The Usefulness of the French and other curious behavior

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Tuesday, 01/26/10

We had booked two different tours for this day through the same agent. The first was an 8:30-1:00 tour by boat to a whisky making village and the Pak Ou caves famous for their many Buddha statues. The second was a 1:30-5:00 tour by minivan to the Kuang Si waterfall and another local village. We knew booking the two tours might be cutting it fine, but we figured since it was through the same company we’d be okay. We had breakfast then met our agent at his office at 8:00. He wanted to take us down to the pier one at a time on the back of his motorbike. Given my aforementioned propensity for falling off of things and my slight-to-moderate fear of motorcycles, I refused. We walked to the pier instead.

We got our tickets and sat down to wait for boarding. We weren’t called down to the boat until 9:00. The boat was unlike any I had ever been on. It was very long, very short, and very narrow. Long and narrow does not a stable vessel make. Along with Kim and I were a Frenchman, a retired couple and their grown son from San Francisco, and, of course, the boatman, his wife, and their two small children. We boarded the boat, the boatman’s wife and children in the back, the boatman in the front, and the six of us in tiny chairs three on each side. Before we left the pier the grown son (whom I will now refer to as ‘the boy’) jumped to the other side to take a picture and very nearly tipped the boat. It rocked back and forth ominously and a bit of water sloshed inside as the sides of the boat dipped beneath the surface of the river. We all yelped and the parents yelled at the boy to stay on his side. I told Kim that the slow boat was the safer option, as it was reported on the internet that the speed boats boast a fatality once a month. But after this incident my faith was shaken. Fortunately this was the only ‘I might die in this thing’ moment we had.

We set out for the whisky making village without any real idea of how long it would take to get there. The boy and his parents busied themselves chatting together. Kim was rather silent and the Frenchman became rather talkative with me. We talked about traveling and compared places we’d been. He mentioned traveling to Burma and I expressed concern over the safety issues of traveling to such a place. But he assured me that it was one of the safest places to travel due to the military dictatorship currently in control. (Huh?!?) Then he talked about his native France and how foreigners had difficulty there because, and I quote, “French people are not useful.” At this Kim gave me an amused glance before quickly looking back at the river as I choked back a giggle. The Frenchman’s conversation got stranger still and I was glad when he finally fell silent.

About thirty minutes into the trip the boy mentioned that his need for a toilet was rapidly becoming urgent. We ‘parked’ the boat near a riverside farm and the boy took off at a run down the beach, his parents snapping pictures from the boat. While we waited I talked with the parents. I learned that their son had married a Thai girl and that they had just had a baby. (Ah, a skeezy g) We waited about twenty minutes for the boy to return. It was another forty five minutes or so before we arrived at the whisky making village. I thought they’d give us a demonstration or something, but there was no one there to tell us anything. There were souvenir booths and whisky booths, and I saw the still, but that was it. We strolled around the village for about twenty minutes then got back on the boat.
We traveled for another hour on the cramped boat before we reached the Pak Ou Caves. There was a lower cave, just up a short flight of stairs from the water, and an upper cave, up a flight of stairs that curved around the mountain and disappeared into the trees. Kim and I decided to visit the top cave first. It was hot outside and my legs were quite sore from my elephant adventure the previous day so that every steep step taxed my resolve to reach the top. There were women and children scattered the whole way to the top. Some were begging, others selling souvenirs. Many of them were selling birds kept in tiny woven cages. We learned later that they are released for good luck, but are trained to return to the owners. I thought it was rather clever. One boy was trying to sell a mole. Another young girl was singing a song while a tiny little baby danced around. I would have given money to some of them, but I remembered my experiences in Cambodia and thought better of it. I knew that if I purchased something from one child, I would have been swarmed instantly and wouldn’t have had a moment’s peace. And, as if to reinforce my thoughts, I saw one hapless tourist surrounded by about a dozen pleading children.

I arrived at the top panting and muttering ‘oh dear lord’ to which a couple of children sniggered. I laughed in return, thinking that they probably see out-of-shape tourists stumbling around all the time. I wish I could say the climb was worth it, that there was a spectacular view from the top and the celebrated cave was astounding. But the trees blocked any view there might have been. And the darkness in the cave was so complete that we had soon given up trying to see anything inside. We descended the stairs, through the throng of hopeful vendors, and climbed the short stair into the lower cave. This one was shallower with a wide entrance, so that most of the cave was brightly lit by sunlight. There were hundreds of Buddha statues everywhere. It was interesting, but honestly I had seen just as many in the temples. The cave was just a change of scenery.

The most interesting thing about the lower cave was a European tourists standing near the entrance. He had about five or six different cameras hanging around his neck. Some were big fancy SLRs and others were small simple point-and-shoots. He shifted from one spot to another, taking a picture of seemingly the same subject with each of the cameras. In each spot he chose he would implore others to get out of his way, sometimes manically yelling “Please?! Please?!” I stood for a while watching him. He was quite entertaining. I may have even purposefully stood in his way just to hear him yelling his pathetic ‘please’ at me. (This is a game my family loves to play. We call it ‘messing with people’. ) There wasn’t much more to see so we returned to the boat. The boy and his parents were already there. The Frenchman had not yet returned. The boy went back out onto the pier, spotted the Frenchman, and abruptly yelled, “Hey, Francois!” Kim and I groaned with derisiveness and bluntly told him upon his return that the French do not like being teased for being French. His parents agreed with us and the boy went sheepishly back to his seat. The Frenchman returned a few minutes later and we set off back to town. Kim and I knew we’d be late for our second tour and we were hoping they wouldn’t leave without us.

We didn’t arrive back at the agent’s office until 1:40. We ran to our hostel to grab our bathing suits and towels. The agent had held the minivan for us, but the rest of the people in the van didn’t seem too happy about it. It took more than an hour to get to the falls so that it was a little after 3:00 when we pulled into the parking lot. We were told to meet back at the minivan at 4:30. Kim and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were starving. We dropped into one of the small outdoor restaurants to share a plate of fried noodles before walking into the park. To my great joy and delight the entrance to the water falls was at the top of a tall hill. Thankfully, the path was a gradual incline and not a stairway. The falls were perfectly picturesque, but there wasn’t enough time to swim. We also discovered a path leading up to the top of the falls but we had neither the inclination nor the time to climb up. We considered the possibility of returning to the falls on our own the next day so that we would have time to properly explore and enjoy them.

We all climbed back into the van at 4:30 and, on our way back to town, we stopped at a small village. I have no idea to what purpose the visit would serve other than to bring customers for the handicrafts vendors. I watched a woman weaving a silk scarf for a few moments and there were men playing a game that was a sort of cross between soccer and volleyball. We did not stay at the village very long. We were back to town by 6:00. That night we ate at the Hive to see the fashion show again then ended our day with Nutella-filled crepes. Mmmmm……

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Photos

Lao Lao Whisky
I suspect the snakes are just for effect. I never saw a local drinking whisky from a bottle filled with snakes or any other creepy crawly.

Tiny Dancer
This little one wasn't selling souvenirs. Another little girl sang while she danced.