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Dizzy Downshifting in the Phonsavan Market

Posted by Stuart at 04:21 PM on October 25, 2008

There's no doubt that I love to travel. But I absolutely dread the day before a big trip. It seems that there is always a huge list of things to do before I leave town, and as the departure time gets closer and closer and things are not being checked off the list fast enough, the stress begins to build. And when I am going to a new place in a foreign country and I don't really know what to expect when I arrive and I often get so frazzled that I consider not going at all. It sometimes feels like it just isn't worth it.

I had that feeling again last night, and luckily I pushed through it. I am standing now in Phonsavan, Laos, a small outpost in Xieng Kuang provice that gets a few tourists going through to see the nearby Plain of Jars, but other than that, doesn't have much to offer. (That's the Xieng Kuang airport, in the image on the left.)

Not much to offer, that is, other than a radical decompression for a frenzied traveller like me. I am walking through an open-air produce market and I consciously notice that the world is moving in slow-motion. Everything and everyone is moving slowly, talking slowly. Slowly picking out the best fresh fruit. Slowly describing and cutting the prime piece of buffalo meat sitting out on the table. Slowly brushing away the flies that are crawling over the plucked, stuffed chickens for sale.

After being in loud, crowded, chaotic Bangkok for months, being in Phonsavan is like being in another dimension. It literally makes me feel dizzy as my brain downshifts (grinding the gears all the way down) into the easy-going pace of my surroundings.

Aside from the surrealism of the slow pace, the market is a facinating experience. I have never seen some of the things that are for sale here. Several vendors are selling huge honeycombs that contain wiggling bee larvae. I ask if they are delicious, and they point to a nearby steamer and offer to cook them for me if I want some. I pass.

Live frogs with one leg tied to a board try to escape from the dinner table, while rows of skinned rats have already met their fate. One big box contains several unknown mammals that are doomed as well. I am still not sure what they were. They were bigger than rats, smaller than cats -- almost looking like big guinea pigs.

I didn't buy any of these either.

Instead, for dinner I had an amazingly delicious plate of ginger pork and sticky rice and washed it down with a big bottle of Beer Lao. And this was after getting an excellent massage at the Lao Red Cross. If I had been any more relaxed, I would have been asleep. Relaxed body, ecstatic taste buds, de-stressed mind; it was Nirvana for US$5.

Tomorrow I will rent a motorbike and head out on my own to see the famous Plain of Jars. From what I have read about the jars, my expectations are very low. But I will definitely enjoy exploring the countryside on a motorbike. I haven't done that in quite some time.

(This entry describes my experiences on October 7-8, 2008.)