KASI, Laos - Can visiting a place for the second time be a homecoming?
Maybe it can when things develop at Laos' rate. Three years after I stopped in this town for lunch on the way to Vang Vieng, our Korean made coach stopped for a bite to eat on the way to Luang Prabang. We were promised a free lunch, but when the bus driver pushed us onto the street he did with the command, "you pay!" They promised us free lunch last time, too.
Kasi is one-third of the way from Vang Vieng, where my tuk-tuk tipped over, and Luang Prabang, the old capital. It's the lunch stop because it's the town of any size on the route. That's saying something because Kasi is just one street with a couple dozen thatch huts and a couple canteens centered around a tiny parking lot. The other villages are what I like to call "Bend in the Roads," ie, they fit into a bend in the road.
Zach left the bus slowly. On days with bus trips, Zach does most things slowly. Zach's a good sleeper, just ask Brown, my grammar teacher from last semester. Many, many times she, another classmate or I would have to call Zach on his cell phone and summon him to the 8:00 a.m. class. Some days she'd have to call for the 1 p.m. class.
Exacerbating this is Zach's recent discovery of Valium. One day on Ko Tao, Zach, Katy our friend from Beijing Alex and Katy's man friend Phil went for a snorkeling trip around Ko Tao. Snorkeling usually just results in salt water in my eye, so took a walk around the island. Alex and Zach wore no sunscreen, and came back at sunset with lobster red burns. They hobbled to the pharmacy, asking for a painkiller. The pharmacist, who spoke limited English, gave they Valium. Zack popped three and slept for 14 hours, and now whenever he's facing a long trip he chomps a couple down and is out for the whole journey.
And so Zach was pretty useless in Kasi. He didn't bring in money off the bus. He couldn't find baguettes. He was hungry. He needed help, so I went to one canteen, ordered two bowls of noodle soup and paid. I don't think I've thought about Kasi in three years since I've been here, but coming I remembered so many little details about the place. The restaurants use disposable Chinese chopsticks but use them again and again. On the left side of the street buses pull up and park (the parking lot is on the other side of the road) and throw exhaust into the soup of people sitting too close to the street. The baguettes are darker here than in other parts of Laos.
Kasi seemed quite pleasant; it was nice to be back. But again I could not and did not really want to linger. Kasi was just a stop-over onto bigger, more colorful places, where we would have "experiences" and visit "attractions" and learn about "culture."
After lunch, I saw a street-side vendor, a very old man. He sold metal objects, mostly small knives and farming tools. To attraction costumers he ran a cow bell he'd tied to the stand with a piece of red string. I tried to buy his bell. He wanted 15,000 kip, about $1.50. I didn't want to go over $1, I also had no Lao currency above this amount. (In Laos, you carry large amounts in U.S. dollars, which frequently can't be changed at small roadside places.) The metal-worker wouldn't budge, so again I can only take away memories from the tiny town of Kasi.
