What we heard before was how warm and friendly the Laos are.  And they aren’t not, but there is a more pro­nounced sen­ti­ment we feel from them.  Apa­thy?  The book says the Lao­tians live a unique way of Bud­dhism.  Karma is para­mount.  And, per­haps truer to the core I think, being in the moment is all you have and emo­tional hi & lo feel­ings are to be expe­ri­enced the same.  This can be unset­tling and comes off as dis­in­ter­est at times.  In the­ory I also sub­scribe to the ‘less emo­tional sea­saw bet­ter qual­ity of life’ con­cept.  Though in this case some­thing is absent in Laos’ char­ac­ter­ized laid back aura.

Walk­ing in Vieng Chan (‘Vien­tiane’ — that’s what the French heard) you don’t quite envi­sion pas­sion­ate Paris but you do see the baguettes.  In small carts on the road­side wait­ing to be filled with pork or curry chicken or pate or fish.  There is no rat race here.  You’d hardly even know you were in the cap­i­tal.  What you do know is that the dog shit on the floor in the restau­rant — mais oui, on 3 sep­a­rate occa­sions over 2 days — will go unno­ticed by the bus­boy as he, in this par­tic­u­lar moment, smears it on the floor en route to Nir­vana by way of table # 29 where we sit nurs­ing an emo­tional lo.

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