One Way Or Another — Vientiane, Laos | October 2002
Because It Was Raining in Cambodia
“So, … erhm… shall we say after Christmas then?”
“Sure, looking forward to it,” I say and shake hands with David Chung, director of the Logos Academy a language school in Vientiane Laos.
What did I just agree to? Did I really accept a job as an English teacher in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, one of the last remaining communist outposts in the world?
I came to South-East Asia a couple of weeks ago to think. To me the daily reality of life in the Netherlands has become so horribly boring that I just don’t know what to do anymore; there simply must be more to life than the sad unremarkable existence I lead back home.
My intention was to visit Cambodia, but in Bangkok I learnt that the rainy season had been particularly ferocious this year and the main road to Phnom Penh had basically been washed away, making the trip a headache. Cambodia was out of the question, so where to go? I then recalled that, when I was in Indonesia last year, the buzz among travellers had been all about Laos which was supposed to be the last unspoilt destination in South-East Asia, so why not? From Bangkok, I travelled to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand and from there to the Mekong river which serves as the border between Thailand and Laos.
The border crossing was one of the more spectacular ones I’ve passed through. In a tiny wooden boat, I crossed the river and climbed up the muddy Mekong river bank on the other side. Then up the stairs to the immigration office where a grumpy official dressed like a field-marshal took his time nosing through my passport before aggressively stamping it and handing it back with a deep sigh. Then I found myself a guest house in the town of Huay Xai and learnt that Laos is a very cheap place to drink.
The next morning it all went wrong! I booked a ticket on the slow boat to Luang Prabang, the old royal capital. This turned out to become a horrendous two-day trip stuck on a small uncomfortable wooden boat with a group of young backpackers who’d just spent two weeks in Bangkok’s Khaosan Road tourist ghetto and so believed they knew everything about South-East Asia and were way too eager to share their “experiences”. At the end of the first day, we stopped at Pak Beng, a collection of wooden sheds in the middle of nowhere without any electricity, where we were to spent the night. The next day was another long one during which I sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench listening to tedious words of backpacker wisdom. By the time we got to Luang Prabang, I’d already decided to take the next bus to the capital Vientiane and get back to Thailand; Laos was not for me.
When I got to Vientiane the next day, I was in for a surprise: Vientiane is fun! As it’s a small city, it’s easy to meet people and because there are many expats living here, it’s easy to stay away from boring backpackers. I changed my mind about going back to Thailand and decided to stay in Vientiane for a bit. After just a few days I felt as if I’d been here for years, meeting “old friends” on my way to my favourite pub.
Then last night a girl asked if I would be interested in working here.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“You could be an English teacher, I know a school,” she said.
I don’t know how to teach English, I thought. But then I realised that I’d been an army instructor for eight years and one of the subjects I’d taught was English radio communication skills, maybe I could teach English. Weighing the ideas of trying something completely new in a country I knew nothing about or returning to a comatose existence in Holland, the choice was easy: “Which school?”
This is how I ended up here talking to David Chung today. After some preliminary small talk, he simply offered me a job.
“So, … erhm… shall we say after Christmas then?”
“Sure, looking forward to it,”
In a few weeks, I will be going back to Holland, get rid of my stuff there and then move to Laos to start a new life.
Blondie. One Way Or Another on Parallel Lines [LP]. London, United Kingdom: Chrysalis Records (1978)
This autobiographical sketch comes from my bundle In the Moment: A Disjointed Audiobiography which is available at Amazon.com. (USD 9.50 for a paperback or USD 4.50 for the Kindle version)
