Thoughts before a break in the journey

 

On the last night in Luang Prabang, I had a Hawaiian pizza for dinner. I have conceded that not all is well with my tummy and that I need to return to Singapore to make it well before I continue with my trip. So eating a Hawaiian pizza was actually pretty good. It tasted nice and it sat well within me.


After dinner I walked through the night market, looking for something to buy with my remaining kip. My body felt out of sorts, but I suspect that it was more to do with the stress of deciding to return rather than the effects of diarrhea or dehydration. I looked at the tourist souvenirs on sale and realized there was nothing that I would be happy to put on my wall or give away. And behind the stores I heard the sound of Laotian Music. It was a new year's celebration happening at Wat Mai. So many Laotians, dressed up and wearing a beautiful sash across their bodies, were making offerings to the buddha. Offerings of candles and bunches of Magnolia flowers, simple and elegant. Although there were tourist mingling with the crowd, this was not a tourist affair, like the huge parades they had down the streets during the day. This somehow was a slice of the life of the Laotians.

At the back of the temple, was a group of Laotian Hanumans, dancing before a local audience. The night before I had gone to the Royal Ballet Theatre hoping to catch a performance but was turned away, perhaps because of a power outage. And now before me, were Laotian dancers performing for free. After the group of monkeys came a group of demons. Each group had differing movements, concise and purposeful. The locals and tourists clapped appreciatively after each group. And then came a group of female dancers, the lead dancer in white and other dancers wearing red and gold behind, one dancer looking no older than eight years old. I have seen 'local dance' for tourists, there were some in the temples in Chiang Mai, thoughtlessly going through meaningless stylized motions for money. This was something different, every dancer was dance. They were deep in concentration and somehow it felt like the movements were not meaningless, it was an articulation of their ideals, their essence. And they were not performing for money, they were performing for their own people, in front of their buddha. I was mesmerized.

I know some people like my travel photographs and I am grateful for that. But I do not travel hoping to publish a book, or to check off some list of things to do. I travel in the hope that by allowing myself to live my life, experiences happen. And there are experiences like the wildness of Song Krang, and the purity of the dancers in Wat Mai last night. I suppose that the stomach problems that I have been having are just as much a reality as the wonderful experiences. There is no sanitization of reality. I think that we go to the theatre to watch live performance instead of just buying a video of a performance is that the performer can fail during the performance. On the other hand, the performer may give the performance of a lifetime. So the experience is priceless, the photographs are just shadows.

So little is going according to the plans I made in Singapore, and yet it already is turning out to be a truly personal journey.

One of the reasons I am on this journey is because I have never been physically robust and I have been over protected. I was not allowed to join the scouts. I went to London Contemporary Dance School for a year training to be a dancer but I fell sick so often I realized that my body has its limitations. It was a bitter blow to give up dance. And once again, this stomach problem is a reminder that I am not made like an explorer. But I refuse to accept this limitation. I refuse to stay at home and wrap myself away from harm, because this would mean that I would cut myself off from living as well.

My parents were so worried when I went to dance school because I have a back problem. They were probably waiting for me to become paralyzed from the waist down. But that one year in dance school, was the happiest year of my life. There has been no other defining experience in my life like that year. And for a moment, my body has woken slightly from its slumber and I could feel life to my finger and toe nails. In the end, it is my personal need for living life to the full that stopped me from pursuing dance as a career. My own personal limitations would have made me unhappy and bitter. And now in photography, I have found a more appropriate mode for living.

This personal journey, is to travel in spite of myself. There is no perfect time, body or circumstance for travel. And now I have to make a detour, I am not going to give up and call it a day. I will get back to the journey and do whatever I can. The cocoon of security in Singapore is something that will be good and useful when I am old and frail. Imperfect as I am, I want to be as open to doing as much as I can. And the challenges that come with moments of experience, are all on par for the course of living. Ultimately death will come, but until then why would I want to live a surrogate life, a shade of death of my own fear's making?