Laos to London

Helloo!
Its been ages because I've been a bit lazy since I've been back in the western
world. But I'm not gonna tell you about that yet because first, Laos. It lived
up to everything I had heard. When I crossed the border by boat across the
Mekong from Northern Thailand I met a kiwi guy who liked to think he was Barry Crump and has lived in the NZ and Aussie bush for the last 10 years (The "BC factor" wasn't working on me though!). We wanted to get off road (or off the over-touristed river) so plotted a course up to the far north near the Chinese border. Once again the Lao road travel proved memorable - our first bus trip, in a big old American bus, on a windy four wheel drive track, we fell through at least three log bridges over the 12 hours and covered only 100km! The many unplanned stops for the men to pull the huge bus out of the ditches were great for seeing remote village life, I made several babies cry and no children would come within a 3m radius of me! We also saw an elephant running off into the jungle.
We stayed two days in Luang Nam Tha to recover from the bus trip and had fun cycling round with a couple of intrepid solo Japanese girls. A young guy invited us to his village (Black Hmong) where we met his sister who wove pure silk scarves under her house. The whole process started and finished right there from the silkworms to the spinning wheel and the loom, from which she cut her completed scarves for us to buy - for only $3US (3000 Lao kip)! He also took us to his house to meet the family including his 100 year old, spritely deaf grandmother. They got us drunk on lao lao (Lao rice whiskey) poured from an oil can into shot glasses. We all wobbled home through the rice fields on our bicycles at sunset.
At our guesthouse we met a Chinese refugee who had escaped from prison. He had been imprisoned and tortured for saying something against the Chinese government. He was trying to get to Thailand to seek asylum but if he was caught in Laos on the way by the communist Lao government he would be handed straight back to China where he would probably be killed. He could speak fluent English, Japanese and Korean so was posing as a Japanese tourist - just without a passport. Life in China sounded pretty horrific and he was amazed at our freedom to hop from country to country.
Barry Crump and I hired a motorbike and rode through a National Park, dodging the farm animals, to Muang Sing a town known for its many different ethnic hill tribes in the surrounding hills. We stayed in some very nice bungalows in rice fields about 2km from China. The power was out and therefore running water also but the view at night over the rice fields glittering with dozens of tiny fireflies was breath taking. Unfortunately the hill tribe experience was not wonderful because some villages were very reliant on tourists and opium. The children were always miserable and had the hardened eyes of adults. They wanted money for everything and would never stick to a deal, always demanding more.
Often little women in their traditional clothes would try to sell you bracelets
and old French coins meanwhile whispering "you want ganja? You want opium?" as they slid back the coins to reveal little balls of opium oil in their palms. One of the tribes has a giant swing, which they are only allowed to use once a year in the swinging festival, which goes for a week - that's my kind of hilltribe!
From there I headed back south towards the Mekong to try to find an Aussie woman I had met months ago in Bangkok who lived with her much younger Lao husband in a village by the river. Barry had nearly run out of money and couldn't believe that Lao didn't have ATMs so he had to rush back to Thailand. On my way I had to stay a night in a wee village with a couple of guesthouses. As it was low season I was the only foreigner in town. I walked into the first guesthouse I saw and found two guys sitting there with big machine guns! They were very apologetic - obviously they weren't expecting many customers at that time of year. I settled in anyhow and then wandered outside to find out what all the drumming was about.
Instead of finding a Lao cultural group I got dragged into a mid-afternoon party and had Beer Lao and lao lao poured down my throat and was dancing and singing along within half an hour - managed to escape pretty quickly when the women started to grope me!
After an 8 hour boat trip downstream I arrived in Luang Prabang, the former
French capital of Laos. There are still over 40 ancient Buddhist temples mixed
in with beautiful old French colonial buildings which are all in the process of
being preserved as another World Heritage Town like Hoi An in Vietnam. Although they started to tidy it up before Hoi An it is still only about a third of the way there while Hoi An is very much finished - just shows the relaxed pace the Lao like to go at! The contrast of the delicate but dramatic gilt gabled temples with the heavy crumbling French architecture all surrounded by coconut palms, rivers, jungle and mountains was amazing. I had a relaxed time enjoying the amazingly cheap and delicious variety of market food and good café Lao. My hired bike was stolen (well I did leave it outside a pub and forgot it) but I managed to bribe it back through the barman after a couple of days because he happened to know the 'bad' Lao people who had stolen it - hmmm. I also enjoyed plenty of 60c crate bottles of beer Lao and Tiger whiskey. I stayed in a beautiful large room with a balcony overlooking the river. My guesthouse family were just gorgeous, their 12 year old niece ran the show, and their 10 month old baby smiled at me instead of crying - and then tried to steal my beer! The mother was only 22 but they spoke good English and invited me to eat sticky rice dipped in curry paste (the national dish) with them every evening.
After a good dose of culture and cafes I headed up to Muang Ngoi, a village only accessible by boat an hour up a river and surrounded by towering limestone carsts. One day I took myself trekking out through the hills to a rice filled valley with mountains rising straight up out of the vivid green. There were giant butterflies and red dragon flies everywhere. Back in the village I scored my first soccer goal on a buffalo poo covered paddock! I was woken one night to someone running around outside my bungalow, I yelled out deliriously/drunkenly "Sabaidee (hello)! go away!" and in the morning I found huge buffalo prints in the mud all around my hut!
A few of us hired a boat back downstream to Luang Prabang where I was happy to bring five more people back to my guesthouse family for a few nights. I took off for the Plain of Jars out east near Vietnam. The road has only recently been opened up because of Hmong Rebel attacks. They were trained by the CIA during the secret war in the 1960s then abandoned by the Americans but they are still trying to fight the communist government. I saw a strong army presence plus rather a lot of big guns but was too sleepy to care. We had a great day seeing the giant ancient stone jars scattered over the plateau and also getting drunk on lao lao at a village house - they put me in charge of pouring because by now I was quite experienced and addicted to the horrible stuff. Our bus trip back down the dodgiest part of Route 13 was uneventful, but we had two plainclothes guards with big guns to protect us - I think they were guards anyway!
Vang Vieng was a highlight - rather touristy but so much fun. I went tubing
everyday down the river - starting at noon we would jump in the river 3km
upstream then cruise down stopping off at makeshift bars run by old men and women and children. We also tried to go caving, swinging and cliff jumping while drunk. One cave had mudslides and another we followed for a kilometre into the mountain coming out 3hrs later. I ran into two girls I had met at different times in Cambodia and Thailand who are now living together in Vientienne teaching English. So I got to stay at their house with their two pet flouro coloured chickens and have delicious home cooked meals fresh from the market. I nearly stayed to find work also!
Bangkok again! Just in time for the weekend markets - nearly killed myself
shopping - but I did need some clothes to wear in the UK - all my pants fell
apart in the last week! I had some fun times going out with local thai that
worked around Khao San Road.
And then almost unexpectedly (because I've put it off for so long) I was on my
way to London! On arrival in the morning I found my way on the tube to cousin Hagan's flash pad on the Thames, looking over to the millennium dome. Everything seems very easy, clean and clockwork compared to asia. I don't stand out anymore and it seems like nearly everyone is from somewhere else - which makes it a lot friendlier. Plenty of kiwis too. I've managed to go to the opera, and an Indian musical for free and otherwise have been out and about in Soho (definitely not free!) and surrounding suburbs to the numerous Antipodean pubs.
My friend Aimee (from design school) thought it would be a good idea if I stayed in London for a while so helped me get a job at her work (General Electric) as a temp PA until the end of October. After that I think I'll need a holiday! I got off the couch and now Aimee and I are sharing a wee room with bunks in Marble Arch (near Hyde Park, very central and very Lebanese) for three weeks.

---

---