Lingering in Laos

After a grueling, bumpy bus ride back to Luang Prabang from Phonsavan, I checked back into my hostel and immediately set about changing my plans. I had originally planned to take the slow boat to Thailand the next day, but my travel exhaustion and my reluctance to leave Luang Prabang made it clear: I was not waking up at 7 am to get on a boat for two days. Nope. Not happening. I investigated flight prices to Chiang Mai. Way out of my budget, but a flight would get me there in one hour, compared with two days on a boat and one on a bus. And this is why I’m a flashpacker and not a backpacker. I booked the flight and settled in to four more nights in sweet Luang Prabang.

I just adore this place. It is sleepy, it is slow, it is resonant with the sounds of monks praying and drumming as you traipse along the quiet back alleys. The night market is peaceful and hasslefree. I sleep in and spend my late mornings at Saffron Coffee, a new boutique coffee shop run by an expat who sources his coffee from hill tribe farmers. Afternoons are for long walks with a fresh passionfruit juice in hand. The evening curfew of 11:30 suits me just fine. Little kids chirp  ”Sabaidee” or ”hello” at me as I pass. I am quickly falling under the spell of this magical Mekong town.

I am not the only one. One night, I had dinner with a girl I met at my hostel. Leah, a pretty blonde nurse, is also traveling solo while she contemplates her next life steps. We chose Khaiphaen, a local Lao restaurant that trains marginalized youth for careers in hospitality. Over river fish and monkey mushroom dumplings we discussed the frustrations of love, careers, and doing a hard reset on your life in your 30s. We wrapped up the night at Icon Klub, an expat bar run by an intriguing Hungarian woman named Lisa.

The bar could have been right out of Brooklyn with its rows of books, quirky decor, and eclectic soundtrack.

I perused the cocktail menu and was torn between a Jack and ginger and bitters number and a more unusual option called the Love Potion No. 9. I asked Lisa which one she preferred and she said in a soft, accented voice, ”It depends what you need. Do you need love?” Well, who doesn’t? The Love Potion it was. A sugarrimmed martini glass with clove infused vodka, Cointreau, lime, and nutmeg arrived at my table. Lisa reached over and gave me a squeeze. “This will give you what you need,” she said quietly. “Not, perhaps, what you want, but what you need.” With her wild, wispy hair and ethereal manner, Lisa looked like she belonged in a supernatural series. I am not sure the Love Potion will work, but it was a tangy, herbal treasure of a drink, and if I lived in Luang Prabang I am pretty sure I would be hanging with Lisa and her potions on the regular.

My next expat instafriend was Celine, a woman who runs L’etranger Books and Tea. I had been frequenting her shop for movie nights and sticky rice and after we struck up a few animated conversations about cinema, she invited me to a Halloween party at a local expat bar.

Over drinks, I learned her story. Her daughter fell in love with Luang Prabang while doing a round the world trip, and stayed to open the bookshop there. Celine joined her, and splits her time between Laos and LA. Like Lisa, she was a mystical character, and there was something sort of beautifully witchy about the way she was dropping wisdom bombs on me while speaking from behind her Venetian Halloween mask.

“What you are doing, this trip, it is good,” she opined in her thick French accent. “When you make space, the universe fills it up.”

I am waiting, universe!