Sitting in a coffee shop working on my laptop in Vientiane, Laos…a gentlemen wearing a Lao T-shirt walked up to me.

“Are you visiting alone?” He asked.

Yes yes, it was my first time and first day here.

I inquired about his whereabouts, and whether he was a local. He sure seemed to be.

“My parents were born here, but fled to the states during the Vietnam war and never returned.”

He was visiting Lao, his rightful homeland, for the first time and was almost 30 years old.