Luang Prabang-Vang Vien-Vientiane

Dear Reader,

[Apologies for poor English in this post; it was done hurriedly.]

Damn it's been a while. The more I don't update this thing the harder it is to catch up!

First off: Laos (pronounced: Lao, with no 's')

The Begining:
A two day boat ride stands between Chiang Khong and Luang Prabang. You can make it in 6 hours via speed boat but deaths are extremely common in this form of travel, and it's not recommended.

I never sleep well before a long travel. That coupled with getting an entry visa into Laos and the uncertainty in that whole process made the night fairly restless. At 6AM, I woke with roosters crowing and the sun almost about to peep up over the Mekong river. As I readied myself, the sun became more and more brilliant, with so much haze and humidity in the air that you could look directly at it, about the size of a quarter if you held it out extended at arms length, glowing a mixture of orange and dark red. The ambient air temperature was being coaxed from it's chilly state into the what would become a pleasantly hot day.

Departure:
It was my intention to arrive at the boarder/river crossing at 8AM sharp, which is exactly when the Thai authorities open customs and sort out departure cards. The line was already long when I arrived but as the minutes went by, became exponentially longer. I was glad I arrived when I did. Two Thai/Laotian guys cut in line and a burly bearded man shouted at them in some caustic Slavic language, pointing to the back of the line ("Yeeshnya! B'tresh kanya'k'danske vor sladge le uynya!" They obediently obeyed his command.

It was after getting a couple stamps that I fell in love with the sunrise on the river; long-tail boats moving across the river pushing goods to and from Thailand and Laos, tropical birds singing, fishermen venturing out, and a symphony of insect sounds that make me loathe that my audio recorder was in pieces at the time of departure from Seattle.

We arrived onto Laotian soil, and at once I noticed the communist-esque uniforms of the customs officials. It took what felt like forever to get all the forms filled out, then there was the standing in line waiting to give them $35 dollars, which may or may not be accepted by the stern looking yet extremely languid officials. There was then a gauntlet of tour sales people, tuk tuk drivers and scammers to wade through as I made my way to the docks. One thing I noticed was a prominent increase in bread products in Laos, no doubt a relic of the French influence that once dominated this area. Everywhere in SEA there are chickens and their chicks running around, free. Really fun to see.

Journeys Start:
As I had planned to be at the boarder, at the visa checkpoint, at the boat ASAP, in the quickest time possible, I soon found all this "early" to be completely unnecessary; no sooner had I taken my seat on the slow boat it was hurry-up-and-wait time... for about 3 hours. A scheduled 10:30AM departure exited the docks around 1PM. The boat, however, is a big party. Beer and snacks are provided, and the beers (at around $1.25 for a large) come in handy for getting to know your neighbors. Towards the end I ended up talking with a group of fellow travelers who I would end up with for sometime, and with whom I am still with as I write this.

An Informal, International Tribe:
Cecilia, Carolina, Fredrika, Yulva and Josephine=the Swedes. Henrik and Nicholas=Ze Germans. Dom=The Brit. This is "The 9", the people on the boat with whom I spent the most time. Frist day was nice, a big party and lots of socalizing; the Mekong floating by, showing a landscape I did not expect; tall hills on all sides at all times with thick, lush jungle, and basalt rock formations that puntuate the river in unusual ways and structures that reminded me of the Southewest USA. There is a 1 night stop on this journey, in Pak Bang, a small town dedicated to hosting the travelers along this route. Again, an onslaught of desperate guesthouse sellers and a mad dash to get your bags (which are thrown in the back of the boat in a variable mountain of travlers gear). It was in this confusion, most likely via pick pocket that my decoy wallet was stolen.

A note on decoy wallets:
For a traveler, a decoy wallet is a great idea: put old credit cards in it, fake credit cards, useless money, etc and put it in the most easily accessable, most obvious place for a wallet. Nothing else of mine (knock on wood) has disappeared yet (waiting till Vietnam for major ripoffs to happen), so a successful decoy wallet being taken is just what the doctor ordered. After it gets knicked, get another one from a market and keep better track of your shit.

Journey (contd.):
A dirty guesthouse later and morning came, a foggy, misty morning seen through palms and the Mekong winding its way endlessly down. I wised up and made it on the boat as the previous day, but this time headed straight for the back of the boat, which, unbeknowst to other suckers sitting in the makeshift car-seats in front, is tantimount to the VIP area of the boat; nice wooden benches and even a kitchen, should the urge and ingredients strike you. It was here the Swedes, Ze Germans and le Brit joined for what would become a fantastic time down the river, the 9hour last leg of the trip. At a certain point I realized there was a box of poultry russling about, and from the sounds of it, multiple baby chickens involved in some kind of birdy altercation. There were in fact, 8 chickens in there, ranging from 2 weeks to 4 weeks old, and one large female Muscovy duck. Some of the chickens legs had been bound to one another with some crude plastic twine, hence the fussing and stressing out on their part. I cut them loose, cooled them all off and gave them water. One by one we passed them around (except the duck of course, poor foolish thing) and showered them with love, giving them hope that at least one day in their sad little lives will be worth hoping for. One thing that strikes me about everywhere in SEA is the almost complete disregard and lack of respect for animals, wildlife and the general natural environment. It is astounding how humanity in general exhibits this trait almost anywhere you go. I'm sure there would have been some chicken deaths had we not interfeared.

Luang Prabang:
To a Westerner, maybe a hard sell has an air of desperation to it. Are these people desperate? If so, they are extremely desperate; as we got off the boat another viscious onslaught of "Tuk-tuk" and "guesthouse" greeted us as we pushed our way through and made it up the ramp to the street. This is always the most uncertain, awkward time for me, arriving at a new place and half of me wants to get to a cheap, clean, decept place and the other half just wants to get to ANY place and sort out the details later. We did land at a decent guesthouse, with clean rooms and private bathrooms. Sok Dee guesthouse (which I recommend) would serve as our base of operatinos for the duration in Luangprabang.

An Appetite:
One of the best things about traveling with 5 Swedish girls (and what seems to be absent in so many young American women) is the unabashed, voracious appetite for food that comes with a high, Northern European metabolism; they are constantly hungry, consuming everything they brought with them and as I struggled to finish whatever I had brought, I plyed them with my supply of fruit and nuts and other random weird Asian snacks that could be found in a Thai 7-11. No sooner had we finished breakfast did I hear "when is lunch...?". This was a good one "(at breakfast) I woke up last night soooo hungry! I've been waiting for this moment for so long...!" And bare in mind, these girls are thin as can be; I bet most North Americans would kill for a an overactive thyroid like that!

Luangprabang (contd.):
This town has been a highlight of my trip, and I really hope you can go there one day. The entire town is a UNESCO world heritage site, and thusly, it is devious of the posters and adverts that you might see in another town; everything is in a uniform script and in the same font on brown, wooden signs. It is a crumbling, beautiful, post-Franco-Colonial town, with beautiful wats, markets and architecture. As well as a halfway decent selection of food. Beerlao is the national drink of choice and consumed almost everywhere; it's wheaty and a bit weak but part of the national identity of the Laotian people.

The historic part of the city in situated on a small peninsula where the Nam Khan river meets the Mekong. The temperatures are cool in the morning, wonderfuly warm in midday and warm/cool in the evening; simply perfect! It's what the human body was meant to live at. Mine at least, anyway. You can sip good coffee and watch the morning progress on the river, and in the evening take a beer and watch the sun set on the Mekong; it is a really fantastic place. A great number of retired expats have settled here, and I've noticed English is spoken much more (in Laos?) then in Thailand.

I rented a bicycle to get the lay of the land, and in the evening watched children swim in the water and monks jump off rocks into the Nam Khan. Each evening the monastaries do a ceremony involving drums and cymbols, and if you position yourself right (there are 30 temples in this small area) you can hear a caucophony of each wat performing its evening rite, in surround sound.

Although I never went, bowling is a big thing here; the bars must close at 11:30PM and so, since a bowling alley is not a bar, people pile in there and go bowling (aka drinking). We did however, on the second day end up at a Laos dees-ko, which was hilarious; thundering club-dance music cranked to 11, yet no one dancing and the dance floor with loads of oil drums serving as tables. I think it must have been quite a sight to see 9 fa'lang pile into this place and tear it up on the dance floor. Somehow I ended up leaning down (shoe maintance?) and this was misinterpreted by everyone as proposing (or was it misintperpretation...!) to one of the Swedes, and that was that, we were engaged. As luck would have it, around 1AM or so, they close down, and like clockwork, EVERYONE piles out as quickly as possible... except us of course. Some table had left behind 1/3rd of a cake (birthday or otherwise) and this served as Carolinas and my wedding cake. Sticky floor, Lao dudes joining us, we hung out there for maybe 1 hour more, the staff not knowing what to do or how to ask us to leave without seeming impollite. Though it would be rather impollite to break up a wedding reception, now, wouldn't it?

There is a waterfall north of Luangprabang, a multilevel stunner with at least one of the falls stretching at least 100m. It was a windy van ride there, but worth every second; butterflies danced about over pools of green-blue, and water flowed over all manner of karst formations. I can only imagine what great geological events might have had to take place in order to form all those weird structures. We climbed a treacherous 2km upwards towards the top of the waterfall and came upon stunning vistas of Laos; mountains for days, massive and covered with bamboo and jungle. I realized I had seen these types of mountains before, in countless war movies and old TV reels from the Vietnam days. Still not sure what to make of those memories. There also happened to be a sun bear refuge there, where bears who were essentially being harvested for bile and other types of Chinese snake oil potions, could live in peace. Relative peace, if you don't count the tourists banging on their signs and trying to get their attention.

Next day was cave day; a famous cave on the Mekong holds approx. 4000 Buddha figurines, and is a working monastery. A longer then hell, twisting, turning van ride made me feel a big claustrophobic and a little uneasy in the stomach. There we took a boat across the Mekong and over to the caves. Again, stunning scenery along the river, prehistoric mountains thrusting themselves skyward and beautiful sand beaches along the edge of the river. It was here where one of our Swedish compatriots succumbed to some novel illness. I think everyone was feeling a bit delicate that day, so we cut caving short and headed back.

I woke the next morning feeling chilled and nauseous, hoping what was about to happen next wouldn't happen. But it did; my stomach had kept the contents of last nights dinner tightly packed away, unwilling to send it down the ol' intestine-land and waited patiently for me to wake up so it could do it's duty and void its self through my mouth. Being able to clearly identify last nights dinner in a toilet kind of sucks. A nice puke and a liter of water later, I was feeling quite upright. I think this is how ancient humans must have operated, much as dogs and other animals do; eat whatever when you find it, just go ahead and eat it. If it's not good for you, just puke it up; the good will be sorted out with the bad. (Or the good will come up WITH the bad, so you tell me...)

It's a great town to hang out in, and that's basically what happened for the next day or so, as everyone was feeling delicate after various illnesses. Utopia, a riverside backpackers bar proved too irresistible to not frequent again, so it's chilled out, open air/low light helped usher out the last day in Luangprabang.

Onward and upward:
Vang Vien. hedonist/thrill seeker paradise. Wretched hive of scum and villainy. What followed was a minibus ride to Vang Vien, a famous backpackers destination. River tubing is the main attraction to the place, and the drinking that goes along with it. Lonely Planet warns of the frequent deaths that occur every year due to some idiot Australian or Brit who takes a few too many and ends up dead. The ride from Luangprabang to Vang Vien was probably the most uncomfortable travel experience of my entire life. The road, if it could be misinterpreted as such, was half paved, half not at all times, and most of the time the potholes outnumbered pavement. I can't imagine these vehicles have very long lifespans because the drivers seem to enjoy compressing the passengers spines by hitting these paved/non-paved bits at full speed. Finally, after what seemed like hours, we arrived. Vang Vien looks a lot like a half finished, frontier/cowboy town, with drunks roaming about with minimal clothing on and all manner of semi lawlessness being engaged in. I couldn't get the image of a cowboy town out of my head, though. As soon as our tuk-tuk pulled onto the main drag a shaggy Australian guy leaped onto the back, forced some papers in our hands promoting a local watering hole and jumped off just as soon as it had happened.

We made our way to a random guesthouse in various states of decay/disarray. The harried owner (who looked 37, is 23) looked as if he was about to die, serving yet another foreigner who in one fell swoop will no doubt offend every cultural sensibility Southeast Asian people hold dear. The Swedes (Weeds) got quite a nice room with clean bathroom and windows that got morning light. My British traveling partner and I got a hole in the middle of the building with no windows and a toilet that would spray water out onto the floor as it refilled it's tank. Dom also discovered (via the braille method of finding light switches) that two electrical mains were exposed right next to the main light switch. It was, however, a shockingly cheap place.

Laos is cheap. Thailand is cheap. I don't understand how economy and currency and value work but a decent meal is around $1.86. A large bottle of beer Laos (national beer) $1.24. Clean, midrange hotel with aircon, ensuite bathroom, shower, fridge is about $23. On another note, Thai and Laos TV is particularly amusing (almost as amusing as American TV.) There are usually three types of TV on at any given point: Music videos, sport and crazy soap operas. The music videos are hilarious, usually about some lost love, the girl character crying and weeping uncontrollably while her beau leaves her and she continues to reminisce about the past. The sport is soccer so it's about as interesting as the music videos. Then there's the soap operas, which are hilarious because nothing is happening on screen, minimal movement minimal talking, and yet the soundtrack is blasting out what can only be described as contemporary horror movie music. Very hilarious.

Back to Vang Vien; I have a theory on why this place is the way it is. Number one reason would be money; the locals need money and will do whatever it takes to get it. Two, foreigners (maybe some with some strict parents...?) are longing for some good old fashion rave/orgy type partying as Southeast Asia has certain restrictions that are not present in the West, and visa versa. The ubiquitous drink along the riverside bars is the "Bucket". A bucket is simply that; a cutesy colored bucket filled with your choice of liquor, soda and energy drink, usually M-150 or Red Bull. In my opinion, they are vile. They are also cheap which might contribute to their popularity. So basically this is the way a typical day works for most in Vang Vien;

1PM: Stumble out of whatever bed, guest house, bar, cesspool you ended up in beforehand.

1:10PM: Try and wipe various marker, paint, mud, etc. off your body, and give up.

2PM: Rent innertube.

2:30PM: arrive at riverside bars and tubing start (4km up river)

4PM: Float 10m to next bar

7PM: Realize there's not enough time to float 4km back to town so take tuk-tuk back.

7:30PM: Party with more buckets at various other bars which are just like the other bars upriver, only they're down river and in town.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

There are numerous dangerous attractions along the river as you progress down, huge rope swings, slides, ziplines into the water, etc. They were all a blast! It was hilarious seeing all the young Lao kids use these things, doing back flips and tricks off them as if second nature (which I'm sure it was to them.) I made Dom the Brit go first on all of them so that if disaster struck, I would be the first to know. And thus, not follow suit. Actually makes me feel just a little queezy, thinking about such a lifestyle. I have found myself at such an age where buckets alone make me want to puke, so I felt pretty bad for the locals who have seen all this spring up within the last 10 years or so. The weird thing is that Vang Vien sucks a certain kind of person in its orbit. There are people who end up there for weeks, there are people I met who arrived just three days before and were working in a bar or on the street promoting a bar. Apparently they aren't paid hardly anything, but they are given free food, lodging and booze. It's a great business strategy; get the fa'lang hooked on partying, buckets, free booze, etc and make them work for you by promoting your business to other foreigners... finally, Southeast Asian people are ahead, they're winning, using the very Western vices that are so offensive to them against us. Fantastic business model.

When I arrived, it was night. When I woke up I took an immediate left outside the guesthouse, and only when I was returning (aka turned RIGHT), realized what a beautiful environment Vang Vien is situated in. Huge karst mountain formations that are Buddhist holy grounds along the Nam Sah river, which runs clean and clear at their base. Sunsets to die for, palms bearing coconut and dates bearing their fruit.

[Note: As I write this in Vientiane, there has been a celestial event happening in the last week; a hairline, fingernail moon has had Jupiter and Venus have been aligning with the moon the last several nights as dusk falls in an amazing display, the moon cradling them in a way. I'd probably shit myself if I were into astrology but seeing as I am a callused atheist, content in the mysteries of the universe as they are without compounding them with psuedo-science, metaphysical nonsense, I must chalk this occurrence up to just that; an occurrence that is a pleasure to see.

After a few days in Vangy-Vieny, it was time to depart the Weeds and Dom the Brit. My going was as bittersweet as the sweetness of comfort of the impending solitude. A uneventful bus ride trucked me off to Vientiane, where I met up with a German woman who had floated the river with Dom and I the day previous. After such a shitty guesthouse experience in VV, I opted to treat myself to a midrange hotel for a couple nights in the gastronomically diverse capital of Laos.

Vientiane is sort of a non-city in a way, small, walkable and fairly non-descript... unless you count the endless French influence in the city, bakeries, cafes and restaurants all vying for your attention. There is an air of post colonial confusion and communist distain for the past, as if the place can't quite make up it's mind which world to live in. That being said, I know almost nothing about the city and seeing Laos' tragic history, can't judge or comment, suffice to say it's amazing these people have faired so well all things considered.

There is a fantastic promenade along the Mekong river, with Thailand just in view; since it is dry season, the sands of the river bank span for almost a kilometre until you actually hit the water. The city is amazingly hazy and humid, you can barely see to the next lonely commie-style building; it's as it's one large sfumato painting; pastels merge seamlessly into where horizon would be, and as the sun sets on the river, it's impossible to tell where one muted color begins and another ends.

This is my second and last night in Vientiane. This is a nice place, I realized just now I might not have painted a good picture of it. For a place with basically no green space (something I dearly miss about Seattle), the old town is charming enough and it's a good place to rest up, gear up for the next adventure.

Tomorrow I will head for the Kong Lo cave; a 7km long, vaulted ceiling cave with a river running straight through it under a limestone mountain. After that, Southern Laos to an area called the 4000 islands, right on the boarder of Cambodia.

Until next time,

-e