For a few months in 2002 my wife and I took a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. It was an amazing, but harrowing, adventure at times. At one point we were physically exhausted. We need a few days of downtown to recuperate. That’s when we discovered Van Viang, Laos. A step back in time to a simpler way of life. A community beside a river and surrounded by karst towers and ricefields.
I’ve heard it’s different now. It’s become a well known stop on the backpacker track, and that’s too bad in a way. I will never forget that place.
Vang Viang
When I need to ease my mind
I think of this place
I think of the hammock
By the slow moving river
We cross a rope bridge
Precarious at best
And rest on the island
Nearby a man is roasting
A snake I think, mmm
Indeed it does taste like chicken
And next to him, another
A cooler filled
With the nectar of the Gods
Derived from grains and hops
He’s carried it a long way
Across the town and to this place
I must reward his hard work
With a fistful of dollars
The journey was long
A ride on a mighty river
On a boat overloaded
How many have perished
On the mighty Mekong I wonder?
Over time this land has seen
Some horrors and much pain
But faith has carried on
Reflected in the temples
Lined with jade and gold
We stand on the mountain
And watch the setting sun
As the drumbeats cross the valley
A tree ablaze with flaming life
The connection is very deep
In this place
On a breakdown bus
We crossed the pass
Though checkpoints
Sentinels to this paradise?
We arrive tired, and hungry
And find shelter by the river
To wake at the dawn
As the towers of stone are revealed
The fields of rice now dormant
By the winter’s dry monsoon
Life is simple here
Traditions of centuries endure
The clock slows down
And we are welcome strangers
We will stay a while we think
And rest
In this place
This most unlikely paradise