And now I've made it to the last destination of my trip, Vang Vieng, Laos. I'm staying on an organic mulberry farm. It looks like in the evenings I'll be helping to teach English classes and during the day I can either hang out in the town or I could help out on the farm. I'll probably do a bit of both. Hot and humid here too even though I'm at a higher elevation. It's really beautiful here surrounded by green, green mountains and the Mekong River is running right past the farm.
The town is a bit of a tourist hang out, many, many girls walking around town in bikinis like they were in Panama City or something. I'm becoming an old, modest fuddy-duddy; I just want to yell at them all to put some clothes on! But the farm is about 4 km outside of town and feels very isolated and very Laotian. I arrived around 5 last night and then after a quick shower I immediately went off to the first class of the night. It was full of young children, and we all know how much I love teaching young children. But it was actually fun and then the following class was full of teenagers, much more my speed and the class seemed to fly by.
I walked from one class to the other with one of the Laotian teachers. As we walked by little "restaurants" - open air huts with tables really - I was asking what each served. The first was a noodle soup place, a meal I recognize and love. The second had grills set up and I asked what they made. "Dog," she replied. I thought maybe I misunderstood and she'd really said duck, but no, upon reconfirming it was a dog restaurant. I've tried many, many meats in my life ostrich, deer, elk, reindeer, horse, eel, alligator, raw beef, raw oysters, all without blinking an eye. But confronted with the option to eat dog, this might actually be one restaurant I pass on.
5 comments:
I say eat the dog. It may be your only chance, and after all it's just another kind of animal. I know thoughts of Lassie and whatever pet you might have grown up with are probably influencing the decision but when in Laos... Actually, now that I think about it, if someone asked me to eat cat I might have more difficulty since I've always had more attachment to those. I wonder...
Don't listen to Nate ! You don't NEED to eat it, so don't. Just like you don't NEED to eat puffer fish, or sea turtles, or humpback whale, or black mamba snakes. You don't have to so why torture yourself ?
Good call.
Glad you are having a smashing time. Don't let all those Thai chasing men get you down. They are just following their heart, just like you ! :-)
Nacho thanks you for passing up his brethren. :)
I'm with Nate. If you're gonna eat meat, don't discriminate.
It's a quandary all right. I vote: yes, eat the dog. Once. Hopefully you won't enjoy it and won't start to get dog cravings.
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