Moving Week

It’s hard to believe, but the end of September is here, which also means the end of our time living in Laos (for now).

In September 2016, we arrived here with a three-month-old and now find ourselves leaving with a three-YEAR-old (and a nearly-one-year-old thrown in for good measure).

It’s been a great ride, but three years is just too long in a place like Vientiane (at least for us), considering there’s a great big world out there to explore and Laos is but a tiny slice.

Because of the hectic nature of first and final weeks moving to and away from places, I rarely get to devote the amount of time I’d like to talking about the process of relocating from one country to another. This time around is unlikely to be exceptional in that respect. But I’ll give it my best shot.

Our last week in Vientiane was surreal. Unlike many of our moves, most days felt indistinguishable from our usual routine on any given week here.

The boys continued to go off to nursery school, and we just didn’t have a lot of reminders around the house of our impending pack-out.

Lori and I have had weeks where we’ve had to climb over boxes and stacked up furniture to get in and out of our place, but that’s not the case this time mostly because we just don’t have a lot of stuff to pack up.

95% of the furnishings in this house came with the house, and 99% of what didn’t come with the house we’ve already sold.

Lori’s been an animal over the past several weeks selling off the majority of our worldly possessions — we both can be ruthless when it comes to getting rid of stuff, but Lori took things to a whole other level.

And best of all, selling used stuff here is so easy! You just can’t get a lot of things here (or they are very expensive).

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The rest of our stuff will either be freighted or packed in luggage on our flight. And while all of our remaining stuff could easily fit in a minivan, it still seems like a lot to us.

Lori and I can’t get over how much shit two little ones add to the manifest (especially the little baby!!!).

Stroller, car seat, portable crib, books, toys, baby clothes, breast pump, sound machines, bottles, etc., etc., etc.

I don’t even want to imagine what that pile would look like if we were living in the U.S. with ready access to just about everything, even with our minimalist tendencies.

On Saturday, the guest bedroom became ground zero for packing, and Noe’s toys were the first casualties of that process.

When we moved out of our first house in Laos a year ago, the whole event seemed a lot more trauma-inducing for our two-year-old Noe. There were lots of questions, lots of new vocabulary, lots of concern, and, yes, a few tears shed.

So, the first morning he came down the stairs after we had packed up his stuff this time around, I was prepared for the worst.

Noe looked around for a moment, then asked, “Daddy, where did all of Noe’s things go?” to which I replied, “to Cambodia,” to which he replied, “Oh. Noe’s Legos went to Cambodia?” to which I replied, “Yes.”

Noe nodded, climbed up on the couch with one of his books and didn’t say another word about his toys for the rest of the week.

Obviously, we’ve put aside a handful of select toys and books for our three weeks in Malaysia and the following month(s) until we receive our NGO visas, sign a lease on a rental in Phnom Penh, and then, and only then, receive our freight from Laos.

But for the third time in Noe’s three years, the bulk of Noe’s stuff will sit in some far off, mystical place called the “freight locker” for a few months until we see them on the flip-side.

And then, it will be like Christmas all over again.

Come to think of it, the three times we’ve done this have been right around Christmas, which has worked out very nicely, I suppose.

How long can we get away with re-gifting our kids’ own toys back to them and eliciting the same reactions that most kids reserve for new toys on Christmas morning? I don’t know, but Lori and I are quickly on our way to finding out.

And, of course, this week was full of goodbyes.

Ms. Kham (the boys’ beloved on-call nanny/sitter) was due to make an appearance the weekend before we left Vientiane, but circumstances moved her visit up.

Riley had come down with something the previous week and dutifully passed it off to Noe, as brothers often do.

So, in the middle of Noe’s last week of school, he spent three of those days at home sick with Ms. Kham taking the morning shift and Daddy taking the afternoon shift.

He was feeling much better by Wednesday evening but needed to stay home an extra day due to the 24-hour fever rule at his school (which is frustrating at times for us but really does help keep the kids healthy).

This only meant that Noe got a bunch of extra time to play with his favorite nanny-sitter before leaving Laos.

We also said goodbye to Ms. Vone (the legendary lady who, for the past three years, has rolled up on her motorbike on Wednesday morning to make our house spotless).

This was one of the hardest goodbyes as Ms. Vone’s been such a regular part of our weekly lives since we moved into our first house in October 2016.

From the day she rolled up to our house right on time with an entire ream of reference letters (written by everyone from aid workers to ambassadors that she had worked for), I knew she was the right lady for the job. She’s seen Noe grow from a wee nugget to the big boy he is today on a weekly basis, and Noe loves his Ms. Vone.

We (and our house) are incredibly fortunate to have had in her our lives. She will be missed.

On our final Friday, Lori and I had one last date night. The kids were watched by Ms. Nee who’s also been an instrumental part of our lives here, allowing Lori and me to escape the house without the kids 1-2 times a month.

Later in the night, we headed to one of our favorite watering holes in town (Earth Bar — above) for some live music and local craft beer.

While Earth Bar is only a couple years old, it embodies the essence of what we appreciate about our fair little adoptive city.

It’s a quirky mishmash of people from all over the world (with many Laotians regularly in attendance, which is really nice to have in Laos, because, we are in Laos after all), a funky mix of live music (everything from local Lao rock bands, to musicians from all over the world, including backpackers coming through).

Vientiane isn’t known for its cultural or art scene, but Earth is one of the few bohemian, artsy, laid-back, anything-goes joints in town. They also host talks on social and environmental issues.

We’ve brought Noe here several times over the years to listen to music and be part of the vibe. I can safely say it’s his favorite nighttime spot in town, and even though we really enjoyed our break from the kids this evening, I know that Noe would have really loved to rock out to this band tonight.

On our tuk-tuk home, we were joined by a furry guest. I typically prefer Skylabs and regular “tuk-tuks” as they cost the same but are larger with more powerful engines, making our journey back to the house in a fraction of the time of the tiny, squeaky Jumbos. On this particular evening, however, a Jumbo was what was available. Just as we were pulling out, the driver’s co-pilot hopped on.

We spent our final Saturday morning at one of our favorite breakfast places, Bacan Chilean Cafe. If you love Latin American food, this place is awesome. Even if you don’t, you’ll probably still love this place. And, best of all, the owners are awesome too.

If you live in Vientiane and are itching to speak Spanish (I know, too many of you out there to count), stop by and talk up these guys. Lori will certainly miss her Spanish chit chats, but I know Noe’s going to miss it too.

One last stop at Tit Kafe, Noe’s favorite coffee bar. His old man likes the place just a bit too.

Our short, yet prolific rainy season combined with the abundance of sunshine and lower temps has made for some very verdant Mekong shores downtown. In three years, I haven’t seen the bank this green and the wildflowers and shrubs this high.

We take it for granted, but it’s nice to live in a city with such an undeveloped and untamed waterfront. I have no idea how many cities with half a million people have riverfronts like this in the city center.

For all its dust and concrete, I’ll miss Vientiane’s vast unfinished areas — rugged riverfront, countless unsealed roads, and wide-open rice paddies just blocks from bustling city streets.

Walking home on our road.

Last night in Noe’s big bed.

One final Negroni on our front porch surrounded by towering banana trees.

Last day ever at Creche Xang Noi, Noe’s Lao-French nursery school here in Vientiane since September 2017 when he was 14 months old (three months older than Riley is now).

Up until today, our pack-out week had been fairly low key. But it all seemed to catch up with us one way or another on the final day.

We had to be out of our house on September 30th, a Monday. We’re now headed to Malaysia for some R&R for three weeks before returning briefly to Laos in late October, then finally making the move to Cambodia at the end of the month.

Due to the availability of nonstop flights from Vientiane to Kuala Lumpur, we weren’t able to get a flight on the Monday we moved out, but on Tuesday, which meant completing all our move-out requirements, then staying in a hotel for one night and boarding a plane the next day.

In theory, it sounded like a perfect plan that would allow us ample breathing time to finish up last-minute logistics with minimal pressure.

In reality, our last day in the house still ended up being one of the more intense in recent memory. Fortunately, Lori had the day off to help and the kids’ nursery school was paid through the month, which meant we were able to focus solely on moving out.

Yet, packing up the house and coordinating freight and luggage pickup ended up being a bit more challenging than we anticipated, with the freight company showing up later than expected, and the landlord arrived an hour earlier than expected to do a final walkthrough.

Our first overseas freighting experience in August of 2016 was time and labor-intensive and stress-inducing.

At the time, Lori’s employer used a large international freight company that required all contents be listed in excruciating detail across several pages of the manifest. Descriptions, weights, and values had to be accurate for the company to accept the parcels, but also to receive the parcels on the other end in Laos. Then, we had to haul this stuff up to Portland and store it in a family friend’s garage until our visas were processed and the company could accept the freight.

It’s also worth adding that we were racing to accomplish all of this with a hungry two-month-old and in the midst of completing all the other logistical requirements involved with a move like this.

This time around we were using DHL and had no idea how it would all pan out. We’d only been given one form to fill out and weren’t required to make any fancy labels to go on the parcels. Our weight allowance was very generous this time around, so we assumed we wouldn’t be overweight and didn’t bother weighing the individual parcels.

Pickup time came and went with no DHL dude. Our final checkout with the landlord was fast approaching and we still had all this stuff in the living room, in addition to needing to wrap up packing.

After getting lost in our neighborhood for 20 minutes, the bright yellow van finally pulled up. A wiry young man decked out entirely in yellow jumped out and started loaded our parcels. And, like that, our freight magically disappeared and that was that.

Before we could debrief about the whole process (or pause for a drink of water), our landlord and the entire logistics department from Lori’s former employer (who still held the contract on the house) descended as we were frantically packing up the last couple of rooms.

In the end, we got the freight sent off, everything packed up, and the final house inspection completed with an hour to spare before Noe and Riley’s schools closed for the day.

So, naturally, we raced over to our neighborhood Lao spa (Baramii) to see if we could squeeze one last Lao massage in before we go.

We wrapped things up at Baramii with ten minutes to spare before I sprinted off to get Noe, and Lori to get Riley, and we all met up shortly afterwards for one quick last stroll around Ban Watnak (our neighborhood) before catching a taxi downtown to our hotel.

We circled the block and made one last walk down our street.

Noe didn’t get to say goodbye to Mr. Thong, our 3-times-per-week gardener who lives next door, so we were happy to run into him on our walk.

In the beginning, we weren’t keen on hiring somebody to look after the yard on a semi-permanent basis, but in the end, Mr. Thong’s services were money well spent. In addition to being a great guy and keeping the entire property looking great (even after big storms would come through and wreak havoc), he also kept an eye on the house while we were away.

Noe loved watching Mr. Thong doing anything and everything, and he is one of the very few people that Noe would speak Lao to (he’s usually too self-conscious to speak it with strangers and didn’t like speaking Lao to us).

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Mr. Thong would arrive just after we unlocked the gate in the morning. Noe would come out to put on his shoes for school and they would have a conversation. I have no idea what they’d talk about, but it was one of the few times I got to hear Noe use his Lao. I tried to get a video of it a few times, but Noe would always protest.

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking, “Three years in Laos and all of your closest Laotian relationships are people you’ve employed?”

To which my reply is, Yes, your observation is [mostly] correct.

Honestly, that’s been the reality of the situation for me, and to a certain extent, for Lori as well. The difference with Lori is that she has a handful of Laotian coworkers she’s grown close with over the years. But outside of some sort of working relationship, no, we don’t have any close Laotian friends.

That’s not to say we haven’t tried. And that’s not to say that we didn’t make a ton of awesome friends from all walks of life here. We’ve been extremely fortunate in that respect.

Wrapping up things in Laos has reminded me how different our relationships with locals have been here over the past three years than when I lived in Belize and Mozambique, and there are a few main reasons for that.

For one, Lao culture is very insular and private. Families tend to focus inward and often don’t even interact much with people outside their family networks even on the same street in Vientiane. East African and Latin culture is far more community-oriented and extroverted. The culture in those places encourages banding together and raising up your voices as one, chatting up strangers, and opening your home. Lao culture is quite the opposite. That’s not to say that Laotians aren’t friendly. Most have been very friendly and welcoming to us. But generally, the kind gestures are fleeting formalities on the surface of things.

The big plus side to this is, as conspicuous foreigners, locals give us a lot of space and don’t treat us all that different than other Laotians on the surface. The kids get a bit of attention, but as for Lori and me, we don’t get hassled and no one really cares about our comings and goings. In East Africa, Latin America, and even other parts of Southeast Asia it’s a whole other story.

Second, language is a huge factor. Today’s Vientiane is a place where you can get by just fine with only basic notions of Lao. Many more Laotians speak serviceable English than a decade ago, and Lori’s Laotian colleagues all spoke English. Add to that the rigors and commitments of having little ones, knowing our time here is short, and that Lao isn’t spoken anywhere else on Earth but in Laos — and our motivation for learning the language was never great enough to make an honest go at it. While many more Laotians do speak English these days, most of our neighbors did not speak it conversationally, dramatically limiting our meaningful interaction with most of them.

Thirdly, having young children has greatly reduced the time and energy we have to spend on making friends, in general. The majority of the close friends we have in Laos also have young children and come from Anglophone countries. The truth is that when you’re living 8,000 miles away from family and friends, your little ones are running you ragged, your free time together is finite, and it’s bloody hot and humid, then cross-cultural experiences and language learning just doesn’t sound as attractive as it used to.

Lori and I have spent a great deal of our life doing both — no doubt making for some of the most memorable and worthwhile experiences we’ve had as individuals and as a couple.

But we were simply in another season of our lives in Laos. There will be time for breaking bread with native residents and getting lost in a new language. But this wasn’t that time.

After vacating the house, the original plan was to catch the taxi and head straight to the hotel without going back into the house. But we later thought better of it. Everyone needs closure, even three-year-olds.

We reminded Noe what was going on and talked him through, yet again, our confusing plans for the next several weeks. We let him explore the house and answered his questions, which were fewer than we had thought.

The house was exactly how we had found it on January 2nd, but much of that didn’t seem to phase Noe. The small pile of luggage heading to the hotel seemed to garner most of his attention.

That is until we made our way upstairs to his bedroom.

I think then it finally hit home. What “it” is, we’re not really sure. He finally seemed to get that something big was happening and that he wouldn’t be sleeping in his big bed tonight.

How much beyond that he’s grasping right now is anyone’s guess.

Yes, Noe. We are saying bye-bye to our house and your school, but we will be in a hotel tonight. We won’t be coming back to this house, and you won’t be returning to your school. But we’ll be in Malaysia for three weeks where we’ll get to go to the beach and play in the sand and all be together. Then, we’ll be back in Laos for mommy-work for a short time (in a hotel).

But then, we will say “Bye-bye Laos” for maybe a very long time and find a new house in Cambodia for maybe a very long time. Or maybe a short time.

But your new school will be very nice too, maybe even better. Mommy and daddy made sure of that. And you’ll make lots of new friends like you always do. They probably won’t speak Lao, but many will speak other languages you know.

There will be lots of new playgrounds to visit, boats and airplanes, streets to stroll, and construction sites to watch.

And, yes, Noe. There will even be new coffee shops to explore.

And, yes, Noe, we’ll make sure you have a big boy bed to sleep on wherever we end up. We just can’t promise you it will be as big as what you’re used to.