Laosing Around

Disappointment At First

After a nice couple of weeks in Thailand, I was ready to finally make it into Laos. I say finally because when I left home, I was fairly sure I would travel overland from China and this was likely to happen sometime at the end of last year. Plans change, oh well

I've heard so much about Laos from those that have been here, and I have to admit it was hard not to enter here without some high expectations, which unfortunately were not quite met. The people more than anything are supposed to stand out, but in my first week here I didn't feel that at all. In addition, this supposedly remote country was filled with tourists. A number of whom seemed to be either on their first trip away from home on a break from uni (think annoying British kids) or sunbleached, tank-top wearing travelers straight from Thailand. I found nothing interesting in Vientiane, the baguettes and pastries were meh.

Floating on the River

One of the suppose highlights of Laos is Vang Vien, which is famous for its scenery and partying ways. I was excited to sample both and especially curious about tubing, which is supposedly a SE Asian backpackers right of passage. It involves floating down the river in a large inter tube periodically taking breaks to buy alcohol (or 'happy drinks') jump off rope swings, and maybe look at the impressive mountains, assuming you can pull your eyes off the girls in bikinis. It's a real mystery how this tradition started. I've got nothing against booze, ropes, or mountains, but the whole experience has an unfitting home in the traditionally conservative Laos.

I thought it was ok; maybe worth a look, but definitely not spending weeks in the area. I spent the day with a pair of cheery, Aussie guys, who had their eyes on a couple dainty English gals. While they were hard at work, I was left floating next to a strange young American lady. At the age of twenty she was affianced, traveling the world on her own and planning on conquering the world...that is just after she gets here Ba in a couple of years. It's hard to say exactly what was weird about her. It could be that she would never make eye contact and her lazy eye didn't help.

Highlights of the day included volleyball in a giant mudpit, which was more like playing try not to fall while getting the ball, and sliding down a giant water slide that wouldn't pass safety standards anywhere. I survived both, but not without some bruises.

The whole tubing event was just an excuse to drink profusely. I would have been disappointed if I hadn't met up with a German couple I traveled with in Burma. The town is filled with half naked travelers looking a bit like zombies, needing a fresh dose of a pancake and an episode of Friends or Family Guy before downing another beer. We tried to avoid the kids and spent the day kidding around, climbing in caves, swimming in lagoons, eating good food, enjoying both the company and the surrounding mountains (which look very similar to the mountains of Yangshuo I saw six months ago). With the tubing off the list, I was set to do some trekking, that is after a short stop in Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang, didn't strike me as anything magical. I had seen monks and temples before, some even next to rivers, so no biggy for me. Plus traveling was both easier and more expensive than I expected.

Chinese Invasion

I planned on visiting the NW of Laos and spent the day bussing to Luang Nam Tha located an hour or two from the Chinese border. I was immediately struck by the overwhelming Chinese influence there. Nestled in a high valley, this little town (city by Laos standards) is currently in the process of being developed by the Chinese, meaning there were plenty of Chinese there including the guys who owned the hotel I stayed in. Since I arrived with a Chinese gal (along with two Western dudes) we got some great treatment from owners, who promptly served a banquet in our honor (not really). But we did have mounds of food and like most Chinese men, these guys were doing their best trying to get us drunk. A couple gan beis later, my Chinese was flowing (as best it can flow) and merriment was spread all around.

Many in Northern Laos are unhappy with the Chinese workers and businesses coming south. A typical complaint being that the Chinese are taking Laotian job, but I bet the Chinese are creating more than taking. Laos is extremely laid back, probably to a fault. I've never been to restaurants that constantly warm you to be patient about service. I've been told that 'Hammock ' is an official field of study. Spend any time walking here and you'll see passed out people all around town, tuk-tuks, shops, offices...this nation loves to sleep.

Do you Like Laos Girls?

On my friends suggestion, we (I say we because I have been traveling with an American named Anton for the past two weeks) arranged our trekking from the quaint town (more like village) of Vien Phouka. We had an afternoon to kill before starting the next day, and decided to walk to a nearby village. We didn't' make it, because just outside town we were summoned over to join a small celebration. It turned out to the be the local high school teaching staff having a couple (lots) of drinks. I don't blame them, as their school has about ten teachers for over 700 students, that must be hard.

We proceeded to join them from some beer and struggled to communicate, the English teachers could speak a little, but everyone was really drunk. On a number of occasions, we were asked, "Do you like Laos girls?" to which we replied, "Laos girls are great, we love Laos people!" which was then followed by the "Do you want one?" We just laughed and shrugged. Around this time girls started popping out of nowhere and the proprietor came to introduce himself to us. He was a guide with the local tourist ministry, and opened this restaurants just four months ago. By the time he asked us if we like Laos girls, we had figured out why the 'restaurant' was located outside of town. He was disappointed to learn that we had a guide for a trek, weren't hungry and not interested in sampling the local flavor. shortly thereafter, the mayor came, complete with a little entourage. He shook hands with everyone, including us and then went to examine the evenings special dishes. Clearly, he likes Laos girls.

Careful of the Lychees

The next day we set out on our three day two night trek. it's the end of the dry season so conditions were hot and humid during the day with a relief coming every night in the form of towering thunderstorms. Fortunately, the rain came only at night, but it did make conditions muddy and slippery during the walk. This added a bit more challenge to a trail that had it's shares of ups and downs but wasn't too long. The negative is that the moisture brought out the leaches, who wanted to suck our blood. I didn't get bit too bad, but I found a couple under my socks but luckily before they could do much damage. Anton was not so lucky, a leach attached to his foot causing him to bleed through his sock and a ravenous one some how made it's way to his hip, feasting past the point of exhaustion leaving him with a huge bruise. It was a bit annoying to be on leach patrol constantly taking off our socks and heeding our guides suggestion of checking for lychees (apparently the plural of leach).

I've finished a couple treks so far and this was was my favorite, mainly because we were so isolated. Aside from a couple villagers tending their cows, we were the only ones walking and the 'villages' we visited were indifferent and unimpressed by our presence- as they should be. The first night we stayed in a mixed Muzar, Hmong, and Lahu village with probably about fifty homes and 200 people each. We had the pleasure to stay with the chief, and had a lovely plywood mattress. The elder of his two daughters, who was probably 16, gave the impression of wanting us to leave right away. I think this had less to do with us and more to do with the fact that she probably just wanted some privacy for the first time in her life and we weren't helping.

After a small meal, we wandered the village, and discovered a shaman conducting a ritual. Apparently a woman in the village had miscarried three consecutive times and the shaman was attempting a cure. We learned the miscarriages were the work of spirits who were apparently hungry and eating the babies. So the shaman had to appease the spirits. This was done by offering the spirits three tasty treats, a goat, dog and chicken. These were first passed over the head of the woman thus transferring her essence to the animals and then sacrificed. Finally small bamboo mats were sprinkled with the blood and placed around her house. Hopefully it worked, if she's still not successful in caring a baby to term, maybe she's the next to be sacrificed.

The next day we walked to a small village (maybe twenty houses) where all the babies started screaming when they saw us. I especially like this feeling of being a monster, it's always flattering to know that I'm so scary. The older children and villages just stared at us with mouths gaping open. After a couple of false starts I got them to teach me to count to ten, which is the same for both the Muzar and Lahu language.

dey ma
nee ma
seh lah
la leh
nga mah
koh mah
su mah
ei mah
go mah
de chi

I reciprocated the knowledge exchange by sharing 1-10 with them, then I sparked a fire, recited Hamlet's famous speech and gave a short lecture on modern macroeconomic theory. I expect a new Atlantis will blossom there shortly.

That night we stayed in a really small 'village' of three house and ten people. I've never been to a place so remote, which was interesting to see up close. They are subsidence slash/burn farmers who also keep some livestock. Meaning when they're not cutting down the beautiful forest, they are living amongst shit, lots and lots of cow, pig, goat and chicken poop. Not very sanitary. It started poring just after we were done hiking for the day. Two ladies were not so lucky as they were caught gathering wood in the storm. The older grandmother was already half undressed by the time she made it back into her house. I'm likely to be fantasizing about her for years to come.

After a couple of days in the great outdoors it was nice to return to an actual village. Unfortunately the village had neither electricity nor hot water, in fact my room didn't have water at all, which meant I got to bathe in the river. I didn't have soap so i rinsed myself downstream of where others were showering, that way I could utilize their suds. Just kidding, well sort of since I was definitely downstream of others showering. It was really refreshing dipping into the river in just my skivvies, something I've now had the opportunity to do a couple times. Didn't Jacob meet his wife while bathing in the river? I could totally see happening. I would think the town bath is a total pick up joint.

Anyways, it was a couple days of firsts, I saw a live shaman show, ate dog, was offered opium, saw a baby making a fire, foraged for bamboo, learned to speak Muzar, all around a good trip.

Bus Will be Here by 12

I heard a lot of stories about the terrible Laos buses, but never really experienced problems myself. The worst that happened was when i was trying to get from Vien Phouka to Nong Khiaw. By car, it should probably take five or six, but I anticipated a full day at least. I expected the bus to come at 12 since that's what i was told and arrive some time in the late evening. In fact the bus didn't come until 8 and i got dropped off at 4 in the morning. This after being charged three times the local price- there's a two tiered pricing system in Laos that's not fair. It wasn't that bad because we spent the afternoon drinking Lao whiskey (add some honey to kill the heat) with our guides, eating fried bananas and laughing as they accused each other of visiting the Laos Girl Restaurants often. It all added to my theory of SE Asian men, which is this: they like to get drunk and go to prostitutes. I found this true in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Burma. It's a bit icky, but whiskey is really cheap and the girls are pretty so it's easy to see how it happens.

Watch the Flow

The next stop was Nong Khiaw, which was like Vang Vein, but prettier, and without all the kids. The main activity here was just watching the river float by. I found it very meditative and I'm sure it would have somehow been meaningful had a tried one of the many drugs offered to me. I wasn't interested, but after a couple days of reading and relaxing it was time to be active again. We opted to take a canoe out on the river and paddle around a bit. The villagers seemed to think that the river was moving pretty fast and that we needed to rent a guide along to be able to actually go anywhere. But that would have cost $25 each, which is just a crazy number for Laos so we refused and challenged the river ourselves. After five minutes of struggling to go up stream, but floating downstream, we began thinking that maybe the river is going really fast. We resolved to float a bit more and then just beach and hang out. At the same time we saw two ladies making their way up river. This was perplexing, they were eighty pounds and weak and we were beefy Americans. After studying their technique we finally figured out how, use the motor! That would have been good but we didn't have one, so instead we just hugged the shore and slowly made our way back. That was enough exertion for us and we spent the rest of the afternoon drinking Lao Lao and admiring our muscles.

Back Door to Jars

My last stop in Laos was Phonsovan and the Plain of Jars. I was excited to go here since it's one of the few older historical places in the country and will shortly be on the list of World Heritage Sites, that is once they clear all the mines in the are. The ride there was more interesting than the site itself. This was true for the mammoth travel on the back road, and for the plains themselves. Phonsovan isn't that far from Nong Khiaw but it took a day and a half to get there. At eight one night we got dropped at a junction with two little guesthouses that clearly aren't seeing many tourists. let's put it this way, my Lao pasa (speech) was as good as their English talk, and mine is non-existence. When we asked for food, the mother of the guesthouse pointed to some instant noodles. Thinking there must be some better option we strolled the streets, where we asked a couple different groups of people. When we asked for a place to eat, they all said, 'oh we don't have.' That night we feasted on instant noodles. At this time it was dark. They don't have electricity, so we just went to bed. Honestly, I'm not really a fan of going to bed at seven or eight, it just doesn't work for me.

Finally getting to Phonsovan was nice, since after two weeks we once again had such amenities as running water, electricity and milkshakes. Mmmmm electricity. The jars were exciting as they sound, but the time traveling there was nice since we rented some motorbikes and got around that way. I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting comfortable with the bikes. Maybe I'll get a Harley when I get back, yeah right.