MONDOmagazine

Curfews, Bars, and the Plain of Jars

By Claire Audrey Brownell

Do you remember being about 14, on the tantalizing cusp of young adulthood, curious about the things you hear go on at high-school parties like drinking, drugs, and sex, but not sure how far you can push the boundaries? Remember when parties revolved around an activity like bowling, swimming, or dancing self-consciously in a school gym decorated with streamers and dollar-store tinsel? Perhaps you had one friend with cool parents who would drive you all to the roller rink and back, then go to bed early and pretend they didn’t know you were raiding their liquor cabinet and smoking badly rolled joints ’til the wee hours of the morning?

Welcome to Laos, where I have been metaphorically enjoying a month-long party hosted by the kid with cool parents. Laos officially has a curfew of midnight. That means everyone in the country, by law, has to be in his or her place of residence by that time. By extension, this means that bars generally close at eleven thirty. Don’t get me wrong – the cops in Laos are scary, and you may find yourself on the business end of a $500 fine if you push things too far (kind of like the constant threat of being grounded back in the day). But just like the Thai, Laos recognizes a backpacker cash cow when it sees one, and many places are more than happy to deliver a party – as long as you figure out what the rules are, and play by them.

A prime example of what I’m talking about is a typical night out in Luang Prabang, a fairly major city in north Laos. The first night we arrived there, we asked the owner of the restaurant we were eating at where we could go out dancing. “Come with me, I’m already drunk and I’m leaving in half an hour!” she responded. We followed her to an establishment marked only by a neon sign signifying “Dosco” (Southeast Asian spelling mistakes are ubiquitous and adorable), which was a flawless flashback to a middle-school dance, except with a bar. To certain songs, everyone danced a Macarena-like line dance; to others, slow danced in that awkward, hormone-ridden, seventh-grade zombie style; to others, vacated the dance floor en masse for reasons unbeknownst to us (I guess those songs weren’t cool enough, or something). After several attempts at learning the line dance, my friends and I decided to infuse some Western ’90s flair by busting out the actual Macarena, much to the delight of the crowd.

But wait – it’s eleven thirty – the lights are on, the music is off, curfew is in half an hour, but we’re drunk and riled up! What do we do? Accept the invitation of a passing tuk-tuk to take us to the bowling alley, of course. For some reason, bowling alleys in Laos can defy the curfew. I’ve heard several rumours as to why this is the case. One is that they’re owned by the police; another is that since it’s considered a sport, it’s legally classified as an acceptable late-night pastime. But whatever the reason, we were allowed to keep being rowdy there until one or two in the morning, when we had to slink silently back to our guest house or risk being shushed by old ladies in night gowns peering disapprovingly out of their windows.

My friends and I tried having an actual birthday party for my 23rd on Don Det, part of Si Phan Don, or the Four Thousand Islands, on the Laos-Cambodian border. Just when I thought we were used to the midnight curfew, I had to adjust to being on an island so literally in the middle of nowhere that it only has generator-powered electricity between six and nine thirty at night. After that, the darkness is so total that unless I remembered to buy candles before the shops closed, I literally had no option but to go to bed and hope I didn’t trip and fall into the Mekong river on my way.

Given this setting, a group of about a dozen backpacker friends that had assembled itself supplied me with my only two birthday wishes: a bottle of gin and a birthday cake. The owners of the restaurant, in true Lao style, shook their heads and laughed at our request for a pitcher, ice, and ten straws to mix my drink in, but complied. Several pitchers of gin and tonic later, it was eight thirty (it’s important to start early when the power goes off at nine thirty), we could barely stand, and my birthday cake arrived: on which “Happy Birthday” was written, once again in true Lao style, in mustard.

(To go on a complete tangent, one day I am going to open a Lao-style restaurant in Toronto. If people want to order, they will have to wake me up from my hammock, and again an hour later to remind me to bring them their food. Part of the appeal of the restaurant will be that every meal is a surprise, since it will either bear absolutely no resemblance to what was ordered or have some bizarre twist, such as mustard on a birthday cake or grilled cheese on two potato halves instead of bread. The directions to the washroom will be “past the pig on the right, if you hit the water buffalo you’ve gone too far.” Some days I won’t feel like cooking, but I’ll tell customers they’re free to hang out and play with my baby and chickens and three dogs, and if they want to rent the monkey it’s three dollars a day. I’ll finance my operation by taking bets on how long I’ll stay in business.)

Given the state we were in, the only logical recourse to our mustard-covered cake situation was to shove it in each other’s faces. Again following logically, this led to commandeering the restaurant stereo, deciding this was now a dance party, and shoving cake into strangers’ faces. In the same logical progression, this being Laos, and the restaurant owners being like cool parents who just shake their heads and say “kids will be kids,” we didn’t get kicked out of the restaurant: probably in large part because they knew we’d leave when the power went off anyway, and that their three dogs and monkey would happily clean up our cake mess by eating it. I did, however, have to leave the island soon after because my friends and I were known to everyone else as “those crazy drunk Canadian girls.”

Feeling like I was in grade eight again grew on me. Once I was old enough to go to bars, I forgot how much fun activity-based parties like bowling and swimming can be. Also, the threat of being caught out late doing something you’re not supposed to be doing really adds to the thrill. So I think for my 24th birthday I’ll rent out a roller rink, then go to a movie and start a food fight, then assure the owners it’s okay because my monkey will clean it up, followed by some backyard pool hopping for that touch of mildly illegal thrill. I’m sure that will go over just as well as it did in Laos.