As I ate breakfast overlooking the water, I looked down upon a man scooping water from his submerged canoe. He methodically emptied scoop after scoop of water, and it reminded me of a story I read when I was young about someone trying to empty the ocean one scoop at a time. I wondered why he didn’t just invert the canoe and lift it from the water, and it was then that I realized, on this island with nothing to do, he had no reason to hurry.

I once asked my dad why he was so inefficient about running his errands. He would go to one place and then come home before running another errand, come home and then run a third. If you plotted his route on a map, it would look like an asymmetrical asterisk. My errand maps, on the other hand, formed nice loops where I took the most efficient route possible to complete all of my tasks in a single trip. I questioned him about his inefficiency and he responded, “Tom, I am retired. I’ve got a lot of time to fill”.

I’ve always seen time as the most precious resource in the life because no matter how wealthy or successful you are, you can never get more of it. Watching the man empty the canoe of water, however, I began to question that assumption.

I spent several days on the island of Don Det in Laos. The whole country runs relatively slowly, but the 4000 islands of the Mekong river at the southern border near Cambodia seem to have brought time to a practical standstill.

Nothing is done efficiently, and I assume this is due to the fact that efficiency is unnecessary. Their lives are very simple. A couple hours a day they tend their tiny plots of land which produce enough food to feed the family and enough surplus to sell. Outside of that they have chores like doing laundry or cooking, but everything is done at home. No need to commute to work, go to the grocery store or the laundromat.

When they are finished their work they simply gather about talking and playing games. The lack of things to do has unfortunately led many to smoke and drink to pass the time, but still they do this among friends who live nearby instead of going out to a bar.

Eventually, even I got caught up in this simple lifestyle. My intention for the day was to get up early and go for a bike ride around the island. I didn’t make it far before I ran into friends and sat to talk with them instead. Afterwards, we rented some innnertubes and spent the remainder of the day floating down the Mekong river. I later managed to explore the island by bike, and anything I missed today, I could always do tomorrow.

I was delighted by the realization that I didn’t have to be as stingy with my time as I’d previously been. Here in Laos, while you cannot turn back time, you most certainly can slow it to a crawl.