Bridge over troubled water

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Chiang Mai, 28–31 January

Luang Prabang, 31 January–3 February

Chiang Mai is one of those places that conjures up all sorts of images in my mind – thick jungle, elephants treading over muddy rivers and an exotic wonderland. In reality, when C and I arrived we were greeted by a very drab, very grey city that did not seem to live up to any of our expectations or, indeed, anything we had heard about it before. We headed out from our guesthouse (at £16 a night, we had a balcony, hot water and a gorgeous room - I love a bargain) into the warm, humid afternoon to explore the town. We wandered through the gateway in the Old City walls as we figured this would be the prettiest part of the city, at which point it started to absolutely hammer it down. This wasn't just a bit of rain, it was a run-for-cover job, which we promptly did along with everybody else in sight. The rain made it pretty difficult to explore but we found Chiang Mai seemed to be a very modern, very touristy town - we walked past Boots and McDonalds, lots of pool bars and English pubs. We ended up at the Night Market which seemed to go on forever with seemingly endless stalls of souvenirs and designer fakes. Amongst the tat, we were thrilled to find flawless DVD copies of Django Unchained and Les Miserables for 100 baht (£2 each). Considering both the films had barely even been in UK cinemas a week at this point, this was a pretty good find if a little depressing that this was the most exciting part of Chiang Mai so far. It was just, as we discovered more the next day, completely soulless. It quickly became apparent that the reason people rave about the place is because of all the exciting activities that are available outside the city - elephant rides, jungle treks and temples.

By this point, we were categorically not interested in temples any more and so our day trip consisted of a visit to an umbrella factory, some hot springs and a drive through the outer parts of the city. It was really beautiful landscape but neither of us could really see why it's consistently been voted one of the best places to visit in the world. It just lacked any sort of charm. The best place that we found to eat in town was a very basic, very large food hall that has been in Chiang Mai since 1954. The atmosphere felt like that of a school canteen but in a much more attractive way than that sounds. It was absolutely packed with both locals and tourists and the staff seemed to just throw your food at you but it was really tasty and the perfect place to people-watch so we were happy. Afterwards we went to have a foot massage; while we were in the salon it rained so hard that the power cut out and the ceiling started to leak. This occurred right next to C who was (of course) playing Football Manager. He just looked up at the ceiling a bit bemused, moved his laptop out of the firing line and then settled back into his chair, ready for the massage to resume).

And after that brief interlude in Northern Thailand, we woke up the next morning and boarded a flight to Laos. I can safely say that Laos was one of the strangest places I have ever been. We were so excited beforehand as every traveller had told us that it was "what Thailand used to be 20 years ago" or "the best place in Southeast Asia after Burma." That was a pretty tall order by any stretch of the imagination but Laos just turned out to be a place like no other.

It started out well. The flight into Luang Prabang offered absolutely jaw-dropping views. Set 700 metres above sea level and entirely surrounded by sweeping, inhospitable mountains, Luang Prabang was not accessible by road until just before the 20th century and it felt very isolated. The airport was tiny and the immigration process very slow. After Thailand, it felt good to be back somewhere 'real' again and it felt like proper travelling, especially when we left the airport and the taxi drove down one long road with the mountains all around us in the distance and typical Asian street views on either side; crowds of young children, people cooking outdoors on stoves and, randomly, lots of sizzling barbeques. After checking into our guesthouse, we walked into town over the old Communist-era bridge. The bridge is not exactly what you would call stable and to motorbike over it involves driving dead straight over a raised bar which is around 10 inches wide. To walk across, you take a ledge that runs parallel to the driving part but which, we didn't discover until we were well onto it, has some very large gaps beneath your feet through which you can see the river that lies uncomfortably far away below.

After we made it across the bridge, we found a local shop, hired a motorbike and rode up into the city. It didn't take long to explore the centre as it consisted of a long one-way street that ran parallel to the Nam Khan river on one side and the Mekong river on the other from which you could branch off to the right and ride into the town. The main streets (of which there were two) consisted of a long line of travel agents, restaurants and chill-out bars with pool tables advertising happy hour on cocktails. One end of the street was where the night market started up at about 5pm. I remember at the time thinking this was very early for a night market in Asia and we were to discover why later.

After riding around the town and getting to know it, we picked a really gorgeous restaurant for dinner. It was set into the hillside with candles strewn through the trees, Cafe del Mar-style music playing quietly over the speakers and tables nestled into random nooks and crannies. We chose a traditional Laos meal, which saw the waiter bring us our very own barbeque/saucepan to the table where we broke an egg over the top and heated chicken and buffalo meat over the centre (buffalo was surprisingly tasty, if very chewy) while adding vegetables and noodles to the broth that bubbled round the edges. I love a bit of a fun way to eat so this was perfect. I always find with food like that that it always tastes good even when it doesn't, as the whole experience adds a bit of flavour. Luckily, in this case, it did.

But this was when we first started getting the image of Laos as a very strange place. At the back of the menu was an entire page of FAQs for tourists. This in of itself was quite random but when we started reading, it became truly odd. One part lectured us on the dangers of using drugs and informed us that, "in Laos, food is not provided in prisons. So if you are thrown in prison for drug-taking, you will have to rely on your friends and family outside Laos or you will starve. The answer is - don't do drugs!" Right then. I've never been instructed on such a thing whe simply trying to order some food. Another part explained the word farang to us which is a common term for a white person that we have heard throughout Asia. On the page, it was written, "this is not a derogatory term as it sometimes believed but is an affectionate, respectful one, not that this respect is always deserved considering how the farang have treated us." It all seemed quite unecessarily aggressive and snooty and made us feel distinctly uncomfortable and a little bit confused as to whether we should feel guilty about the sins of our forefathers.

The menu did, however, give us one crucial bit of information that no-one who had mentioned to us so far. In Luang Prabang, there is a midnight curfew. While this is strictly enforced for locals, it is slightly more lenient on tourists although all bars and restaurants are shut by around 11.30pm so their staff can get home in time for curfew. (This was with the exception of one place that was open until 3am which is apparently where all the tourists go). Why is there a curfew? Answers on this differ. Some say it is because Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage site so they want to protect it and keep it the way it is. Other more sordid rumours say that there was an influx of paedophiles in LP a few years ago after there was a clampdown on sex tourism in Thailand and the curfew was a desperate measure to protect the town and stop it escalating. It began to become slightly clearer as to why Laos people seemed hostile against foreigners. We read later that Laos is the most bombed country per capita in the entire world, and that the US government dropped more bombs there during 1964-1973 than was dropped on Germany during the whole of World War Two. No wonder they're a bit fed up.

We got back to the hotel before curfew after driving over the treacherous bridge in the dark and avoiding the seven growling dogs that stalked the courtyard of our guesthouse. On the table in our room was a piece of paper which consisted of a list of rules, one of which instructed us not to bring "prostate" back to our room "for the purpose of making sex movie." Both a sub-editor and a pervert's nightmare, then. And doesn't this country just love its rules!

We drifted off to sleep, determined to find out just what Luang Prabang was really about when we woke up the next day.

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Photos

No prostates please!
Our hotel's list of rules

Comments

[Sam]

Was für ein schönes Foto und sehr gut geschrieben. http://flugverfolgen24.de