"Good people Don't Ruin their Country and Have Manners Not to Litter Thoughtlessly" - Vientiane, Laos

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After I‘d been working at the bar for a month, my bosses decided they needed to concentrate on finishing construction of the business. The bar is on the first floor of a three-story building they had rented, and the plan was to make the second-floor a barber shop and tattoo parlor, and the third-floor and roof-top a restaurant. The construction of the entire business was to be finished in January. Now it was May, and only the first-floor bar was finished. The decision was made to close the bar for awhile, so construction could continue full-speed ahead, and hopefully finish up, allowing the second and third-floors of the business to open, bringing in more profits.

Now, I don’t know why the construction hadn’t yet been finished, but I doubt it was related to the opening of the bar. I believe the work was delayed because my boss who directed the construction was meticulous, and though every corner, every counter was perfect, his need to spend days upon each little aspect of the work meant completion could take years. He also was working with local people who had no background in the type of carpentry he demanded and with tools more common in American carpentry in the 1950s.
I was, in fact, running the bar, open only in the evenings, and my boss was directing and doing the construction with his staff, each day. However, I didn’t have a say in the matter, and why would I really want to? I had just been given a three-week long paid vacation, and after only having worked one month! What an incredible blessing!

So as I loved my job and my life in Luang Prabang, I thought it’d be good to go explore the rest of Laos. I saw myself living in Luang Prabang for a very long time, and working six-days a week, I did not foresee having time to travel once the construction was finished. So I took the opportunity to go off and have some fun now that I’d made some money and had a long-term visa to remain in the country.

I stored most of my belongings at my friend Suzy’s, and hopped on a bus towards the Laos capital, Vientiane, ten hours south. A Lao gentleman sat next to me and we chatted in Lao off and on throughout the trip. He began to get on my nerves when he wouldn't stop talking pictures of me with his camera phone. He eventually chose one for his background and left me alone.

Ten minutes out of town, the ride became one sharp corner after another as the geography of this part of the country is extremely mountainous. The road is built in to the side of each mountain, and so goes up and down and around and around with the curves of the land. Most of the trip, a steep ledge lies directly to the left of the road, occasionally blocked-off by a small guard rail. The bus driver drove cautiously, driving only about 20 mph the entire way. The views are vast, just mountain after mountain off in to the distance, lush tropical land, dotted with blackened fields from the slash n' burn farming. Most people in these parts are farmers and know no better way of farming than this traditional technique. Their villages line the way, tiny bamboo, wood and cement houses hugging the road, goats, cows and water buffalo ambling by, dirty kids playing with dogs. When the bus goes through these villages, the kids look up, whether unoccupied or hard at work, and wave crazily. Frequently, the kids see the bus before you see them and you're alerted by their desperate 'look-at-me' cries of “SABAIDEE! SABAIDEE!” It seems that all they want back is a smile and a wave. From these reactions, you might guess they never see a bus or a strange white face. To the contrary, dozens of busses roll by their tiny towns each day.

After you’ve had so much twisting and turning and feeling ill that you think you might explode if you do not get off the bus, the road finally levels out, and after a short time longer you reach Vientiane.

Vientiane is much more like a real city than Luang Prabang, boasting enough cars to almost have traffic at brief periods of the day. Though in the evening, right off any of the few main streets, you can hear the crickets chirping. The capital features much charming French Colonial architecture, some restored, some crumbling, which to me and many others is wildly beautiful and romantic. The layers of chipped paint, revealing patches of brick beneath, the regal style, fit for some ambassador's house but being used as a soup stand, something about it just hits your soul. Vientiane, however, lacks the intimacy and peacefulness of Luang Prabang. Though, for a country capital, it may be one of the most calm and slow-paced, for Laos, it is not the best part. You do have the privilege of international cuisine, much more varied shopping, more extensive tourist services, like big gyms, international schools and swimming pools and very close access to more modern amenities across the nearby Thai border. People here are not as friendly, they are more suspicious of foreigners, and there is much more crime, less reverence for the traditional, and more influence from the Thai industry of selling sex. Lao girls dress much more provocatively here, in ways Lao girls in Luang Prabang would only dress if they were prostitutes. And they go out to bars with their girlfriends, something I love to do at home in the US, but have never seen Lao girls do in Luang Prabang. I guess these differences likely occur in most countries, big disparities between life in the cities and in the countryside. I also think Luang Prabang’s geographical distance from Thailand helps to keep it more traditional than Vientiane, which is far closer to Thailand and especially to Thailand’s center of change and modernity, Bangkok.

In Vientiane I visited the American Embassy, to add pages to my nearly-full passport and to register to vote abroad. There I met an American journalist from Tennessee who had flown to China immediately following the hurricane in Burma hoping to report and assist. Between then and when I met him, a week and a half, he had flown to and applied for a Burmese visa at the American Embassy in China, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Each place had thus far turned him down. He wasn't sure what he was going to do if Laos turned him down too. What a brave and determined man. I wonder if did end up getting in to Burma.

I needed to leave Laos in order to apply for my first temporary business visa upon re-entry to the country. Leaving the country was easy to do while in Vientiane, as the border was so close, and I decided I would take the bus to Nong Khai, do a little shopping, and return to Vientiane the same afternoon. While Thailand boasts fabulous beaches, terrific food, and great history and culture, to me it lacks the charm of Laos, and I had no need to stay overnight.

The bus station in Vientiane is located right behind the fabulous Morning Market, selling everything you could ever want, in traditional style under a big tent, and in modern style, in an attached new modern-mall. Near the bus station I found my second-favorite sign yet, 'Good people don't ruin their country and have manners not to litter thoughtlessly.' So true. And once on the bus another sign declared, 'Excuse me, the bus don't wait because the passenger don't have visa.' I talked to a dozen young men from Vietnam on the bus ride, who were in Laos working for their building company. They spoke no Lao and interacted very minimally with the local culture. I was surprised that they would make more money working in Laos than in Vietnam, which is much more developed, but according to them, they do.

When I arrived in Nong Khai, I took a tuk-tuk to Tesco-Lotus, a Target-like store I‘d heard would fill my needs for basic clothing fabulously. Arriving in Thailand, after over a full month in peaceful Laos, I had a bit of culture shock from the traffic, the huge, ugly buildings, all the abrupt loud noises. But I had a delightful time at Tesco, and was over-the-moon with a chance to eat some sushi at the food court there. I was disappointed that speaking in Lao to Thai people yielded no understanding. Lao people all understand Thai because they watch primarily Thai TV, there being little Lao broadcasting. But Thai people have no real reason for understanding Lao, unless they do a lot of business across the border. Though, the two languages are very similar, by some reports identical in the Isaan region of Thailand, where more Lao people live than live in Laos itself. Two hours later, I crossed back across the friendly, casual border in to Laos and received my new business visa. I was proud and happy and as before, so glad to be back in Laos.

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