Laos, Not Lousy

Vientiane is the capitol of Laos and is home to 201,000 people, at least if our Lonely Planet guide book is to be believed – it has failed us on occasion. The number of residence is disputable, but there is no doubt that the city is the capitol and the most inhabited. We arrived mid day and went along with the German couple to find a guest house – this would soon become a trend and I doubt we got our guide book out once while in Laos. We ended up finding a nice enough place that was cheap and close to the center of town, not that we planned on staying in town long. Really Vientiane was more a stop-over on our way to Vang Vieng for us, more so than a destination. There is however a fare amount of turbulent history there apparently. You wouldn’t know it from being there unless you went to a museum maybe. According to the guide, the city has been ruffed up by the Vietnamese, Burmese, Siamese, Khmer, and French, all in succession. What’s more, it appears the city was once a festering “den of vice” but the only sign we saw of this was the Beer Laos which is actually made by Carlsberg Brewing. So it goes.
We did happen to luck upon the riverside night eating area. It wasn’t exactly a market or cafeteria, but it was a distinct gathering of street food peddlers verging on restaurants. The food was pretty good, but maybe that’s just the Beer Laos clogging my memory. I hadn’t had too much drink, but enough so that food flavors were enhanced. I stand by my tongue, though. It was good.
On our one full day in Vientaine we ventured out to Pha That Luang, a normally gleaming golden temple that doubles as a symbol of Buddhism and Lao independence. The sun was stuck behind clouds when we were there, so there wasn’t much radiance, though I’ll admit it had a subtle glow. It supposedly houses a piece of the Buddha’s breastbone. We didn’t see it. I think it’s actually entombed, and as luck would have it, we’d left our hammer and chisel at the guest house. Next time. Also, out front sits a statue of an ancient ruler who looks quite friendly despite the sword laid across his legs, handle in hand.
The next day we hightailed it for Vang Vieng and the famous rope swing tubing. Let me explain. After we finished the Peace Corps, Hilary and I headed directly for home while our friend Jeff gallivanted off to travel around Southeast Asia at length. This tubing thing was one of the many highlights, and the one that stuck closest in my mind. You see, Vang Vieng hugs the Nam Song and for a pittance you can rent an inner tube and get driven 5km up river to then float back to town. All along the river are bar/restaurant/snack shacks, each with some sort of rope swing rigged up. All you have to do to use them is buy something, usually a beer. Generally I like jumping off stuff or swing off stuff into water and when Jeff told me of this arrangement, it was immediately a priority.
Vang Vieng its self is rather small and heavily crowded with backpacker-type restaurants and bars, all playing DVDs of “Friends.” The Germans picked a place across the river that sounded great – nice bungalows right on the water for a very agreeable price. As it turned out, the place, Maylyn was more than we could’ve expected. The bungalows were beautiful one room affairs with decks made for relaxation, there was a nice little restaurant offering very good food and the patron, Joe, was a wonderful host, instantly making us feel at home. I could go on about Joe at length, but it is more than sufficient to say that I enjoyed his sense of humor immensely and found him to be very insightful. I would’ve liked to stay much longer if for no other reason than to continue the conversations we had in the evenings after dinner. He’s made a greater impression on me than any other person I’ve met on this trip. (Joe, if you read this, I hope you don’t find it too fawning. At least it isn’t a backpacker’s manifesto.) Maylyn is easily the place we’ve felt most comfortable, other than Kristina and Eileen’s, and I would highly recommend staying there.
On our first full day, it was slightly grey and drizzly, but I managed to drag the Germans out to tube – Hilary chose to stay behind and read. (Enough of this “the Germans” stuff, it really isn’t fair to them to continue to refer to them only as that. They’re people goddamn it! There names are Micha and Mieke.) As it turned out, it was very nice on the river as there were very few others, though we could not go on many of the rope swings as the river was too high.
I got a little scraped up at the first stop. The way it goes is this: you float along and when you see a place you want to stop at, you feverishly paddle your way over and when you get close enough someone throws either a smaller inner tube or a shaft of bamboo to you, both of each are attached to a rope which they use to pull you in. I was quite impressed by the accuracy with which many of these guys threw the tube. They’d ring you from as far as 20 yards out, no problem. Unfortunately, as the river was high, so was it swift. So, when I attempted to pull myself in via the bamboo pole that had been extended to me, I ended up pulling myself right out of my tube and cling to it desperately with one hand and cling to the bamboo equally desperately with the other. It worked out in the end, but not without a minor scrape or two. As dangerous as that may sound, there was an even greater danger awaiting us further on.
At the first place we stopped we met a very boisterous Italian. It was only 11 a.m. and already he was excessively drunk. This he would explain to us when he got particularly rambunctious after attempting to prod everyone there to jump from the rope swing platform. He tried to take Micha’s beer, intending to hold it for him while he jumped I presume, but Micha had no intention of jumping and told the guy so. This is when he reveled to us that he was well drunk because he only had 2 weeks of vacation and needed to make the most of it. We liked him, Micha included. He sounded exactly like Borat.
After an hour of jumping, riding the zip line and playing volleyball, we headed on. The next place is only worth mention for this one thing: I tried to do a back flip off the swing and as you might expect, I did a massive back flop instead. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve landed on some of the giant chunks of bamboo and lumber that were floating down the river dislodged by the excessive amount of recent rain.
By the time we reached the bottom, we’d spent all but 3,000 kip, which was 1,000 kip short of the fee for crossing the bridge that would take us back to our bungalows. Somehow I convinced Micha and Mieke that we should simply swim it, a feet that appeared easy enough until we got into the water. At one point, about midway out into the river, I was fairly certain that I would be washed down river and may just end up toppling over the dam a few miles further on. This obviously didn’t happen, otherwise I’d be dictating this from a hospital bed rather than typing it here in Bangkok. Yeah for survival.
That night we ate barbequed fish and some other stuff at Maylyn. It was fantastic.
The next day, we all headed out to tube. Over night, the river dropped at least 2 feet and many more rope swings were operational. The place with the zip line we’d stopped at the pervious day now was able to offer the use of its rope swing. It dipped terrifyingly close to the water, but with my knees tucked up, I managed to make it. More importantly, Hilary completely surprised me by coolly climbing to the top of the platform, watching me jump to show her how safe it was and then doing the zip line. She was a champion. She was to surprise me even further at the next stop. There she again scaled the platform, this one being a little higher and only offering a rope swing. At first she stood back from the edge, holding onto the railing, nervously letting people pass her. Gradually she scooted closer until she was there holding onto the rope swing. Down on the deck of the bar/restaurant/snack shack we got a rousing chant going - “HILARY! HILARY! HILARY!” – and she did it, calmly letting go at the peak and pinching her nose to avoid getting water up it. It was beautiful. Yet another fear concurred.

Long Overdue

So, it has been quite a while since I last wrote, but in order to avoid as long an entry as previous occasions have warranted, I am going to break the last 3 weeks up into 3 entries. Sorry for the delay.

Sapa had been our home for something like 10 days when last I wrote. On our last day in town, we hiked a few miles up one of the roads in town and visited a couple hill tribe villages on the way. It was somewhat clear for the first time since we’d been there and the mountains rose a higher than I had expected when I’d only seen hints of them behind the constant clouds that shrouded them. Also, I took some sniper photos of people in town. Usually when you ask someone to take their picture, something which I normally do and would heartily recommend all visitors do, you get a kind of canned image, a posed picture in which surprisingly frequently you subject is flashing the peace sign. I wanted to get a couple natural shots of people just being people, doing their daily thing, whatever it may be. So, I sat on the balcony at the restaurant where the Vietnamese man had abused me at chess so ruthlessly and snapped pictures of people, unbeknownst to them.

When we finally left, we were ready. Unfortunately, our room must have been in close proximity to a slaughter house of some sort because 7 of the 10 nights spent there were interrupted by the blood stopping howls of pigs being butchered (only one on each occasion). There is no worse way to wake up than to the feverish screams and final death rattles of an animal being killed, not even waking to a rat caught in a trap flopping about your house. As a result, we were generally nervous when going to bed. So, we looked forward to uninterrupted nights of sleep starting on our night train back to Hanoi.

When we got back to Hanoi, we had a decision to make. We knew we were heading to Laos next, but where and how were as yet only speculative. Our original plan had been to cross at the newly opened border crossing in Tay Trang because we supposedly could reach it from Sapa, but as our visa was quickly running out (only 2 days left when we got to Hanoi) and we were unsure of whether or not the crossing was really open or just hear-say, we had returned to Hanoi. Our desire was to take a bus or train to Luang Prabang which is in the middle of Laos, and then follow the main road there down through Vang Vieng, on to Vientiane, right near the Thai border, and from there take a night train back to Bangkok. However, we were to learn that buses to Luang Prabang were much more expensive and took almost 8 hours longer than the ones to Vientiane, strange considering that Hanoi is much closer to Luang Prabang. We had to adjust. Our plan became the one we executed, which is this: we took the bus to Vientiane, took buses north and then flew to Bangkok. The flight was partly inspired by our desperation to rid ourselves of some of our baggage. We had started out from Bangkok with only daypacks, but had somehow purchased so much stuff that we now required 4 daypacks and a large plastic bag/valise. We would’ve liked to take the slow boat from Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai, in the north of Thailand, but the bags were becoming unbearable. It would’ve been much better had we taken our travel packs instead, but you only learn these things after it is too late I suppose.

We have had many homes on our journey - I would define anything that we spent a night on as a home. We have slept on planes, boats, trains and, far too frequently for my liking, buses. Our home for the 22 hour ordeal from Hanoi to Vientiane was neither lavish nor decrepit, and though we boarded with much trepidation, it served it purpose well enough. There were 2 unfortunate things about it. First, the wanton depraved inconsiderate derelict bastard sitting across from Hilary and I insisted on trying to sneak smokes throughout the night despite the bus drivers repeated announcements that there was to be no such behavior on the bus. Second, the bus, having left at 6 o’clock in the evening, arrived at the border at 3 a.m., a full 4 hours before the border opened. The only plausible explanation I can conceive of is that the majority of Vietnamese, lacking air-con, enjoy sleeping on buses. Certainly most are not tall, so perhaps the bus seats are more comfortable than the way I experience them. I don’t know. I don’t speak Vietnamese, so I could not ask anyone what the hell we were doing there 4 hours early when we could just as easily left Hanoi 4 hours later. I’m sure there’s some logic to it somewhere. Our early arrival did prove useful in spite of the lost sleep. Hilary and I met a German couple equally disgruntled by the early arrival and also traveling the same route as us. We ended up spending the next few weeks traveling with them. They’re great friends. I believe you make friends faster and form tighter bonds with people quicker when you meet them traveling. Long-term travel is fairly intense and thus your feelings are a little rawer, you relate to people a little more openly and without concern. I think that’s the reason you form friendships faster.

Anyhow, the border was easy enough, though we had a bit of a scare when we learned that Vietnamese money was not to leave the country. You see, the previous day in Hanoi we had stopped at a bank to take out 200,000 dong (about $12.50 usd) to last us until Laos. Hanoi has cheap black market DVDs for about $1 usd, and we wished to purchase a couple more (we had already gotten several). Several shops offered the entire run of Scrubs, all 6 seasons for less than $10. We fancied this a wise acquisition. Well, somehow Hilary became confused at the ATM and before we knew it, we were the proud owners of 2,000,000 dong. Much more than we wanted. We attempted a spending spree but things were just too damn cheap. The exchange rate back to usd was too bad to even consider, so we planned on trying to use it in Laos. Also, it was Sunday so no banks were open. So, there we were at the border with a lot more dong than one would want to simply give away. Thankfully there was a money exchange in the Vietnamese crossing building. We changed the dong to kip at who knows what rate and headed on.


This a picture of a butterfly.