After the rain

On the streets remnants of last night's downpour, puddles lingering in small depressions, the scent of rain adrift upon the morning air.The early light upon the Mekong dulled by clouds, the quiet shattered by cocks crowing, the sound of engines below, trucks spilling their cargoes of rocks along the bank.

In gaps along the rocky foreshore boats are tethered, small pools where still water reflects the sky, grasses and shrubs claiming the dry river bed. There's a chill in the wind this morning, a sense of further rain to come as swirls of dark, heavy clouds gather above the hills, moving west.

Upon the other side a herd of buffalo gathered in a circle, three small black dogs playing upon the sand, more boats in pools beyond the grip of the riverflow, upstream the shape of a single boat beached upon the white sparkling sand, 60m back from the water, a symbol of a kind, the life which depended upon the river, the communities built up along it left high and dry by the rise of the dams, the grasp for hydro electric power; just as when China flooded the three gorges it seems that culture and community are acceptable sacrifices for the machinations of government.

And I wish I'd been here earlier, when the river highways existed, when this last trip and a most of the others would have been by boat. Slower for sure but who'd choose to rush through this country? You can fly between regional airports, carve hours into minutes but then I think of brief views through bus windows, unexpected detours and brief meetings, the journey itself altering each destination found.

But life intrudes, and if we harbour regrets we cash still, only, harvest the time we have, aware of that change which has fallen between old tales and the sound of our footsteps as we pass through our portion of allotted time within these mystical and fading realms.

And today offers quiet, a pause to sit and reflect as the boxer manifests upon the horizon and, once again, departure beckons.

Finding myself sitting above the river, the late afternoon reflecting from the slow glass of its surface, ripples bubbling, broken by the wake of small boats ferrying shapes across in gentle curves. And the moon above, waxing pale in the darkening blue of the sky. And then night fallen, sitting upon a balcony, a last meal, already packed but aware that I'm unprepared for departure, caught by the songs of the mountains and rivers, reluctant to lift my rucksack again. But time moves on and soon these places need resume, once again, to memory. Yet in this moment stationary time weaves a cloak of bright stars across the darkened land, the sound of engines, dogs barking, karaoke, combining to sing the journey's end, but they're illusory, lost in the surrounding night which has gathered upon the stage.