BOLDERBoomers: 2013

Learning Relaxation and Embracing Retirement- Starting in Laos

Wow! I can't believe it has already been 6 months and I feel like I am just now starting my retirement. I have been so busy with travel, projects and excitement since April 26th, the day after leaving mShopper and heading for Laos that I am just now realizing that I would like to do this blog again.

So let's do a little recap of the action in the last 6 months.
May: Thailand, Laos -great segway into a better more relaxed headspace and creating a new consciousness;
June: Back to Boulder to start the Kitchen Remodel; then 10 Days solo at the family ranch The OK Corral at Fish Creek, Colorado;
July: A 3-week trip to see my Dad and go fishing at his cabin on the Kenai during the salmon season in Alaska;
August: Back to Boulder to bike, hike, camp and enjoy the remainder of summer while finishing up ordering everything for the kitchen remodel.
Sept/ October: Kitchen tear out and reinstallation of new cabinets/ appliances. Also the 100 year Boulder Flood that flooded our house twice in the basement and the entire neighborhood. Clean up and restoration took most of the month but still managed to get back to the OK Corral for 10 days with Jenny and Dad. I also started back to school at CU as a Senior Auditor taking a Creative Writing and History of S. Asia/ Indus Civilization classes. It is like starting student life over again without the pressure of deliverables and tests. Infusion of new ideas and youthful energy with a lot of mental stimulation. Highly Recommended: Pursuit of the passion to learn.

This post will recap our month-long Trip to Laos and Thailand in May - Great way to decompress and get into a slower-paced, more relaxed culture that seems to have their priorities in order. The thing to love about most Buddhist countries of which Laos and Thailand are great ones....... is the pace. The lazy heat-induced pace combined with the consciousness of compassion and caring seems to pervade the populous and settles a sense of peace upon the place. Sure there are the everyday human feelings of anger, greed, disgust, deception, frustration, etc. but they are definitely not the pervasive feeling.

By the time I got on the plane for Bangkok I was so tight and in physical pain from the tension and anxiety about leaving my work and its related identity that I was seeing a chiropractor twice a week and had such hip pain I could barely walk. Literally, it had taken my husband and daughter demanding that I get help to drag me kicking and screaming into retirement. With about 4 months of guidance from a great local psychiatrist, I was actually ready to walk away and could not figure out why I had stayed so long.

Yes, a few Thai massages and just the being in SE Asia resulted in less than a week into the trip I found myself sitting on the balcony of our hostel in Don Det in the Thousand Islands of southern Laos without pain. I could feel the peace and relaxation deepen with every sunset.

We visited the family on Don Det that Jenny had stayed with for a month some 5 years ago and the three girls had all grown and there was a new baby girl. The oldest daughter was living with her grandparents in town to go to school. Without even mentioning Jen's name, when the Mom came to wait on me at their restaurant, I mentioned that my daughter had stayed in their hostel a few years back and she looked at me and broke into a smile and said " Oh! Jenny!" It was like coming home to a family.

We also saw the tree that Jenny had hoped to build a hostel treehouse in. The elements had taken about 1/4 of it since she had been there, as the heavy monsoons followed by the dry season are what create The Thousand Islands. The people have learned to live with the ebb and flow of the Mekong and in fact, their livelihood depends on it as does most of the people in Laos. Luckily Jen didn't build her treehouse here.

Bike riding, reading, relaxing and chilling in the 100+ degree temperature took up most of the days followed by a nap and then the big decision of where to eat dinner at night as the options were the handful of local restaurants serving main local Laos and Mekong fish fare as well as the standard tourist fare of pizza, pasta, and hamburgers.

After 6 days in the islands, we flew on to Luang Prabang ready for a slightly cooler climate at the confluence of two rivers farther north in Laos. Formerly the Laotian capital, Luang Prabang had all the leftover imprints from the French colonial period in the architecture and culture. Great buildings. croissants and baguettes.

The town is filled with Buddhist temples (Wats) and even the casual walker will stumble into at least half of dozen of them within a few hours. It too was a wonderful place to hang out and just chill. The weather was pre-monsoon so dry and HOT but not as hot as the islands as it is at a higher elevation.

The posture of Buddha Praying for Rain

National Heritage Wat Xienthong Temple Site - My favorite temple in Laos!

Close up of the French mosaic tiles that create this beautiful Laotian history on the temple walls.

Reflections on Luang Prabang Ramblings about town.

Crossed the bamboo bridge on the Nam Khan to the Lao local village side of LPB. SItting in the straw-thatched open air, low tabled dining area, outside along the river in the coolness of a bamboo forest. Happy hour at Dyen Sabai on the banks of the Nam Khan followed by dinner of green curry with shrimps and fried morning glory. The clouds of the coming monsoon rumble across the sky but have yet to release their fury. The Night Market awaits with its colorful abundance of Lao handicrafts, textiles, silks, and richly embroidered clothing. We will make someone "Lucky for me!" with a few acquisitions.

Lions, tigers and alligators

Scarves- name your color!

Little girls hand-embroidered skirts.

We went to the World Heritage site of the Wat Xienthong on the tip of the LPB geographical penis this afternoon....perhaps the nicest and most inviting Wat visit yet, certainly the most heralded. The US has refurbished one of the sweet little temples on the grounds that is the same one on the cover of The Lonely Planet Laos guide. The mirrored mosaic characters depicting Laotian stories on the sides of the Wat are a wonderful combination of Lao artisanship with French colored glass cut and shaped into a mosaic of history that has occurred in this hot jungle country sandwiched between Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Burma, and Thailand. Landlocked, but owning the force of the mighty Mekong, Laos held its traditional monarchy with 3 to 4 principalities for hundreds of years until 1975.

Even with the help of their colonial masters the French, their monarchy was unable to survive the trauma the late 60s and 70s rendered this country. The then Crown Prince, not yet named King, was deposed by the Communist-backed insurgents and put into a military internment camp with his family by the Pathet Lao who took over, backed by the Red Chinese. His death and that of his family years later, likely somewhere in those same reeducation camps, is still uncertain as they seem to dispute his actual date, place and time of death. The deposed monarchy having fallen into such disfavor by the Lao people dealing with their own tumultuous political agenda and war-torn reality from the fallout of the Vietnam war. The National Museum, which is really well done, and was the former Royal palace, leaves the whole question unanswered and thus to one's own Wikipedia devices.

Tomorrow is bicycle riding and more knocking around LPB followed by a day to an Elephant village for riding elephants (one of the ways to keep the elephants employed and thus kept from the continued threat of extinction), and then waterfall splashing south of town. I will have to fit in a mint massage somewhere in there as well. So nice to ramble without a necessary agenda and time of one's own.