Is there such a thing as a universal language that connects us all?

Something of the most memorable, but at the same time something that can hardly be re-narrated, are the conversations with the locals, rarely speaking a reasonably good and understandable English.

The conversation with the owner of a restaurant in Chiang Khong called Jam ("Jams Restaurant", about as weird as "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie) are a shining example of the wonderful intricacy of language and the difficulties of human communication and how it is still possible to create mutual understanding.

Jam's Restaurant

Madam Jam
Madame Jam, how she lives and lives

Jam is a plump, infinitely gracious woman with an everlasting smile on her face. We get on right away. While I'm waiting for the bus to Chiang Mai, I feel a little hungry because the breakfast in the hotel was anything but enjoyable.

Jam wants to talk to me about Fried Rice ("Fried Ri" means Rice, the Asians can't pronounce it in the end), but this is definitely not my cup of tea in the morning. We finally agree on a banana pancake served by Jam with dignity and pride.

In the background a young man is working in the kitchen. Every few moments Jam throws him a few words in a hard command tone, which he answers with an apathetic shrug of the shoulder. He comes from Laos, but Jam is obviously not very enthusiastic about him ("very slow").

Neither does she think much of the manager of my hotel, who, according to Jam, used to be with the police, but was also useless there ("he no good"). I must agree with her, because yesterday evening, after my speedboat adventure, he promised to pick me up in the village after dinner, which he forgot and I was dependent on the kind help of two young ladies who brought me back to the hotel late in the evening.

But we talk splendidly, our laughter even makes the people on the street stop and give us a questioning look.

The bus, however, is long overdue, but that doesn't bother me, the wonderful conversations with Jam make the wait not only bearable, but a real experience.

But at some point the bus turns up and we say goodbye with a lot of melancholy ...

How quickly two strangers learn to understand each other.

Back in Chiang Mai

The bus ride to Chiang Mai is thoughtful, almost melancholic, because one thing is painfully clear: my incomparable journey is coming to an end. The bus stops at the usual places, which seem familiar to me, you get out, feed yourself with more or less pleasure and appetite, then we continue, the humming engine as accompanying orchestra.

It is afternoon when we reach Chiang Mai, I look for my hotel, leave my luggage in the huge room and make my way to the old town where an old girlfriend is waiting for me. Passing temples that are new to me and those that I know in the meantime, I walk slowly through the narrow streets, leaving the noise of the broad streets behind me.

And as I walk along, the last few weeks become an inextricable series of experiences and insights in my head, and I am aware that they will disappear without any resistance in the darkness of oblivion. Just like so much else.

Some will remain – the train journey to the north, the Ghostrider adventure at night in Hsipaw, the trek to Inle Lake, the balloon festival in Taunggyi ... Other things - that's how our brain, our memory works - will disappear like the rain on the windscreen wiped away to make room for something new.

 

Temple in Chiang Mai temple ruin

Temples and Buddhas Eternal Buddha

Lucky

The three young men, all around twenty years old, crash with their motorbike only millimetres away from us and hit the hard asphalt with a triple scream.

Sometimes only a few lousy millimetres decide about the continuation of the walk or a longer stay in the hospital. The three guys (one moans horribly and stays on the ground, but we make sure that not too much has happened) have been lucky enough to avoid worse. Whether they deserve it or not is an open question.

We're about to cross a pedestrian crossing. The three accident victims, idiots like many and everywhere at this age, were probably travelling too fast.

Travel virus

So we've been lucky again, as we've been many times in our lives.

When it comes to luck, to having survived risks and dangers, memories inevitably emerge, especially of our common past, the beginning of all journeys, the Big Bang.

Back then, when the genie escaped from the bottle, the disease called travel fever, caused by a virus you never get rid of.

The hippie trail

It's about that unforgettable trip to India and Nepal.

Along the legendary Hippie Trail.

Through the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal.

Unforgettable the countless problems with our old, rundown VW bus.

The crossing of the Afghan desert, which was already dangerous at that time.

The annoying deadly traffic in India.

The crossing of dangerous passes in Nepal.

The amazement in front of the Taj Mahal.

Or in front of the huge Buddha statues in Bamiyan.

And and and …

Somewhere in the middle of the Afghan desert
Somewhere in the middle of the Afghan desert

All of this is still around somewhere, buried in the longterm memory, but when the right trigger is pressed, the movie starts. And everything reappears.

Then everything comes to the surface again, including sounds, colours, smells, voices, noise and the roar of the 1200 cc boxer engine, which brought us despite all the obstacles and over 2 tons of weight over the highest passes, through the hottest deserts to Nepal and back home again.

This little miracle of technology, for which I still have the highest respect to this day.

Taj Mahal - few tourists at that time
Taj Mahal - not yet with millions of tourists back then

 

Bamyan Buddja statues - now completely destroyed
The legendary Buddha statues in Bamiyan - still existing then, since destroyed by the Taliban

 

Early in the morning in Varanai

After all, it is clear that with today's highly sophisticated electronic gadgets built into every car, any breakdown somewhere at the ass of the world in India would be a fatal disaster.

Forty years ago every reasonably talented Indian could repair even the worst damage with hammer and saw and welding torch, but today this would be an impossible task ...

The naivety has been lost

But we are aware that a few important things which were there at that time, would be missing.

Courage, Determination, but above all in a huge portion of naivety.

Because we were completely naïve, we did not see any danger, we only had the vision in mind, somehow, someday to get to India.

From today's point of view, the fact that we succeeded, step by step, from one problem to the next, is a miracle, a miracle that without exaggeration can be regarded as a very special climax of our lives and will never be repeated.

But now we are here, in the present-day, grown old, perhaps, if we are lucky, we have stayed young ...

But eventually this journey will be the subject of a narrative of its own.

Sometime. For example here.

 

P.S. Matching Song:  Scott McKenzie - San Francisco

And here the journey continues ...

 

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