Squid on a stick and bucket poop

Pakse, Laos and Khuanmany's hometown

After being jammed at the top of the bunk bed and feeling like I've been in a coffin, I woke up to the sound of the bus honking its horn…..over and over. The bus uses his horn to let other cars and scooters that the bus is behind them. The sun was out and it was obviously morning. I went to the upstairs bunk to check on my sister Lucky was, she had a way better bed and I was glad she was able to make it on the bus.

Did I ever tell you guys what Laotian people were calling me?…..it was "Buck Tha-wee" which translates in English "fat boy" I was a giant every where I went. Anyways……

I looked out the window only to be even more shocked and sadden. The view from bunk bed was the sight most Americans see on tv when someone is telling them that for 18 cent a day type thing. There were no houses only huts that were placed on stilts 8 ft above the ground which I found out later that its because of the flooding during the monsoon season. Kids were running with pants on and wearing nothing but t-shirts that looked like it had been passed down from 2 generations before. The cows looked like a blonde model in Hollywood, just nothing but skin and bones, most of the roads were a red dirt that reminded me of a baseball diamond, and what cars were there were covered in a red dust from the roads. However there was a green every where, the land looks like it gets its far share of precipitation. At any moment you could climb a tree and get yourself a nice young coconut to sip on.


We get to the bus stop in Pakse, less crowded but surround by building that were not finished or had been torn apart but what looked like some type of bomb, I don't know i f that was the case, but it sure looked like it. Waiting for us at the bus stop was my uncle, the uncle who raised my sister Khuanmany when my family fled Laos. He had been in America last year and I remember he came to my birthday party/comedy show at Asian Nites aka Manny's. After seeing where he comes from, that party must have been crazy to him, to see all the lights and people and crazy people running around getting drunk.

Speaking of birthdays, he is something interesting, in Laos not a lot of people know when their birthday is. This is due to the fact they do not live on the Mon-Fri 9-5 work week, they have parties when ever they want and time is not a real big issue over there. Most of the people in Laos own their own businesses, so work to them is whatever they could sell that day. Some of the old timers count the days by the moon and seasons. Celebrating birthdays is not a big deal for them. My oldest uncle doesn't even know how old he is or what day he was born. To me thats so crazy to think of.

We arrive to our hotel which had a beautiful view of the river, and as I walked into the hotel lobby I was greeted with wifi. Wifi was so important because the internet is the only way I was able to communicate to anyone. When I got to my room, I called Lacey up on Skype, it was 10am in Laos which meant it was 9pm in America, we were able to Skype and she called Tobee's wife Jude to come over so they could Skype with each other because half of my siblings don't know much about technology.

After taking a nice shower we headed to my Uncle's house which was the house that Khuanmany grew up in. We show up and guess whats for lunch?……yep thats right…more "Pho." Their house was nice, well nice for Laos, the living room area was well lit, there were fans on the ceiling, there were 3 rooms that all had their own little sink and toliet…however the toilets didn't use regular plumbing, it was just a regular type of sit on toilet but no flush, there was this big bucket of water with a little bowl next to the toilet. If you pee'd you would just take a bowl of water and pore it down the toilet……if you pooped….you pore water down before you wiped your butt….and this is the newer way of doing things. lol

My siblings got to meet Khuanmany's other siblings….it was kind of weird when Khuanmany would introduce me to her younger brother…..I'm gonna go with that I'm the cooler young brother.


After lunch we had the chauffeur drive us around so we could buy more books and school supplies because we were only allowed to bring one suitcase each from America. At night time following dinner it was planned that my family go to this street fair type of thing, I really didn't want to go because I was tired but I did because when else am I in Laos? The fair/dance thingy was packed, thousands of people there. They had two stages one that was concert style and the other mainly for people to dance to the music. They served Lao beer called "Beer Laos" every one drink it on the rocks, they drank it that way because it keeps their beer cold and because when the ice melts their drink last longer.

As I was walking through the fair thing I ran into a military guy with a machine guy, I forgot that normal to have a dude walk around with a machine just in case something goes down. It scared me a little bit, because I was the "tall American" and I think some times Laotian people hate Americans…or it just my own Yankee guilt. It seemed like they only thing they had for sale was grilled squid on a stick and fluffy buns, I mean there were a ton of vendors……95% sold squid on a stick and the other 5% sold squid off the a stick.

Time to go to bed because in the morning we make our journey to my dad's village to do the school stuff. Yay!!