Journey to Vieng Xay, Laos

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This morning we set off by rented car with driver for Vieng Xay, the original headquarters of the Pathet Lao, Laos’ current ruling Communist regime. During the war, the Pathet Lao and the local civilians moved in to approximately 500 caves in the Vieng Xay area, to escape the relentless US bombing. It was these caves, now open to the public, with audio tours, that we were going to see.

Mr. Khem was a superb driver, driving slowly and beeping every single time he drove around a blind corner, which was every 3 or 4 minutes. From 7 AM until 8 PM, we drove through the mountains, being tossed to the right and the left each time we went around another sharp corner. We were blessed that the road was paved, but it was slender and built in to the sides of mountains. The sweeping mountain view, at first so exciting, stretching for maybe a hundred miles, actually became boring and repetitive after enough hours riding alongside it.

Sometimes we passed checkpoints in the road, where drivers had to pay 5000 kip, about 70 cents, for the authority to lift the gate and let them pass. At one checkpoint, teenage girls shoved sticky rice filled bamboo sticks in to our car to sell to us, a style of aggressive selling common in Vietnam, but not in Laos. We passed a spot where ten vendors in a row sold watercress, laid out on bags by the roadside, and across the street, a women tended a massive field of watercress. If you wanted it, it was fresh. Oftentimes, we came upon cows, pigs or flocks of chicken grazing on the highway, as I suppose there was no other flatland for them to graze. One time we came around a corner blindly, nearly hitting a massive black bull, just standing rooted in the middle of the road. There were many close calls like that, as the road is not wide and is used by the many small villages en-route for different purposes, like grazing or drying grass.

Many villagers were gathering firewood in the form of heavy loads of sticks in bags upon their backs, supported with the strap over their heads. Others were tending gardens, some caring for rice fields, many collecting broom grass to make brooms. Still others just sat and stared at the passing traffic. The kids, if not put to work, were generally playing together in groups. I saw a bunch of girls playing hopscotch.

We also drove by many exhausted or elderly locals walking along the highway carrying heavy loads or driving slow, loud Soviet-Era tractors, or piled in great numbers in to trucks. But each time we passed, the people were always the same. Smiling shyly, saying hello and staring at us like we were fascinating aliens just landed in their town.

A funnier scene was driving by four teenage boys, standing by the roadside in matching black leather jackets, black tees and dark jeans, with their motorbikes, staring menacingly at traffic. It felt like I was driving by 1960.

We stopped to look at one guesthouse where the woman opened the doors of a few rooms to show them to us, then disappeared, presumably back to her work, with no interest in renting us the rooms. We just showed ourselves out. Later, we stopped for lunch in a town with two guesthouses. (Keith, the guy I was travelling with, needed to look at all guesthouses enroute for the guide book he's writing.) Neither guesthouse was staffed. The doors were open, so we walked in, checked out a room, and then in one case, asked our cook at the restaurant the price of a room, which she knew. In the second case, when we walked out of the guesthouse, twelve people waiting for rides on the road were staring at us, so I yelled up to ask them the price. They knew the price and yelled it back to us. Both places had windows open, the front door open. The first place even had a tap running in the bathroom, the water overflowing a massive tub.

At two other points during the day, we stopped to look at natural hot springs. At the first springs, the locals had built little bathing tubs out of stone in to the side of the lake, although the water was too hot to sit in. One used a bucket to lift the water, allow it to cool a bit, and then dump it over oneself. Locals were bathing here. The second hot springs was just a dirty, bacteria-packed pond in the midst of the woods, that nobody with anyone sense would go in to. A retreat, looking just like an old camp in upstate New York, had rooms where one could sit in a bathtub in a dark room and have the hot spring water run over them. A pipe, running overland, ran from the dirty pond, half a mile to the taps in this bath house.

Later, after being repeatedly told we would not make it up the road in our car because the road was not driveable, we manageably drove up a long, deeply rutted dirt road to reach Hin Tang, an ancient site consisting of thirty standing stones, believed to be gravestones. Some of the stones supposedly have steep steps carved in to them, so one can walk down and in to the shelved, burial cave below. We didn’t see those steps. And the stones were only inches thick, making it hard to believe one could ever walk down them.

This site was also excavated by the Madeleine Colani expedition in 1931, like the Plain of Jars sites. It’s possible there’s been no excavations since. That’s the excitement of a place like this; if you wanted to come excavate, you’d probably be one of only a few people interested. And if you were willing to work with the government and had some money of your own to fund it, you could be the foremost researcher on the project. It’s all new here, the ancient sites have been discovered, but they are waiting for money, waiting for interest to continue the research.

After a long day of driving, we finally arrived in Vieng Xay. We could see lakes and giant limestone standing stones, karsts, illuminated all around in the moonlight. The town was completely quiet and quite dark. We didn’t see anyone. The homes were all medium-sized with fences and large yards and the streets, though dirt, were wide as well. It felt like a suburb.

It was close to 8 PM and we’d stopped for lunch and eaten breakfast in a time that felt like years ago. We knew a man working on the Caves here, Laup, and he’d recommended a guesthouse, where he also stayed. When we arrived at the guesthouse we were happy to see him, but also to see there was a restaurant at this establishment. Unfortunately, when I asked the kids working there what food they had, they said the food was finished already. Our driver then spent five minutes trying to get the kids to think of a food place in town that was still open.

We walked a few blocks, passing the two restaurants that were supposed to be open. They were closed. We finally came upon one, with lights on inside. The two women, lying on a cot watching Thai soap operas, said yes, we’re open, but maybe don’t you want to go to the other restaurant? We told them that place was closed. It was what feels like freezing in Laos, about 45 or 50, but the restaurant was a hut with no walls. So the women brought us a menu and then stood by as we read it. We begin pointing to dishes, none of which they had. I asked them what they did have and they shrugged. Finally they admitted to having noodles, eggs and some greens, so we asked them to make us some noodle soup mixed with eggs and greens.

One of the women walked away, down the street, and came back five minutes later, carrying five packs of instant noodles and a bag of eggs. She really didn’t have any food when we arrived, but she still was willing to help us out. What a nice lady. The other woman, meanwhile, had been busy unplugging charging mobile phones, so she could plug in an electric wok. She cleaned the wok, and let it warm up while cutting lettuce and garlic. Then our driver walked over to the women, who seemed confused about what to cook for us, and took over the cooking. We watched him over there, adding sauces and tasting with his finger. A few minutes later, he arrived at our table with three massive delicious bowls of noodle soup with egg and lettuce. It was about 9 PM and we all happily gobbled down the salty meal, instant noodles never tasting so good.

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Photos

A Broken Down Bus aside the Field
We were thankful we'd gotten a driver

Comments

[Fred Appel]

Instant Noodles
I don't like instant noodlesbut I bet I would have liked them that day! Uncle Freddy

[Loth Pany]

Your pictures are beautiful
Britt, Your pictures are so beautiful. You are exploring the world exactly how it is should be done. Keep it up. Loth