Loving Laos

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As one might guess, finding internet facilities fast and well-equipped enough to upload photos is not so easy to come by in many parts of Southeast Asia, which partially explains my lack of updates, and also means that I now have to rack my brain back two countries ago.

So let's see, let's see, from Phnom Penh, we bused it down to Sihanookville, a coastal town in the south of Cambodia, where we did a whole lot of chilling and hanging out with our two travel buddies (who are now engaged!). Our last day there, we were able to rally the troops for a picnic day at the waterfall outside of town. We grabbed a tuk-tuk, which we had to help push up a hill mid-journey when it stalled, and ended up at this beautiful waterfall, a hang-out mainly frequented by vacationing Cambodians. People had a riot seeing us whities there, having to cover-up in sarongs so as to not be too risque, since everyone swims in fully covering clothes clothes, especially the women (which I found out has more to do with not wanting to get tan than modesty, they even use whitening creams). We bought flower garlands from cute little girls, and posed for some photos taken by intrigued locals. Although the one downer was seeing a big heap of trash collected at the bottom of the waterfall, which is not surprising for Southeast Asia. They don't quite seem too concerned trying to preserve their country's natural beauty sometimes.

Sadly, we parted ways from our travel buds, and headed up further north to a small town of Kratie. We spent our first rainy evening at a restaurant owned my a rather flamboyant Mid-Westerner, from whom we got our share of American Idol updates and some questions answered about Cambodian fashion. The women tend to wear pajama sets. Apparently it is has nothing to do with comfort or laziness, but because such a matching outfit is considered to be the "height of fashion" for them.

The following day a group of us grabbed some motorbikes (& their drivers), to take us around through the local villages, which is my favorite part, and to a dock where we caught a boat to cruise the Mekong, looking for rare Irawaddy river dolphins. We did see plenty, although these dolphins don't exactly have Flipper's personality, and all we could see is their backs as they came up for air every so often. Still cool though.

Bidding adieu to Cambodia, we set off on our journey to cross the Laos border, and in typical fashion, our mini-bus left an hour late. The intentions of an on time departure were there, but packing 26 people into a 15-seater car (with a chicken in a basket and 6 motorbikes strapped to the top) is a delicate science. Fortunately, since as a standard, tourists pay about 10x what locals do, we at least got a whole seat to ourselves. 'Twas a cozy situation. Halfway along the way, we whittled down to just tourists, crossing the border into Laos, a very unofficial looking wooden office, and then to the Four Thousand Islands. I'm pretty sure four thousand is just a guess, and includes any lump of grass sticking out of the water, but regardless there are many islands scattered in the Mekong in southern Laos, only several of which are inhabited. We stayed on Don Det, which is our first time being literally off the grid. We were immediately greeted by a stray water buffalo, roaming the dirt road, and followed him until we settled upon a suitable place to stay. Our room was a bamboo bungalow along the river, with a rock hard bed, hammock out front, and you guessed it, a mosquito net. Not even a lightbulb, as any establishment lucky enough to have electricity, runs on a generator used only for several hours at night. The only running water was Mekong water, so to bathe you could pretty much shower or go for a swim in the river. Our room was $2.

Don Det is extremely laid back, and pleasantly real, with sparse bungalows scattered amongst real families' stilted homes. We had our first taste of the Lao friendliness that we would encounter for the rest of our time there, and were greeted by a “Sa Bai Dee” from everyone we passed, without a follow-up plea for money. The first evening we wandered about, taking in aspects of the Lao lifestyle: bathing in the river, cooking rice over a pile of flaming timber, children’s games with a straw ball. We even made a new group of little girl friends, and stopped to play a hand clapping game with them, our initiation being eating some of the extremely sour (and kinda gross) berries they had gathered in their shirts. It being springtime, walking around the island you'd encounter all kinds of animals with their litter in tow: baby chicks, piglets, kittens, puppies, and calves. Our first night we met a fun group of people and spent the evening hours playing card games and drinking BeerLao, until the generator left us without light. The next day we rented some bikes and biked around the island, and across a bridge to the next, reaching a massive waterfall/rapids section of the river. We stopped to marvel in the scenery, and play with the local children, swinging them around and around until they fell over from dizziness.

We had to move on after only two nights, both because we were pressed for time, and also we were running out of money! We discovered that there was no ATM when we were in Kratie, and without electricity, of course there was none on Don Det. Its a weird feeling having to be concerned about being actually legitimately broke. There's no overdraft option, or use of a credit card, nope if you run out, you're out of luck. Fortunately, with Don Det being dirt cheap, we were barely able to make it.

So we overnighted it to Vientiane, which was surprisingly very clean and relaxed for a capitol city, with French-colonial architecture, very little honking, and almost no beggars. Weary from our overnight bus and many nights of uncomfortable beds, we opted for a bit of a splurgey couple days. We discovered a gym, where you could buy a day pass for $8, which gave you access to plenty of exercise machines, a nice outdoor pool, café, sauna, steam room, and an hour Lao massage. Sign me up. We spent all day there, got some much needed exercise, and even took a yoga class (conducted in Lao), which however turned out to be more of a slow stretching class to the instrumental version of the “Fival Goes West” theme-song on repeat. The next day we ventured out to a public swimming pool, where we swam laps amongst several jumping and splashing children. We were the only westerners there, and the pool felt as though it was in someone’s backyard; for a minute it felt like a normal summer. We spent the rest of the day checking out the silk and trinkets shops, and treated ourselves to some comparatively cheap spa services. You can’t go far in southeast Asia without seeing a spa/massage sign.

The next natural, and much hyped-up stop on our journey was Vang Vieng, another river-side town, made famous for its tubing. But this is not your mother's tubing, actually the time actually spent in a tube is pretty minimal, since as soon as you get in and float for a matter of seconds, you arrive at yet another river-side bar, where there are huge rope swings that send you flying into the water and of course BeerLao and free shots of Lao rice whiskey aplenty. While Vang Vieng was certainly fun, the whole scene felt eerily like a mis-placed frat party, and with the past-time of choice when not tubing of sitting in restaurants watching rerun after rerun of ‘Friends’, we decided to get a move-on before we got sucked in.

A few hours further north, we settled next in Luang Prabang, the city I had been most excited for, and was not let down. As everywhere else in Laos, people are so friendly, the food delicious, and the atmosphere very light. It is the former capital city, and is much smaller than Vientiane, but also situated along the river, and maintains mostly French-colonial architecture. There are many beautiful temples to explore, a night market with unique hand-made goods, and a bar which is the unofficial night-time congregation point for all travelers who care to be social. We spent our first day venturing out to the waterfalls, and I was getting a little waterfalled-out so I didn't have the highest of hopes. To my surprise, we found many tiers of bright aqua-marine waters, with several swimming holes to cool off; if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was man made.

We spent the following three days in Luang Prabang, exploring the temples, haggling at the night market, and trying to fight off the heat (we discovered a hotel with a swimming pool). We signed up for a cooking course, and I am now ready and willing to make spring rolls on command when I return. It started early in the morning, and we decided on 6 dishes with our other classmates, then were taken to the market and shown all the herbs and produce. (Of course I had to do a bit of eye closing and nose plugging passing the mounds of raw pig ears, chicken claws, and god knows what else.) The markets open at 4am! Laos is very much an early to bed, early to rise kind of culture. Our instructor was a doll, and she taught us how to chop the ingredients, and also much about Laos culinary customs. The staff had pre-cut the ingredients, so we were just instructed on how to cook them. We ended up with soooo much delicious food, and after pigging out, we spent the rest of the class picking the instructor’s brains about Lao culture. Random fact du jour: according to social norms, couples do not even hug or kiss before marriage in Laos.

Part of the reason for the Laos people get up so early, is because the monks need to be fed before anyone else, around 5:30 am. They are fed by the community, and we decided to check out the monk’s procession one morning. I bought a basket of sticky rice, and was instructed to just kneel, scoop a ball of rice with my hand, and put it in the monks open silver bowl as they passed. It was actually kind of stressful! Those monks do not wait around, so you better be a fast rice-scooper.

We took another “off the grid” trip, starting on a minibus, followed by boat to a small village called Muong Noi. Promptly upon arrival I set out in search of a cold drink, and happened upon a group of local men, singing and playing music, which I was gestured to come join. Next thing I know, more free rice whiskey, and I'm part of the band. We parade down the street to our new location, a bare floor of someone's living room. We sit, continue to play music, me with my helpful hand claps, and I even get a little Lao dancing lesson. We are served a few communal bowls of spicy noodle soup, and I find it a perfect time to actually put my Southeast Asian phrasebook to good use. I tried out many phrases, but the best was reading out "I'm American" the way the book phonetically writes it, and realize I'm saying "Ah-may-li-can." Not too tough to remember.

We gathered up a group and spend the next day hiking to caves, where we swam and explored, and then tromped further on through rice fields to a small village where we were the only Westerners. We played ball with the children, found a place to refuel, did some hammock lounging, waiting out the rain before our return trip.

Already Southeast Asian dining needs to be approached with a very easy-going mentality, especially when ordering western food. You're always running a 50/50 gamble that your dish will actually resemble what you had intended to order. However, it gets even dicier when you're in a village where restaurants also double as a person’s living room, you order from a 9yr old (kids really grow up fast here), and meals consist of whatever ingredients they happen to have on supply. For ex. Vegetable curry = cabbage curry. And may end up taking 2 hrs.

We stayed at a guesthouse into which we were lured by a bubbly, petite, English-speaking Lao girl named Penny, which had a large balcony with hammocks, serving for a central hang-out place. In our bare bones bungalow we had nature's alarm clock: a combination of the sunlight, roosters, children shouting, and a caged bird which had been taught several Lao phrases blaring early each morning. Our shower was cold bucket splashes of water, and there's no where you could go that wasn't occupied by many bugs and geckos. I'd say I've grown accustomed to a certain amount and kinds of bugs, but there's still plenty out there I am not so OK with. For example, while sitting at the dinner table, the guy next to me was hit on the arm by what I thought was a crazy bird. We all gathered to check it out once it landed, only to find it was a cricket, or at least looked like one, but was at least as big as my entire hand. I dunno, but creepsville. Ok next, is the lobster looking gigantic bug that decided to latch onto the outside of our mosquito net, which we called in trusty Penny to remove.

After one more day of hanging out in this relatively sleepy village, we returned back to Luang Prabang, which was beginning to feel like home, and where I spent my last day with Abby before she flew back to England and left me flying solo! Fortunately we ran into some friends we’d met earlier in our trip, so I wasn't completely abandoned.

I had left the last few weeks of my trip unplanned, and based on advice from other travelers, decided to make Vietnam my last stop. I am there now, and have been for about a week, on my own and fending off stares, rip-offs, and pineapple vendors. People so far have been nowhere near as friendly as the Lao, but I hear the atmosphere improves as you travel south, which is what I'm doing. So far I have had some amazing experiences, and I’ve had pretty good luck meeting people. I have two weeks left to work my way down the country, so I’ll save my Vietnamese tales for next time!

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Photos

Kratie "bus station"
I'm not too confident they made it in one piece