A French Quarter on the Mekong

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I took a sleeper train from Bangkok to Vientiane, the capitol of Laos, on my birthday, March 21st. I awoke in the morning and left my second-class car, where the seats are converted into beds during the night, in search of the food car for some coffee. Walking thru the third-class cabin where the common Thai people sit on hard wooden benches and try to sleep sitting up, Red Shirts took up the majority of the seats as they were returning to the countryside after protesting all weekend— they were all drunk, grabbing me, smiling and laughing as they asked where I was from and how I liked their country. I guess they’d have to be drunk to sit on a train for 15 hours without room to lie down. Even the train security, who were dressed in light brown military-dress uniforms, looking very official, were completely hammered and pouring more Sam Song whiskey in their cups at 8 am. Finally, the train reached our destination near the border; I exited customs in Thailand and entered Laos with a $35 visa.

The French created Laos in the 18th century after taking over what is modern-day Vietnam and signing a treatise with Siam (Thailand) to relinquish all land east of the Mekong. Walking the streets of Vientiane, passing the Arch de Triumph replica of the one in Paris, I admired the French Colonial architecture along the Mekong and became excited at the prospect of good coffee and fresh croissants. I stepped into a cafe, ordered a latte and used their wifi to call Paul on Skype and find out where he was staying. Then I called Kesone, my cousin Amanda’s soon to be mother- in- law who is from Laos. Kesone met Paul and me at a restaurant as we were eating a late lunch and told us not to eat too much because she planned to take us out for a big dinner. I only expected Kesone would show us around Vientiane for a day and then we’d move on to another town in Laos— but Kesone had other plans and we would soon learn that we were no longer the masters of our destiny for the next week. She invited me to stay with her and at her house— it was awesome— spacious and modern—a room to myself with air conditioning, a big bed and hot shower— I was living the high life. We picked up Paul from his hotel in her little Mercedes and drove to her niece’s steakhouse for our big dinner.

The next morning, Kesone surprised me when she asked if I’d like her to go with us on our trip north, to Vang Vien and Luang Prabang— Uh…..How do I politely tell her that we want to travel on our own and plan to get up to no good in Vang Vien, the place famous for floating down the river, swinging from rope swings and stopping at each of the numerous riverside bars for whatever intoxicant your heart desires— mushrooms, opium, mary jane, good ole’ alcohol. She told me she hadn’t been up north since she went with her mother and sisters 10 years ago. Her mother recently passed away and she really wanted to see Luang Prabang, again. I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. But, she told me she wanted to rent a private van to take us to both Vang Vien and Luang Prabang, which would cost $300 for five days— Now I could see the way out this dilemma and told her we just could not afford to spend that much on transportation. The public bus to Vang Vien is $4 and from there to Luang Prabang is about $10— that’s in my budget, $100 is not. She says to think about it and then we drive to pick up Paul, again, and she takes us to a café for a fantastic breakfast— delicious omelets, fresh-baked butter croissants, perfect lattes. Kesone was taking care of us like we were her own children— it actually felt pretty nice to be looked after. She tells Paul her plan for going with us and he concurs that we can’t afford the private van. So, she offers to pay fully for the private transport. We try and try to tell her we can’t allow her to pay for us, but she insists. She’s quickly wearing us down. Then we learn that a 21-year-old monk, named Nee and her housekeeper, Wan, will be joining us. We start warming up to this plan, realizing that it would be a rare and interesting experience to travel with Laotian people— especially with a monk.

We took off that afternoon in a 7-passenger van driven by a small man with a bowl cut, a wild look in his eyes, and a beautifully carved wooden penis hanging from his keychain— this was going to be interesting. I think Kesone had a good idea of what goes on in Vang Vien, so she told us to go do our own thing, they would do theirs, and we would spend time sightseeing together when we went to Luang Prabang.

Vang Vien was breathtaking— huge, green peaks spring up from the flat ground surrounding the river, creating a truly impressive scene. Paul and I walked the streets filled with young European and American backpackers returning from their day of debauchery floating down the river, stumbling around the small town with magic marker scribbled all over their bodies. I think the sight of these intoxicated monsters persuaded us not to spend a day tubing on the river. Instead, we went rock climbing. Next to the river, we climbed some challenging walls of limestone with our cheerful guide Lam and a stoned Chinese guy, who was also 27, named Ling. It was my first outdoor-climbing experience and I really enjoyed it. Rock climbing is similar to surfing in that you become so incredibly focused on the activity at hand— my form of meditation. I also really like the challenge of using my brain and muscles to navigate the puzzle that is the route to the top of the rock. After a few climbs in the morning, Lam made us some tasty barbeque chicken kebabs for lunch at a bar on the river, where we played some pool on a very uneven table and then headed back to the wall for a few more climbs.

In the evening, we walked the town streets passing identical restaurants with the same short, Indian-style tables and cushions to lie on. Each restaurant plays looping episodes of either Family Guy or Friends as stoned backpackers stare in amazement— it’s pretty funny. A few of the restaurants have “Happy Menus”, where you can legally order mushroom pizzas, weed brownies with ice cream, shakes, joints, omelets, sacks, etc. “Just an opium tea for me, Garcon”— made me feel really heavy and relaxed. Walking home, we passed so many pancake carts— every few meters there was another woman asking us to have a pancake with banana and nutella or peanut butter or blueberry filling. The pancakes are actually crepes and they’re delightful. In the morning we met the posse for breakfast and took off for Luang Prabang, a Unesco World Heritage Site— whatever that means.

After eight hours of narrow roads, winding around the edges of death-defying cliffs and Kesone yelling at our maniac driver to slow down, we arrived in the beautiful Asian French Quarter on the Mekong that is Luang Prabang. Streets are lined with French Colonial style houses, hotels, shops and cafes displaying dark hardwood French doors and windows and light yellow and pink-painted cement balconies. Classic French cafes are everywhere serving the most delicious pastries and coffee. The Mekong and another river connect to wrap around the city in a semi-circle lined with cobble stone sidewalks, antique, black iron light posts and riverside, outdoor restaurants. Unfortunately, like the rest of this region, it’s the dry season so there’s lots of dust and smoke in the air. I’d love to come back in the wet season when the Mekong is high and the vegetation verdant.
Despite Kesone’s offer to stay at her hotel where she would pay for one of our two nights at the rate of $50, we didn’t want to allow her to pay for anything else and we wanted some space anyway, so we checked into a comfortable and modern guesthouse with a great balcony for about $12, which we happily split—and it had wifi! We toured the Royal Palace where the exiled royal family lived before fleeing to live in France when the communist regime took over; we visited ancient temples where Kesone asked us to kneel down before the Buddha and make a wish; we had lunch by the river where we let Kesone do the ordering as we had learned after a couple of meals that she orders a feast for everyone, without telling us, so it was best to not order your own meal; finally, we visited some beautiful waterfalls cascading into mesmerizing turquoise pools.

Kesone couldn’t handle the grueling, winding road back to Vientiane, so she took a flight and left us with our crazy driver who despite only knowing three English words/phrases— toilet, thank you, and good morning— was chatting up every western girl he could during our two days in Luang Prabang. It was a new van with Kesone gone— rap music turned up to max volume blared some familiar songs— “Tell ‘em College Park, where they chop cars…69 Cutlas with the bucket seats….Meet me at the mall its going down”— thats right, Southwest Atlanta representin’ in the mountains of Southeast Asia. The guy was a rap-listening, penis-keychain-toting, fearless player and van driver. He drove fast and took risks with Kesone gone; Passing big trucks on curves that brought us inches from the edge of cliffs and generally operating that van like it was a stock car, he got us to Vientiane two hours ahead of schedule. I spent one more night at Kesone’s and Paul and I hopped on a sleeper bus for an overnight journey to southern Laos.

Walking down the aisle of the bus to our bed assignments, we noticed that each single-size bed on the bus had two numbers on it, meaning that passengers were meant to share the small beds with strangers??! When we reached our numbers, they indicated that we were in the rear of the bus on a bed that was inclined as it was on top of the engine and there were five numbers printed above the space, meaning we would be sharing this small space with three others. Our fear of the impending bus ride from hell diminished when the bus took off and we were the only two in the back. I watched “Frost/Nixon” on my laptop and was reminded of the U.S.’s carpet-bombing of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Because U.S. intelligence believed there to be a strong Viet Cong presence, the region was bombed nearly every day from 1965 to 1973, killing more than 350,000 people. To this day, people are killed or lose limbs in Laos as a result of picking up the unexploded remnants of the Vietnam War. I passed out after the movie, awaking when the bus pulled into the station in Pakse. From Pakse we boarded another bus for a three-hour ride to the 4 thousand Islands, near the border of Cambodia. We took a long tail boat to a small island village called Don Det.

Just a dirt path stretched around the 5-kilometer circumference of the sleepy island. Chickens and water buffalo roamed freely. We rented a couple of funny looking bikes and took the island tour. As we approached the bridge connecting Don Det to another island, Don Khon, a man guarded the path, charging “farang” (foreigner) $2 dollars to pass. So we said to hell with your $2 farang tax and kept riding around little Don Det. In the evening we sat in a couple of reclined chairs, sipping longneck Lao Beers at a stilted bar balcony looking out on the Mekong River with its four thousand little islands and watched the sun fall away as fisherman threw their nets from long tail boats to catch the fish below.

In the morning, we would continue our journey south, into Cambodia and the infamous Angkor Wat.

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