Eleven years earlier, I had my first Bloody Mary at Icon Klub. So it was fairly obvious where I had to start this time.
The bar was still there. So was the Bloody Mary. That was enough for the moment.
I had arrived by bus from Thailand and stayed in Luang Prabang. The city felt fuller than I remembered it. More traffic, more movement, more people. Since my first visit, the railway from China had opened and made getting there much easier. I felt that difference in the streets. I did not conduct a complete traffic study over the Bloody Mary.
This time, though, I was not only visiting. I had a job.
This time I had a job
In Thailand, I had spent plenty of mornings over coffee learning what I would need for the work at Laos Buffalo Dairy. Buffaloes, milk, animal health, and the idea behind the place. I was still properly nervous before my first tours. Visitors can ask a remarkable number of questions, particularly when you are quietly hoping they will not ask any.
Luckily, every tour got easier. I learnt how the Dairy works with families in nearby villages and leases their buffaloes for a period. The animals receive better feed, veterinary care, and vaccinations; the families keep ownership and receive extra income, while the Dairy can use the milk when the time is right. It becomes cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, and other products.
It was a social enterprise, but the work never felt like a presentation about one. Most of the people working there day to day were Lao and came from Luang Prabang or nearby. There were also nutrition programmes for local children and free English lessons. I liked the model because several things worked at once: healthier animals, income for families, local jobs, and ice cream at the end of it. It is difficult to object too strongly to a model involving ice cream.
My main job was giving tours. In between, I sold and scooped ice cream and helped with whatever ordinary work needed doing. Sometimes it got busy, but never dramatically so. Buffalo facts one minute, ice-cream scoops the next. It was manageable.
By then I knew considerably more about buffaloes than I had ever intended. There were pigs as well, goats, and what felt like twenty cats. The instructions for the pigs were simpler: rub the belly, pig lies down.
My favourite buffalo was called Lana.
What I especially liked about the work was how people treated one another. No pointless supervision, no theatre. People spoke normally, and in the end we were simply treated like human beings. It does not sound spectacular. It was very good.
Four on, three off
The usual rhythm was four days working and three days off. On workdays we were picked up from the Community House in the morning and driven to the Dairy. We came back in the early evening. We often had dinner together at the house of the people running the project. Some days they simply gave us money and we found our own food. Everything was easy.
I lived with the others in a small Community House, and for those weeks it was home. In the evenings there was Beerlao, a lot of music, a lot of stories — and occasionally some smoke that did not come from the kitchen.
We talked about the day, the visitors, questions nobody had expected, and good feedback. With the Lao people I met there, it rarely took long before somebody started singing. Karaoke did not always need to be announced. It simply happened.
A tiny kitten called Lao lived in the house too. My little one. She understood very quickly how to arrange the required amount of attention in a house full of people.
Pauline became very dear to me during that time. The rest I will keep to myself.
Normal life
On my days off I did nothing that belongs in a guidebook. I went to the gym, usually twice a week and sometimes three times. I bought groceries, ate Lao food, occasionally had pizza, rode the scooter, took photographs, or sat by the river with a cold beer.
Beerlao is the best beer in Asia, as far as I am concerned. There is no need to discuss this unnecessarily.
At some point I needed to extend the scooter rental again. The man at the rental place knew me by then, and we discovered that we liked similar music. Not a major story. But small things like that changed the stay. People recognised me. I recognised them. I knew which road to take and moved around Luang Prabang without thinking about it.
At first, I was in Luang Prabang. Later, I needed to go to the gym, buy a few things, and extend the scooter rental.
That was how it became normal life. Not at a temple and not during a special sunset. Although Laos did have a rather unfair advantage when it came to sunsets.
Around six
The temples and Buddhism were part of the city’s ordinary rhythm anyway. Around six in the morning, monks and novices were already moving through town. During Sai Bat they walked through the streets and received people’s offerings. At first you notice it as something unusual. After living there for weeks, it becomes part of the morning. No less important. Just normal.
After five or six weeks, I knew my routes. I had work, responsibility, days off, and people I returned to in the evening. Luang Prabang was no longer somewhere I was visiting. It was simply where I lived at the time.
Leaving
Then I had to move on.
The goodbye really did come with one laughing eye and one crying eye. I wanted to keep travelling. That was the plan, after all. At the same time, I was very sad to give up this small life. Jobs like this also show you a few sides of yourself you did not necessarily know before. It does not need to mean more than that.
Afterwards, I took the train back towards Bangkok.
It was especially hard to leave Lana, my favourite buffalo, and Lao, my tiny cat.
I hope they are both doing well.