"You're Staying All Alone? Do You Want Someone to Stay With You?" - Sayabouri, Laos

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After about a week in Vientiane, it was almost time to get back home to Luang Prabang. But first, I thought I’d make a brief stop in Sayabouri/Sayabouli/Xayabouri/Xayabouli, a town Northwest of Vientiane, with at least four commonly accepted spellings.

Arriving at the bus terminal in Vientiane at 4 PM, I learned the bus had been cancelled due to lack of customers, but the next bus at 6 would leave as scheduled. I spent the next two hours trying to stretch my legs, walking around the outdoor depot, while Lao people looked on at me like a crazy person, (Why was this white person doing loops around a bus depot when she could just be sitting, relaxing and waiting with everyone else?) Well, my rationale was that I was about to get on a bus for sixteen hours, so maybe it’d be good to get a little exercise. It made sense to me! I also started reading a horribly trashy but fortunately engrossing book I’d picked up that morning, desperate for some reading material for the ride. The jist of the book, which kept me entertained for about eighteen hours of the next twenty-four hours, was that four children are locked in an attic by their mother, who remarries and keeps them a secret and the two older children fall in love. Then the kids are released from the attic and they grow up, albeit rather strangely. It isn’t a book I’d recommend but it did keep me busy for a long time. The bus finally departed, packed full of people and belongings, although I don’t think anyone dared bring live animals on such a long ride, so that absence was nice. We were blessed to have a bus sans TV’s which meant no corny and repetitive lao music videos, instead, only very loud lao music blasting from speakers. Our first stop was actually a baguette shop, just out of town, where everybody stocked up on baguettes like it was the last shop on earth. Stupidly, I did not, and later seriously regretted it when our only few stops were at small shops with limited food options.

My fellow passengers were a bit fascinated by me, the lone foreigner on this bus headed west, but also a bit bewildered. Why was I reading this book, and for hours and hours on end? My cell phone had a flashlight feature so I was able to light the book in my lap, the sole light on the bus as the night darkened. It’s pretty hard to sleep on these busses, with their uncomfortable seats, the bumpy bone-jostling roads, and the ear-popping music. But everyone tried their best, even those passengers unlucky enough to have boarded the bus last and gotten plastic stools in the walkway. A lighting and thunder storm began, rocking the bus every few minutes. Many passengers were afraid of the storm and sat, eyes wide open, their belongings clutched in their laps. I felt like a jerk when another passenger, with fear in their eyes, asked me to turn off my cell phone, as it could attract lightning to the bus. By dawn, we had reached the ferry crossing.

The ferry was really just a big bamboo platform with a strong motor. It held about seven cars at a time. We had to wait about thirty minutes for our turn to cross, the bus stopped on the dirt road built off the main road at a twenty degree angle to access the dock. After the three-minute crossing, and a sixteen-hour ride, we were almost in Sayabouri. The sun was rising, and people were walking to work in the fields, along long, straight but hilly roads. Upon dismounting the bus at the depot in town, I felt a bit silly. People were staring at me, like, what is she doing here? Haha. So, I started saying I was there on business; somehow it just seemed more reasonable than the truth, that I was just curious and wanted to see what Sayabouri was like. Lao people do not travel alone unless absolutely necessary and would never do so for pleasure. Also, I doubt anyone else was traveling there on vacation, as I was, and I felt guilty. When I told people I was there for business, they shook their heads yes, liking that response. I don’t think there is any foreign tourism in this town yet, and I had a little trouble not only finding a place to stay, but a way to get there.

Sayabouri is the administrative capital of western Laos, so the town is very developed, looking the most like a modern suburb in the US than any place I’ve yet seen in Laos. The wide, paved streets are lined by modern, fairly large, somewhat planned houses, many with gates and dogs within those gates. But imagine a suburb where every fifth family runs a business out of their homes; pharmacies, cafes, discos, food stands, shops. Sounds like a fun suburb to me; the way our suburbs allow only houses in the US makes for such boring neighborhoods, where everyone has to drive for their commercial needs.

A few dozen multi-story, white government buildings are scattered around town, looking more majestic and stately than anything I’d yet seen in the country. Definitely not what I’d expected driving through the countryside, sixteen hours from the capital. I was there during a holiday though, so I did not see any business occurring here, if that is really what these big buildings are for. The center of town holds a massive new government building, set far back from the road, with at least ten floors and a width not too different than that of the White House. A gate surrounds the building and a parking lot, built to hold a hundred cars lies in front. There is a large indoor squash club on one of the main roads.

I definitely got the idea that there was a lot, a lot of money in this town. But this money was likely concentrated in the hands of a few dozen government officials and their families because the center of town was a bit incongruous with the town once you walked fifteen minutes out in any direction. Average bamboo and wood shacks are built along the roads where poor farmers walk or bicycle to work in the fields.

Locals here seemed uninterested and unimpressed by the foreigner in their midst. Children were afraid. Novice monks, usually my first friends in other parts of the country, ran and hid when I walked on to their temple grounds. Children hid behind sacks of rice in the market. A giant St. Bernard terrorized me when I walked to my guesthouse each night, stalking me down the street, growling and barking. Nobody spoke English. But I had fun.

The central market here, as in most towns in Laos, was fabulously fascinating. I took many wonderful and memorable photographs. Men sold herbal root medicines, women sold fruits and vegetables: cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, cabbage. Cooks prepared dumplings, spring rolls, chicken satay, pickled vegetables, papaya salad.

After buying some rice and a few prepared bagged foods, I was squatting in a corner of the market to eat one day. An old woman selling a sweet sticky rice dessert got up from the stool behind her table and insisted I sit down to eat. When I finished, she made me eat some of her delicious sticky rice dessert. Another night, after eating a delicious late-night bowl of noodle soup near my guesthouse, two Lao men driving through town hit on me. “Who are you here with? You’re here alone? Do you want someone to stay with you? Why not? Oh, you’re a good girl. That’s nice”. I mention this because never before had I been hit on by a Lao man; maybe they are just not interested by this strange looking foreigner, but I tend to think they are just naturally polite and respectful.

I enjoyed walking around this town, exploring, seeing what people were up to. I watched a few teenage boys installing square cement sidewalk panels in to a new sidewalk with just their hands, their muscles and a few metal rods. Five boys took turns happily climbing a coconut tree until one succeeded in bringing down a ripe coconut. Then they all took turns hacking the coconut open with a big machete. When the fruit split, revealing the sweet juice inside, they passed it around until it was empty. Having a ball together, these kids were even more jubilant that I was taking photos of them. Walking further down the street, I came across a teenage girl cooking my favorite food, Vietnamese crepes stuffed with sautéed pork and mushrooms. When the cook turned, I saw that her entire left cheek was engulfed in a hairy, black mole. I walked a few more miles, to a beautiful new temple, where I watched the construction for a few hours. To my surprise, an older gentleman in his sixties, speaking good English, offered me a ride back to my guesthouse across town when construction had finished for the day. He said he was a well-known Thai architect, and people in Sayabouri had hired him to design this temple.

After three days, I left Sayabouri in the pouring rain, eager to finally get back to Luang Prabang after my interesting, but extended trip around Laos. The ride was an easy four hours east, improved by the pleasure of passing about fifty pineapple stands set up along the roadside. The fruit had just begun to ripen, and the farmers already had hundreds to sell. Women and kids dozed on platforms, surrounded by a sea of ripe, sweet pineapples, awakening to sell when a buyer appeared. Arriving back in Luang Prabang after what seemed like the shortest bus ride ever, I cried with happiness.

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