Forty in Laos

I turned forty yesterday.

When I turned twenty, thirty seemed old and yucky. When I actually did turn thirty, it actually felt like a big deal — it was the first time in my life that I felt old.

The teenage clerks in the checkout lines starting to call me “sir” and spending long hours in a monotonous desk job certainly didn’t help matters in that respect.

Yet, somehow, ten years on, I’ve managed to emerge on the other side relatively unscathed.

Save for a few grey hairs and wrinkles. And two little ones that have a profound gift of making their old man feel like one from time to time.

I guess forty is supposed to be a big deal, but from where I stand now, it really doesn’t feel that way. In a lot of ways, I feel younger and healthier than I did at thirty, and for that I can’t complain.

Yet, I can’t help but feel just a bit of weightiness around this particular milestone given the big transition we find ourselves in at the moment — getting ready to leave Laos (our home for the past three years) and embark on a new chapter.

We never planned it that way, but there’s something very comforting and exciting about moving into a new decade of life with something of a clean slate, much in the same way I entered my thirties.

I recommend everyone try it from time to time. Turning forty is as good a time as any.

Despite turning the big 4-0 in Laos, it turned out to be one of the more low key birthdays of the last decade, which was just fine with me. Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to mark the occasion.

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The day started with being awakened by this energetic little guy, who had been diligently working away on birthday signs for daddy since sunrise.

We had breakfast at one of my favorite places: Dee Bee’s. In addition to awesome (and exotic) offerings like biscuits and gravy and green smoothie bowls, Dee Bee makes a mean Bloody Mary…quite possibly the best I’ve had anywhere. Hard to find a better way to start the day.

Riley agrees.

It’s always nice when your birthday falls on a Saturday. Makes date nights all the more fun as well.

Lori had the whole night planned out (which isn’t unusual, but she really out-did herself tonight). We started as we often do — with a traditional Lao massage — before heading downtown for drinks at Ray’s Capitol Grille rooftop bar to watch the sunset…

…or what we could see of a sunset tonight…

…before moving on to everyone’s favorite Egyptian bar in Vientiane (the only Egyptian bar in Vientiane): Easy Bar!

Then, it was on to cocktails at La Signature (above), before ending with Spanish tapas at Pimenton.

The next morning, we took a long walk around our neighborhood with the boys.

…and returned home only to watch the neighbors cut down the remaining trees from the lot next door — as good an indication as any that it’s time to be moving on.

But not before a bit of hammock time in the front yard with my boys…

Sunday evening, we took a long walk down to Le Patitoh for some local craft beers (definitely a novelty here in Laos).

…ending the day with schnitzel and a bit of Russian vodka at Privet Russian restaurant.

We got the boys back home by 8pm, and that’s when the real party began. Bedtime stories, tooth brushing, and night time songs, followed by 30 minutes of chill time out on the front stoop before Lori and I also called it a night.