The dangers of drinking Lao Loa
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2000
1
41
59
Trip End
Sep 10, 2001
Muang Ngoy,
Louangphabang,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, January 30, 2001
After the football match we spent a further week in Muang Ngoi. We got to know many people there, if only by sight. Mamma and Auhern continued to look after us although Auhern had to go away to Vientiane to visit a nephew who had had a serious motorbike accident and who may or may not have lost a leg.
Days would be spent sitting on a pleasant sandy beach beside the clear river. Swimming in the river provided a great opportunity to exercise and get clean at the same time. Normally there were plenty of children down on the beach and we got to know quite a few of them. This being the dry season, the river level was low and vegetable gardens had been planted on the sandy slopes of the bank. In these gardens were technicolor lettuces, tomatoes, sweet peas and a host of other more exotic edibles. I offered to lend a hand to a family with the watering of their garden. The two young girls, Aun and Olid, thought this was very funny. Who'd have thought that a falang could do something useful ? But watering the garden just involved filling up a pewter watering can in the river and climbing the bank to the garden where the pure water could be administered to the parched sand. In this way I became known to Aun and Olid as 'nam falang' (water foreigner).
The market came and went. This was a biweekly event and one that was much anticipated by the villagers. The traders, a mix of different ethnicities, came the day before in a multitude of vessels and set up stalls in the market area at the centre of the village. We had been told that the market sold 'everything'. We later realised that the average Muang Ngoian concept of 'everything' innocently stretched not much further than tools, pans, clothes and string. On the market day a buffalo was slaughtered and the residents filed back from the execution spot with plastic bags of flesh, gibbets and blood. It took two strong women to carry the head along the street on a pole. The eyes of the dead beast looked strangely placid. Later on two other women struggled along with the poor beast's heavy skin which looked like and empty pantomime costume complete with legs and udders. All the villagers ate buffalo that day. Even we were invited to sit around with Mamma and Auhern, dipping balls of sticky rice into soup and munching buffalo flesh wrapped up with raw chilli in lettuce leaves.
We were invited to another wedding. The festivities were lasting a full week and as such an unscheduled school holiday had been called. One night Michelle, Jon, Paula and I went along to the festivities, which were taking place under a bamboo framed tent over the road from Mammas. Predictably enough lau lau was proffered and it wasn't long before I found myself solemnly dancing around in a circle with the various embarrassed female villagers. Unfortunately the nature of lau lau consumption is quite self destructive and I eventually stumbled out of a first floor hut sometime after midnight. Although I didn't hear it at the time, the lau lau had had a bad effect on Jon and Paula and they found themselves simultaneously throwing up out of their window into the darkened street. Later on one of the villagers said they sounded like lowing buffaloes.
The next morning I wasn't allowed to indulge in a hangover. Even before breakfast we were dragged back to the wedding festivities, which were continuing apace, to drink more lau lau. The pace was frenetic and I found myself surrounded by manically grinning men holding clear bottles and pewter cups. Someone decided I should eat something and I was spoon-fed some cold greasy fried eggs and a lump of buffalo fat with the hairs still on one side. This was too much for me and it was a good job that Jon suddenly appeared and took me away from the crowd before anything serious happened to me. I spent the rest of the day on the beach, being looked after by the others and acting as bait for the sandflies. Later in the day Mamma came to see me and performed a blessing ceremony over me which involved tying bits of string around my wrists.
The next day, despite my blessing, I felt truly awful. I flinched away from male villagers, worried that they may have lau lau hidden on them somewhere. Unfortunately for all concerned this is when someone mentioned showing Mamma our horoscopes that we had found in the Pak Ou caves. Michelle was first. Mamma read it, cooing all the time and emitting high pitched squeals of delight. By the end of it Mamma's face was aglow with delight. Clearly she had a good horoscope. American Mitch, with his various dictionaries, managed to translate some of it which had something to do with Michelle's 'voice rising vertically'; a quality which is considered to be very auspicious in Laos.
Jon was next. Mamma read his scrap of paper and her brow furrowed ever deeper with each line she read. She sucked air in between her teeth, like a plumber about to give you a quote, and shook her head sadly. By the time she reached the end there was no question about it. Jon was doomed.
Paula and I came last. By coincidence we had the same horoscope and the results, as interpreted by Mamma, did not bode well either. Again there was much shaking of the head and little sharp inhalations as though she were being jabbed by pins as she read. Mamma began to look truly worried about us. Suddenly it wasn't really much fun anymore. The news of our bad omens seemed to spread and before long I sensed that people were keeping away from us like we had some sort of contagious illness. One woman, having learned about my horoscope, came and looked me in the eyes (keeping her distance from me at the same time) as though I were about to be hung. Later on that day, on the beach, some children came up to Jon and pointed at his throat making slitting actions and laughing. We really didn't need all that.
Mamma became stern with us. We would have to be blessed by the monks otherwise our fate was sealed. That night someone was stood outside our window until dawn and I could hear mutterings and the sound of pouring water. Given the earlier throat-slitting warning Jon had received I spent most of the night in a cold sweat, ready to escape out of the window the moment our door opened. Paula, in the next room, said she experienced the same thing and had not managed a wink of sleep.
Early in the morning I went downstairs and discovered Mamma's diminutive figure crouched over an oil candle and surrounded by burning incense. She was putting biscuits into little plastic bags and sealing them with the flame. She did not seem to be in a very good mood. I asked her about my exorcism and she sternly told me to come to the temple with her. I went upstairs and roused Jon and Paula. They too had to be exorcised.
They came downstairs and we solemnly waited for Mamma to finish her preparations. We had been wrong. She had not wanted us to go to the temple but to give alms to the monks on their daily rounds. Suddenly, along the damp earth road, a procession of young monks being led by an elder appeared. I recognised one or two of the young novices as those who go around the village pestering falangs for cigarettes. Mamma shoved pewter offering dishes into our hands, ordered me to kick off my sandals and hustled us out to the street. Jon and I had biscuits; Paula and Mamma had sticky rice. We crouched barefoot on the road and placed the food into the monks' bowls as they filed past. Mamma said something to the elder and the procession halted. We got down on our knees in supplication and, with the bowls on the floor and our hands pressed together as in prayer, incantations were made over us. After thirty seconds or so the incantations ceased and the monks moved off to receive alms from more of the villagers. But it wasn't over yet. Mamma rushed into the house and came out with some bowls of pre-prepared holy water. She may have been up all night preparing this. The four of us squatted in front of the guesthouse and slowly poured the water over the earth while Mamma uttered prayers. After this she moved around the guesthouse splashing holy water around our rooms and in the dining area; places that we must have polluted.
And thus we were saved. Paula said that she felt an immediate sense of relief. We celebrated with a cup of coffee and a condensed milk and Ovaltine pancake.
But it was time to say goodbye to Muang Ngoi. Paula and Jon were staying on; she was going to teach at the school (when it finally reopened after the wedding festivities). To help her and the children we had donated our National Geographic world map to the school. We said goodbye to Mamma, who was now back to her happy self again, and trooped down to the beach where a longtail boat was waiting to sweep us downstream to Nong Khiaw.
