Travelling, travelling and more travelling.

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The last update came from Luang Nam Tha, where I spent a lazy 24 hours, doing very little.

I returned to the same guesthouse I had stayed at a few days earlier, for the sheer joy of the hot shower. I had earned it after the bus ride back. As Karl and I were running late, we stomped into the bus station only to see our bus driving off! A quick shout from someone packing another jumbo, and it stopped on the street for us to run and catch up. Alas the only free seats were reserved with bags and water bottles, so it was a seat on bamboo stool in the aisle for each of us.

I was sitting next to a lovely australian pair, and about half way into the 2 hour trip, I finally accepted an offer from the bloke to swap seats for a while; I'd declined several times, but my bum was sooo sore, and I figure the cellulite had had enough of a workout by now, that I was very grateful to swap. This also let me chat with his girlfriend, a history student in Sydney. It was refreshing to have a conversation with someone that went beyond "Hi! Where are you from, where have you been and where are you going?". We discussed politics, in particular comparing NZ and Oz, and the development of our national identities due to your relative histories. Quite different to the travel tips we'd already covered....

My time in Luang Nam Tha really was characterised by doing very little except an afternoon nap, a lot of time catching up in an internet cafe and eating. I had great intentions of hiring a bike and cycling to some villages that specialise in more handicrafts, but in reality, my cold was coming back and I just felt lazy. I did manage a stroll to the market, one of my favourite past times when I travel, as I think you can tell a lot about a town by it's market; and I could tell that there was money in this town. A lot of it is foreign aid money or chinese yuan, but it's there. Unlike so many other towns, this market had a large consumer goods section, and felt almost like a department store. The fresh food section is always my favourite, and this was more appetizing than most, although the fresh fish in large concrete troughs had obviously had their high point earlier in the day, as the troughs were mostly empty, with many fish upside down on the surface!

A quick convert to a good thing, Karl and I ventured off to have another sauna. This one was a busy communal one, with all the locals, set up on a bamboo platform with massages also on offer. There were two steam rooms, dimly lit and full of chattering locals, including wiry men in the royal blue underpants that seem really do seem to be standard issue here. After the sauna, I was getting changed behind a curtain, when a local guy walked in on me; the poor thing! He got such a shock at the glare of my pasty white falang thighs, glowing, even in this dim light, that looked not only embarrassed, but I think also a little queasy when I walked out. He was teased ruthlessly by his friends, and I felt bad, as I think he had tried to ask if anyone was inside, but obviously I didn't understand. To make thinks even worse for him, he no doubt thought that Karl was my boyfriend, thus doubling the faux pas!

We'd arranged with the french-speaking couple from Quebec to meet for a meal and try as much on the menu as we could. It was a veritable feast with Bananaflower, eggplant and bean salad, mushroom and bamboo shoot stirfry, pork laap, the mieng kham do it yourself parcels I'd ordered when I was here days earlier, Grispy (I ordered it just because they spelt it this way!) catfish and Mango salad and loads of my beloved sticky rice. It was great to share a good meal with others, which is a downside to solo travel. The Lao eat communally, and find it odd to eat alone; everything goes in the middle of the table, much like at a chinese restaurant, and everything is shared. Our evening was a good one, although I think at times Jacques and Francoise may have struggled with my kiwi accent a little. I really wish I could speak more languages...

After dinner, I went back to the internet cafe, as I had been struggling to open my emails earlier. Sadly there was one advising me that someone I had worked with several years ago when I was living in York had taken their own life. Quite sobering.

I got back to the guesthouse at 11pm, and the door was locked! I felt like a naughty school girl as I knocked to be let back in. Laos really does close early; it must be because they all get up early with the bloody roosters. Stuff bird flu, I'm just as worried about sleep deprivation. I say we cull out all male territorial poultry. Spoken like a true city girl...

Up again early the next morning and off to the bus station to travel to Udomxai, a town with the reputation of a being a bit of a wild frontier / transit town, where many people get stuck; so I was taking a bit of a risk with this trip; the bus was scheduled to arrive in Udomxai at 12.30, and I was scheduled to check in for a flight at 1.30; but you can't always be sure of buses in this country, so I was crossing my fingers some.

I should have crossed my fingers for a seat on the bus first. Although we turned up about half an hour before it was due to leave, the locals had reserved all the seats again. I had a low slung bamboo chair this time; at least I had a back rest! Nevertheless, it was tricky to stay balanced on the corners, and more than once I had to stop myself from falling into the lap of the men either side of me. One was holding his baby too, so that really would have been a disaster!

Behind me was a british gent, so proper and formal, he seemed straight from the days of the empire! I imagined him with a pith hat and G&T somewhere in India, calling the servants to get more ice. I'm always amused when I come across people who seem so far out in their own time warp! The australian woman he was travelling with seemed to take him in measured doses, and would often ignore him when he spoke, which took some doing, as I had put in my earplugs by this stage to block out the lao pop that was blaring out of the speakers; the tape was warped and the volume cut into static as it broached it's limits. And I could still hear Mr Posh...

After four hours of trying not to tip over on my little chair, we arrived in Udomxai, in good time, to a bus station that seemed to farm flies. Opting to have lunch at a nearby food stall, the food was nice enough, BBQ chicken and sticky rice with a chili and spinach dipping sauce; but swatting at swarms of flies can be a little distracting when trying to eat, so the meal was scoffed pretty quickly, before I set off to find the airport.

And what a refreshing experience that was! The first tuk tuk driver, rather than give me a ridiculous price, gave me directions, and settled back into his seat. A very novel response. Since when did tuktuk drivers not want passengers, even for the shortest distance? So we kept walking in the direction he had pointed, and tried to flag down another tuktuk driver. Again, hands pointing straight ahead then right, and off he drove. It turned out to be about a 5 minute walk away, which would have been willingly driven in other towns, and no doubt for a slightly cheeky rate at that, so I have a mighty big chunk of respect for the integrity of the tuktuk drivers of Udomxai; and more so because it is in total contrast to all the terrible things I had heard about this place. Not that I wanted to spend any more time here, but still, it was nice consolation for being there!

After I had checked in, I had about 2 hours to kill before my flight, so next it was off to find Karl somewhere to stay and then another fruit juice in a cafe that had such a bad fly problem that they had placed big sheets of fly paper on the tables! And they were obviously effective by looking at the numerous little black corpses stuck like raisins in fruit cake. Hmm, thank heavens for the honest tuktuk drivers...

Back at the airport, Karl and I said our goodbyes, which included him picking me up to hug me, swinging my legs from side to side; I could only imagine the bemused looks on the locals faces!, especially as I'm actually tall in Laos, so you can imagine that Karl is a bit of giant!), before I passed through the passport check (as this was a domestic flight, this was no doubt so they could notify the embassy if the plane crashed), and into a small waiting room where I waited. There was a television playing Thai satellite TV, specifically WWF Wrestling dubbed into Thai, and it was obviously very popular. One of other passengers, a big chunk of a man, most likely chinese I think, was enthusiastically punching the air and cheering the action along.

Finally we boarded and I noticed a few points of difference that even lax old NZ would consider lacking in security. Firstly, no one seemed to concerned about wearing their seatbelts, I doubt the trolley dollies here can let one slip through the aisle checks; being the only falang on board, except some chinese businessmen, I was mighty honoured that announcements were made in English as well as Laos. Nevertheless, none of them were safety announcements, and I really missed the stewardess' little dance with the life jacket (to be fair, we were flying over a landlocked country) and oxygen mask. Nor was there safety information in the pocket in the seat in front of me, although the announcement said there was. At least the plane seemed to be sparkly and new, so I was quite confident that it would all be ok. Even when I saw people lined up in the grass along the runway, I thought, ah well, I can't see any rocket launchers amongst them, so I wonder if standing in the jetstream of a plane is as amusing here as standing on the seawall at the end of the runway at Wellington Airport?

We flew quite low, so the scenery was great. I could trace the course of the Mekong and Luang Prabang as we flew over. The mountains were green and forested, interspersed with cultivations like rice paddies. My seat buddies were a mother with her young boy, probably about 2 or 3 years old, who was loud and inquisitive. He reminded me a lot of my friend Sheryl's little boy who is the same age and looked so similar, and although he was speaking in Laos, at this age, I can't understand much of what they say anyway!

Landing in Vientiane, I marched off to get a tuktuk again, more savvy and with local currency, than my first time in the Capital, so I got the price I wanted, but alas my pick of guesthouses was fully booked! My charming driver tried asking for more money, at which point we laughed a lot about what a good man he is, and so he only got what we had agreed on (what a ruthless bitch I am).

Now I had to find somewhere to stay, so I set off with backpack on my back, getting heavier with each hot step, until I finally found somewhere at about the 8th place I tried. I had intended treating myself to a nice room for my last couple of days, and admit this place was a not as nice I had intended, but the weather had heated up a bit in the last month, and the aircon in the room worked, as did the satellite TV, so for USD10 it wasn't too bad.

Once I had cooled off a bit and showered, I ventured out for a bit of a wander around and eventually ended up back at the river with the food vendors and treated myself to a plate of BBQ prawns and sticky rice, sitting on a cushion, writing in my journal, listening to the frogs and a very loud stereo playing a variety of music from lao and thai pop to some old classics, even an old favourite for mum and I: Nillson singing "Can't Live, if Living is Without You". It was all I could do to stop myself from breaking into the banshee wail that we normally sing it in!

I finished the evening trying to practise saying numbers in lao; had some good practise with the lass running the stall, She looked amused and pleased that I was trying. I'm just disappointed with myself that I waited until my last week to give it such a good go! I was hoping it would make haggling a bit easier when I went shopping the next day.

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