Chasing Waterfalls
DAY:30
LOCATION: Luang Prabang
When I was only a year old, my family moved to Bangkok. My parents were doing humanitarian work while I was gnawing on chair legs and making best friends with Cabbage Patch dolls. While I don’t remember any of the time we lived there, I do remember visiting Thailand several times throughout my youth, tagging along on business trips for the import company my parents started. And I especially remember the smells and tastes, some wonderful, some awful, but all exotic and distinct.
Like coconut pancakes. These creamy, silver-dollar sized pillows of goodness were a street food favorite, and, happily, vegan. They also happened to be sizzling in a special cast iron pan at the morning market right outside my hotel. Oh decadent day! I bought two banana leaves worth (10 pancakes total) and indulged with a cup of coffee on the patio. I felt like a kid again, falling in love with Southeast Asia for the first time.
I met the boys at their hotel, and we walked to the main street to hire a driver to take us to Kuang Xi. It took all of one minute to negotiate a fair rate ($20 round trip), and we hopped in the back of his tuk tuk, which was covered in stickers. I laughed at the perfect layering of one of them, snapped a photo, and sent it to Levi with the caption “take me on one of these?”
The hour long ride through the countryside was beautiful, if not a bit nauseating. I was too entranced by the rolling hills and oxen in the middle of the street to pay much attention to the exhaust of our vehicle, but Jordan was dying.
“I can’t breathe,” he choked on the fumes, clearly miserable.
“And we’re out in the middle of nowhere, imagine being in a city of millions like Bangalore or New Delhi!” I said. Not that LA had such amazing air quality, but there were a lot more Priuses and far fewer tuk tuks.
The entrance to the waterfalls was crowded with tourists and stalls selling snacks and beverages. We bought a couple of large waters and tickets and marched on in to see the limestone wonder.
But first we had to pass through a zoo for bears. My initial response was disgust that these magnificent, dejected creatures were being trapped in this enclosure, but then I learned it was actually a rescue center to protect them from poachers. My attitude softened a bit, but I still felt deep sadness that the bears were no longer safe in their natural habitat, that the world had become so backwards that a cage was preferred to the outdoors.
A short trek later we arrived at the aqua pools. Like so much on my trip, they didn’t look real. Could there really be cascading jeweled colored ponds in the middle of a bright green forest? Yup, and they were right in front of me. There was even a water wheel, as if it wasn’t photogenic enough.
While visitors were restricted from going in most of the pools, one of them was open for swimming. The three of us stripped down and jumped on in. Or rather, tiptoed in, shivering and gasping at the water’s iciness. Finally around waist high I just dove in, otherwise it was never happening.
Refreshing and magical as it was, I only lasted about five minutes. I got out shaking and found a patch of sunlight to try and smooth the goose bumps on my skin. The boys followed and after getting reasonably warm we made our way to the main attraction – the large waterfall. It was gorgeous of course, but overrun with selfie takers, so we quickly started the hike to the top. Steep, muddy, and full of gnarled tree roots, it was awesome.
The top of the waterfall offered more emerald ponds and sweeping views of the valley. The precarious conditions getting up there meant less people, and we hung out on a bridge overlooking the mouth for a bit.
“Wanna find that restaurant I read about it?” Jordan studied the map on his phone. “I think it’s this way.”
The trail was wide and flat, with the occasional small wonder – a massive spider in his basket-like web, a narrow river with ride paddies growing in it, a cow nursing her calf (I know, more miracles of motherhood!)
“Is there gonna be anything interesting?” A shirtless bro in front of us asked his fellow shirtless bro.
“Nah,” they shrugged and turned around. We breathed a sigh of relief to not be following that.
“Yeah, nothing interesting. Only everything around us!” Jordan cracked as soon as we were out of ear shot. “Some people are so asleep.”
A couple of miles later we reached the restaurant. It was actually a cart with some snacks and a very brief chalkboard menu, plus a grill/ stovetop in a gazebo. Not the epitome of hygienic, but the shimmering pond with a rope swing and tight rope made it feel a bit like Neverland. We watched as kids attempted to cross the water, squealing as they inevitably fell in.
After a meal surrounded by natural beauty and flies, we hit the nearby cave. Two girls entered at the same time, and we ended up chatting and laughing together in the darkness. Upon exiting, I was surprised to learn they lived in Shanghai, and originally hailed from Belgium and Brazil.
“You guys speak perfect English. With zero accent!” I remarked.
“Also Dutch, German, French, Spanish, and Chinese,” the Belgian chick responded. She was Asian-European, with a pretty youthful face.
“Six languages?? Ugh, I only speak English. And a tiny bit of French,” I lamented, more than a little envious. “Oh, and I did speak Thai for half a second when I was a toddler ‘cuz we lived in Bangkok.”
“What do call someone who speaks only one language?” The other girl smiled. I shrugged. “An American.”
On the walk back we learned that they were studying international relations at Shanghai University. They loved food, travel, tech, wine, partying in major cities around the globe – poster children for the cosmopolitan millennial. I definitely recognized my former self in there, minus all the languages. Part of me wanted to shake their over-educated 21-year-old selves out of the bubble, but I knew they had their own paths. Anyway, I really liked them, even if they were swept up in the promises of the New World Order.
The Belgian girl did however take a major interest in my veganism. She asked a ton of questions, and we covered all the major bases. I felt like Gary Yourofsky, spouting off heaps of arguments in favor. While the spiritual and ethical element was my main driver, she seemed most concerned about the environmental impact.
“I know I should cut down, I just enjoy food culture too much,” she said.
“You and Jordan both,” I smiled. “But cutting down is great! I hope you don’t feel like I’m telling you what to do, I just really want people to have the information to make their decision. Like, I had a vague notion about it, but I was really shocked when I started digging in. We’ve been so manipulated into accepting this horrible destructive system.”
She agreed. I could tell she wouldn’t be turning vegan anytime soon, but a seed had been sewn, and perhaps more plants were in her future.
We found our tuk tuk back at the base, but the girls’ transport had disappeared. We offered to let them ride with us, and the driver agreed for a small fee. The return was somehow even more gorgeous, thanks to golden hour and a better breeze to whisk away the exhaust.
“You guys wanna come to the bowling alley tonight? We’re going around 10,” the girls invited us out as we got dropped off. The boys definitely wanted to go – the bowling alley was on their to-do list. It was supposed to be a madhouse.
“That’s my bedtime,” I laughed, though I was serious. “I’m doing yoga again in the morning. But you guys have a blast and I want some crazy stories tomorrow!”
I was confident in my decision to keep it low key, yet I still felt a pang of – sadness? Longing? Nostalgia? Something for the night I knew they had in store. A boozy whir of new faces, excited conversations soon forgotten, a memorable mishap or two. I wondered if they would hook up with each other, if Jordan would break his celibacy for the multilingual Belgian…
But as I stumbled upon the nighttime food market in the alley near my hotel the feelings slipped away. It was a vegetarian’s delight, with stall after stall serving buffets of colorful, entirely plant-based dishes. I downed a bowl amidst a sea of backpackers, then returned to my room. It was time to find that flight to Switzerland.
