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Published: July 25th 2011
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Laos is full of easy going people who I’m pretty sure don’t know what punctuality or time are. The pace of life just slows down to a cool strut. No one really tries to scam you, however I did hear about hostel owners boarding the boat going to Thailand before it docked and trying to steal bags in an almost Monty Python fashion.
I got into Vientiane and had a layover for 4 hours, so I headed out on a tuk tuk to get a massage (I mean, naturally that’s what you think when you have a 4 hour layover right?). It was this 2-story straw-bamboo-palm tree hut hanging out amongst a bunch of Buddhist temples. There was some low level chill music, an herbal sauna, a lounge area where tea was served amongst a common area where seven languages were to be heard and a deck with 8 cots. The massage was actually quite painful at first, but felt much better after about 10 minutes. He did some crazy intertwining of my limbs and his, of which account I cannot fully describe because of the state of awe/relaxation I was in.
Got into Luang Prabang about 7 pm
and found a nice guesthouse to stay at for the night. Met two Brits who invited me out for drinks and went to this bar that had about 4 different levels of seating amongst lights that made me think of a jungle book-christmas story.
I had planned to meet an old Swiss friend of mine the next day who did a foreign exchange in Yakima.
Next morning I got up to go meet Pascale at the airport. We wandered around, ate some dinner, went to the night market and then she crashed, loopy with jet lag. Next day, got up and went to a temple atop a mountain in the middle of luang prabang that overlooks the entire town. Went out into the countryside via tuk tuk and hiked up to see a waterfal. We managed to hike to the top of the waterfalls and see some pretty awesome views of the surrounding jungle, mountains, and sky. You could swim, but we didn’t quite have enough time. Tourists were triangle roping out into a nearby water hole as we were leaving.
Got some breakfast, wrote some postcards and chartered a boat to heard to the Pak cu
Caves. The boat had some MAJOR engine issues and wouldn’t start up after we’d made it 2 km up river. He hailed a boat passing by for help and it happened to be his brother! After some timeless Laotian waiting, it’s seriously like time sometimes just fucking stops here and no one cares, we swapped drivers and his brother managed to get the engine started with a snap of his fingers. He also dragged his first mate aboard, which happened be a twelve year old kid outfitted with a badass pirate-captain-style jacket, some board shorts and flip flops. Basically his jobs entailed, sucking gasoline smoke, bailing large amounts of water, and looking badass. At times, while the boat was moving, he would jump upon the roof, which almost seemed to be made of paper, and RUN to the front. Then he would clamber down at the speed of a magician, and exchange some soft words with the driver, then rewind his route back to the emanating petrol fumes.
We made our way up the Mekong River to a nearby village where a strange looking old woman welcomed us. The woman, after we had ascended to the top of a
buoyant set of bamboo made stairs waited for an awkward pause or two, tilted her head a little and smirked. “Whiskey?!” So, then we tried some Laotian whiskey around noon. The weaker kind was actually pretty good but there were some interesting stronger bottles with snakes, scorpions, and other critters of the like, that I suffered through. I bought some of the red ‘lao lao’ (Laotian whiskey) and we continued off to the caves. The caves were actually disappointing in retrospect, but the ride there was uncompromisingly scenic. The sun had just come out through the clouds and water buffalo slogged through the banks of the river. Rocks and boulders jutted up from the river causing some pretty intensely unpredictable currents that swayed our boat drastically right before we had reached the caves. Speaking of which… our boat was a piece of shit, which intermittently had a monkey boy swaggering towards whatever his second mate instincts were at the time.
The ride back was much smoother than out there, as it was downstream. The sun was setting over Luang Prabang as we docked.
We went to an awesome bar with a view of the river and countryside and
Pascale ran into some friends she knew from Switzerland (the world is small, truly), so we had a beer or two with them after dinner. The place not only had a great view, but hukas, acoustic instruments strewn about, a beach volleyball court, decks to sit with pillows rather than chairs and coffee tables rather than proper ones and was engulfed by tropical trees. The bar/restaurant (which was called the most proper and fitting name – Utopia) just played Nightmares on Was “Inna Space Outta Sound” on repeat.
Next morning we got breakfast at Utopia to savor the view and headed off on a flight to Chiang Mai.
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Mom
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glad to read
So happy that you are back to posting again! Can't wait for the pictures of Western China