Vegetarian's Day.

Arrived in Nong Khai village today. Bordertown with Laos. Nothing special around here, except for lots and lots of temples and the monks wandering between them. Nice temples tough. But I fear some faded hippies and converted New-Agers have settled in some years ago. I didn't noticed at first. Until I got at my guesthouse, located in a small pittoresque soi running to the Mekong river. The soi is filled with old wooden houses in washed out happy colors. (Mom, if you are still reading my blog, now is a good time to quit) I was feeling quite good mooded, walking towards the MutMee Guesthouse, recommended by my far from Lonely Planet. All this would soon change. I was walking into a Sing-and-Heal-Trap. Or any-kind-of-New-Age-course-you-can-think-of-Trap. On my left and right posters with Chakra's, invitations to Reiki- and Yoga classes and chymes and bells tingling from doors were warning me to turn right back and forget I ever was here. But no, I was dazed from the busdrive, and kept going until I hit reception. Very well organized, as I would soon acknowledge. All kinds of flyers directing you to the right place or explaining step by step what to do and not to do were neatly stapled to the wooden wall next to the reception area. There was a basket with keys that opened locks from rental bikes, telling you not to yell if your bike should brake down in the middle of nowhere, and such and so. I noticed a sign under the counter while handing over my passport to one of the foreign managers that informed any crooks not to bring ANY lady from town into the rooms. Doing so would lead to exile. I guess tar and feathers were waiting in some corner of a tantra-classroom. The manager did his routine, explaining me how to use the logbook of my room to get the cooks cooking, the bed changed and stuff like that. Very keen, he was, making sure I would know he invented the whole system. I guess if he wouldn't be vegetarian he could have worked for McDonald's, making up rules and regulations for staff, breaking up the difficult process of making a hamburger into small, easy to handle actions that pimpled teenagers could perform. Well, he was friendly, nothing I can say about that. But I got a bad feeling about the whole place. It reminded me of some of the "spiritual meeting centers" back home, of which I saw one too many (sorry Mom, I warned you though), be it only in black on white (or yellow or orange, these were popular replacements for white)flyers, mind you. Ahem. Hey, stop mockin' me, I needed that colon cleansing. I'm just not sure yet why it was being performed during a candle procession with low-bass humming. I started to look around and I noticed the same people you would notice in any New-Age centre. Skinny white men with cropped haircuts and that typical I-may-know-something-but-I-can't-put-it-into-words-Smile, your occasional reformed but certainly not less fierce Bra-Burner, who wouldn't be smiling if they even got a fraction of my yesternights vibes channeled trough, and yes, there he was, sitting in a motored wheelchair a la Hawkins, the required minority representer. He looked like the only sensible guy around, but his conversational skills were probably limited due to the steering-straw in his mouth. He would turn out to be a real rebel actually, although I'm not sure if he knew the ruckus he caused behind him. You see, as he was trying to make his way back to his room, he had to get from the gravel ledge that looked out onto the Mekong onto the cemented pathway that connected the restaurant with the kitchen with the rooms with the toilets and so on. In doing so, he needed a little help, which one of the friendly Thai staff members took upon him. It was quite a struggle, and I wondered how he ever arranged to get to this remote corner of the country anyway. There would probably be a book about this adventure in the local bookshop, under the "everyday-heroes" section, or next to the story about the guy that had to drink his urine and chew ice on his way to the north-pole because his galvanic hi-tech sledge-ipod-tent-kitchen-radiotransistor-foot-warmer got lost in a crack of the ice. Anyway, I'm wandering off again. (something that can't be said of the guy in the... Hell, he was supposed to be the only one I kinda liked there, better get on with my story.)After the battle with the ledge, he buzzed off. (No, really, that's what they call it. It does! Buzz, that is.) Immediately after he was out of sight, the "gay" (gay as in "sort of unworriedly happy") manager, the organizer that is, jumped from behind a breakfast table and started looking for any possible damage. No, not for scratches on the buzzed-off one-man-tuk-tuk, he was checking out the curbside. While meticously scanning the curbside, he nonchalantly wiped the gravel smooth with his feet, wiping out the chaotic tracks his rebellious guest had left behind. (I wonder if he would help him over the curb on the outer gate if the rebel got expelled in the event of bringing home a fancy townslady.) He was still at it when I finished my otherwise delicious breakfast. I decided it was time to scramble, but with my laundry being hauled off to some sweatshop and my room already being paid for I had to come back sooner or later. I was provided with a MutMee Map of the town, and to my horror it was just as organized as the check-inn. It said: "Mut Mee, a Place to Stay, a Community, a Place to Eat, www.mutmee.net" Anyway, the horror only expanded as I was informed that due to some ASEAN summit in Vientiane, the border was closed for all cheapos, including me, trying to enter with a non-business visa. Until the first of bloody december! I just knew it was bad news, all this reformed hippies and the like. Trouble, that's what they are. I was gonna buy me a redneck-bumpersticker and stick it on my bumper, or any bumper, lacking personal transportation. (I knew just the kinda guy for it) Somehow I get really bothered thinking of all these Mantra-humming beings, although they are rather harmless if you stay out of their aural range. I wondered why, part of it is because I cannot rid myself of the feeling that they are little hypocrites, pretending they feel good because that's not important, so you better feel good! Or else! (yes, colon and cleansing are one of the possible answers) They walk around in Asia, thinking they know it all, only because they have been tutored in some deranged hybrid mix of occult-eastern knowledge combined with hippie-philosophy and baby-oil. Me, I know shit, I think I know maybe about 20 percent of what is happening around me, and I feel happy being lost in the other 80 percent. And I am not alone at that one. I don't know which ones I would survive longest on an island, these spiritual veggies, die-hard Money-can-buy-me-anything-but-decent-manners Farang or a troup of unleashed Israelis that just ended their tour of duty on some dusty outpost. I mean, anytime I'd prefer old Fawlty above smiling Julian, he would simply just whip that good boy out of his wheelchair and into the hospital for being so slow and scratching paint off onto his curbside. Only by using the sheer power of verbal suggestion, mind you. No, this guy waits until he thinks nobody spots him, then goes over and tries not to think bad thoughts too loud to disrupt the neighbouring Vipassana-session. But hard enough to give them the shivers. My Buddha, I'm ranting. Time to get some temples behind my jaws. They say it all started here. F*$k if I know. I just like these happy colors on their rooftops. See ya all. (Bye Mom, kiss for you...)