Have eaten in filthy restaurants
Shared questionable water with strangers
And ridden on dangerous roads
In a loose helmet
With a beer-swilling moto-driver
Whose cigarette smoke wafted downwind as he drove
All in an effort to get off the gringo trail
And see how people live here.
Most successful efforts have been on our rented bicycles
On our own.
But today
As Leo tossed and turned on Vicodin
(He’s okay)
We paid big bucks to be driven to an off-the-tour town
And then smaller bucks to be taken by moto to more remote villages.
We walked through one of them with one of our drivers
Following the river up into the mountains
To a waterfall
And partying villagers
And spectacular landscape
And the ubiquitous bottles and cans and plastic bags
Among the rocks and in the water.
And got a look at the other villages only
From the road
Which is worth noting was
the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Back to the initial town where we
Walked on our own (free in both senses!)
On back roads and where
All the children came out of their houses and followed us
Pied Piper style.
Hello, they said and giggled, hello.
This is what the guidebooks call the 'Ethnic People Villages.'
Yes, their faces were different.
So were ours, and how.
Was the expedition worth it? Bill asked.
We traveled, we saw.
Maybe nothing so new
Peasant life is more or less the same everywhere
In Northern Laos or Central Vietnam
In the hills around Atitlan or the tobacco fields of Mississippi
Different crops
Different staple foods
Different building materials and houses and style of dress.
But what impresses is not the differences
But how small the planet is.
(There were, however, those pipe-smoking women…)
Now back at the comfy, “mid-range” hotel
Where they’ve cleaned the scum out of the pool
Lying on the bed giving in—after several days--to being sick
And not up for adventure tonight.
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