Soi 21: Lao Slum Life

This is not why I came to Laos. This is not what I had spent years idly fantasising about...

After a packed day of Web design, writing then teaching my tough evening classes of young beginners, eventually, and nearing the witching hour, I free-fall into a kind of hyper-fitful sleep; this is more semi-consciousness interpolated with bizarre dreams, visions doubtless provoked by the absurdity and ridiculousness I witness ceaselessly. I have been here for eight months now. Alone. For a cosseted Westerner accustomed to civility, manners and hygiene, one of the poorest, most squalid Third World countries on this rapidly imploding planet has provoked a sustained culture shock far beyond any warnings served up in the guide books or my worst nightmares.

After enduring the unendurable for much too long in terms of a horrific and costly guest house combined with a torrid job which beggars description - refer to The Silent S for my attempt - I hastily move into a shared house with a young Thai/Lao student while simultaneously shifting employers. The avoidance of cliché should be a prime motive for any ink-slinger but frying pan/fire are three well-worn words that best and most expediently summarise this whimsical move.

Anyway, I digress to hate...

An insistent hammering of fist on dragon-festooned wood lurches me from this poor facsimile of sleep. I consult my iPhone to gather it’s approaching 3am. Rain pile-drives onto the inanely-selected tin roof of my house and of all those surrounding me. For a country with a monsoon climate to opt for a material seemingly tailor-made for amplifying the sound of violent precipitation is as idiotic as failing to insulate the walls or provide adequate damp-proofing ensuring an intermittently leaking ceiling. The initial patch of tar-black moisture is now dripping meaning I need to shift my bed, stash my electronics in drawers and put buckets and sundry containers stuffed with tissue to stop the drip-drip-dripping from pitching me over the abyss I am close to tumbling into.

Three new lads have moved into the abutting property which looked great on the Web site that Hammer, my housemate, had banged up and on the basis of which I had been lured to move in (much as I had fallen prey to a similarly inaccurate site of “The School” and a pack of lies emailed by the Vice Manager). Viewing the place at dusk while feverish in the aftermath of a second dose of dengue, I failed to take in the amateur cock-and-balls spray-painted on the entrance to a potted, filthy mud track. At this time, next door was vacant and Hammer assured me, “Quiet? Oh yes, very very peaceful”. If this is his idea of tranquility I physically shudder to imagine what he would consider to be a noisy district. If Laos had a Trade Descriptions Act I would long since have proceeded with litigation and roundly won the case.

After an initial period of forbearance, I’ve issued no fewer than five “final warnings” so I go out wielding a hammer in honour of my inconsiderate flat mate, a predatory homosexual who is currently (and mercifully) working in Thailand. When bound to his micro-schedule of study he conforms to a rigid routine and is a minimal menace but, over the wet holiday months, has spent seemingly every single hour either supine in front of the bulbous TV or asleep before it, the bass-heavy volume of Thai slapstick at all times shattering and prodding me towards malevolent thoughts of bowler hats, walking sticks, fake eyelashes and lashings of the old ultra-violence.

Since the hardware and volley of abusive English profanity had no effect but inducing dumb hang-dog expressions I return inside, strip to the waist and trot straight back out with a rolling pin mirroring the business-end of a baseball bat in one hand and an industrial meat cleaver in the other. I may weigh a scant 150 pounds but am absolutely ripped with halved pecs and cubed abs. Two friends boasting third Dan Ninjutsu black belts, another a semi-professional UFC fighter and a fourth as hard as Bruce Lee mean I have learned how to handle myself quite confidently. Tell them that after slashing their tyres with the sharp instrument the blunt one would be employed first on demolishing their motorbikes then on their pathetically undernourished torsos. I need nothing but my fists with these waifs but the second set of tools produced the instantaneous result of two brain-dead scum firing up their decrepit scooters and vanishing in a trail of thick red dust and rain. To ice the cake, these morons do not even live there. Childishly yet gleefully throwing six sandals to the feral dogs and into deep puddles I try and fail to regain the land of zzz’s. The kicker is that the assholes that refused their “friends” entry have the egregious gall to bang on MY wall suggesting the fault was somehow mine. I have long quit attempting to understand the Lao mindset.

I must manage to snatch some slumber as I violently start and consult the Apple to see it’s 9.30am. In the first four months here I allowed these transgressions to pass unchecked, during the latter four I have been reacting with equal and opposite force. The net result is that no fury simmers within but is expelled instead upon the clueless buffoons without an ounce of consideration in their amoeba-brained heads.

Dressed in shorts and flip-flops only, I use the same unnecessary force to batter fifteen or twenty times on their door. After one finally roused from his crystal meth-ed stupor, he saw me leering through the window and scuttled straight back up the stairs. Three of them fail to come outside showing that their cowardice jockeys with their selfishness and antisocial behaviour for pole position.

One of the above friends was recently having a drink with two buddies and one of their teenage daughters when a gypsy decided to prove his masculinity by lamping the girl square in the face. Eight of these cretins then decided to attack my three mates but couldn't have chosen a worse trio and, despite being outnumbered, they were roundly and metaphorically outgunned. Already in agony with a golf ball of an abscess swelling one side of his face terribly, the only injury G suffered was when K booted him full in the other cheek in the chaotic melee. The chicken-shit eight were left a mashed pulp with one of them receiving a Mike Tyson to his ear. This, in tandem with the mindless rioting souring my homeland right now, means I am in no mood whatsoever for any kind of disturbance. I am a pacifist but violence begets violence and these pricks understand no words, no attempts at appeasement. Physicality is the only language that sinks in. Better said, the threat of action: a yellow streak runs clean throughout each of them and any whiff of confrontation spurs an immediate backdown (albeit temporary).

Instead of allowing this to beat me down, I pedal furiously to the pharmacy on my single-speed bike and purchase twenty Valium. Ten are a gift for a friend who quit playing for a Brit Pop band and now DJ’s throughout Europe. She suffers from similarly thoughtless neighbours and has no doctor willing to prescribe for her legitimate needs. At a dollar for ten no questions asked she will be receiving regular care packages while I will ensure that at all times my stockpile remains sufficient to combat further incidents such as this one. I then exchange a Benjamin, being gypped by the free-falling dollar and the general stitching-up of Westerners when it comes to currency rates in the process. Google an accurate conversion, visit the bank/shop/exchange and find yourself roughly bummed. “NO COMMISSION” though, so all is OK in the Land of a Million Elephants (and seven million assholes)... Still, even in times of relative penury, having a million kip on the hip is good for the soul. Million seems a prevalent number here, oxymoronic taking into account the inconceivable poverty.

Facebook, for all its intrusion, incentive to waste time and occasional annoyance does have manifold advantages; renewing contact with this delightful clan has been among the diamonds in the dirt. We and the twins have known each other since the sandpit. I have the fondest memories of watching dustbins filled with coins, their great company and, for three consecutive vile English winters we enjoyed the loan of the freestanding eighties arcade classics Defender, Asteroids and Cosmic Guerilla. The unfettered joy for a pre-teen to have Dad open the front panel and clock up unlimited credit before ultimately completing the game was unbeatable. These days, misplacing someone’s phone number can mean losing contact but that is no longer so with social networking.

Washing down a single Mother’s Little Helper with my Arabica like Patrick Bateman reduces my free-floating anger and lashing down some scathing prose further dilutes the rage. I can hear the trio of twats yet they still will not respond to my sporadic bashing on the door with the ersatz baseball bat. I came close to locking them in with my own padlock before realising caging them up like the animals they are would be worse than allowing them to flee in fear. I am off to teach shortly anyway and the soothing effect of a 10mg Diazepam, indulging in my true love of writing and 500 push-ups means that while thundering out some raucous hip-hop I’m calm. I can (and will) deal with them later on after making a couple of Skype calls.

They say a picture paints a thousand words and, occasionally, They are right. A photo of the scuzzy little dead-end in which I presently lay my hat would illustrate most fully and clearly the inconceivable mish-mash of residences that comprise Soi 21. The Lao lettering on the sign looks eerily like SAW and, at times, I feel I’m experiencing the machinations of the malevolent and elaborately inventive joker in the series of Saw movies.

One truly impressive and fairly large Mediterranean villa replete with...drum roll...a paved driveway is accompanied by makeshift shacks and a plethora of caged birds and poultry to ensure that if the morons, the rabid canines or the temple gong do not wake me then the cockerel assuredly will. Despite the super-abundance of mosquitoes, each and every resident has doors and windows flung wide open at all times, all the better for everyone else to hear the whining music pulsing from their metre-high speakers. Priorities are topsy-turvy and, while able to purchase a motorised vehicle of some description, a plasma TV, colossal satellite dish and sound rig fit for any nightclub, no house I have peeked inside possesses a stick of furniture. Ten or more to a room, the adults spend all day every day fully lateral supping the ubiquitous Beerlao while listlessly playing cards (if not sleeping). They do nothing to better their situation and will remain here until the day their excesses take them to a premature grave. They own dogs they don’t feed, walk or let inside their filthy homes yet woe betide you if you neglect to remove your shoes upon entry. At least twenty children are left to their own devices with nothing to do and nothing to play with. Mum is sending them some gifts as they are the only ones I pity. The animals too, despite their night-time howling, I feed the village street food which is unfit for human consumption unless you have that hackneyed cast-iron stomach or the constitution of the proverbial ox. Even without funds, we are situated just five minutes’ walk from the magnificent Patuxay Gardens and fifteen from the city centre and mythical Mekong with an impressive costless playground. Free activities here abound yet these excuses for humankind simply act as though their offspring are ghosts. I sometimes allow them to watch our TV and give them their beloved Ovaltine as some random break from their sad existence. When I see them throwing stones at a can of Coke it breaks my heart. The men and women inspire merely contempt.

When choosing initially to patronise the village shops it’s as though paying four times the going rate and offering them my custom I am instead asking for a million dollar loan along with the shirt off their back. Voting with my feet I now use just one sixty seconds away staffed by two of the sweetest and friendliest young girls I’ve met. They are horrified, ashamed and embarrassed of my experiences in their country and the conduct of their compatriots. Like one other lovely young man I met, they combine working seven days a week dealing with surly customers while vigorously studying and I know that their futures will glimmer and will not force them to remain in Soi 21 for too much longer.

There are cultural differences and customs and then there is simply crass ignorance, utter stupidity and insularity combined with a perverse and unexpected racism. I am sorry to report that I can swiftly count on the fingers of a single hand the decent Lao I have met. Don’t believe the hype: these denizens are neither friendly nor think of anyone but Number One. Laos is a far cry indeed from the oft-bandied “jewel of South East Asia” and, if you ever visit (which is not inadvisable) do not for a nanosecond consider paying a trip to the accursed Soi 21.