Lisa in Thailand! (not Cambodia, at least for now)

Three weeks from now I will be sitting in a natural thermal bath in Taipei, and four weeks from now I will be in Maine. Time flies.

We had a great second trip to Laos for Alec’s visa run. Laos is really different from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam. What amazes me about Southeast Asia is hw strikingly different each country is despite the geographical proximity. Crossing the border from Cambodia to Vietnam or Thailand, it always struck me that the grass was actually greener and the cows were actually fatter on the other side. Thailand and Vietnam have running water in the countryside that allows farmers to grow crops year-round and therefore feed animals and themselves, and Cambodia does not. The fatter the cows, the richer the country. The same goes for people. Thai people look a lot like Americans— fat! They have access to cheap, calorie-dense food like MacDonalds, and they eat it. In Cambodia, people are very skinny because there is simply not that much food. A meal consists of a big bowl of rice, vegetables and a teeny, tiny bit of meat (if any meat). People are smaller at least in part because of nutritional deficiencies. I towered over them. Laos is somewhere in between Cambodia and Thailand. I didn’t see the desperate poverty of Cambodia nor the wealth of Thailand. Granted, I didn’t see that much of the country. 

Vientiane is a really beautiful city. Like Cambodia, the French colonized it and heavily influenced their culture. The city is layed out and looks like French cities— broad avenues with monuments at the end, squares with cafes around them and crumbling colonial mansions. There is also a well-established infrastructure for french bread and coffee (I kid you not), which was fantastic for me. I enjoyed many a sandwich, which is harder to come by in Mae Sot.

There was something about Vientiane that seemed a little off to me that I couldn’t immediately put my finger on. Later, I realized that it seemed really empty. There just weren’t that many people on the streets or in the markets, especially compared to the teeming streets of Phnom Penh or Bangkok. I had the opposite impression in Rwanda, where the first thing I noticed was how many people there were everywhere— and it gave me some insight into the civil war because I realized just how limited resources were. Population density is something I hardly ever think about, but it really shapes the experience of a city.

I was also reminded in Vientiane about an essential difference between the US and Southeast Asia. People live their lives out in the open here. Shops and homes spill onto the street. People hang out in front of their homes most of the day. In Mae Sot, most of the homes have metal shop-fronts that you pull up and down. In the day, they are up and people are outside. At night, they come down. It’s also striking how much activity there is at night because the day is just so damn hot. Streets are jammed with motorbikes and pedestrians at night. People stroll with their families and socialize and picnic. The night market is filled with diners until well after midnight. Street vendors line the street.

Next weekend, it’s off to our elephant-riding adventure. I can’t wait!

Week 9

I’ve now been here eight weeks, and time has just flown. I wrote a whole entry after this, but tumblr deleted the whole thing. I hate computers sometimes. I’ll try to recreate it later.