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Published: October 12th 2009
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Quieter Street in Downtown Savannakhet
The buildings you see are in Thailand, just across the river. Savannakhet is a medium-size urban town of about 50,000 with the feel of a place that was once more elegant and important than it is now. During French colonial days it was the center of commerce for southern Laos. Savannakhet is set on the Mekong River, and the county of Thailand can clearly be viewed, looking like the future, not 500 feet across the river. Unlike in Luang Prabang, Savannakhet’s many gorgeous colonial style buildings are being allowed to disintegrate. Reminds me of the photos I’ve seen of bombed out buildings in Europe after WW2. These elegant buildings, once lived in by the very rich or governors or ambassadors are now dilapidated: all the paint peeled off, the cement crumbling, big yards full of weeds and cows, and Lao families living inside. Many newer homes and shop houses are mixed in between these older buildings though. As in much of Laos, a large variety of housing styles exist. Savannakhet is a vibrant town, the feel of commerce in the air, clothing stores, noodle restaurants, baguette and pate stands, fruit stalls. A few streets busy with traffic, but most streets quiet and peaceful.
I could live here, I think. Its got
a magical feel to it, this place. The town is easy enough to bike around, but there’s so much going on. A mix of traditional and modern; yesterday I saw a tribal man in a loincloth with a long ancient gun and a dreadlocked beard walking through town. And I’ve watched many young Lao people searching the online classifieds for dates. There are fishmongers by the Mekong, their goods kept alive in the tiniest bin of water, the fish gasping for air, thrashing about; yesterday I saw a woman grab a huge, live fish and chop off its arms, then pound it on the head a few times with a wooden club. To finish, she sawed-off its head with a machete. Or I should say, she tried to saw-off its head. The head was too thick so she kept clubbing it with the sharp blade but the blade didn’t cut through completely and so the fish didn’t die for awhile. Watching that display turned me off eating fish for awhile. Families dine at casual restaurants by the river, sitting cross-legged on pretty blankets laid upon the ground, a small raised table with a little grill for Korean BBQ at their
center, cooking up vegetables, buffalo and noodles.
In Savannakhet, I glimpsed the first church I have ever seen in this country. The church is about seventy years old, nothing lovely on the inside compared to New England churches, but lovely on the out, and so strange to see in Laos. I feel like I’m in South America. I’ve never seen a church in these developing-country surroundings before. All the religious figures inside are caucasian though; wouldn’t that be a turn-off and a bit strange to Lao people?
There are two very nice temples here, one which boasts air conditioning for the monks rooms, which seems very decadent compared to the shacks where the monks in Luang Prabang reside. I’ve been meditating inside a gigantic old, but very well restored, temple. Yesterday I arrived at the temple too late to meditate inside, they had closed the doors, and I was chatting with some monks, and once they heard what I had intended to do they were happy to help. They opened the doors and lit candles and incense for me because it was dark outside and the lights in the temple were broken. They let me meditate inside alone
as long as I wanted.
At an unimpressive-looking coffee shop here, drinking my second cup of the best coffee I'd had in months, I started chatting to a young bearded German man. He was biking through Asia alone, just him and a small bike crammed with supplies. The idea was at once attractive and abhorrent to me. (This man would turn out to be the inspiration for a bike trip I would take only a couple months later. But sitting in that coffee shop, talking about his adventures and mine, I had no clue I would soon be travelling in the same crazy way he was. I just knew what he was doing was really, really cool because it was so refreshingly different.)
I am staying at a guesthouse here that I thought was nice enough but yesterday it was confirmed to me that it's a rent-by-the-hour kind of place. This was made obvious to me as the rooms are close together and the windows are all open. I could vividly hear the guests arrive in the next room, go on about their ‘business’ noisily, and then depart, only an hour later. I should have known by the
condom left lovingly atop the toilet paper in my room. My rent for this room per night is about $4, so the rate per hour must be a really good deal; perhaps 10 cents? I rent a bicycle here for $1 a day, from a small shack at the end of the guesthouse’s driveway. It is the most trusting rental place I have ever been to; the first day I gave them a dollar, they gave me a bicycle. No collateral, no mention of a certain return time, just a ‘thank-you’ and ‘have a good day’. The second day when I went by, I still had the bicycle, and I told them I was going to keep it for another day. They just smiled, said "OK", and took my dollar.
There is also a lovely, if small, dinosaur museum. There was a ten-year paleontologist effort here, ten years ago, funded by the French and conducted by French and Lao experts together. There are apparently loads of dinosaur bones in this area of Laos, but there is no more money to excavate so the bones will lay as they have for millions of years, ready to be discovered if money
comes. The museum is only one room with mostly very small bone fragments in glass cases and one big section of a tyrannosaurus-rex tail. I sure hope that ten years of research yielded more than this. Maybe the French took the rest back to France with them? My favorite part was the Christmas lights taped along the dinosaur tail.
I found Savannakhet quite fascinating and found myself staying a week, a longer length of time than I'd expected. After the quiet of Don Kong, Savannakhet was the perfect return to the bustle of urban life. Not crazy action like Phonm Penh, but a nice medium pace in a laid-back, modernizing yet beautifully crumbling, old-Colonial town.
I called my boss a few days ago and he told me the construction on the restaurant was going to take until mid-July, and so I should just enjoy my travels and come back around then. I was quite surprised. I’m still deciding what to do exactly, as I really miss Luang Prabang and can’t stay away long. But I know I should take advantage of this time to travel. I’ll probably travel until the beginning of June, head back to Luang Prabang
for a bit, work on my writing and photography, teach English, finish a book I was working on with Gabe for Lao kids learning English at Big Brother Mouse, await the arrival of my boyfriend, then head out traveling again with him. Anyone looking for a lovely, relaxing and stimulating place to travel to this summer, come visit me!!! I don’t have to work before mid-July and after that you can come sit on the roof of my bar and enjoy delicious food and the view of the hills and the sunset over the Mekong River, and then come downstairs and drink delicious local and Belgian beers at my bar. Then you can walk home to the sound of peace and quiet, or stroll through the temples at night, something I so enjoy. I admit, the ticket over here is expensive, but once you arrive, it’s cheap and wonderful as can be.
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Boonmy
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This Fish Won't Die!..
Friend in NY forwarded me the link. After reading just wanted to leave these few lines. Much appreciated your descriptive writing and can not help myself laughing "noisily" while finding you staying at a "guesthouse". All the construction must be done by now and hope I can visit this December for a Delicious local and Belgian beers at your bar. Till then. Trek on......