ve criss crossed this country. Of course, I’ve seen no elephants, not even during my two days on Elephant Island [Don Sang].

At Vietnamese temples, there’s often a large depiction of a tiger. So feared, this beast was called Mr. Tiger, and in Phú Yên, there’s a Mr. Tiger Bridge. There are just five wild tigers left in Vietnam.

Lions used to roam Turkey, Greece and the Balkans.

Except for dogs and cats, humans prefer their animals as myths, cartoons and mascots, so there are statues of lions all over Cambodia, Singapore is the Lion City, and we cheer for the Detroit Lions, Washington State Cougars, Chicago Bears or Philadelphia Eagles, etc. Real animals, we mostly cage, shoot, eat or enslave.

In Egypt, you’d see men nearly as large as the donkeys they ride on. To give these scrawny animals some rest and justice, they should switch roles occasionally.

Yes, it’s a lame joke by an urbanite who would starve next to a live pig.

We must eat or enslave everything to bring ease to our overbearing and precarious lives, for daily, we must contend with nature and, most alarmingly, other men. Driven insane, we even turn against ourselves often. I have never refused a piece of meat. A piece of meat is a piece of shame, goes a Vietnamese proverb. Give me my piece, damn it!

Though I’ve spent nearly all my life in or just outside cities, I’ve experienced villages. None, though, was as primitive as Elephant Island. On Google Maps, there’s a Don Sang, but that’s a larger one in another part of Laos.

The family I stayed with has a daughter who works at Datta Banana Leaf, where I’ve been eating Indian and Malaysian dishes.

On a boat, I arrived with her mom and younger brother. I had no idea what I would find beyond the fact there was no one I could communicate with. As for food, I would eat whatever. For my first dinner, this turned out to be one small fish, complete with head and tail, in a sour broth, some freshly plucked leaves and plenty of rice.

The next morning, two locals had me join them for a mini feast of dogmeat with rice wine. One man had two sentences of Vietnamese he had tried on women, “You are very beautiful” and “Do you have a husband?”

Halfway through our merriment, the village idiot appeared. Making odd sounds, he was at least more articulate than me. I noticed a wedding band on his working man’s hand.

By the Mekong was the village’s only bar, two tables on sand under a thatch roof, with a speaker ready to boom some pulsing, psychedellic Lao pop. There, I had larb made with tiny, uncooked shrimps bathed in a vinaigrette like mixture of fish sauce, lime and chili, with bits of scallion for kick and color.

19th century French travelers remarked on the popularity of larb, so it predates phở, pad thai, cheeseburgers, cheesesteaks, hot dogs and potato chips, etc.

Everyone shared beer. As the just arrived foreigner who couldn’t talk, I made myself welcomed by buying much more than my share. It’s the least I could do. In Camden’s freezing and stinking tent city years ago, I gained entry by bringing beer in my backpack.

A dark drunk man with missing front teeth talked nonstop to me for over an hour. The dogmeat fellow invited me for more of the same later.

Speaking of which, here’s William Clark on 10/10/1805, “our diet extremely bad haveing nothing but roots and dried fish to eate, all the Party have greatly the advantage of me, in as much as they all relish the flesh of the dogs, Several of which we purchased of the nativs for to add to our Store of fish and roots &c. &c.-”

Meriwether Lewis on 1/3/1806, “for my own part I have become so perfectly reconciled to the dog that I think it an agreeable food and would prefer it vastly to lean Venison or Elk.”

Within hours of arrival, I noticed an abundance of small kids, but almost no one from 16 to 25. Leaving Don Sang to find work, most go to Thailand. The language is nearly the same. Plus, Laos have spent all their lives watching Thai TV and movies. Bangkok, then, is their Tokyo, Paris or New York.

My hosts had a spacious house on wooden posts. Most rooms were kept practically empty. When it’s too hot during the day, it’s better to lie on a hammock under the house, or on a platform under a tree overlooking the Mekong.

Seeing a leashed sow on hot sand, I would bring her basins of water, which she appreciated. Drinking some, she would knock over the rest, in a mostly futile attempt to create mud. Noticing fresh leaves just out of her reach, I plucked handfuls for her to eat. As a hit and run visitor, I could afford to be sentimental, but when you’re hot or thirsty, each drop of water matters. Getting spoiled, Mrs. Sow would plop her mottled self down for me to stroke.

I slept in the living room where, each night, nine or ten kids watched TV. During the day, I often saw them play cards. Seeing me swim in the Mekong, some joined me. I hit it off with nearly all of them. They laughed and goofed around with the beer bellied foreigner. A dirty baby wearing just a filthy shirt would shriek whenever I got too close, however. He could sense the terror in this outsider.

With a slingshot, a bony boy knocked a tiny yellow bird from a tree. Sitting with her grandson, an old woman slowly plucked it. With his baby fingers, he learnt to do the same. Proud of this new dexterity, he showed me his dead bird.

[Don Sang, 4/4/23]

Although there’s a school on the island, I didn’t see any kid in school uniform. With embarassment, a girl of about 11 said “Hello!” Thinking she might know some English, I asked very slowly, “Do kids here go to school? School?”

Even more embarrassed, if not terrified, she just laughed.

Like everywhere in Laos, much land is not used. I saw nothing planted by my host family. For my second dinner, I was again fed bits of fish in the same sour broth, plus leaves and rice. This time, I was also given bananas. When I only took one, two boys sitting nearby asked for the others, which they immediately ate. On my first night, I also saw a kid eating just rice.

In Laos, you sometimes see people who are extraordinarily thin, and many kids seem undersized. Besides not getting enough protein, many were born to teenaged, not quite mature mothers.

[Nakasong, 4/3/23]

Better educated females in cities marry later, but most Laos still live in rural areas. With cellphones, they now have access to even more sexual stimulation, and the means to titilate each other with racy photos.

Lao traditional dancing is slow, gentle movements expressed mostly with hands, and no hip thrusts, but some, at least, are learning how to twerk. There’s a sexy duet by Zamio P and Thinlamphone with an English title, “All Day All Night.” Trendy Laos can also look up to Laostha of San Jose, CA. With his homies and pricey cars behind him, the well-tatted Laostha flaunts his gold chain, grabs his crotch and raps. Having gained all that decadent and dying American cliches, Laostha no longer belongs here.

Having written about Don Det as an oasis of calmness and sanity, I sought out a more typical Lao village, so I went to Don Sang. Unlike the former, it has no tourists, so no restaurants serving foreign dishes. There’s no cosmopolitan veneer over the frozen in time. It’s simply backward, though with the seductive outside world beamed in via TVs and cellphones.

Demographic pressures also force people out. My host family has 12 children. Five are working in Thailand, with a sixth laboring in Don Det. They don’t just leave their island to eat, but are lured by all the seductions of the outside world. Once in Ubon Rathachani or Bangkok, though, they’ll find themselves sweating nearly nonstop in kitchens or factories, or on farms. Though their days have never been so long, they’re grateful to feel their mind and wallet expand, until, finally, they decide enough is enough. Now, I will go home. Most do go home.

Born in Saigon, I saw Seattle at 11, Portland at 12, Los Angeles, Houston and New Orleans at 13, San Francisco and San Jose at 15, then Washington, New York, Chicago and Saint Louis at 16. Soon as I could drive, I went to DC to look at paintings, and Baltimore to watch baseball. Not counting Saigon, I didn’t quite live in a city until I moved to Philadelphia for college, however. That nasty, smart assed yet goofily sweet dump certainly shaped me.

As an adult, I’ve spent time in countless cities, so I come to Don Det or Don Sang as a jaded city snob. I must not forget that.

Still, I insist these tiny and remote places are crucial bastions of local cultures, so we don’t all become some globalized type or cliche, or parody of Lady Gaga or Snoop Dogg, etc. Moreover, even in dirt poor Don Sang, I heard laughter whenever adults or children got together, and they were nearly always together.

How many times in Philly’s Friendly Lounge did I find myself unable to have a conversation, because some same old song was playing too loudly, or the Phillies, Sixers or Temple Owls were on? Laughing too hard at some YouTube video, the bartender had just spat her denture onto the floor. Beautiful once in Miami, she had danced next to Prince.

Back in Don Det, I write this in Datta Banana Leaf. At the next table, the owners and two teenaged workers are having lunch. Making just $41 a month, each sends all but $3 to her family. When there are no customers, which is most of the day, they just lie around. Sometimes a girl would sneak into the toilet to chat with her boyfriend.

Datta Banana Leaf also has four guest rooms. Last year, a Russian stayed for four months. Not only did he go nowhere else, he ate nearly all his meals at Datta Banana Leaf. Shrinking his universe, this man was content.

Among the island’s 20 or so white residents, there’s a Finnish druggie who would drop by Datta Banana Leaf to borrow money. Each time, he would pay after a month or so, but once, he decided to grant himself a debt jubilee of three million kips, or $175. Only when he was firmly reminded his visa had long expired did he pay up. Incredibly, Datta Banana Leaf has resumed lending to this miserable refugee, without interest. No one likes to see a man beg.

In Albania, I ran into an American who was singing in Turkish or Kurdish on sidewalks. He’d rather do that than return to teaching high school in the US. Since learning has become nearly impossible in that perversely stupid society, who can blame him? Plus, how many teachers are beaten up by savage students? Last I checked, Dandelion Lakewood was living in an abandoned concrete bunker.

In Siem Reap just two months ago, I was happy to see again Max, a 65-year-old from Iowa. Thrilled to be in a $30 a month room, he said I could have it should he, finally, be able to collect his social securities and veteran’s benefits. Max has spent roughly four decades overseas. All he misses of home is a juicy, tender steak, with just enough blood oozing.

In Don Det last week, I met a German woman who said she was 18.

“No way! You’re kidding me!”

She grinned.

“When I was your age, I was too scared to go anywhere, or do anything.” It’s not quite true. I was flattering her a bit. “So where will you go next?”

“Don Det.”

“You mean you’ll return next year?”

“Yes.”

Not all is perfect here, of course. A fly just landed in my Beerlao, so I had to fish him out. There are no Tex Mex tacos or burritos. Walking across fields barefoot, you must sidestep cow pies. With racing partridges sometimes crossing your path, you must yield.

With no one to shoot, stab or sucker punch you as you wander around, drunk or inattentive, there’s no frisson to your uneventful day, so you can’t look super gangsta, lying there on the ground, breathing your last.

If you swagger here, no one will say anything, but they’ll think you’re insane.

[Don Sang, 4/3/23]

[Don Sang, 4/4/23]

[Don Sang, 4/4/23]

[Don Sang, 4/4/23]