This moment
I'm on an island. I'm living on an island. I wake every morning and look at the sea. I'm surrounded by fellow travellers. And yet, I'm starting to feel a little like I want to get out of here.
Where do I begin? I suppose the beginnings are always the best, but more often than not, I want to start in the middle. The middle of everything. The middle of nowhere. The middle of the ocean. The middle of Laos. Let's start there.
Laos. 4,000 islands. Don Det. In the middle of the Mekong, at the southern tip of Laos. That's where I'll start. Because the story won't make sense if I start at the end, in the present, right now.
Danielle and I travelled to Vietnam. And it felt like travelling back in time. A country that stopped moving 50 years ago. That's what it felt like. We spent a week, a week filled with rain and a dampness that started to set into my bones, and on the one sunny day, we decided to leave after only a week and head to Laos. Laos and the promise of hot weather.
(Backstory...maybe the real beginning) In Pai, in northern Thailand, a little more than a week into our trip, I met someone. He made me laugh, a sound I hadn't heard in a while, and I told him stories, because that's what I do. And so, after leaving Pai and traveling our separate ways, we made a deal to meet again in Laos. 4,000 Islands. Where my story begins.
The thing about 4,000 Islands, which are exactly that, 4,000 islands in the middle of the Mekong River, is that hey are accessible only by boat. There is no electricity on the islands. The power is run by generators and they only run from 6pm-10pm and then...it goes dark. Black. And the stars come out. And so do the bugs.
We spent 5 nights there, perched in a bungalow overlooking the Mekong. The three of us, Danielle, Seb, and I, spent out days playing cards, riding our bikes into town to rent inner tubes to float down the Mekong. And when Danielle was sick, the two of us went fishing with three Laos boys who entertained us by making pipes out of bamboo and drinking whisky at lunch time. When our time started to come to an end, we made another deal. Seb and I. We'd keep travelling together. We'd stay till June. We'd go to the islands. We'd drink Pina Coladas on the beach. We'd find adventures every day.
So, the three of us, returned to Thailand, flew to Bangkok, separated again, and then Danielle and I flew to Ko Samui with the plan to meet back up with Seb in a few days. Danielle and I spent the days on Ko Samui nursing our tomato red skin after our overzealous sunbathing on the first day.
And when we met back up with Seb in Ko Phangan, he had already hatched a plan. After Danielle flew back to Canada in a week, the two of us would run a bar/hostel/restaurant together on Sunrise beach, home of the famous full moon parties. A week later, we had a reality check. We opened the night before full moon and in the span of 4 hours, our bar had been bathed in blood from a gouge on a man's leg, mopped up with paper towels, saved a girl before she cracked her head open on the tile floor after seeing her eyes roll back in her head, twice. But in the end, we made it. We survived. We made friends with strangers. We made plans for the future. We made plans for next time. We kept each other sane. Or well, partially.
And now, here we are. Here I am. After a week in Malaysia on a visa run. Back in Ko Phangan. Starting to wish I was somewhere else. And isn't that the affliction? Always thinking it's better elsewhere. Partially never wanting to go home and partially not wanting to stay another day. It's hard to share your life with someone when it doesn't feel like your life. It's hard to find yourself in a life that doesn't feel like your own. I'm swimming in the water, treading lightly, not sure I want to reach the shore. Breathing in slowly and trying to let it all out. This moment. This moment right here. This is all we'll ever have.
Where do I begin? I suppose the beginnings are always the best, but more often than not, I want to start in the middle. The middle of everything. The middle of nowhere. The middle of the ocean. The middle of Laos. Let's start there.
Laos. 4,000 islands. Don Det. In the middle of the Mekong, at the southern tip of Laos. That's where I'll start. Because the story won't make sense if I start at the end, in the present, right now.
Danielle and I travelled to Vietnam. And it felt like travelling back in time. A country that stopped moving 50 years ago. That's what it felt like. We spent a week, a week filled with rain and a dampness that started to set into my bones, and on the one sunny day, we decided to leave after only a week and head to Laos. Laos and the promise of hot weather.
(Backstory...maybe the real beginning) In Pai, in northern Thailand, a little more than a week into our trip, I met someone. He made me laugh, a sound I hadn't heard in a while, and I told him stories, because that's what I do. And so, after leaving Pai and traveling our separate ways, we made a deal to meet again in Laos. 4,000 Islands. Where my story begins.
The thing about 4,000 Islands, which are exactly that, 4,000 islands in the middle of the Mekong River, is that hey are accessible only by boat. There is no electricity on the islands. The power is run by generators and they only run from 6pm-10pm and then...it goes dark. Black. And the stars come out. And so do the bugs.
We spent 5 nights there, perched in a bungalow overlooking the Mekong. The three of us, Danielle, Seb, and I, spent out days playing cards, riding our bikes into town to rent inner tubes to float down the Mekong. And when Danielle was sick, the two of us went fishing with three Laos boys who entertained us by making pipes out of bamboo and drinking whisky at lunch time. When our time started to come to an end, we made another deal. Seb and I. We'd keep travelling together. We'd stay till June. We'd go to the islands. We'd drink Pina Coladas on the beach. We'd find adventures every day.
So, the three of us, returned to Thailand, flew to Bangkok, separated again, and then Danielle and I flew to Ko Samui with the plan to meet back up with Seb in a few days. Danielle and I spent the days on Ko Samui nursing our tomato red skin after our overzealous sunbathing on the first day.
And when we met back up with Seb in Ko Phangan, he had already hatched a plan. After Danielle flew back to Canada in a week, the two of us would run a bar/hostel/restaurant together on Sunrise beach, home of the famous full moon parties. A week later, we had a reality check. We opened the night before full moon and in the span of 4 hours, our bar had been bathed in blood from a gouge on a man's leg, mopped up with paper towels, saved a girl before she cracked her head open on the tile floor after seeing her eyes roll back in her head, twice. But in the end, we made it. We survived. We made friends with strangers. We made plans for the future. We made plans for next time. We kept each other sane. Or well, partially.
And now, here we are. Here I am. After a week in Malaysia on a visa run. Back in Ko Phangan. Starting to wish I was somewhere else. And isn't that the affliction? Always thinking it's better elsewhere. Partially never wanting to go home and partially not wanting to stay another day. It's hard to share your life with someone when it doesn't feel like your life. It's hard to find yourself in a life that doesn't feel like your own. I'm swimming in the water, treading lightly, not sure I want to reach the shore. Breathing in slowly and trying to let it all out. This moment. This moment right here. This is all we'll ever have.
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