Leave Taking, Day 5

Day 5:  The Scruffy, disheveled "ban" dogs.

The street dogs in Laos are just hot enough that they aren't aggressive.  Maybe that's a thing.  I like to call them the neighborhood dogs, or "ban" dogs, because they seem to belong to villages, rather than individuals.  They are barely conscious, most of the time, and can be found in rather bizarre poses like sprawled in the middle of the road, lying on the top of dinner tables, or in piles of mud...Every once in a while, my favorite thing happens, which is when I spot a dog riding either in the basket of a motorbike, or riding behind their owner and sitting like a person.

My favorite dogs are the especially next-level disheveled ones, and I have a name for them too.  They look and act exactly like hangovers, so they are the "benders."  They emerge, confused, and dazed in the late-morning, wandering around with fur in their regretful eyes and covered in leaves and mud and beer lao.  They are the accidental, and forgotten heroes here.


Needless to say, Beppo would wet his pants within minutes of interacting with any Lao dog.  What a pampered dork.


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