By JANET BRODIE
When my husband and I realized that our 20-something sons, Jedediah and Nathaniel, would not be with us at Christmas, the only solution was to join their exploration of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. They are backpackers who have roamed the wilds of the world, happiest living as nomads; we, although hikers and car campers, are middle-aged Palisadians who like our comforts. As in any family with firm opinions, there was much to negotiate. ”From the beginning, each generation had its not-so-hidden agenda. We parents wanted to provide the four ‘kids’ (our sons and their girlfriends) with some luxury in the middle of their months of backpacking. (Both sons pride themselves on traveling cheaply; for months they had averaged about $12 a day.) The kids’ agenda was to re-introduce some adventure into our lives and to give us a taste of the ‘real’ world. Throughout the trip these two conflicting agendas engendered a quiet, good-natured rivalry. ”We parents had our small triumphs. We did not have to spend the entire three weeks in the jungle searching for tigers, but managed to include towns, art and history in our adventures. We stayed in hotels costing $12 a night rather than $2 youth hostels. It did not ruin our moral fiber. But in all truth, the victory in this friendly rivalry went to the young. What we saw, tasted and experienced in the company of the adventurous foursome gave us the most extraordinary trip of our lives. Seeing the world through fresh eyes, we learned from them. ”It started at a sheer limestone cliff at Rai Leh beach in southern Thailand (a mecca for rock climbers). One by one, the four strapped on climbing gear and muscled their way up from finger-hold to toe-hold, belayed from below. I fear heights, especially when my sons are on them. But, to everyone’s amazement, we parents agreed that it looked like fun. The kids made rappelling down a 300-foot cliff look like ballet. ”Not only were my fears of heights mitigated, but, of all things, I found myself riding a motorbike. When we realized that the only way to get to a particularly remote national park was for all of us to rent motorbikes, that’s what we all did. With a few quick lessons about brakes and curves, the Brodie Bunch provided much hilarity for the local Thais as we drove’five in single file, all oversized on our small bikes’through the countryside (me, quietly humming Christmas carols to calm my nerves). We passed sights I would never have noticed otherwise, including mats of natural rubber drying in the sun and ponds of pink lotuses. ”For longer trips we hired tuk-tuks (a cross between a motorcycle and a rickshaw). One such trip became the highlight of the entire three weeks for me. Leaving the hotel near Angkor Wat, Cambodia, before dawn, we rode 40 minutes by tuk-tuk to catch a boat downriver to Phnom Penh. The road, impossibly rutted, forced the driver to a pace so slow that in the dawning light we saw clearly into the homes of the Khmer villagers and into the boats of families in the floating village. I saw villagers light charcoal braziers for the morning meal, an old woman kneeling on a mat in front of a single burning candle, young women sweeping front yards with homemade palm-frond brooms. Roosters crowed, dogs rolled in the dirt, naked children watched the sunrise from doorways. We could have been in a time warp as a village stirred awake in an earlier century. As a historian, nothing could have touched me more deeply. ”Our final (and happy) recognition that the kids had much to teach us came after a five-hour bus ride (shared with locals and their chickens and rowdy Australians passing around bottles of beer) through Laos and some of the most beautiful and primitive country we have ever seen. We drove through mountainous jungle with bamboo villages appearing every two or three kilometers. The huts were made the same way they had been for centuries (except for the few television antennas sprouting above the thatched roofs). Finally we emerged in Vang Viang, a town in a valley so dazzling that it reminded us of Yosemite, except that the cliffs were limestone instead of granite, and covered with jungle instead of pine forest. ”We arrived in mid-afternoon and we were starving. In this, as in so much else, the kids took the lead, walking past restaurant after restaurant until somehow instinctively they located the central market. We entered the covered section where the light was shaded and the heat and humidity intensified. Finally, in the heart of heat and darkness, we found the food vendors. We picked one at random, sat down on rickety chairs around a makeshift table next to a cauldron of some type of simmering broth and a slab of raw meat, away from which a woman brushed away flies. She placed slices of the raw meat in bowls, added chopped green vegetables and the boiling broth and served us. Our kids were right: it was the best food we ate. (Janet Farrell Brodie, a history professor at Claremont Graduate University, and her husband Bruce, a clinical psychologist who works with adolescents, have lived in Pacific Palisades since 1981 in the house Bruce’s parents built in 1954, where he was raised. Their sons attended Marquez, Paul Revere and Palisades High. Jedediah is currently a doctoral student in biology at the University of Montana, spending four months a year on research in the Thai jungle. Nathaniel will enter the Peace Corps in September.)
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