Siam Chronicles 4 - There's a Song in Luang Prabang

Bubblegum Butterfly and Badmitton - Bring on the Nightlife
"THIS? THIS is a GAY bar???" The Australian sybarite slurred. He appeared surprised. Perhaps it is because I was fresh from frisky San Francisco, but I had failed to miss the panoply of more obvious signs. The cocktail list read like a roster at a cabaret (including concoctions called "orange funny," "bubblegum butterfly," and "pink gay"), the back was bedecked with rainbow banners, the crested emblem of two men embracing emblazoned both marquee and menu, and finally, there was the most tell-tale indicator of them all - the simple fact that we were surrounded by transvestites.
But his surprise was fugacious, and he quickly opted with a wink to risk sleeping in the gutters for an opportunity to get to know the clientele just a bit better.
Luang Prabang has an 11:30 curfew and everything shuts shingle by 11, so we left him to his imbroglio and headed back with all due celerity fearing a hostel lockout. Outside it was the usual late-night street badmitton mania, as we passed a plethora of players batting the birdie back and forth on the pitted streets. Reaching the guest house, I banged on the glossy green doors until an accusing eye peeped out followed by a pejorative "Where have you BEEN?" I had three minutes to go before curfew, easy, but I still felt inundated with guilt as I slunk across the slick stone floor to a very hard bed.

A Skein of Convoluted Yarns
The figurines are undeniably hideous, red-faced, leering and covered in full-length body hair, as they festoon the fairy-lit street market. While otherwise identical, Grandfather sports a beard, Grandmother goes without. Remnants of an ancient animism, they were the Adam and Eve of the East until Buddhism subsumed them like a steamroller a toad. Now the most decipherable version of their tangled tale that I could tease from the local argot has something to do with a big, big, tree:
I. Something About a Tree
Back before people knew light there was a tree so tall and so wide that night hung eternal underneath its tessellated branches. Grandmother and Grandfather, seeking the stars and suns and the clouds and all the furbelows of the sky above for their kin, hefted their axes and hewed in harmony. They hacked and hacked at the back of the tree, paced and patient, knowing when their task was complete the tallest tree would fall on them and not the village below. And so it was with a keening crack Grandmother and Grandfather, hands hasped tight, gave their life for light. In this way they proved themselves to be agents of enlightenment, each part of a whole, together comprising the Buddha of Luang Prabang, who is not in this way unlike Voltron.
This story is unique in Luang Prabang in that it does not culminate with the protagonist giving his wife and children away to a gruesome demon. Like the following emblematic representative, culled from the congealed core of a baffling ballet we attended in the royal concrete bunker:
II. Take My Wife, Please…
A giant comes to pay respects to the Holy Mountain. In a cavalcade of hilarious etiquette gaffes, the great serpent thinks the giant has forgotten to offer obsequience to the West after completing his devotions to the other three directions, when in point of fact the giant was just about to offer obsequience to the West. Well, we all know how that is, so we cheer for the giant when he slays the serpent with a standard suite of sneaky double-jointed pointing. But now the Holy Mountain is goofily tilted from the power of pointing, so the giant slinks away never to ballet again. This prompts a suspiciously green sage to offer limitless reward to anyone who can right the wronged mountain. A great tusked demon comes and accomplishes this quickly with more frenzied gesticulating. But the reward the demon demands is the sage’s own wife! The sage cheerfully agrees to this cheapest of bargains, and then first the demons then the monkeys emerge to dance for joy amidst great tintinnabulation and rhythmic stomping.

Never Eat Off the Street and Other Remarkably Good Ideas
Things had been going rather swimmingly, after all. My innards had been on their best behavior for days, and the clean mountain air and cheerful Lao disposition was having a meritorious effect on my constitution.
There is the music for one thing. The people here sing everywhere they go, heavily accented American pop, ululating traditional tunes, made-up melodies meandering in monotone circles – happily heedless of a watery voice or an unfulfilled arpeggio. I find this egalitarian idea of music most refreshing. They are also heavily enamored with the truly massive drums hog-tied horizontally before the wats that throng two or three to a block, and at least thrice a day the thunderous, teeth-chattering booms reverberate around the corners and roll down the mountains resetting the rhythm of your heart.
There is also a certain amount of unrestrained optimism in the Lao – for example, we biked to the royal weaving village yesterday (through rutted mountain roads on bikes proudly labeled "City 1 Speed" - story of my life), where they were using unexploded missiles from the Vietnam War as planters and macabre yard gnomes. And then there’s the incontrovertible pace of the swarm of brick-layers outside our guest-house – they lay one a day like clockwork and retire in the shade to chat cheerily. They have the utmost faith in the process, strong in the certainty that one rosy day far away the street will somehow be complete.
And finally there was Alex’s job offer – a teaching position that doesn’t start until September (and even then it would be part time to start) - but it’s a beginning. I met an older lady from Pennsylvania the other day who had been told by god to come to Laos, so she abandoned her teenage son and spent five months hungry and sleeping in the gutters until she was out of the blue offered a position as manager of a bakery – a position which for some reason included a house, maid, butler and motorcycle as part of the benefits. I was puzzled why god would need a bakery manager in Laos so desperately, but a deal’s a deal, and it gave me some hope that there are more opportunities here than at first meet the eye.
So, my faith restored, my stomach strong, and looking to cut the costs of our stay we finally agreed to Alyssa’s suggestion of trying the street vendors that stuff the fly-filled alleys come sun-down. Here you can purchase squid on a stick and other things that smell far, far worse amidst a colorful collection of disapproving dowagers and deformed dogs. And for fifty cents it’s all you can eat in this grizzled gastronomic galleria of glee.
Needless to say I was up all night and all day clinging to my bed ruefully, loathing myself for ignoring that age-old adage about not eating off the street. But there is a song in darkening Luang Prabang and it will sing me soft to sleep, perfectly off-key and resplendent in it’s enthusiasm.