All good things must end

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Last full day in Laos, and I'm up and out for something to eat and a local bus to the Buddha Park, about 25km out of the capital. This attraction is a collection of about 50 buddhist and hindu statues created by some bloke who had visions and proclaimed himself a prophet or some such. Can you tell I'm not the spiritual sort?

I made my way to the bus station, the lazy way; now that I've started enjoying this haggling thing, I really enjoy a good tuktuk ride! Just like my first trip there a month ago, a friendly local asked if I wanted help (that I was gazing blindly at an information / timetable board might have been a bit of a giveaway), and duely pointed me to the right bus, which I climbed aboard, eager to reserve myself a seat as soon as possible. It was about another 20 mins before the bus filled up with locals and a large group of foreigners, calling themselves hippies, many of whom really fulfilled the stereotypes with their huge Grizzly Adams style beards, no doubt making themselves totally oddities in the eyes of the hairless Lao.

Sitting next to me was an older bloke from Iran, who had spent a long time living in Lower Hutt and working in towns like Wanganui as a business consultant! He maintained ties with NZ as his son still lived there. He was blown away that he was meeting a kiwi girl on a bus in Laos, and I know that I should have found it more surreal as this was the closest I had come to meeting another NZ'er in 4 weeks.

He was an interesting bloke, and by and large I enjoyed talking with him. Until the conversation turned to some many travellers favourite topic, where and how easy it was to get dope and opium. This is one of my really big bug bears in a lot of the travellers I met. I take issue with the willingness to put locals at risk in their pursuit of a good time, arguing that the locals are grateful for the money. They conveniently ignore the social implications of their behaviour, not to mention what a Lao person will lose if they are caught supplying to a falang. Call me sanctimonious, I really couldn't care less, but I think true hippies would actually be concerned about the people whose country they are guests in.

He described himself and his travelling companions as hippies who believed they should be able to live on very little. Certainly, I was swayed by this; and the very expensive cameras they all had, and the way they bitched about the entrance fee that included an extra charge (about 0.10c) to take photos, showed they were strongly committed to giving up materialism.... No really, I felt their passion.

Anyway, it was hot, and I was no doubt getting cranky with it all, so when we finally arrived at the Xieng Khuan, I paid my entrance fee quickly while they snivelled about the cost, and legged it inside to get away and wander around on my own, taking photos (mostly of butterflies on brightly coloured bouganvillea it seems!), before retreating into some shade to have something to eat, then wandering back to the entrance to find a bus back into town. Luckily, none of hippies caught up with me, and I was the only tourist on the bus, even when we stopped at the Friendship Bridge, a border crossing to Thailand, and the bus filled up with locals who had been over the river to go shopping, filling up most free spaces on and in the bus with their purchases.

Back in town, I decided to go straight to the market to buy some of the souvenirs I had been hanging out to buy, and delved into the hot, stuffy, narrow aisles of Vientianes Morning Market (it goes until 4pm). At one end were the TV's, whiteware, cell phones, and electronics, mixed with silverware, jewellery and watches. There was also a section with bolts of fabrics, ranging from beautiful silks, to more synthetic fabrics, which then blended into the woven silk scarves, wall hangings and tapestries. I was in heaven, and I wanted to buy it all, and naively thought I might be able to with less than $100 on me!

I did manage to buy a few items, but realised I would need to exchange more money, and I'd left my travellers' cheques in my room. I ventured back outside with some relief, as I had been starting to droop a little in the heat, but then had to find the shadiest route back to the guest house. I thought about a tuktuk, but opted to walk, passing some ice-cream eating dutch tourists. Thankfully no one was pointing a camera me at that moment; I think my jaw was slack, my tongue would have been lolling out once side of my mouth, and had I had the energy, I might have mugged them for their Cornetto's.

Back in my room, I turned up the aircon to the "arctic blast" setting, had very pleasant cool shower then lay on the bed for another hour or so, feeling completely unmotivated to move again! It was with great effort that I forced myself back out into the side streets near my hotel, having heard there were a number of reasonable handicraft shops nearby.

Many of them were definitely targeted to wealthy tourists, and some of the prices were geared that way, but I did find a lovely, dark, dingy shop with some beautiful hangings and silks. The prices were embarrassingly reasonable, so my backpack got a wee bit heavier that afternoon.

My next stop was to a shop that sold crafts such as baskets, parasols and woodwork, where I bought a wooden hanger for one of stretch of weaving I had bought, and opted to also buy a fruit shake to make the sum a round one; as I stepped down on the footpath to take a seat, I didn't watch where I was going and the ground was uneven. I misplaced my foot and stumbled onto the ground, an embarrassed pile in front of the shop owners and other tourists, who all rushed to help me up. I most wanted to walk off and abandon the fruit shake, but, in a country where saving face is so important, wasn't sure if if it was more embarrassing for the owners that I stayed or left! I opted for the "act like nothing happened option" and sat down, protesting that I was fine.

Then I see the shopowners measuring the uneven concrete steps with pieces of wood to see if they can fix it, as no doubt injuring a falang is a source of great embarrassment! A very sweet girl asked if I was alright, and offered me that great cure-all tiger balm for any bruises. I tried to tell her it was all my fault, I was just a stupid falang, and proved it by telling her how I had also brutally stubbed my toe only the day before (indeed, it was the stubbing that I was limping from, not the twisted ankle...).

One icey watermelon shake quickly downed, and I took my brainfreeze headache away as quickly as possible, for a fortunately uneventful stroll around the neighbourhood, before heading back to my room to watch a couple of bad movies on TV back to back, then dragged my lazy self out for my last lao dinner, with some more shopping on the way.

After dinner, I spent at least half an hour trying to back my backpack, which had swollen from a meer 9.5kg when I left on Christmas Eve, to a slightly pudgier 18.5kg a month later. I had to figure out how to condense everything down, while keeping all the purchases I intended on declaring at the top of my pack. I also had to ensure that the long bamboo basket, with parasol and rice paper painting, and the wooden hanger, were well wrapped and would not come away from the sides of my pack where they were strapped on rather precariously! It was no mean feat, but I'm proud to say, I managed it well, although I was pleased that I hadn't bought all the baskets and carved buddha heads that I had had my eye on.

My only great concern now was did I have enough money on me to get to the airport in the morning before the exchanges opened? I had enough US dollars to pay my for room, and hoped I had enough for the departure tax; I also figured I had just enough Kip to pay for the tuktuk to the airport, basing this on previous experience of a maximum of 17,000Kip, with just enough for a fruit shake left over for breakfast.

So you can imagine my horror when I stepped out the following morning, covered in backpacks, and every tuktuk driver I asked refused to accept less than 30,000, even when I showed them how much money I had! Finally, I managed to get 20,000 and knew that I wasn't having breakfast. At the airport, I found out the departure tax was much higher than I had hoped, so I had to queue up to exchange money anyway!

So, eventually, it was on to Bangkok, where I had an 8 hour stopover; too long to spend in an airport, but not long enough to warrant clearing customs, travelling at least an hour and a half each way to the centre of Bangkok, spend about two hours there, then turn around again to be sure of getting through customs in time for the flight.

So that left me wondering how to kill 8 hours.

The airport is huge and brand spanking new, still sparkly and modern, and loaded with Duty Free Shopping along a very long concourse, which is great, even if the shops do all seem to have the same stuff and are repeated every third of the way. I spent an hour in an internet cafe, but balked at little at the costs, having paid less than 0.01c per minute in Laos. Then I wandered up and down the main concourse a bit, getting my bearings. I was hoping to stumble across a movie theatre or something to keep me calmly engaged for a few hours. Apart from shopping, I found cafes, thai massage and beauty spas, a spacious transit lounge with decent sized couches that you could comfortably stretch out on. I bought myself a very nice watch duty free, some rather unappetizing Pad Thai, I found some seats away from the hot glass ceilinged upper level concourse where I could read my book. I wandered up and down some more. Then I went to the transit lounge, lay down and read my book some more. I got talking to a very nervous italian grandmother, returning to her home in Perth, who hadn't read her itinerary correctly and had been unprepared for the 18 hour stopover she was suffering through, thinking it would only be 3 or 4 hours. Oh, and I found a dentist and had my teeth cleaned before finding a transit hotel where I could pay more for a shower than I had for a nights accommodation (shower included) in Laos!

All in all, the 8 hours went quite well!

Then it was on to the plane and home.

Holiday sadly over.

It was a lot of fun, and I would do it all again. Indeed, I'm already thinking about where to go next. Namibia has been on the list for a while for some reason, as have a number of other places in Africa and the Middle East. Also very keen to go to Central and South America. But that is at least 18 months away for now, so I will have to knuckle down, get saving and do more reading before making any decisions.

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Photos

Big Bubba Buddha
This is the biggest of the concrete statues at Xieng Khuan Buddha Park

Butterfly on Bouganvillea
Danm things wouldn't sit still, very difficult to photograph

Another Butterfly
they were actually much prettier than the statues that had all been cast from concrete, and could look a little tatty from some angles.