We Drove All Night

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Sabaidee from Laos!! We are in "sleepy" Vientiane,
about to leave today to Vietnam by Laos Airline ("Laos
Air - On a Wing and a Prayer". We have had three
wonderful weeks in Laos and are sad to leave, but
looking forward to Vietnam.

Laos is quite and unspoilt and the people are so
friendly - all the children shout "Sabiadee" (hello)
and wave as you go past with big smiles. Yet this is
one of the twenty poorest countries of the world and
we feel a bit "rich" - the average income is something
like three hundred and fifty dollars a year, what we
spent last week.... We stayed three nights in a
lovely converted French colonial hospital on Don
Khone, in the very very south on Laos on the Mighty
Mekong, where the storms come out of Cambodia sounding
like crashing waves as the rain advances across the
Mekong. The place we stayed at had a little
restaurant right on the water with a girl who did all
the cooking for 18 hours a day - an average meal for
two there costs around six dollars (inc beer but
potential patrons please note - wine extra) and we had
been there five or six times. When on the last day we
gave her a tip of the change from ten dollars (about
three dollars fifty) she actually came to our room
with a present of a bunch of small and sweet bananas
for our journey home and a little woven bag (I suppose
a mobile phone holder size) as a present and thank you
and came to wave us off as we left the hotel in our
little canoe water taxi - it made us want to cry. She
made all the food fresh on an open fire including
spring rolls from scratch (not very authentic cuisine
I know) and steamed Mekong fish in banana leaf etc etc
all cooked over a wood fired hob with no magimix or
microwave.

To get to Don Khone we had a twelve hour bus journey -
we tried to get the most VIP transport we could. The
bus had a crew of four - one driving and three
collecting fares and executing running repairs - on
the hydraulic door, on the fuel system and other bits
and bobs. At one point, to general amusement, bolts
started falling from the ceiling, which were collected
up and put into the glove box of the bus! These
obviously came in useful when later we bus stopped and
the crew went to the back and lay under the bus - one
came back into the bus and opened the glove box (which
had itself jammed and needed some massive pliers to be
opened), took out the carrier bag of "spares" and
tipped them on the floor, selecting a few likely
looking bolts and jubilee clips, and disappearing off
to the back for ten minutes. After that we had a few
mysterious stops and the crew checked the fuel level
with a stick of bamboo collected from the roadside.
Buses never seem to fill up with petrol before they
leave, I assume to wait until they have enough
passengers to pay for it. We stopped twice for
petrol, the second time rather late, after a few
anguished inspections of closed or being constructed
petrol stations. After the twelve (actually thirteen)
hour trip we had the next day to get a songtheaw - a
small Toyota truck with a covered back and three
benches longways in it - a trip of three hours we
shared with sacks of cement, rice, haberdashery,
toiletries, chickens, ducks, our smelly clothes and
about twelve people, all of whom seemed able to stand
the seats better than I.

Anyway we made it unharmed! On the way we passed the
bus before ours - with all the nearside windows
smashed and stranded by the side of the remote road
and many huts with no water or electricity, where
people cooked over an open fire for children literally
in rags (still waving happily at us though) - we in
turn were passed by a convoy of brand new Japanese
four by fours, led by a new police car, indicating us
to pull over. In the middle of the convoy was a large
Mercedes limousine with a Laos PDR (Peoples Democratic
Republic) flag on the wing - all are equal in Laos but
some are more equal than others.

Vang Vieng, the drug capital of Laos (which to be
honest is saying something about the drug capital of
the world!), where Pizza and shakes come "happy", did
not provide us with any chemical (or herbal) highs!
We did not sample any nor did we meet anyone who did
as they are apparently so strong they can give
you two days of paranoia!! We are too busy worrying
about diarrhoea to have time for that.... The
marijuana is obviously
the big cash crop round here. The town is rather like
a town from the wild west - a boggy wide street with
bars on both sides and you expect to see people come
flying out of the doors and into the omnipresent mud
at any time, except the occupants of the bars are too
red eyed and spaced out to get off the reclining
couches which serve as seats in all the restaurants.
We were paranoid at ordering anything which might be
"happy" and all dishes marked as "special" or
containing any reference to mushrooms were closely
scrutinised. We both felt a bit odd on the first
night as we ate dinner and thought we had been spiked
until we remembered the beer we were drinking!!

We stayed in some lovely bungalows by the river where
Kylie Minogue stayed in 2000 (with that bounder James
Gooding) so I was sure it was the right place to stay!

The real attraction for us of VV is the spectacular
limestone Karst scenery - really incredible. We went
on a kayak trip down river which included the
obligatory trip to a cave and an "ethnic" village.
The village as ever was devoid of life except for a
monkey on a chain which amused itself by biting the
crotches of our fellow Flemish kayakers (who must have
all met
at their triathlon club). However the cave was
extraordinary - we were issued with Chinese torches -
one between four - and set off up this stream - too
deep to walk, holding the torch out of the water -
with razor sharp rocks tearing at our hands. We got
deeper and deeper into this cave, encountering massive
jumping spiders, and sliding around on the mud to come
to a stop on the lip of wells etc!! We got up and up
and were all getting a bit anxious. Viktor and
Sebastian, two Swedes, were checking each other
every two minutes for leeches and advising us to kill
every insect we saw ("be safe - be Swedish").
Eventually we got to a chamber
full of bats and after the Flems took four thousand
photos we saw a tiny hole in the roof. The guides set
off towards it (none speaking English of course) and
we saw we had to squeeze through it. The first to go
was the fat flem man who nearly got stuck. (This is
the man with a very nasty motorbike accident would on
his finger which his Flem friend was trying to get a
mangy dog to lick clean in one of the cafes....). Then
everyone else went until it was only me and the
(fatter) guide left - I was bricking it I can tell you
- I am, not joking - this hole was small. Anyway,
obviously I made it and we then had to trek down
through jungle to our kayaks and paddle another 2 ks
to home!! I thanked saint Kylie that we finished on
the river right next to our bungalows and we could
rush straight in and have a bath (Unheard luxury)..
(We stayed at Bungalow Thavonsouk - i think there is a
web site at www.geocities.com/thavonsouk or similar).
We subsequently met someone whose caving trip
consisted off diving through a submerged entrance up
into a cave - clutching a torch - in a four knot river
current! As my mother said - Indiana Jones in
swimming trunks.

It was frightening at the time but now seems
frightening. We were were shocked that we were
alive!! Both these trips were done under the
supervision of the Wildside operation - THE best
guiding company in Laos which indeed is responsible
for training and accrediting all other guiding
operations in the whole country (whose clients are no
doubt still in the caves somewhere).

My beard also nearly came off completely (along with
most of what is left of my hair) in VV - under the
expert ministrations of the local barber come
motorcycle repair shop / restaurant / general store.
However in only a week it has already grown back from
Noel Edmonds to David Bellamy again (yet it took a
month to get it DB in the first place - weird...).

We extended our time in Laos for an extra week and it
was well worth it. We are in Vientiane tonight having
got the overnight bus back from the south last night -
a very comfortable bus (if less than five foot ten)
with a loo and everything (unlike the one on the way
down, which we passed at a bus station half way - they
going south again - with its shell shocked western
passengers looking at our recognisably VIP bus in awe,
as we ate complementary deep friend crickets and
plants looking like shower heads).

Off to Vietnam tomorrow as I said so more news as it
happens (and keep away from BBC world - we are).

Otherwise we encountered Laos' biggest (not best as
claimed) banana pancake, I had a row with a waitress
in a french restaurant over what was medium when
discussing steak (will I never learn about the
French...), we saw a gecko the size of a rat in Vang
Vieng (no doubt driven out of the kitchen by the rat
the size of the dog seen in the kitchen by one of our
fellow travellers (getting into communist talk there).
We have seen a young hooker wiping the sweating bald
patch or her old client in a restaurant and I have
done something I swore I would never do - worn a Beer
Lao T-Shirt (available from literally every shop and
market stall in Laos) whilst still in Laos, owing to
being olfactorily embarrassed in the wardrobe
department. I am also getting over my worry that when
we stay in a room for say ten dollars (although it
could be two or ninety dollars) we could get more
facilities for less next door - that is always the
case but as I collect more rubbish along the way,
packing up to move seems less attractive each time.

Anyway - Khop Chai (that's Ta in Laos) for reading!

Joe

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