Sabaidee & Kob Chai

Hi friends. And family. Hi, mom. 

Supermarkets celebrate their 1 millionth customer. We recently celebrated our 50th home abroad. Home No. 52 we moved into a few hours ago. A broom closet down an alley in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - a bustling, Asian-size, American shopping mall of a city - which is where we’re writing from today. 

With a firm grasp of what it means to miss consistency. 

Common language. Outlets your electronics fit into. Places where you know your clothes will be. Hug your things that don’t move. 

This installment will be shorter, but not for lack of travel. We flew to Italy from Vietnam for big gulps of Western life and a wedding on Lake Como plucked from a fairytale. Then back to southeast Asia for humid air, inquisitive monks, and dance parties with raucous kids in the peaceful country of Laos.  

14,570 miles in 3 weeks, to the day. Here we go.

Where we started: Italy
Where we just were: Laos
Hello: Sabaidee (sah-bah-dee)
Thank you: Kob chai (kohb-chai) 
Where we’re headed next: Uzbekistan

—

The bride is rapping into a microphone on her wedding night. Mere is in heels. Lake Como laps away at the shore quietly nearby. There’s champagne within reach. 

This was a great idea. 

Two weeks prior, there was no dress and no tie, no plans for Europe. Mere was attracting a swarm of bugs with her backpack, I had sweat through the last clean shirt in my bag. We were in the jungle near Phong Nha, at the mouth of a river that would lead us to an enormous cave in Vietnam.

There were pants of heavy air. Mere: “Where we go is almost irrelevant on this trip.” 

Given that this thing of ours is a trip around the world, I asked her to elaborate. 

“There are always pictures to take, sites to see. You can find them in a google search. But certain people and types of people - friends, the Lhakpa’s, the Dzung’s, the Nepalese - keep shaping our experiences more than environment.” 

And that made us think of Kate and Greg. A pair of kind, lovely people, good friends and sartorial savants who had invited us to their wedding in Varenna, on Lake Como, Italy. And to whom we had reluctantly declined thinking we would be across the world. 

Well, we were across the world. But if people were shaping this trip, then we needed to get on a plane. 

We don’t need to explain Italy to anyone. But it bears repeating: 

Italy is incredible. 

Italy is incredible. 

The bounty it has lying across its past borders on unfair. The Dantes, the Galileos and da Vincis; the Cinque Terres, the Ufizis, and San Gimignanos; the towers, the Azurri, the tortellini - and my god that’s a well dressed old man in an ascot on a bicycle. 

It’s understandable why Italy is many people’s first stamp in their passport. Why a good friend only travels to two places - Florence and Hawaii - and why the rubble of Kathmandu might not appeal. 

There are no caveats to that statement. No arguments that travel should be harder than brie when there is a glass of indigenous wine at the table and you can drink the water. Sometimes you can just go places because it’s great every time. Like Italy, where a woman is riding a scooter in a Prada dress in the town that raised Puccini, men are arguing about the proper cut of pants over cappuccinos, and you’re slack-jawed at the sight of it all even though it’s your 10th time in the country. 

To the Italians, well… good for you. 

To Greg and Kate, thank you for giving us Italy again. And the chance to be a part of your wedding.

Also: 
It isn’t every day you get invited to Como / 
Wooden boats, pretty villa, bottles of red give us fomo / 
Gotta get on a plane, don’t care if from Asia / 
I do, pop the cork, it’s Kate and Greg’s fantasia / 
A wedding of white, blue skies, bride’s lookin’ red hot / 
Greg’s gonna faint, Kate’s dress is giving him blood clots / 
To Jim and Colleen, thanks and see you in Roper / 
To Dennis and Sheryl, what a great way to meet - that couldn’t have been doper.

____

There might not be a transition more dramatic than Italy to Laos. Alpine breeze to steam room lull. Fast cars to slow pushcarts. Ancient conquerer to most bombed country on earth.

Vietnam can’t take it’s foot off the gas pedal, and Italy’s too busy looking at itself in the rearview mirror, Laos can’t seem to hit anything but the brake. 

And Luang Prabang, our main stop in the country, barely got in the car in the first place. The entire city is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Like, the whole thing. There are more orange-clad monks than automobiles. More cats than tourists. Walking outside can feel like standing under a hair dryer, so locals just move slower to make up for it.

Occasionally, the words we learn abroad - things like “hello” and “thank you” - have other meanings that embody their country perfectly. In Nepal, “namaste” literally translates to “I see the divine in you.” Which is a lovely way to be greeted in the morning. 

In Laos, “hello” is “sabaidee.” Which literally translates to, “the easiness is good.” 

Don’t stay a week. We blew it. Stay for two and slow down. The easiness is very good.

“His options when he grows up, I’d guess, are to be a prostitute or a hair dresser. Hers are more limited. But I can’t ask them what they want. They don’t understand the question.” 
—

We were in a village outside of Luang Prabang, buried in the resonant hum of Laos. 

The woman speaking was Aroun, a buzzing, uncontainable spirit who inadvertently plays host to 20 or so village kids that see her jungle home as a haven. Mere had fallen in love with two of the kids during a 3-night stay at Aroun’s place, and was stunned to hear her vision for them. 

The thing is, these kids are impossibly cool. Lily is 11, can do backflips, crump, and fashion makeup out of plants in the jungle. Dao is 16, grills eggplant and ribs without looking, dances like he owns the place, and recently came out to the surprise of no one. 

They’re electric. Smart. Warm. Crafty.  

And that’s the problem with embedding ourselves in these worlds just briefly. We meet people, we want something great and Western for them; we fall apart when we hear their prognosis, realize we don’t know the nuances of family life in the country, and then have to leave. 

We were out for beers with Aroun in Luang Prabang a few nights before flying to Malaysia. Mere and I fantasized out loud about setting up a small scholarship so Dao and Lily could start a dance school in town when they turned 18. Aroun smiled: “That’s a great idea. But they’d take the money and give it to their families instead.” 

We wear our hearts on our sleeves. Aroun sensed it.

“Don’t be sad. They’re not sad.” 

That’s a good point. 

And truly, her forecast for them might be darker than reality. Aroun could tell that we had wild dreams for the kids, and she saw our dreams as more American than Laotian. Her point was that leaving the village or doing what they wanted wasn’t in the kids’ lexicon, but the appropriate response wasn’t pity or misplaced dreams. The kids aren’t sad. 

They’re just happy to dance with strangers when they show up in the jungle.

A loose itinerary in Italy and Laos. Write us if you’re going to either place and we’ll elaborate. 

ITALY

Tuscany
Verdant, rolling hills of vineyards and sunflower fields. Historic towns like Siena, Florence and San Gimignano. We stayed tucked away in the hills, a tiny hamlet a few kilometers from where Leonardo da Vinci was born (in a town called Vinci, “da” means “from” here), and loved the solace. All the postcards and screensavers are accurate - if you want to retire with a cigar, wine and a typewriter in a crumbling villa, this is the spot. 

Lucca
A beautifully maintained walled city, the walls of which you can ride around on top of via bicycle. Birthplace of Puccini and home to a thousand cafes, boutiques, and a traditional Roman ampitheater. We’d argue a day here is enough time, but there’s the opportunity to double down on opera. 

Pisa
There is a tower. It leans. Photograph, exit through the gift shop.

Bibboli
One of my good college buddies, and fellow Wesleyan Spirit, Steve Morgan, is a beverage director and former Alinea sommelier who knows the weirdest and best places to eat in Tuscany. He pointed us to a Michelin-starred shack on a speck of Mediterranean shoreline in Bibboli called La Pineta with two identical twin brothers that run the place and a dad that cooks the seafood he just caught. A hidden gem. Steve, mille grazie e bravo. 

Cinque Terre
Five fishing towns scattered along the rocky shores of the Italian Riviera, connected by train and more notably by trail. Like Napa Valley married Big Sur and had five little babies. No cars, just crumbling, pastel-colored towers around tiny piazzas and quiet ports. It’s more developed than it once was when I’d drag friends here in college, but still an arrestingly simple, beautiful stretch of coastline. 

Varenna
Site of the wedding and on the shortlist for most beautiful town in Italy. A spired, crumbling church, narrow cobblestone alleys, stairs that tumble into the water, trellised cafes overlooking the lake, and - for us - our friend Marisa who turned a Como-side cappuccino into 3 hours of laughs. Given that you can get there in an hour and a half direct shot from Milan, it is an ideal long weekend in Italy. 

Milan
Love/hate. There’s La Scala, the Last Supper, and a thousand perfectly dressed Italians with their hand gestures, coifs and vintage bicycles. Nice coffees in Wes Anderson-designed cafes and great exhibits at the Fondazione Prada. On the other hand, you can get mobbed trying to take in the Duomo, robbed trying to buy metro tickets (everything’s fine), and sob when tickets for the Last Supper are sold out for the next 2 weeks. 

LAOS

Luang Prabang
The great escape. No one, and nothing, will stress you out. Except, possibly, the expat community patting itself on the back in a pair of hippie pants for discovering LP “before it got less cool,” but otherwise, nothing else. If you want to hibernate for 2 months up to your eyeballs in temples and monks, sit on the Mekong without moving, and worry about nothing more than curry dishes, look no further. There isn’t a hit list of sites and landmarks - its charm lies in dispelling the fallacy that tourism has to involve a checklist. 

Aroun’s Homestay
15k outside of Luang Prabang. The village Aroun lives in is unnamed, and even she can’t give you directions because the dirt path leading to her jungle hut doesn’t have a name. The place is sweaty, simple, and understated. For us, a stay there was an inimitably cool thing to do in a warm, welcoming part of the country.

Kuang Si
We rented a motorbike and buzzed out of town behind a tuk-tuk of Americans to see the waterfalls that make Kuang Si famous. The electric blue water tumbling down stairs of calcium carbonate is both arresting and Instagram famous, so we were stunned at how empty the park was once you barreled past the first batch of tourists along the trail. It’s Fern Gully, but for real.

Was this shorter? Gah.  

Up next is the ancient Silk Road of Uzbekistan with a horde of friends from New Zealand, Canada, Britain and home. Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Tashkent in a 7 day whirl(wind) dervish. A decidedly deserty next post coming up. 

Say hi. We love you. 

Pete & Mere