When I dreamt, I found the spaces in between…

Hello from Laos!

Our travels in Laos continue to be defined by the word “weird”. More on this to come - it’s a huge topic and I won’t be able to do it justice. Need to mull a little bit more.

But until then, a tribute to Chinese grandmas:

So far, in our travels, our two favorite places to eat have been these little hole-in-the-wall establishments outside of the touristy bits of Pai, Thailand and now in Vientiane, Laos. “Vegetarian” they each say on their otherwise unreadable signs. But it’s not until we walk in and look at the buffet that we realize that we’re about to eat Chinese food. And oh, the Chinese food - amazing, filling, fantastic - and we’re always so thankful to be knowing that whatever is put on our plates (and usually we have no idea what it is) will be both tasty and absent of animal-anything.

But what’s better is that both of these places are run by these older women (who we’ve dubbed Chinese grandmas, because when you go, you feel like you’re being taken care of by, well, your grandma, except that you have no idea what she’s saying to you). They have both been so welcoming that it feels like coming home, in a weird way. And so we get into this habit of going to these places multiple times a day. Today, when I couldn’t eat because I’ve been sick, she brought me a bowl of soup instead and insisted I eat it - I felt taken care of in a way that almost made me cry.

This sounds a little silly writing this, but I have a ton of gratitude for these women, for what they do, for their warmth. Language barriers have made it incredibly difficult to connect with anyone out here, except other tourists and the couple of English students we’ve met on the way. So to feel welcomed *and* nourished in this way, in a place where it’s difficult to make meaningful connections in general, has been a gift. I wish there was a way to tell them this, beyond saying “thank you so much” in Thai or Lao - I hope our smiles and our coming back communicates some of this gratitude.