By Priyan R Naik
At seventy, travel becomes less about distance and more about defiance. You travel not to tick destinations off a list, but to remind yourself (and everyone else) that you still can. Yet the world often has other ideas. The elderly traveller is treated as an endangered species, too slow for airport queues, too fragile for bumpy roads, too confused for online forms.
When I announced that I was going to Laos, my son sighed, “Why there? You’ll never survive the border crossing.” My wife offered unsolicited wisdom about the “lack of good hospitals.” But wanderlust doesn’t obey reason. I had read enough about the serene capital Vientiane, the meditative charm of Luang Prabang, and the elephants of Sayaboury to know that my time would be well spent there.
The border odyssey started off with the ‘Friendship Bridge’ that connects Thailand to Laos. At the Nong Khai–Vientiane border, the visa-on-arrival process was an obstacle course in patience, long queues and hard copies of pre-filled on-line forms. Younger travellers darted through, eyes glued to their phones, filling online forms in seconds. While I rummaged for my reading glasses, borrowed a pen and stood in the wrong queue twice! There were no shaded benches, no signs, and certainly no smiles. Thai officers were hardly polite, their tones sharp enough to cut the air. But when I finally crossed into Laos, I felt absurdly triumphant. It wasn’t just a crossing, it was a victory of will over bureaucracy.
Vientiane felt like a balm after the border’s noise. The city is not in a hurry to impress; it ambles, much like its visitors should. My riverside guesthouse overlooked a string of cafes and temples. In the morning, monks in saffron robes walked barefoot past my door collecting alms.
At That Luang Stupa, the country’s most sacred monument, I climbed slowly, but there was no hurry. Locals paused to help me with my camera while two young students insisted on buying me coconut water. Vientiane’s charm is not spectacular, but steady as it welcomes you with quiet dignity, not glitter.
A short flight (and a long wrestle with airline apps) brought me to Luang Prabang, a place that looks as though it has stepped out of a sepia postcard. Here time seems to slow down. Age, however, adds texture to travel. The cobblestones were uneven, the temple steps steep, my knees uncooperative. Yet when I reached Mount Phousi at sunset after slowly and painfully climbing over 300 steps and looked down at the panoramic sunset views of the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Khan rivers, I knew why this town was a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The road to Sayaboury, however, is not for the faint-hearted. The journey twisted through mountains, awful roads full of pot-holes, but the reward awaited at the Phoudthasay English Learning Center, where I had offered to teach English to enthusiastic Laotian kids. The elephant conservation center was a bonus. Watching elephants bathe in the lake, I felt a strange kinship. The elephants too, moved slowly and purposefully, their wisdom unhurried.
Undoubtedly, travel systems are for the young, that was pretty clear. From digital visa forms to hurried immigration desks, everything assumes speed and strength. Yet Laos, in its essence, redeems the trouble. It reminded me that slowness has its own grace, that patience and curiosity are not diminished by age.
So perhaps it isn’t that people stop senior citizens from traveling, it’s that they forget we still wish to. All we need are simpler forms, shady trees and a little kindness at the counter. I had crossed the Friendship Bridge on trembling knees, but returned with something concrete, the firm conviction that wanderlust, like wisdom, only deepens with time.
