My personal retreat in Slavan
With the encouragement of Cecilia I have been able to plan into my Sabbatical is a 4 day retreat to a remote part of Lao. I have decided to take a friend’s advice and tuck myself into a guesthouse for 4 days on the edge of a small river and water fall.
So that’s what I’ve done. I’m now in Dat Lor lodge. It is located two hours from Pakse or 1hour short of Salavan. That puts it close to the Vietnamese boarder.
I took the over night bus to Pakse and then I caught a second bus that was heading towards Salavan. After busing 12 hours- sleeping most of the way- at 10am I arrived at Tad Loh lodge. The bus dropped me on the road and a guy on a ‘half’ working motor bike asked if I was going to ‘Tad Loh’? I said yes and he told me 10,000 kip to get there in his Tuk Tuk. I told him 5,000 and so we took the half working bike and not his ‘tuk, tuk’.
He dropped me off at ‘Tim’s Guesthouse’ in Tad Loh. It looked a little ‘backpackerish’ and there were a few guys with ‘dreadlocks’ beef up the feel. A young Lao guy came up to me and asked me ‘want some Lao Lao?’ (It means Lao alcohol-90 % proof Lao whisky). I knew that I wasn’t at the right place. The way the Tad Loh was explained to me was a little different. In the end I got to the ‘Tad Loh lodge’. There is the ‘Tad Loh Guest’ the Tad Loh Cabin’.
The guy who drove to my rescue was the owner of the lodge himself. His name is Salavon. His dad is French and mum Lao. He said that they were the first to open a place in this area in 1991. His dad has passed away but now he and his brother run the lodge. Later Bruno told me that he dad was ‘shot’ on the way back from Luang Prabang by ‘Hmong’ rebels. He was travelling on a bus and was pulled out and shot! I don’t know if the story is true, it seems rather random. But I didn’t raise questions with his son. I was here to observe the world and the world around me.
I dropped my stuff off grabbed some breakie. I had a nicely cooked omelet, fruit and washed down with some good Lao coffee. I then checked into my room and dedicated my next 4 days to the Lord. I asked the Lord to lead me; speak to me and I want to enjoy Him during this time.
My plan over the next 4 days is to pray, meditate and read an autobiography of a cross-cultural worker who spent more than 50 years in Laos and Norther Thailand. I also hope to write my article for the development course that I’m doing. Oh yes…I also hope to take strolls and some pictures along the river’s edge. River water helps me to relax and brings me fond childhood memories childhood.
After I settled into the cabin- it’s really nice- I went down to the river for a look. I saw to local people ‘hunting and gathering’. What stuck me as they went about their daily activity was the intensity of what they were doing.
I could feel their need to catch and gather food. They weren’t in the water to cool their feet, pass the time or do their favorite hobbies. I’ve not seen captured people engaged in work like this before in Lao. It’s going on throughout the country, north to South.
The rice season is over and their rice is stored in their small ‘barns’. Many people don’t’ plant a second crop. They either don’t have the water to plant so they only plant rice in the wet season, or they don’t have the means to plant any other crop. So for 7 months of the year these people go into the streams and forests and ‘hunt and gather’ for their daily food needs. Their families live on what everybody brings home before the sun goes down.
As a boy I loved to go to down to the Swan River to see what I could ‘cacht’- fish, crabs, prawns or a big jelly fish. But after my big day out with my mates I always came home to a table full of food loving gathered by mum at the local supermarket. Through the day Monday to Friday my dad got up early and hunted his way through the suburbs fixing fridges, aircons and occasionally washing machines.
How my child hood stands in contrast to this mum and this dad. But I don’t know if I’m any better off than their children? As long as they can keep putting food on the plate. When they can’t, that’s when the intensity of life can be too much
