As the alarm pierced my deepest slumber I sprang out of bed, switched on the light and headed for the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, dressed hurriedly, went downstairs and slipped into my walking shoes.
Less than five minutes since getting up, I was heading for the square in front of Wat That Luang Temple, Laos’ iconic temple.
In an attempt to keep fit I had resolved to speed walk for an hour every morning. Making resolutions was the easy part. Getting out of bed, instead of the lifetime habit of lying in as long as possible, was another thing all together. Then somebody lent me Robin Sharma’s ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’. In a chapter on inculcating good habits, he had written about the power of 21: do something 21 times and it slowly became a habit.
Thus, for the last week, as soon as the alarm went off at 5.00 am, I forced myself out of bed. Any urges to turn over and grab another 15 minutes of sleep were banished in the count down to 21.
As I walked down the street, I noticed that it was darker than usual. And the streets were emptier. In fact there wasn’t a single jogger to be seen, not even the usual traders on their way to or from the early morning wholesale markets.
I reached That Luang Square and started warming up. Two policemen, rifles strapped over their shoulders, were sharing a cigarette. They looked in my direction, probably recognised me, and then went back to making sure that the other didn’t grab more than his share of puffs.
I picked up pace revelling in the fact that I had the whole place to myself. I smiled at the thought that I had got here before all the other insomniacs, or at least those who read self-help books that exhorted them to get out of bed before the roosters.
A couple of drunks, or addicts, were snoring at the base of a lamp post as I strode silently past them. One round, or approximately 1.7 km, later as I passed them again, I realised that the street lights were usually off when I started my daily walk. Then it hit me.
I wanted to watch my favourite football team play a Champions League match. To catch the live telecast of the quarter-finals coming from a continent away, from the usual 5.00 am, I had reset the alarm for 1.45 am.
No wonder, the streets were darker and emptier than usual. I cursed myself as I trotted back home wondering how much of the match I had missed. The dogs in the neighbourhood started the bow wow symphony and as I opened my gate I controlled the urge to throw a stone at the mongrels that punctuated my sleep night after night with their incessant barking.
I yanked off my trainers and raced to the TV. Alleluia, the match hadn’t started! I hurriedly went to the kitchen switched on the coffee machine and came back with some crackers and peanut butter.
The match still hadn’t begun and so I checked the other channels. Sometimes, the cable operator changed channels without any prior notice. No, the match hadn’t started. I looked at the clock and it showed 2.28 am, almost half time. This couldn’t be, such delays never happened.
I switched to the BBC to see if the match had been cancelled due to the weather. The sports news showed the team manager in a pre-match interview. Pre-match interview? Then I realised that I had got the date wrong.
To add injury to insult, twenty-four hours later my team were knocked out of the competition.
© Percy Aaron
Wow Laos 