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The river
One of the fast sections. Brave the rapids and reward yourself with a cold beer lao at one of the numerous stopping points.I apologize for the first version, I was rushed and didn't even have time to read it before publishing. Here's a slightly better version.
"The Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, and the Laotians listen to it grow."
Hello friends,
Last time I posted, the limits of my infinite(ish) patience were being flirted with. After two organized trips in Northern Vietnam that were filled with aggressive entrepreneurialism and laced with a little deception, I was needing some time to relax, chill out. I honestly think that's what Laos is for. Pinched between two ambitious and rapidly developing countries, arriving in Laos is like a cold beer at the end of a long day. In fact, the only export Laos is known for is its ubiquitous Beerlao. Coincidence?
Anyway, to give you an idea of what it was like, let me walk you through a typical day in Vientiane.
Sleep in, since you can. Get up, wander around looking in the windows of all the fancy cafes that serves astonishingly good coffee. It makes sense though. Developing countries need NGOs, NGOs need their volunteers and employees, said volunteers and staff are the type of
Relaxing
This was one of few moments where I pulled myself away from the swings. people who lounge around cafes at home, so why not bring them to the developing country? Long story short, Vientiane had a smattering of great cafes. Over breakfast you can read a couple-day-old copy of the Bangkok Post. You take your time and read every article. Since you can. Wander out and spend the rest of the morning trying to find that elusive temple the guidebook recommends. Find it, take pictures, go find lunch. Play cards after lunch. Somehow spend 5 hours doing things in the afternoon. I would tell you how, but I honestly don't know how we did it. Dinner was mostly spent at outdoor restaurants on the bank of the Mekong. After dinner, we would go to this one bar that has a wide selection of board games. Play monopoly, drink Beerlao, go to bed. Repeat.
After a few days of that we moved on to our next stop, a place that my brother tells me was recently voted one of the top "Weird Places" people must see in their lifetime. Vang Vieng isn't just weird - it's quirky and briefly fun; visually beautiful, but aurally irritating; oh yeah, and about as culturally enthralling as a
The swing.
Guy goes big. "Married, with Children" marathon. Or better yet, maybe another sitcom would make a more suitable analogy...
Let me explain. Vang Vieng has river tubing, which I'll explain shortly. The tubing attracts a certain breed of traveler: young, sun-burned and with a built-in beer budget. In fact, most visitors there are part of a very distinct backpacker sub-strata, the "British Gap Year Kid." They're 18 and 19 year olds from the Midlands who are taking time off to travel before uni. And since all the North Americans are just ending their school year and the Aussies are just beginning, it seems to be the BGYKs who are taking over the tourist haunts. Vang Vieng addresses this demand head-on by making it as hospitable to that crowd as possible. At all hours of the day, every guesthouse and restaurant is blaring an episode of Friends. All day. Every day. Reruns of Friends. As you walk down the street, you can hear no less than three episodes in progress. On one tv you hear the laughtrack, on another further away you hear the faint guitar of the opening theme etc. And lining the streets are backpackers sprawled out on bamboo couch/beds , chowing down on pizza and guzzling Beerlao. The closest thing you get to a tourist attraction in Vang Vieng is that episode where the gang goes to London for Ross' wedding and visit Westminster Abbey.
But the tubing is actually incredible. We went out on a rainy day, which unfortunately did push Adrienne close to hypothermia, but also meant we had the river virtually to ourselves. The highlight for me though was without a doubt the trapeze swings that loom over the river from either side. See, the actual tubing is only a small part of the experience. The real fun is passing by a little patio bar where if you wave the staff down, they will either jump in to pull you out of the strong current, or if they don't feel like getting wet, throw a bamboo pole on a rope at you like Ahab harpooning a whale. The idea is to grab the bamboo pole and hold on while they pull you in. Then comes a glass of beer, and then come the swings. They launch from platforms 30 feet above the water and swing you out over the river. It's essentially a Tarzan rope, but bigger, faster and so much more fun. The most impressive part is watching the local staff who have spent years around the trapeze (which I suppose is better than years listening to Friends) and can swing around and flip into the water with the agility of a circus performer. I felt really good about my backflip, until the kid went out wearing a Santa hat and hung from his ankles, much to the delight of the tourists. And to cap it all off, the view from the river is brilliant, jagged limestone peaks with low clouds swirling around just below the summit. Even from the town, the views are incredible. It's easy to miss that however, since your eyes are mostly glued to the New York skyline.
We left the following day since we had had just about enough of that scene and so we went to the UNESCO protected ancient capital of Luang Prabang and promptly returned to the rhythm of life we had grown accustomed to in Vientiane. The highlight was getting massages at the Red Cross. Doctors-in-training volunteer their time to give massages for charity. So yes, I splurged and got an hour long head massage. But it was for a good cause so back off, alright?!?! On our last day we went to this waterfall outside the town. Again, it was raining, but that didn't dampen our spirits. It did, however, dampen my passport which was in my travelbelt in my backpack. It got so wet that I spent the next few days trying to dry it out. The only part that really got so wet that the ink of the stamps ran was my Lao visa. Oops.
Other than that, it was the same old routine of cafes, markets and the occasional wat. On our second last morning we got up early for the "feeding the monk" ritual. At dawn every day, the monks exit their wats and march in procession down the sidewalk, receiving food from the locals. This is how they eat every day. Worth noting: you don't actually "feed" them like one feeds a bird (placing the food directly in their mouth), as an unnamed Israeli we were traveling with thought we were doing; instead, you just place the food in their little satchel.
The next day we left on our two day boat trip to Thailand. It was long, but a canasta marathon passed the time nicely. We also got to know everybody on our boat who we are now traveling in convoy with: a Northern Irish couple and a Belgian girl have now joined the Canadian-Israeli alliance. Two days on the Mekong isn't quite as romantic as it sounds. The water is murky and swirls around on itself like a witch's cauldron, but the scenery was beautiful and the company better.
I'm now in Chiang Mai. The border guard didn't make a big deal about my smudged visa stamp since he could still read the date, but he did tell me to be more careful. The funniest part of the morning in Thailand was when we were catching a local bus from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai and Adrienne had gone to 7-11 to buy some breakfast for us. The impatient driver started to inch away, despite my protests and banging on the side of the bus. Owen, the Irish guy, was waiting for his girlfriend who had gone to withdraw money. We shouted at the conductor to stop, but she just waved us on to the bus. Slightly panicked. I realized that if I got on, we would leave the girls, but if I stayed out, they would leave without us too. So without any other options I grabbed onto the rung of a ladder on the back of the bus and refused to let go. If they were going to speed away, they would have to drag me. So down the street we proceeded at walking pace. It gave the locals outside having breakfast a chuckle to see this Westerner marching behind a moving bus, hanging onto it with a vice grip. To emphasize my point, I pretended to pull backwards like I was trying to have a tug-of-war. I don't think the driver shared my sense of humour. The look on the girls' faces when they came around the corner and saw Owen marching beside the bus and me hanging onto the back was priceless.
So here we are in Chiang Mai for the 12 days. We're booked into a cooking class for tomorrow and are going on a meditation retreat next week. Somewhere, Scott Cooper just choked on whatever he was eating.
Either way, I love Thailand so far.
And to supplement the quote I started with, if the saying goes that the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Laotians listen to it grow, then MY guess is that the Thais build a machine to harvest the rice then have a ladyboy sell it tourists. Just a hunch.
Fraser
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Laura
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You're like Superman stopping the bus! I tried to find an image for you, but you'll just have to trust me that he does, in the first episode of Superman: The Adventures of Lois and Clark. I sure hope by "as one feeds a bird" you don't mean regurgitating your stomach content for the monks. And last, darling, you don't sound bitter at all about the Friends thing... maybe convince them to play Mad About You instead? Who doesn't need a little Paul and Jaime in a foreign land.