French colons used to say : Vietnamese grow the rice, Cambodians look at the rice growing, Laotians listen to the rice growing.

I can’t say for Vietnam or Cambodia but one thing is sure : Lao people don’t seem to know the meaning of the words stress or hurry.

Here everything is “Boh peh niang” : No worries.

You ordered something on the menu but they don’t have every ingredients to make it and they can’t manage to explain to you in regular English what’s wrong ?

Boh peh niang ! Mama leaves the restaurant to her daughters (yes, Laos is mostly about women), she jumps on her scooter and goes to the nearest open market to get the missing ingredient while the girls who don’t speak a word of English give you a notepad so you can write your orders. You may need to wait one hour but you will have what you ordered if they can provide it to you.

Observing a day to day life in a small town makes you think about what makes a happy life.

In those villages, you wake up when the roosters sing the break of down to start cooking breakfast or sweeping the leaves off the floor or washing clothes. Then, depending on your belief, you either put fresh food on the hotel of your ancestors or you put on a scarf on your left shoulder and you come to give food to the Buddhist monks during the morning processions (processions start with 2 monks) or you do both, just in case.

Then, you can have your own breakfast and chat with neighbors while working under a roof (for the shade) : taking care of your tourist guests, putting some veggies to dry under the sun, preparing riverweeds to dry, making scarfs or baskets, preparing more food…

In the early morning and until around noon, all those activities take place almost on the street. Then the weather becomes really hot, the sun is actually burning the skin so you only stay out if you have to go somewhere. Tourists have to look for you if they need anything : food or drink in a restaurant, pay the room in a guesthouse…

In the afternoon, animals and tourists are the only ones really wandering in the streets and even among the tonne of animals living almost wildly here, only the bird (chicken, ducks and chicks) are wandering around for food in the afternoon while cats, dogs, pigs and cows sleep in the shade.

Then comes the end of the afternoon, children run out of school to play with whatever is available around : just give them some sand and a steep beach to make a bowling line and they will have fun for the rest of the afternoon building up sand balls and try them on the line.

With the twilight and the roosters new song, everybody goes back home for diner.

Once again tourists can test the Lao time : you might have what you ordered right away or you might have to wait one hour. Lucky you are waiting in a nice looking place with a good view or with confortable couches to lie around.

In some villages, you can even experience diner at the light of the only light bulb around because you have ordered your diner too late (sun goes out at 6 P.M. here). In this case, you can see your diner coming from the other end of the village at the light of a flash light and you’ll have to fall asleep early because there’s not much to do without electricity or running water when everyone is asleep, except maybe if you like watching the bright stars and listening at the dogs barking or at the echo of a mewing cow lost in the far end of the rice fields.

Here you don’t need electricity that much.

Here there’s no news paper. Some villages chose to spread the morning news in the main street via speakerphones between 5 and 7 A.M. (good morning everyone ! ), other villages share a TV room for everyone.

But mostly here you live far from the rest of the world and you’re quite happy this way. Tourists bring news from other places but it’s mainly travelling news: where to go, what to do, what happened with the last boat going this way and with the minivan going that way…

That’s actually one of the best things with those remote places : few tourists takes the trouble to get there so you quickly know all the tourists visiting the same area as you and you easily share your tips.

Anyway, to anyone who needs a peaceful and quiet place to rest, or anyone wondering if life without stress exists I would suggest to go Laos and quit the old European permanent stresses about comfort : you might have to take your shower over the toilet seat, if so, just remember you’re lucky you have a shower and a toilet seat with your accommodation 🙂