11th November 2009 - Budget Hotel Blues

this morning i woke up from some hammering coming from somewhere outside my room. ah, the agonies of staying in a budget hostel. you get what you pay for and occasionally more or less, and that is a gamble you have to take. my room as i found out, is above a kitchen. so one night my room can smell like pizza, and another night like meatballs and spaghetti. i'm not complaining, its fine by me. it smells like delectable fare anyway. i guess that explains the two strong ventilators in my room, they work great! i can smoke in my room and in the morning it won't smell at all. it is only when i leave the room and the ventilators aren't on that the cooking from the kitchen wafts in. in my room, the standard clumsy mistake that hotels often make strikes again, a big mirror in front of a bed. just so that you can wake up in the morning and shock the shit out of yourself at how awful you look when you just wake up.
in the morning i walked out for a breakfast of pad thai and on the way back a japanese lady with her eyebrows drawn on stopped me, and asked me something in japanese, pronouncing every word perfectly, as though she was reciting poetry. i explained to her that i was not japanese. like my father i can pass off as a citizen of quite a few asian countries.
anyway, she apologised for her mistake and then repeated her question in english.
'where are you staying now?' she asked.
i pointed out my guesthouse to her.
'how much does it cost?' her eyes doing more talking than her voice.
'$15 and it is quite nice although the water pipes make a lot of sound at night.' i explained.
'oh alright..i was looking for something cheaper..' she said, her sentence didn't seem to end although she had stopped speaking.
i was unsure of how to answer her.
'anyhow, thank you. see you', she said.
'see you around.'
in the afternoon i saw her at the fruit juice stand across the street drinking an orange juice, with a yellow flower tucked behind the tiny cavern of her pale ear. i asked if i could sit next to her politely, and she said sure with a kind smile.
'do you mind if i smoke?' she asked me, producing a crumpled near empty packet of local honghua cigarettes.
'please do.'
with a small disposable lighter, she lit her cigarette, inhaling deeply. her teeth showered that she had probably been drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes.
i found out that she was planning on staying in laos till 2010, and had quit her job in japan to make this happen. she had no ticket home, and no plans at all.
'sounds great!' i told her.
i shook her hand and told her my name. hers was aoko.

at night as i drank a beer on the curbside, a boy who helps out at the fruit juice stand that i patronize frequently comes up to me and without saying hi said to me, 'i saw you talking to the japanese girl.'
i was not sure how to respond.
'she ask you question there, then you sit there and she smoking and her eyebrows like this..' he said in halting english, motioning with his hands to support his words. i was surprised he noticed her eyebrows. he is only 12. at 12 all i did was play soccer and take irregular shits.
'she is 28 and just now i saw her drinking beer by the river,' he went on.
that night i sat outside a convenience store drinking beer lao, while my new friend ong sipped a cold can of pepsi i bought for him.
when i returned to my room i rank and smoked so much my head could not stop spinning. eventually i fell asleep.