The Cutest Little Thing

One of the tactical errors I made on this trip was bringing along sports bras that were already on their last legs. They're really one of those things that don't get better with age, and all the scrubbings in the sink and hot, sweaty, bumpy bus rides have just about finished them off. Having never shopped for undergarments in a foreign country before, despite seeing them hanging at nearly every roadside store and stall, I was a little puzzled as to how to go about obtaining one. Cleavage is one area in which this wanderer is less fun-sized than super-sized, especially in a land of small, slightly built people.

The clothes market in Sam Neua, eastern Laos, stretches on for stall after covered stall, featuring all variety of sinh (the beautiful embroidered tube skirt most Lao women wear), fashionable jeans, and neon colored shirts. And, of course, underwear. I stopped at one place and the matronly woman grabbed down a whole pile of frilly bras to lay out before me. Neither one of us could figure out what kind of size I needed. In a moment of inspiration I dashed off down the aisle to the stalls where women were embroidering brightly colored Hmong costumes and proceeded to confuse them first with my charades, and then with my drawings of a tape measure. They looked at each other, faces asking "Does she want a belt? A jacket? What is this crazy falang doing?"

Finally I spotted a measuring tape hanging on a nail, and amused the women to no end as I wrapped it around my chest and jotted down the relevant numbers. I returned triumphantly to the first woman, measurements in hand, and we proceeded to sort through the pile until we found the closest approximation she had. After some bartering with the help of a calculator, I am now the proud owner of the pinkest article of clothing I have ever come across, much less owned: a high quality lacy Lao brassiere for all of $2. We'll see how the delicate little thing puts up with life on the road; you may be reading a replay of all this in a couple weeks.