A trek in rural Laos provides space to reflect on American busy-ness.
My journey for peacefulness began when I met Nick, early Friday morning on a dirt path outside the travel lodge.
He stood alongside the tuk tuk, quietly chatting with three other guides who would accompany us on our two day trek through the Tham Panchan cave in central Laos. Wearing a neon t-shirt, board shorts, and a leather cap he looked like a nineteen-year-old Lao version of Paul McCartney.
A bombshell is used as a prayer bell at a temple in Laos.
About an hour later we walked on a narrow dirt path, passing through jungle and open fields toward an expansive horizon serrated by magnificent limestone formations.
It did not take long for conversations to sprout and soon our American voices were noisy enough to drone out even the ubiquitous, high-pitched whine of the cicadas.
I walked alongside Nick and practiced a little bit of Lao as he fluently spoke English.
He occasionally pointed out which trees, flowers, and insects were poisonous, but mostly we spoke about our families: what our parents do for a living (“Po het nyang?”) and the ages of our siblings (“Lao annu jack bee?”).
After my repertoire of conversational Lao was exhausted our conversation turned to Nick’s Buddhist faith.
“It is all about peacefulness,” he told me.
“Every day, when I wake up in the morning and before I go to bed at night, I focus on my breathing for fifteen minutes. This makes me peaceful.”
I have attempted meditation in the past. More often than not, I am unsuccessful.
Sometimes I fall asleep, but usually I find myself forming mental checklists of tasks to be completed. Or I think about past conversations, turning words over and over in my mind, agonizing over what I should have said or done.
My mind becomes stuck in either the past or the future. And once I’ve reached this point, I simply cannot stay still.
Trekking through rural Khammoune province, Laos.
As we walked out of the jungle and into the fields, I asked Nick if he ever has difficulty staying focused.
Day to day life back home is driven by a “places to go people to meet” mentality.
He paused before answering my question. With each step we took, moth-like insects fluttered from the prickly grass.
“It must be hard in America,” he said. “There is so much noise.”
Indeed, there is. Day to day life back home is driven by a “places to go people to meet” mentality – cars honking, people shouting, alarms beeping – all fostering feelings of impatience, intolerance, and isolation.
We dwell in our own spheres of self-importance and find ourselves disconnected from the natural world and from each other.
I had to remind myself: I am in Laos. I closed my eyes and listened.
I heard my own footsteps upon the dry earth. I heard a twig snap as an animal moved through the brush. I heard the intertwined chirping of birds and insects.
But mostly, I heard the overpowering sound of the group’s ceaseless chatting, a disconnected stream of conversations, most of which concerned American pop culture.
We were bringing our noisiness to a place where it did not belong.
For the rest of the day, I listened.
We walked through caves that look like castles and swam in lagoons with water bluer than the cleanest pool at the most prestigious country club in all of the United States.
Cooling off in a lagoon halfway through the trek.
By sundown, it dawned on me: I will pass through this earth only once.
I resolved to be a part of it.
Two days later I lay awestruck beneath the night sky. The dark blanket above was dusted with more shimmering stars than my eyes could possibly see.
Better yet, there were no cell phone towers, no blinking airplanes, and no satellite dishes.
I listened to the sound of silence and heard a splendid symphony: the intermittent chirping of insects, the gentle hush of the breeze, and the soft sigh of my breath as I exhaled.
Destinations
Breath in. Breath out.
I felt my body sink into the crevices of the ground, the dry grass no longer prickly.
Breath in, Breath out.
I focused on the infinite dark spaces between the stars.
Breath in. Breath out.
The sky was my blanket and the earth was my pillow.
I fell asleep, the palm of my left hand touching the earth while my right hand rested upon my heart.
Community Connection
The trek Anna writes about in this essay is described in the Matador article Trekking Central Laos.
You don’t have to go all the way to Laos in order to find peace. Check out The Importance of Quiet Time During Travel and 20 Basic, Fun, Sexy Resources for Beginning Meditators.
Both Anna Mack and Matador editor Tim Patterson were in Laos on the inaugural Mekong Semester gap-year program. For more on study abroad in Laos, check out Where There Be Dragons.
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14 Comments... join the discussion!
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Too much noise fo sho.
My favorite thing about Laos was the prehistoric stillness. Great piece!↵ -
“It must be hard in America,” he said. “There is so much noise.”
That about sums it up. But without a doubt, reigniting my meditation practice always gives me such an amazing perspective change. And the more you do it, the more it becomes a part of you.
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That’s my favorite line too, Christine.
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I think we could all benefit from a little stopping and listening, wherever we are
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hey Anna, i love your stuff cant wait to follow your future blogs…. keep on writing!!!
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I enjoyed reading this piece, but I think it’s a little short on perspective and long on exoticism. The middle of the woods is going to be peaceful no matter where you go, but Laos also has a population density of 26.7 people per square kilometer (which is about a fifteenth of New York State’s). There were “no cell phone towers, no blinking airplanes, and no satellite dishes” because Laos is friggin’ poor and nobody lives there.
Also, dude, Lao people are noisy as hell. I know I know, I’m not supposed to generalize about entire populations, but man, how many times were you awoken at 5am by extremely loud Thai pop? How many times did you go into an internet cafe where every single set of speakers was on full volume? Did you stay in a hotel with any Lao guests? If you did, somebody was probably up and yelling all night.
I don’t know nearly enough about Laos to speculate on why this is, but I’ve been there three times and I’m pretty confident in saying that it’s far more common than in any of the surrounding countries. I was in Laos a month ago and took a nightbus run by three teenagers on a ton of amphetamines, who kept the music on and danced through the aisles for eleven hours straight. I wasn’t going to be the lone white dude on the bus telling them to shut the hell up, but around hour four I started wondering why no one else was. I asked around and, turns out, even though nobody could sleep it just “wasn’t a problem.”
Whatever, it’s Laos. The system clearly works with or around this oddity (well, as well as anything in Laos works), and though it makes me want to bang my head on a big piece of American UXO I can’t walk into the place and immediately start judging it.
But that’s kind of what you’re doing by ascribing peace and solitude to some sort of nebulous concept of “Buddhism.” I mean, I know you had a guide explain it to you and all, but he’s one guy among millions. Lao people are just like anybody else – some of them are more spiritual, peaceful and well-balanced than others. On top of that, “It’s a Buddhist thing” is kind of like saying, “It’s for good luck” – it’s something Asians tell foreigners because it’s impossible to paraphrase culture (not to mention the fact that people are terrible at analyzing their own situations).
Yeah, America sucks and Americans are annoying. I know, believe me. But Lao people’s conversation tends towards the inane, too – in fact, everybody’s does. Buddhist philosophy certainly has some wonderful qualities but it’s not a magic path to peace and happiness. It’s just a thing some people think, like all the other things that everbody else in the world thinks.
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Clearly your experience in Laos was different from Anna’s. Which is perfectly understandable, because people’s perspectives always vary. I think what Anna was trying to get at was that for her, her experience in Laos was a calm and introspective one very different from the bustle of her own life at home.
Maybe you could go to the middle of the woods anywhere and get the same sense of peace; Anna just happened to be in Laos when she found her peace.
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Ross, I’m grateful for your comment – it’s easy to romanticize foreign cultures and Laos has its fair share of noise, just like anywhere else in the world.
I was with the author of this essay for 7 weeks in Laos, though, and our exposure to Buddhism wasn’t nebulous – we lived it every day. In home-stays we weren’t woken up at 5 am by Thai pop, but Anna’s host family did make sure she was awake at 5 every morning to give alms. Nick, the trekking guide, had been a monk, like most Lao men.
Sure, Buddhism is some thing people think, but in Laos it’s also something people live – as tangible as hot sticky rice in an alms bowl.
There is no magic path, that’s true, but I think you would agree that travel in Laos, especially as a young adult, can lead to some pretty powerful insights about ourselves, and our place in the world.
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Hi Ross,
Thanks for your comment. It seems as though you have a lot of experience traveling in Southeast Asia and I appreciate you sharing your perspective.
I understand that Laos is a poor country- the sentence about “no cell phone towers, blinking airplanes, ect.” was intended to emphasize the contrast between the setting I was in and developed world I come from.
I heard A LOT of Thai pop in Laos (especially this one song that had a refrain in English that went “You, Y.O.U, only you”), but was never awoken at 5 am by it. The roosters did that. Or my homestay mother, who was adamant about my almsgiving every morning. But this was just my experience, and I’ve only visited the country once, and it is highly probable that different person would have a different experience in the same country.
I see your point about my judging the country. I guess it is sort of hard to make no judgments whatsoever when you travel to a place that, on the surface, is completely different from anything you’ve ever experienced before (new language, new food, new traffic laws or lack thereof ect.). I don’t necessarily think Lao people are more spiritual or quiet or peaceful than anybody else- I had my fair share of interactions with loud Laotians too- I guess what struck me was how the setting I was in, which happened to be in rural Laos (and, yes, I could experience that same setting in another country) was so conducive to calmness.
I agree that it is pretty impossible to paraphrase culture and I would be an idiot if I claimed to fully understand Lao culture. I don’t. But by attempting to learn about life/lifestyle/culture in a foreign country I am better able to re-evaluate my own life/lifestyle/culture (even if my perception of a place, as you suggest, differs from what is actually there). That’s ultimately what this piece is supposed to be about- an experience I had abroad that led me to question how I choose to live my life- certainly not magic paths to peace and happiness! (Though, if I find one, I’ll let you know
) .
Anyways, thanks again for your comment.
-Anna↵ -
Anna,
What an adventure! Your are blessed at such a young age to experience what it is like for most of the third world on a daily basis. Stillness is a virtue I learned while sailing from Palm Beach to Maine. We keep the noise around us to ignore what is inside of our heads. No wonder there are those who do not know who they are….
Good to have you home.
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Sally and Jackie↵ -
THIS IS AMAZING. You are soooooo awesome and are such a good writer!!
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so well written!!! i’m thankful you wrote this piece. i’m cambodian american and when i went to cambodia the first time i also was overcome with peace and tranquility… a feeling i had never felt before in america. you’re so right..there is to much hustle, bustle, busy-ness in america that its difficult to find peace. i hope that others can find peace and tranquility wherever they are, and i’m glad you found that in laos!
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Dear Anna,
The “listening” that you learned in Laos will take you to new places in the USA. Now that you have learned to listen, you will find new perspectives from those around you. Congratulations on learning this at such a youn age. I am still learning to listen carefully before I respond!↵
