Take the Luang Way Home

Toward the end of 2016 a quarter-life crisis compelled me to get out of Dallas. Teaching young people rocks my world and allows me to sound smarter than large groups of people (never happens at work).  Plus, I needed to get weird. Thusly motivated I requested unpaid time off, booked flights, and shirked responsibilities personal and professional. Two blinks later I’m at Thailand’s Swerving Mama BKK (1) airport hopping on a plane to a communist, poorly-understood, beautiful country full of mountains, stray cats, tiny humans and funny-smelling food. My prior Laos knowledge base came entirely from a King of the Hill episode. And now I’m balls deep in it.  Here goes.

           In transit from Thailand to Luang Prabang, the bite-sized Thai flight attendant asked if I was sitting in the emergency exit row.  I responded in the affirmative “unless you want that seat then I’ll go somewhere else.”  The misguided attempt at friendliness sailed over her objectively low head. An American in the next row back gesticulated this fact to me, adding well-executed "you're dumb" eyebrows.  “This is a stretch, but have you seen the Archer episode about how the Pacific Islander people can’t handle idioms?”  Her confirmation opened the door to a cool friendship, and just like that I joined her team exploring LP for the next 5 days. We were a family.  Rad.

Didn't Find It

Choose Cool Shit

           This team speaks to a point that’s poorly understood about going out into the world, and needs to be addressed.  “I want to travel but don’t have anyone to go with” has become a broken record, which is sad. Crazy people travel to crazy places, goofy people travel to goofy places, and the under-pampered set sail in droves to locales rife with pampering.  If you want to go somewhere, don’t wait around your current social circle to find a team.  Just go there.  You’ll meet like-minded folks and be amazed how much you have in common. You’ll also find travellers younger and poorer than you who just prioritized the trip higher.  Everybody has choices. It’s your life.

Also, you’ll definitely encounter Australians (2) there, wherever you go, because they’re everywhere. It’s crazy.

           I digress.  My first day on the anachronistic streets of Luang Prabang started as many subsequent days would: Early.  Alarm clocks aren’t a thing here.  Everyone relies on the “racket of roosters” method (3).  This non-customizable wakeup device proliferates all across the city.  I couldn’t escape it and, till I found well-insulated lodging, woke up at Metric Farmer Time every damn day. Inexperienced as I am with un-plated poultry, I lacked respect for the depth and passion of roosters’ collective need for attention.  With a set of lungs like an Olympic Swimmer and a vocabulary bizarrely similar to xenophobic rednecks, roosters have become my sworn enemy.  For the rest of my journey I ate chicken as often as possible, hoping to rid the planet of these cock-ophanous poultrygeists before they have us all awake before the sun every day!

And Every Night

           Once out on said streets, I relied on previously successful Asian city exploration techniques and found the morning market.  In addition to strange knick-knackery, they offer a bizarre assortment of “food” for purchase, further preparation and consumption.  In no particular order, I saw the following for sale (and all very much alive): Beetles, finches, stingray, catfish, hamsters, bats, and entire pigs/chickens.  The flora diversity matched the fauna, and I think I could’ve bought pot there.  I tried the soup, my first tangible act of poultricide, and loved it. Weird place, incredible food.  Would become a recurring theme.

           Eventually sunrise threatened over the eastern edge of the city. Round these parts, that means the Giving of Alms to Monks will shortly begin.  The relationship between the city and Buddhism is a complicated one which goes back millennia.  I researched it a great deal. Buddhism sometimes gets a free pass from Americans exhausted and alienated by the Judeo-Christian/Muslim kerfluffle.  Buddhism’s negative impact to society is, to western eyes, minimal at best and far away at worst. But this doesn't represent reality correctly. To my surprise and disappointment Buddhist history contains all the textbook collateral of socio-religious interaction; war over scripture, widespread abject poverty, opulent temples, docile behavioral requirements justified by absurd afterlife promises rather than objective usefulness, systematic female exclusion, stupid robes. Sure, it encourages meditation and minimalism, but that doesn’t make the top-level system above reproach any more than Christianity’s big push for temperance and charity justify the other absurdities in their holy tomes. This concept is cleverly illustrated in the above video. Watch it. I dare ya.

Alm Nom Nom

           During the Giving of Alms, Monks from local temples march the streets of LP in neat single-file lines.  Monks are not permitted to work for their food, nor to beg for it nor to steal it.  So they walk through town with baskets called Baht (4) into which locals and tourists alike will place sticky rice and other savory morsels. Picture a group of unoriginal Trick-or-Treaters parading through a neighborhood full of Asian Dentists and you’re not far off. This routine has been in place for a long, long time.  It’s a somber, respectful tradition. Recently, however, a new feature has been added by Spoiled Chinese Irreverent Dipshits (SCIDs). Every morning SCIDs will crowd within 12 inches of a monk’s face with a flashing camera when the young man (Novice Monks can be as young as 6) is in mid-alm. This distracts and interrupts the ceremony.  The Monks do NOT like it. Signs prohibiting this are posted hither and yon in the streets. It’s hard to fathom knowing about the Monk Procession and simultaneously not knowing that it’s hugely disrespectful to flashbulb like this. By means of analogy, consider a tourist in Jerusalem or Mecca getting up in a local religious person’s space, interrupting his/her prayer session, and taking a flashbulb picture of it from dong’s length away.  Would never happen, right? That could be because religious practitioners in the Middle East tend to react immediately and passionately to insults.  Buddhists are by definition nonreactive, and Lao are by definition incredibly poor, so pushing back against SCIDs isn’t in their nature.  Seems like one young monk giving just one SCID a left-handed mouthful of chiclets would solve the problem for years to come, but that won’t happen.  Shame.

Wat Phousi Giggle

            After the alms concluded, I walked with a new friend to the center of the city to watch the sun continue its secant arc from the top of the hill.  A modest climb ensued to the Wat (Buddhist Temple) at the top.  This hill is called Mt Phousi, and is pronounced like an antiquated term for a cat.  The 12-year-old in me thusly concluded that I’d enjoy Luang Prabang because “It’s a town built around Phousi.” Special thanks to Eugene for ruining this joke in advance of this blog’s publication. Later on I’d become lost in the outskirts of town and see the Wat on high from some miles away.  To get home, II adjusted course to the South by 90 degrees – Turned down for Wat.  There are, as you may assume, too many examples of this wanton childishness on the tip of my tongue. This town and this language seem to have been created specifically for the pleasure of unnecessarily literate immature Westerners. Phousi.  *giggle*

Kuang Si Waterfall.  Oooooo.

           Thusly ensconced in Lao culture, I enjoyed the exploration process.  My walk-on team and I relaxed effectively, downright un-Rusty-ily, at oodles of laid back cafes and restaurants. We scoped out waterfalls.  We encountered firsthand most of the dangers of renting scooters and driving in a lawless country with no hospitals. And of great significance, we got a little loaded (5) at Lao Lao Garden and met some locals. They offered to take me out into the countryside for a homestay on Lao National Day.  This proved to be the second great adventure of my life (after playing trumpet with braces) and will take up the majority of the next chronological posting.  Also, that whole teaching thing. I’ll get to that. Eventually.

           There’s more to write, but this needs to wrap up because you probably need to get back to work.  If you liked this post, I hope you’ll read the next one.  And if you didn’t like this post, then I also hope you’ll read the next one. Checkmate, how you like that?

Saibadee,

R

(1)    Suvarnabhumi Airport.  Swerving Mama, Slurpaboobie, Surfinada and SupLaBamba were all posited at various times trying to get it right.  Someone also tried “SueKilledBambi” but that’s just silly.

(2)    They pronounce this place “Loo-WANG pruh-BANG,” which is as incorrect as it is consistent among Aussies as it is hilarious. Why don’t you just call it “PENIS GIGGLE” while you’re at it.

(3)    Actual name for a group of roosters.

(4) Monk’s Basket would be a reasonably cool name for a bar.

(5)    We were a lot loaded. A lot.

               

Crew Cuts

Ever want to learn more about how international flight attendants' lives actually work? Me neither! Cool! Short post, see ya later!

Nah, can't do it. It might kill me to be succinct and short-winded, and then who would tell all these stupid stories and waste internet space? The Emirates Cabin Crew I met in Dubai demonstrated remarkable hospitality, open-mindedness, and rival my oilpatch comrades for number of passport stamps and general hedonism. They fundamentally changed my estimation of their HQ, Dubai, to boot. Accordingly, this post is aiming to do two things:

This Exchange Actually Happened

1)      Pay homage to a gang who had no reason to be awesome to me but decided to do so

2)      Describe the lives of the folks asking you, again, to put your damn seatback up. They're actually pretty interesting. So get comfy and, well, put your proverbial seatback up. Here we go.

When last we left our ignorant, narcissistic protagonist, I was fresh off a beach stroll with the irreplaceable Amy. She’d informed my completely undeserving ass that friends of hers had spent considerable time and effort throwing together a Friendsgiving celebration. I was invited to attend. Friendsgiving, for the uninitiated, reigns supreme among holidays – all the alcoholism and bacchanal of Thanksgiving but without thinly-veiled guilt-tripping for not flying out to see Mom more often (1).

Because over 25,000 sky-people are employed at any given time, entire buildings are dedicated to their housing.  This creates a lifestyle not so different then college dorm life. After checking in as guests at the front desk, Amy and I walked into the home of Olivia (2).  Unbeknownst to us, Olivia had installed a wormhole into her front door so we actually walked into a quaint Midwestern apartment that reeked of turkey and happiness.  The meal had taken her the better part of 3 days to prepare, which is a feat more considerable given that Cabin Crew don’t habitually have 3 consecutive days in town to knock around.  And she didn’t miss anything.  Props.

Actual Medal

Ruining the image of being somewhere outside Twin Cities was the “This Is Diversity” pamphlet enacted in real time in front of us. Serbians, Americans, Aussies, Canadians and various pan-galactic alien species stretched out on the couches drinking, cavorting and generally bullshitting around.  Ideal. Working my way around the room I gradually became a strong enough Jedi phony to convince the two Serbian women that I was Cabin Crew myself, an accomplishment which gained me nothing because Serbs don’t do “humor” like the rest of us.  Lesson learned. It'll make me stronger.

So we ate and we drank and then drank more, migrating from the customary (“How’d you get into Crew?  Where have you flown?”) to the more comical and personal (“Wait, so what do Arab women wear under ninja suits?” “How funny is it when Saudi guys go to bars for the first time?”). The answers to the last two questions are, respectively, "nothing" and "incredibly so."

Casually gleaned from these interactions, here's what you don’t know about being Emirates Cabin Crew. First, the airline provides huge group interviews in a large number of cities scattered across the world.  They do this to ensure diversity.  Thousands of interviewees come to these events to compete for a handful of spots.  In many cases (like most of the folks I met) the jobs are hot commodities because they represent a lifestyle in a fancy part of the world and a cure for geographic myopia.  In other cases (folks from very poor countries) it’s one of the most high-paying job interviews that ever comes around, and the ones who get the offer lift their entire families up an economic bracket.

Once hired, the lucky neophytes ship off to Dubai to live in this college-but-not-college world.  They’re assigned to batches (pledge classes) and trained for several weeks on how to handle asshole customers, pre-flight checks, and the most polite way to interrupt lavatory sexual incidents.  They are, for all intents and purposes, flying waitresses (waiters), maids and bartenders with a casual safety responsibility. Which means, tragically, the actual “work” part of their work lacks mental stimulation, significance and personal growth.  Let’s explore this.

Consider the nice old lady who works the cash register at your local Kroger (Carrefour, Walmart, HEB).  You don’t know her name, she doesn’t know your name, but you have to have some trite, forced conversation briefly before you move on with your life.  She doesn’t move on, though.  She has to keep smiling and help the next ignoramus learn that a zucchini and a cucumber aren’t the same thing, just like she just did with you (Botany’s hard). And then she'll provide the same instructions to insert the chip into the reader instead of swiping. And then wait for it to read. Over and over again. Flight attendant-ing (attending?) can approach this monotony.  Lots of repeated, trivial, superficial interactions with lots of people who’ll likely never see you again.  Meanwhile, babies sometimes cry and random people just expect you to put their luggage in the overhead bin for them.  So, again, the actual work part of being a flight attendant sucks. Fact.

It's Hard... So Hard.

Roster Release Anticipation

Flights are assigned once a month according to the issuance of The Roster, a holy document of tremendous import.  Waiting for rosters to post wracks the nervous system, especially for newbies who can’t exchange their flights with others yet. Once the n00bs finish a probationary period they can swap flights with other Novices. Some routes obviously get more bids (Bangkok) than others (Peshawar).  The long hauls (Seattle, Dallas) come with 2-3 day layovers while the shorter ones (Abu Dhabi, Cairo) can be in and out in 24 hours.

Cabin Crew don’t usually know anyone on their plane prior to liftoff.  With 25,000 crew to choose from and not many sticking around for more than a few years, the math involved generally precludes even the most social among them from having friends on board.  This has three main implications for your in-flight experience:

1.       The team working around you to placate angry Indians and guide confused Arabs has never worked together before, so cut them some slack (They’re probably doing great).

2.       If you’re sitting at the bulkhead, the flight attendant in the uncomfortable jumpseat in front of you during takeoff and landing probably hasn’t had a conversation longer than 10 seconds with anyone since she got to the airport, and might not have one until after returning home.  So you should talk to her.  Even if she’s not a babe (unlikely) and even if you aren’t staying long in the city you’re going to (also unlikely). You’d be surprised what a kind gesture an honest conversation can be. Travelling can be lonely.  Reach out.

[PHONE NUMBER HERE]

3.       Don’t try to get her phone number.  They’re not allowed, even if you do Crossfit. I know, it's bullshit.  Traverse this bridge by jotting your own digits onto a napkin along with a crude drawing of a stick figure puppy (3).   Then when you meet up at an African dance club later and discover that she’s the one beautiful Romanian girl in Dubai with a boyfriend, well, damn.  You tried.

There’s not much else to say on the subject (there is, but I don’t listen well). Cabin Crew live a unique life, and not one I encountered expressed remorse about leaving behind whatever they left behind. I’m grateful for the opportunity to peer into that lifestyle, and hope that the next time any of the crew I met get stuck on a DFW haul they aren’t completely depressed by it. And if you do… bring back my speaker?  Too much Tito’s, I left it at Olivia’s.

Tired of reality?  Get a new one.  Apply here

-R

(1)    It’s also much less problematic if someone at the dinner table is making googley-eyes at you on Friendsgiving.  
(2) The Emirati Goddess of Turkey
(3) Don’t whip out a business card (ever) in a non-business environment as it makes you look like a douche. Stick with puppy drawings.