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Make blood?
Make blood! Laos
Shops open at 7 am, and shop keepers have a soupy noodle lunch at 10:30. Dinner at 7:30, off to bed early! Even the roosters crow much earlier than they do in other places I think. And almost each restaurant or hotel has a pet dog or cat.
Friendly people - Laotians, shy. SabaiDee… is in itself such a languorous greeting, not like an abrupt, impersonal ‘hi’. And the ladies too dance so languourously, … like watching a slow motion movie.
7 million people, big rivers and mountains, a few big cities, many small villages, employment problems, friendly Vietnam on one side, and a love-hate relationship with Thailand on the other .. its a strange country, Laos.
We flew into Vientiane, the capital, which sounds French, but has more of a Chinese origin. From there we went to Vang Vieng, and Luang Prabang, and then flew back to Vientiane.
Fooding is a serious pastime for tourists– the cuisine here needs a few months to be sampled seriously. There’s too much, and its too good. Sticky rice, is a concept. A way of life. It takes 2 hours to soak, and a long time to cook, and
its finally served in tiny bamboo straw baskets on the table. Tastes yummy, it’s a bit chewy, and there’s a purple rice variant too, which looks even more exotic. In Laos-English sticky rice is called Sticky-Lai. (Laotians are soft spoken, many consonants are silent, and ‘r’ becomes ‘l’. So rice becomes lai.) Cute.
We met a person who works with an NGO there, and has studied (on scholarships, he clarified) in Australia, Czechoslovkia and the US. The NGO is run by an American war veteran, who was filled with remorse on seing the destruction caused as he dropped bombs, on what he thought were soldiers, but actually were innocent civilians in a Loas village. He decided to do something good for the Laos people. This NGO works in making coffee growers better organized to grow and sell, to bring computer education to rural schools, and to generate local employment for the youth. They started a local youth radio programme, which is managed by the youth, and keeps many a young person out of harm’s way, as he stays fruitfully occupied with creating radio content.
We also learnt that the government is coaxing the hill tribe people to come down the
mountains and settle in the flat land villages. They burn tracts of mountain forests, plant their “crops”, and after harvesting, move onto other tracts of land. The beautiful mountains all have bald patches, which spoil the beauty, and do muchdamage to the environment and ecology.
We saw a mountain tribe on the way (see photo of family shop selling rats), as our bus driver stopped to shop for the dinner meal. He bought a lot of herbs, thoroughly examined the upside-down hens, and a few other animals on sale. Rats for one. Huge rats (badgers? What are they called?) were tied to the young woman’s feet so they stay close to her, and don’t run away. Didn’t understand why they were not tied to the bamboo poles. Children dragged and poked the tied animals, and did not seem to be sensitive to the rather distressed animals. Matter-of-fact kids.
We cycled around in each of the 3 cities we visited – Vientianne, Vang Vieng, and Luang Prabang. Nothing like cycling to feel a sense of freedom.Something wonderful about it, esp to get a “feel” of the place. Helped digest the large and frequent meals too. Brakes never worked, the chain
fell off on bumpy roads, but still, the cycles felt good. They were in a whole host of colours - pink, yellow, blue, and green, and red. Plain, simple, colored bicycles – no fancy designs. Just school-kid like simple colored bikes. With big picnic baskets at the front, in which we placed our cameras and bags. Cycled in the simmering heat and insistent rain. Whenever we returned to the guest houses, the weather turned cooler/ drier.
Boating on the Mekong was particularly wonderful. The scenery around looks the same, but different. Difficult to explain. Beer and the river, made us sleepy on the boat.
Vang Vieng - the place famous for wild partying, drinking, and drugs along with tubing – was great for all the outdoor activities we could do. Tubing down the river in Vang Vieng was less disturbing than we expected, after reading blogs worrying about the safety of adults in such wild “young” places. Luckily the drugs and spiked drinks are dramatically reduced – though the loud rock music batters your ears and sensibilities for the 1st half hour of the river, and the rather debauched kind of look of the place around you kind
of gets at you for a while. But you soon leave the mad rush behind and float on the Mekong for a good 4 kms, in relatively peace and quiet, watching the fool-hardy jump off make-shift bridges in drunken bravado. The rugged “karst” mountains are breath-takingly beautiful, the river so calm, graceful, and never-ending.
Reminded me of Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, in which he observes how unique a river is.. always still and always flowing; always emptying into the sea and always full.
We cycled through cobbled paths and mud paths, for many hours in the sun, to reach some wonderful caves, and a lagoon called the Blue Lagoon. Jumping and diving into the lagoon was good fun, and the caves were awe-inspiring. A man-made reclining, golden Buddha statue had reached here too, deep inside the cave, decorated with the offerings made by the locals. The bolder ones walked deep into the caves, in the dark, taking care not to slip on the wet stones. I sat and took it all in.
Food all throughout was great – though the Luang Prabang Bakery stood out in Vang Vieng, the Tamarind and the Indochine Spirit in Luang Prabang.
The toughest part used to be having to decide where to eat, since we were spoilt by too many good options.
In Luang Prabang we were determined to not do the touristy things unless they really inspired us into it. So we avoided all monuments and parks, though we succumbed to the Royal National Museum (interesting, but I would have avoided it if I could chose again). It’s a wonderful town (a Unesco heritage site), and we loved seeing the casual mix of monks walking down running their errands, straps&shorts clad young girls, old Laotian women attending a wedding, office goers attending a lunch party, school children cycling to school, and smart tuk-tuk drivers chasing opportunities, shopkeepers snoozing at lunchtime, and arts students carving wood at their School-cum-Art Gallery. Almost everyone seems to be eating and drinking all the time.
We stayed at Auberge Sala Impeng at Vientiane (nice, but impersonal), Jammee Guest House in Vang Vieng (a great experience thanks to Lyle, the manager, who I think was Australian), and ChitDara 2 (not ChitDara 1) and this was an absolutely fantastic experience, once again, due to the caring owner Mr Vong.
We flew Laos Airline, and
except for the fact that our plane was tiny, had propellers very close to our seat window, seemed to make an awful amount of noise, had a bumpy landing, and made us feel that we were doing something risky; it was a great airline – nice looking planes, friendly staff, on time.
Laos, turned out to be a great holiday for us, esp. since my teenage boys loved the constant outdoor activities, the constant feeling of exploring something new, and the endless food and drinks. The BeerLao is good, but the multitude of iced fruit shakes are far better, and we tried every fresh flavor, multiple times a day. Also, the Laos Massage is a highly evolved art-form, and for us, after cycling and walking in the heat/rain, it felt great. Highly recommended. Also, the local silk and local paintings on hand made paper are worth buying, if you are into wanting souveniers. The night market at Luang Prabang was a great place to shop.
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pitaji
non-member comment
I would prtefer to see these pix on your TV.