Sacrifices, and the dud holiday

There comes a time in every young woman’s life where she has to choose between spending the week on a Thai island amid white sand and turquoise water, or flying back to Vientiane to prepare to watch her boyfriend’s mother die. You know?
I guess you don’t, huh.

I can’t help wondering if the debacle of the past five days has been my comeuppance for even considering spending a whole week lying on the beach. I mean, it’s just not something I would normally do. For starters, I’ve never been very good at lying still. And I don’t lead a stressful life- any stress I have is purely self-induced, and I’m too organised to fall under the weight of work. So choosing a tropical holiday isn’t really me. Holidays for me usually have something to do with visiting people, shopping and/or Seeing Another Culture. But sand and snorkelling? No ma’am.

But then, once you’re there for a couple of days, and you start to settle into the environment (as we did, however briefly), swimming with the beautiful Nemo and his friends just metres off the beach and finally tasting the almost-forgotten tang of fish from the ocean, it can be quite bewildering to be suddenly wrenched away from it all. Back on the speedboat to the mainland, waving forlornly at our friends on the shore, getting a bus for two hours to the airport, trying unsuccessfully to argue my way into cheap airfares, taking the expensive ones instead, then two flights back to Vientiane, 12 hours later.

But I really don’t think I had a choice. When 4000 Island’s dad contacted him and advised him to get home quick smart if he wanted one last look at his mum, there was no question of getting home as soon as possible, even if it did cost me an arm and a leg. All I could think about was my own father, and how, many years ago, before I was born, he too was summoned home from overseas for the very same reason, and he didn’t make it in time. He even missed the funeral, something that even today is too painful for him to talk about.

[Her name was Wilma, but everyone called her Willy. She was one of the few women in Australia at the time to have a university degree. She wore tweeds, drove a VW and smoked like a chimney. Everyone says I look the most like her, although, unlike my sisters, I didn’t manage to inherit her generous bosom.]

4000 Islands was a mess anyway, and the night before we left he was wracked by nightmares, in which his mother, standing with a whole lot of people he didn’t know, told him she was already dead. A bad sign- the Lao take dreams and signs very seriously.

[She had asked to be brought home from the hospital because when Lao people die in the hospital, the body has to go straight to the temple, rather than being brought home for the Buddhist rituals. For this reason, families often pretend their dead relatives are still alive, covering their faces with oxygen masks and attaching them to drips, in order to get them out of the hospital and back home.]

Anyway, as it transpired, she was in some kind of hallucinatory state when we finally got home, shouting and screaming and swearing, spitting food back in the faces of her kids who were holding her fragile limbs to the bed and trying to feed her. She was clearly going nuts through fever and hunger. Or, possessed by an evil spirit, depending on which way you look at it. From the point of view of the Island’s family, there was no doubt about what needed to be done.

Now, during this time, I was slouched bitterly in a corner of the room, which, by the way, was filled with relatives, friends and neighbours, who were all just sitting around and waiting for her to die. I watched the family holding her down, shouting at each other and talking about spirits. I wondered how many people in Laos died prematurely because of these whacko beliefs. I thought about white sand and turquoise water and striped fish. I asked the Island to take me home.

He returned home the following morning, exhausted, and told me that at 2am the witch doctor had finally arrived, done his stuff, and by morning, she was eating, remembered everyone’s names and had no memory of the night before.

So what’s a good atheist like me supposed to think, do or say?

Speaking of atheism…
When I said before that I don’t lead a stressful life, I was leaving out the part about work (training non-English speaking journalists at a Communist newspaper), and Christmas.

I came to the conclusion over the festive season that I am a terrible entertainer, at least on the inside. Helping to organise our Christmas Eve party was quite the most stressful thing I had done all year. What with ordering 8 kg of roast pork and bouche Noels (‘from the French bakery Mon Petit Cochon near Simuang Temple, bloody hell!’), procuring six cases of beer with ice (the tuk tuk driver’s brother sorted us out) and trying to persuade one of our male friends to be Santa (“Why me? Is it because you think I’m fat?” “No, it’s because you have a three-day beard and you’re wearing a red t-shirt” “And because I’m fat! Oh yes, let’s all laugh at the fat guy being Santa!” “Ok, ok, you can be the Tequila Elf then.”)

Anyway, what with all the alcohol, it all went so well, with everyone eating cold roast on tables outside, Aus-style, and later a Kris Kringle, with every person taking a shot from the Tequila Elf before receiving a gift. Great fun- and that was only boozy Christmas Eve.

Of course, the Lao don’t celebrate Christmas, but they do get quite in to NYE.
This year’s unfolding wasn’t half bad either, considering how crap last year’s was (see vintage post from that period). The prodigal son from the Island’s family had turned up to see his ailing mum and to see in the New Year with us at the Don Chan Palace Hotel Terrace Bar. What with the Island, his trendy younger brother (with whom my previous interactions had only ever involved him checking his hair in the rear-view mirrors on my scooter) and this new personage, I have never seen such a profusion of hair, jewellery and pink shoelaces in my life.

[I think I’ve mentioned before how acceptable it is for Asian men to be obsessed with their hair and skin, and more power to them, I say. There’s nothing more awesome than not having to feel guilty while I peruse the aisles of Boots at the Bangkok International Airport. About being able to say, with glee, that at least half of the products in my bathroom belong to my boyfriend. About instructing my sisters to bring skin products as a Christmas gift for him, instead of them wracking their brains to think of something more suitable.]

Anyway: stressful. Thank God my sisters are both exceedingly laid-back people, for whom Vientiane just such a novelty.

And, New Years Resolution: update blog more regularly, obviously.

Weather update
I’m back at work now, having decided not to waste my week’s holiday bumming around Vientiane, which I already do plenty of. And, ironically, back on the island, the rain started falling the day we left, and still hasn’t stopped. Our friends were forced to leave a couple of days early, and are now shopping in Bangkok. Some might call that a lucky escape for me and my bank account, which is already hurting from the epic rush home.
And it’s cold in Vientiane. Not cold by Canberra/Melbourne standards, of course, but genuinely chilly, particularly on the evening ride home from work. Enough to leave a dew on your scooter seat. A scarf is now de rigueur, as is the light sweater and nighttime doona (or duvet, you Euro fools). It’s genuinely cold up north, with temperatures dropping to 6 degrees on some mornings. But we haven’t seen rain since October.

I might also add that I spent my one-year anniversary in Lao on at least four different forms of transport on Saturday (boat, bus, plane, tuk tuk). I didn’t even realise until Kate sent me a message from Australia to remind me. Thanks Kate, though how the hell you remembered this I have no idea.
I have also just this minute received an invitation from the Australian Embassy to their Australia Day Bash- remember that? All those months ago? Twelve months to be precise.

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon
My housemate Tom works with Kevin Bacon’s nephew. Make of this what you will, but I am lobbying hard for a meeting so that firstly, the aforementioned six degrees will become just two, and secondly, to convince him to invite the family over for a summer holiday, or something, so that I can meet KB and be separated by just one.
Kevin, this post is dedicated to you.