My trip to Houaxay (Houaisai, Houeisay) was a haste trip. It was a one day trip that Sue and I took to Laos. It was quite surreal to be there. No words can describe my thoughts as we crossed the Mekong from Chiang Kong to Houaisai. I looked up and down the river trying to figure out which way we escaped Laos that night. I looked at Chiang Kong's side to see where my aunt's house would've been. It was there that we stayed once we crossed the river. Looking at Laos, I can see a temple upon the hill.

I remembered vaguely as a child, that I would sit upon our wooden fence to see the Mekong River dividing Laos and Thailand and can get a glimpse of a cargo boat floating along the river. When I hear the sound of a motor bike, I would run down the hill to sit upon the dirt paved steps before the dirt road to have a sniff of the gas being burned through the motor bike's exhaust pipe. The night that we escaped, I remembered the hill on our left side as we were walking towards the Mekong River in the dark. We were questioned by one of the soldiers that spotted us. We lied and said that our relative is ill and we are visiting our relative in the country side. I also remembered walking home from the movie theatre. How my older sister would yell at me for not wanting to walk home because I was sleepy after our night at the cinema. All I remembered was that of a four year old child. The landscape of baan Bokeo has changed over the years/

As our driver took us through baan Bokeo, I looked for these things...the hill upon which our house would've stood, the dirt steps upon which I would wait for the motorbike to pass by, the house with bamboo walls across the street, the school, the place where the cinema would've been...I think I saw them all...

I wish I can share my experience with mom...to let her know that I went to the place in which I was born to be closer to her and to find myself.