"Oh, yea I drive a '73 Mekong Beauty" -


I wish I could say the journey continues from here on out on the back of an elephant. That would only be the half truth, since my dream of becoming a professional mahout only lasted only a few hours. But those few hours could have been one of the highlights of my entire life. I just can’t believed it ever happened. It’s like just waking up from a vivid dream, the memories of it are fresh and firework-ing and just as readily disintegrating into the blackness of your mind: pineapple fields, the Mekong river, golden Buddhas, fresh passion fruit, peptol-bismol, orange robed monks, curries. It’s like slipping out of a dream that surely was real, you flail and strain to return to the fairytale that is Laos, only to wind up tangled in the mosquito net shielding your bed.

But those elephants…

“Sai-ba-dee”. The master mahout bows towards me, in greeting, palms pressed together. The elephants swish their ears and roll their massive eyeballs in the direction of the gaping tour group. It’s me, my parents, four girls from Australia, and twelve elephants, each with their respective mahouts. We’re in one of the famed elephant “villages” in the jungles of Democratic People’s Republic of Laos (yet still communist…). These camps are designed to rescue retired elephants after they are too old to preform any manual labor required from their previous owners (ie: moving giant lumber and balancing on beach balls). Under the elephant-arian practices villages the elephants get to sleep alone in the jungles and enjoy about 200 kilos of sugar cane and pineapple a day. And now us curious humans can then rekindle with these special animals for no sooner than an hour after arriving at the camp, each human is riding bare-back on their new special friend.

We’ve learned some basic commands, the best is the call which gets the elephant to raise their leg allowing the mahout to scale up the side of the animal to it’s neck. For us “baby” mahouts its more like a nervous clawing up the side of a building. Really, pull yourself up by it’s ear? Am I going to hurt it? After some serious giggle fits as the local have to heave us up by our bottoms, we are atop our new buddies. Mine is a 37-year-old girl (all the elephants at this village are female) named Mae Kham. We form a single file line and make our way down to the river (I wish it were true but the elephants don’t hold onto each others’ tail as they walk. I guess I watched too much Jungle Book as a kid). But I was really feeling Mogli-like, wobbling and lurching while straddling Khamilla’s giant neck. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about falling off; the riders are about 10 feet from the ground and after watching the elephants splinter through sugar cane trunks the thickness of my torso with those feet… well I don’t want to think about it. But I couldn’t help it! And endless stream of nervous laughter rises over and over again from the group as the procession makes sure to itch their pillowed bellies up against the walls of dirt and rock that line the bank of the river. And just like that we’re in the river, scrub brush in hand, bathing our very own personal elephant. Some sharp commands from the mahouts and our elephants dip forward into the water. My dad is up to his waist in the mossy water, his elephant’s trunk and butt stick up into the air. Another one is slapping its trunk over and over again on the rivers surface. Something bounces off my submerged knee. Oh sweet, it’s a giant floating elephant shit. We wash the heads and sides of our girls with industrial grade grout scrubs, although through the coarseness of hairs and tough flesh it’s hard to believe they felt anything. They don’t call it elephant skin for nothing!

The town of Luang Prabang is a peaceful little place. There’s very little traffic and honking. People probably wonder why we cross the street like we’re from Vietnam. The novelty of watching monks in everyday life never wears off. They walk under the shade of their umbrellas and are eager to flash a friendly smile your way. It shows what little I actually think I know about Buddhism: Monks have iPods? Hey, there’s some smoking cigarrettes! That’s not to say that the life of monkhood is a piece of cake. The monks spend most of their day in prayer and study at the monasteries, or wats, and are discouraged to touch women, even their own mothers. Every day they wake up at 3am for more prayer and then head to the streets at sunrise, where the locals (and now the growing tourist population) offer rice and other foods for alms. It’s quite a humbling experience. The procession begins at 6:30am as hundreds of orange-robed monks light up the white pavement in the early morning light, Although they take your offering in silence you know they are grateful.

The actual town of Siem Reap, Cambodia doesn’t do much for me, and I’m not sure if there would even be much there if it were for its proximity to the Angkor complex. As uninteresting as the city is (there’s actually a street called “Pub St.”, which may as well be in Cancun), the world heritage site is pretty much beyond words. We spend a total of 3 long days in the heart of the ancient Khmer empire. Sandstone is the median here, and through the artistic genius of pre-industrial sculptors and the brute strength of elephants, a small city became a architectural phenomena over the course of 600 years. Angkor Wat, the most famous temple in the area, is said to be the larges religious complex on Earth. It’s probably true, the place is huge. One inner wall may span a half of a kilometer and be completely covered in carvings depicting battles, kings, demons, and other Hindi mythologies (for extra credit check out the story of the “Churning of the Sea of Milk“). Asapara dancers are another common motif, something like 1,800 figures in just Angkor Wat, and our tour guide, Tara, seemed to take great interest in their slim and shapely topless bodies.

Another temple, Ta Prohm, is smaller than Angkor Wat and is known for it’s unique fusion to the jungle in which it sits. As birds would fed on fruits from neighboring trees, seeds would drop onto the roofs of the temple and germinate. Fastforward a few hundred years and the roots of the trees (called spung trees) have busted downward through the brickwork and shot hundreds of feet into the air. Roots creep out through the stone work and wind back into the cracks like some angry octopus. Upon arrival to this temple we learned that the first Tomb Raider movie was filmed here, which probably significantly contributes to the hordes of eager tourists: “Blah blah blah (insert language of your choice), Angelina Jolie!, blah blah blah…” and you get the point. A great counterpoint to Ta Prohm, Banteay Srei, is known for it’s amazing state of preservation and it’s absolutely fabulous sandstone carvings. Some of the bas-reliefs (I became an art history major in the course of 3 days!) looked to be up to 8 inches deep. I just can’t believe something like this could ever have been done without machines. Then again, how does laundry get done without drying machines? Ah, the beautiful mysteries of the ages!

Still I think the favorite might be Bayon. Maybe it was the fact that we got there at sunrise and had most of temple to ourselves. The structure has a steep pyramidal shape and comprised of many smaller towers all symmetrically positioned, and each tower has 4 huge stone faces watching out in every direction. As the sun spills down over the hundreds of giant faces my skin begins to prickle, as it is now thinking back to the experience, and I’m just floored by it’s magnificence. Everywhere I turn there’s 6 or so of these peaceful, yet proud, faces watching over me. I felt blessed on the spot.

And as soon as my parents arrived in Hanoi, they are off again, and the team goes their separate ways. But oh the memories that will live on! Together we have mastered the art of crossing the street, squatting on kindergarten stools while eating mysterious foods, butchering Vietnamese, and almost not going absolutely insane when we see a motorbike speeding by with three infants hanging off of it (that’s a tough on to get over). We survived crazy taxi drivers, bouts of food poisoning, motorbike spills (yes, me). We learned that the most special of experiences can happen just outside your front door with a fruit vendor or a haberdasher. They gave me the gift of permission to seek outwards and onwards and I must say that I would not be in Vietnam if it weren’t for them. Mom and Dad: Chuc suc khoe! And may there be many, many more. You’ve touched many more hearts here than just mine. Thank you for doing this with me, for listening, for speaking, for wisdom, and especially for reminding me that I really am young. You have been amazing.


-This is totally us!