Kids Like To Laugh

Today was a remarkable day for the youthsinasia. We began with several hours of kayaking on the Ou and Mekong Rivers with our diminuitive guide, Su, and his eerily long, sparse chin hairs. After capsizing only once (in a sad attempt to impress a group of village women with my maritime agility), we put in at a small hilly village on the shore.

We stepped off the boats to meet a crowd of little childrem, many of them naked, all of them giggling uncontrollably at us. The seeminly difficult task of two non-Lao speaking tourists interacting with a lot of non-English speaking children turned out to be remarkably simple: evidently all you have to do is smile as widely as you can and say "Sa Bai Dee" (general greeting) and everyone loves you.

A group of four little boys actually got under the kayak we were carrying and helped us transport it through the village and to the street above. Having no way of verbally thanking them, I made some awkward gestures that I thought might be construed as thanks (putting the palms of my hands together at my chin and saying "Thank You"). This seemed much too austere for a group of kids anywhere, though, so I searched my pockets for something to play with, coming up with only my digital camera; thankfully it turned out to be enough.

I snapped some pictures of the little tykes and then let them gather all around (and on top of) me and shout and laugh when they saw their faces reproduced in the little metal box. Warmed the heart, indeed.

That Alex and I were the only two white people in the village endowed me with considerably more daring than I would have exhibited had we been part of a pack of tourists getting off the bus. In groups of tourists I tend to exchange engagement for tact; I want to be the unobtrusive and hopefully unobnoxious traveller in the group. Whether or not we had any more of an "authentic" experience I can't say; I couldn't even tell you what that would be.

Either way, everyone was happy and laughing and running around, and that was enough.