Lost in Laos

It's been awhile since we last blogged... or emailed, and the truth is, it just hasn't been a priority....

We entered Laos PDR from Thailand near Vientiane (capital city of Laos PDR) over a week ago - shared a ride over the border and into the captial with a delightful young Laos man - Sor (college student in Vientiane). The first thing we noticed about Laos is that it operates at a completely different pace than Thailand -----MUCH SLOWER. It took awhile to register that our driver was just cruising - going the speed of trafic, not trying to pass anyone, stopping when indicated. There was no hurry, there was no need to pass others using the opposite lane around a blind corner.... just a nice easy pace. When we commented on this to our new traveling companion, he told us that PDR actually stood for "Please Don't Rush." So we have taken this as a way to support even more relaxed movement - walking slower, eating slower - many things have supported us in this endeavor:

Ordering meals: Can sometimes take a LONG time to receive food
Bus rides: Our journey from Vang Vieng to Luang - Prabang - took 8 hours up and down mountain passes to travel what looked like the distance from Santa Barbara to Orange County at an average speed of 15 kmh!
The people here: Perhaps it's the buddhist culture, perhaps the oppressive quasi-communist regime, perhaps hundreds of years of political unrest and foreign intrusion and assault by other countries (China, Vietnam, Siam/Thailand, France, US) - but the people here are incredibly laid back. SO much so that I am not sure if it is born out of a deep capacity to "go with the flow" or if it is the consequence of so much oppression or Both.

VANG VIENG - OUR JOURNEY INTO THE TWILIGHT ZONE...

Vang is a Backpacker's paradise about 3 hours north of Vientiane surrounded by dramatic mountains, huge karsts, and a beautiful river. Among the many things to do here: Rock climbing, kayaking, exploring caves, trekking, tubing down the river, swinging from rope swings and playing on waterslides. OF all these activities we did NONE of them - as we were caught up in the other passtime of Vang Vieng: dropping in and tuning out.

This place is in some kind of vortex thick with inertia. You can see it in the way people walked down the streets, in the way people stayed here 3 days to 3 weeks longer than they intended. Most of the restaurants had places where you could LIE down while you ate; there were hammocks everywhere for lying around. Tamra and I had no problem taking naps in the middle of the day and sleeping in until midday! An interesting contrast as neither of us are carrying watches or time pieces of any kind - so most of the time we have no idea what time it is (now being an exception: the computer i am writing this on says it is 11:06am - though I don't know what Day it is - which is a breakthrough in and of itself!)

ALI BABA
Upon our arrival into Vang Vieng we met the most facsinating man and his sixteen year old daughter. Just as we arrived at our GuestHouse, we ran into him and he invited us into his "Ofice" which was actually a balcony on the top floor of the building with a great view of the river, karsts and sunset. We spent the next 2 hours going deeper down the rabbit whole - listening to him (he had a lot to say!) speak of myths and mystery and the experience of being alive... Tamra commented afterwards on how unusual it was for me to hardly say a word for 2 hours - and I agreed. I don't think we would have stayed that long listening if he had not been such an interesting teacher. His presence was sharp, and he spoke of deep things. He was obviously a student of Shamanism and felt that Vang Vieng was a great place to continue his studies and he had spent much time here.

We ended up staying 3 nights here. Other highlights: Sitting in Hamocks by the river, trying happy meals, Drumming on New Years Eve with Laotian construction workers with sticks and pots and plastic bottles filled with Rocks.

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