The Elephants That Weren't

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Well, the elephant tower didn't quite pan out in terms of observing elephants, but we had a good time.

We trekked into the forest out of the village of Ban Na, about an hour's drive outside of Vientiane. Because we arranged the trek through an office in Vientiane, we had an English speaking guide with us, plus our driver. Add to that the required two local guides from Ban Na (who supposedly are there to keep us from being taken down by an angry elephant), and we had quite a crew.

We are in the rainy season here, so everything was soggy and muddy. I encountered my first wildlife of the day right there on my ankle; a leech latched on as I walked through a stream. It rained on us for most of the hike out to the tower. When we arrived, we climbed up a ladder into the tower and laid our soaked clothes out to dry (really, to make them less wet, not quite dry). As I was wearing Eric's raincoat as a sarong and neither of us wanted to put our wet clothes back on, we were happy to just hang out for the afternoon.

Our guides taught us a game that turned out to just be Spoons, but played with cigarette lighters. Whoever lost each round had to drink some lao lao (homemade rice whisky). Even though Eric or I was the loser most of the time, our guides were plastered by the time we finished off the bottle.

After dinner we sat up in the tower staring out at where the elephants are supposed to gather, but we couldn't really see anything because it was almost a new moon. Besides, the salt lick was flooded, so there wasn't much reason for the elephants to come. We did get to hear how loud the forest is at night and see a clear sky full of stars.

The next morning we hiked back along a different route to a beautiful area of small waterfalls and rock pools in the river. We hopped in and got our bathing and laundry out of the way in one easy step. Poor Eric had a leech get him through his thick sock while he was hiking.

When we returned to Ban Na, some people had prepared a big meal as a goodbye ceremony for two Australian guys who had been staying there and teaching English. They invited is in, so we got to partake of the feast and the lao lao that was being poured all around. Some men tied strings around our wrists "for good luck"; Eric later read that this string tying is something you do before you travel in order to bind all of your parts together so you are whole. We were learning some Lao phrases and people were practicing their English with us. We stayed as long as we could before we had to head back to Vientiane to get on our flight to Luang Prabang.

Our arrival in Luang Prabang was marred by the taxi mafia at the airport, but after some sleep and a shower it is looking much better. We're wandering around town today (currently waiting for the Royal Palace Museum to reopen after its 2.5 hour lunch break). Tomorrow we might be heading out of town for more trekking.

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Photos

So much food
We ate sticky rice, lab, soup, an eggy dish, and something spicy that resembled salsa.

Comments

[Ned]

Awesome! Without the foliage, the "elephant pond" looks like our backyard irrigation pond, sans leaches. Glad to see your scope of food is expanding. What is "lab". Really enjoying the vicarious voyage.

[Ned]

Taxi maffia
Is the taxi mafia at the airport similar to that in Accra, Ghana?

[Leah]

backyard
Mr. Cohen's backyard looks like Africa and Southeast Asia! Incredible.