April 20, 2008
Our nice in the fancy Phnom Penh hotel was just what we needed. The free breakfast at the hotel was really nice... really nice coffee, fresh fruit juice, fantastic yogurt and muesli... oh so good. We decided that we needed a second night there. The hotel was kinda jerky about it and said we needed to move to another room that cost US$5 more (for a grand total of US$50). Yes, that's expensive. Oh well. It was only one more night... ad it WAS really nice.
I spent a big chunk of the day trying to use the internet cafe and catch up on my blog and photo journal. I got caught up on my photos, but the internet cafe was so crap that my blog posting got messed up and I lost most of it. Bastards. Oh well.
In order to find a good internet cafe, I actually walked around and ended up trying about four different places. At the last one, I had a interesting experience. I was looking for a cafe that I could make a phone call home using Skype. At the last place, the dude said there was a laptop in the back that I could make my call on. He showed me the laptop. While I was logging onto Skype the dude sort of hung around and kept talking to me. The conversation went sort of like this:
Dude: "How long have you been in Cambodia?" -- a pretty common question from Cambodians.
Me: "I only got here last night."
Dude: "What do you think of Cambodian people?"
Me: "I've been here for less than a day, but they seem very friendly. They smile a lot. I like that!"
Dude: "Do you have any friends in Cambodia?"
Me: "No, just the people I'm traveling with. I've only been here for a day, after all."
Dude: "Do you like dancing?"
Me: Now I was thinking, okay, this is getting wierd... I just wanted to make a phone call, then this guy won't stop being chatty! I respond, "Yeah, I enjoy dancing once in a while."
Dude: "There is a dance party tonight. Lots of music. Do you want to go with me?"
Me: Okay, this is getting wierder! "Aww man, no thanks... we had a rough day yesterday, I need to catch up on sleep. Now, I'm going to make my phone call..." That's when I started to ignore him and hope he left.... which he did...
The phone call wasn't successful... the internet was just too crap. I ended up using the computer for only about 5 minute after he left, even though he talked to me for about 15 minutes before. So, I went out to pay...
Dude: "Fifteen to thirty minutes, 1000 riel." -- note that the rate is 2000 riel per hour -- rounded up to the next 15 minutes (500 riel)
Me: "I don't think so. I only talked for about five minutes."
Dude: "Yes. 1000 riel."
Me: "I know I was trying to use the computer for about twenty minutes, but for the first fifteen, you were talking to me the whole time."
Dude: "Yes."
Me: "So then I was really only using it for 5 minutes on my own."
Dude: "Yes."
Me: "So you agree that I should only pay 500 riel."
Dude: "Yes."
Me, handing over a 500 riel note (that's about 12 cents -- yes I argued over 12 cents): "Okay, I'm going to go now."
Dude: "Good bye... I wish I could go with you..."
Okay, so this Cambodian dude was totally flirting with me. He wanted me. I am absolutely serious. He really said that he wished he could go with me and he really invited me to go dancing and make "friends."
Alex and I were excited to find a REAL SUPERMARKET close to our hotel in Phnom Penh. Apparently our hotel is located in an posher area of the city... banks, electronics stores, supermarkets, cafes, handicrafts stores, embassies, hotels, lots of businesses. It was busy and the roads were filled with honking cars, motorcycles, and the ever-ubiquitious tuk-tuks. We were DEFINITELY not in Laos anymore. Cambodia is hip and happening and moving places. Laos is a sleepy backwater place that is treading water and trying to keep up. Anyways, at this supermarket, Alex and I bought cheese, bread, wine, chocolate, peanut butter, beer, juice for lunch and snacking along with other essential sundries like shampoo and deodorant.
For dinner, we went to a pizza place near our hotel and grabbed some takeaway Hawaiian pizza which we enjoyed at the hotel while watching a movie on the TELEVISION (yes, we had a TV!) along with the rest of our cheese, bread, peanut butter, and wine from lunch.
It was an exhausting day!
April 21, 2008
I think we did even less today than the day before. We moved from our expensive fancy pants hotel to a cheaper guesthouse one block away. It was only US$20/night instead of US$50/night, but still had air conditioning, a TV, a refrigerator and a private bathroom with heated shower -- these are the necessary luxuries you normally have to pay out for.
Alex found out that our friends Andrew and Jenny from Spicythai Backpackers were also in Phnom Penh! We made plans to meet with them that night.
In the morning, Alex and I took a moto ride to the Russian Market to do some shopping. The Russian Market is apparently the place to go in Phnom Penh to buy souveniers, and bargain bootleg clothing products. I was surprised to see a large number local handicraft shops that were set up to promote local industry and provide all profits back to the community. There was a lot of charity work afoot all over Cambodia. Many of the products in these handicraft shops were made of recycled materials -- bracelets made from recycled cigarette wrappers, bags made from old sacks of rice, figurines made from pieces of scrap metal or bullets. Alex bought a heap load of souveniers and presents from shops like these. I was still offically "traveling light" so I only bought a bag made from an old sack of rice, an "Adidas" shirt and a pair of fake Birkenstocks. The fake sandals were so painful that I ended up throwing them out a couple days later.
That night, we went to a restaurant that I had read about in Lonely Planet and had been lusting over for at least a week. There was a Russian Restaurant in Phnom Penh and it was supposed to be really good. It totally surpassed my expectations. I had borscht, cabbage rolls, fresh bread, and a lot of vodka (probably like five shots). Alex had some beef stroganoff and only drank some gin and tonics. She said it was wierd that anyone could drink so much vodka straight at one meal. Vodka is easy for me... no problems :)
After the amazing Russian meal, we motoed up to the backpacker ghetto and met Andrew and Jenny for drinks. We stayed up late and drank a lot. We made plans for the next day.
April 22, 2008
Our plans today were more impressive than any before. We met up with Andrew and Jenny at the very fancy Hotel Phnom Penh and hung out at the pool all day long. I also spent a good amount of time in the steam room, sauna, and jacuzzi. Phnom Penh was already freakin' hot... why would I want to spend time sitting in a steam room? Who knows, maybe the heat was making me crazy. We stayed at the hotel for like six hours in the afternoon and only had to pay the day rate of US$5 each. Sweet deal!
The four of us reconvened that night for a meal at our first Cambodia restaurant. Indeed, I was in Cambodia for three full days and I hadn't had any actual Cambodian food at all. I was still reeling in the huge selection of Western stuff available in Phnom Penh and was living it up as much as I could. I had some amok with tofu for dinner -- its a baked stew like dish with lots of coconut milk and some spiciness. Pretty tasty.
April 23, 2008
So it was my fourth and final day in Phnom Penh. I guess it was time to do some sightseeing, after all. My stay in Phnom Penh was so far consumed with consumption and relaxing. I needed it, but I should do something touristy, I suppose, I guess.
Before sightseeing, Alex and I went for breakfast at a cafe near our guesthouse. I think it was called the "Garden Cafe 2". Anyways, it was the freakin' best breakfast I've had in all of Asia. Seriously. I got a breakfast for US$6.50. Yeah, kinda spendy, but it was totally worth it. I got:
* Freshly ground coffee -- oh so good.
* A glass of fresh fruit juice -- I chose the orange
* A large bowl of fresh sour yogurt
* A huge plate of fresh fruit -- two oranges, two bananas, a mango, and an APPLE! (Apples aren't that common in SE Asia since they need to be imported, usually from the U.S.A.)
* Real butter from France -- European butter is far tastier than any butter in North America
* A big jar of black currant jam from England -- more on this below
* Two eggs very fluffly scrambled
* A piece of sausage
* Three pieces of bacon
* A grilled tomato
* Two toasted slices of home cooked brown bread
Okay, that's more food than I would ever order for breakfast. I couldn't eat all the fruit and I took it most of it away for later. I cut up the mango and one of the bananas into pieces and mixed them into the yogurt with big spoonfuls of black currant jam. They gave me honey that I could have used, but I wanted the black currant jam -- totally my favourite flavour of jam. That cafe sure made a mistake putting the whole jar of jam on the table. I totally have the backpacker mentality now that free food should not be wasted. That jar started about half full, but
it ended close to empty. Woo hoo!
After that fantastic (and filling) breakfast, Alex and I met up with Jenny and Andrew at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. After indulging myself in the luxuries that Cambodia provides to its tourists who want to pay for it, I needed to explore the dark side of Cambodia history. The museum was dark indeed. It used to be a high school in the 1960s, but during the regime of Pol Pot in the 1970s it was used as the most infamous prison in the whole country. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 13,000 and 20,000 men and women were held at the prison over the four years it was active. Only 7 people survived. The prisoners were subjected to the harshest tortures and awful living conditions. The museum itself is a grim testament to its history... lots of photographs and empty cells remain. Some rooms just contain a metal bed with shackles attached to it. These rooms would have a single photograph on the wall showing an emaciated man shackled to it. There were hundreds of photographs of the prisoners themselves, taken on arrival. There were paintings showing the methods used to torture people. I was very shaken to be there. I felt goosebumps and shivers and had to grip my crucifix necklace to give me the strength to continue. That museum is one of the scariest places I've even been.
After lunch, the four of us continued our exploration of the dark Cambodian past and took a tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields -- a wooded field about 20 km outside of Phnom Penh. Prisoners from various sites in Cambodia were brought the the Killing Fields of Cheong Ek (and other similar sites around the country) to be killed in brutal, but simple, ways. Since bullets in 1970s Cambodia were rather expensive, prisoners were killed by hoes, shovels, sharp edges of palm leaves, beating against trees, and any other blunt objects that were on hand. There was a huge monument to the Cambodian Genocide there. The monument was full of skulls. Out tour guide showed us skulls with huge holes in them from the blows of hoes and shovels. The fields themselves consist of a huge number of mass graves. Some of these graves have been opened and are now open pits. These graves usually held 100 to 200 people. As we walked around the fields, we saw pieces of human bones sticking out of the dirt. There were 20,000 people killed and buried haphazardly in pits all over the killing fields there.
That night was Alex's and my last night in Phnom Penh, so we went out for dinner and drinks with Jenny and Andrew. We went to riverfront for a bit of a pub crawl. We started at the very swanky (and expensive) Foreign Correspondent's Club. We sat on the rooftop patio and drank half-price cocktails! Happy Hour is something that I didn't really appreciate before this trip. The opportunity to get cheap booze in the afternoon is definitely appreciated now :)
After Happy Hour ended, we walked up the river front for Mexican food. We ended up going to two more bars after dinner. We played pool att one. Alex and I beat Andrew and Jenny two to one while a really lame live band played Lounge music in English. I toasted our stay in Phnom Penh with a round of Jagermeister shots for everyone.
We parted ways with Andrew and Jenny there on the riverfront in Phnom Penh. However, we planned to meet up again at Burning Man in Nevada, USA at the end of August.
To be continued...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The Four Thousand Islands and Pi Mai Lao Part 2
April 14 and 15, 2008
In the morning, we checked out of the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos. While checking out, the staff dude looked at my last name and commented about it. I said, "Yeah, it's a Polish name." The staff dude said that the owner of the guesthouse, Mr. Vong, spoke Polish. I thought to myself, "No way... I've already heard him speak in excellent English and French... but Polish? No one in Southeast Asia speaks Polish." So I struck up Mr. Vong in conversation. His Polish was even better than mine. Apparantly he studied mechanical engineering in Warsaw for ten years. That makes for THREE really interesting guesthouse/hostel owners whose names end with -ong: Pong (Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Mr. Kong (Kong Keo Guesthouse in Phonsavan, Laos), and Mr. Vong (Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos). Just odd...
Alex, Damaris, and I boarded a minibus to take us two hours south. From there, it was a short boat ride to Don Khone.
We had heard about Don Khone in Pakse. The staff of Sabaidy 2 said it was a really nice and quiet island to visit. Not really very rustic, but very comfortable. It was exactly what we were looking for. When we got to Don Khone, we realized our error. We were really supposed to go to Don Khong, not Don Khone. Their names are so similar, we got mixed up! Oh well, Don Khone was still a pretty island and we would stay there instead.
Don Khone was very pretty, but not quiet at all. Pi Mai Lao was still in full swing here and the villagers were PARTYING constantly. Our guesthouse (Mr. Pan's) had a restaurant and the staff of the restaurant were VERY aggressive about soaking people with water when they came by. We saw a pair of girls on a scooter totally wipe out while trying to dodge the water from their hose. Eep. Not only did they like to soak you, but they liked to spread lipstick on your face (as Alex found out, and I ran away from). They liked to put talcum powder in your hair and on your face, too. Oi!
Additionally, the villagers played a LOT of loud Lao music during the afternoon and evening. First the restaurant on one side of our guesthouse would play. Then the restaurant across the street. Then the house beside that. Then the house on the other side of our guesthouse. They were taking turns playing their music as loudly as possible. Sometimes they would play at the same same ("same same" -- that's a common saying on T-Shirts here -- I don't know why) time and try and drown each other out. I know that it's their biggest holiday of the year, but combined with my recent travel fatigue, it was really getting old for me fast.
Also, there were lots of roosters crowing. I just couldn't escape these guys. Would I never know peace again?
Don Khone is very rustic, too. They only have electricity for a few hours in the evening. The afternoons there are very very hot. Short of jumping into the Mekong River, there's no way to cool off in the afternoons. You can't even get an icy fruit shake to cool off with since there's no electricity to run the blenders.
Don Khone was VERY PRETTY, and had really nice food and cheap liquor, but it really was way too rustic for us to handle. We decided to bear with it for two days and then would take the boat to nearby Don Khong.
We spent the afternoons trying to lie in hammocks and barely surviving. I tried to drink a lot of water (probably like three hours per day) and take three or four showers per day to keep cool. I occasionally let the restaurant staff hose me down, too. Damaris didn't drink nearly enough water and started to feel ill. Doh. Drinking water is important, you know!
In the evenings we visited a pretty nice restaurant beside the river. One night, before sunset, we watched a bunch of locals on motorbikes set up a toll booth on the bridge beside the restaurant. It was not your normal kind of toll booth though. They made anyone who passed on their motorbikes stop and have some shots of Lao Lao before continuing. They were forcing people to drink and drive! That's something you'd never see in Canada!
The "Lao Lao Toll Booth"
We prefered to drink and sit. The restaurant had the cheapest liquor I had yet seen in Lao. They charged only 10,000 kip (about CA$1.20) for a generous shot of Pastis and a bottle of water. The water usually costs 2,000 kip (about CA$0.20). Getting a drink of imported liquor for only CA$1 was very cheap in Laos -- usually it cost closer to CA$3. We drank a lot of Pastis and Gin and Tonics there! They also had a fantastic Thai red curry with pumpkin there. Mmm!
Sunset on Don Khone
April 16 to 18, 2008
On the morning of April 16 we chartered a long tail boat to take us a hour and half back up river to Don Khong -- the real island we wanted. It turned out to be everything we wanted. They had twenty-four electricity, guesthouses with AIR CONDITIONING (since our stay in Don Khong, every guesthouse or hotel we've stayed in has had air conditioning). There were very few tourists there. Strangely enough, there weren't any crowing roosters as well. I saw chickens and chicks, so the roosters must have been somewhere... I just couldn't see or hear them. Maybe they kept them muzzled in some shack out back somewhere. Hallelujah! It was a very pretty island, too. Don Khong was like a holiday away from our holiday. I needed it!
We didn't see (or hear) any Pi Mai Lao celebrations on Don Khong. We knew they were still going somewhere, though. Our guesthouse kitchen was closed every night. When we asked why, they said it was because of Pi Mai Lao. We assumed that the cook was out drunk or passed out somewhere. Hehe.
We did very very little on Don Khong. We'd wake up in the morning and enjoy the free breakfast at our guesthouse -- Auberge sa la Done Khong. The guesthouse was less like your typical cheapo-guesthouse and more like an old French colonial hotel that was starting to show its rough edges. My bathroom was completely overrun with mosquitos and I was afraid to go in there. Otherwise, it was really quite pleasant. It cost me US$10/day. Not that bad, really.
Oh yeah! Back to the breakfast! They served really nice coffee (which I usually got two or three cups of), fried eggs, fruit salad, and very fluffy pancakes. They didn't have maple syrup (not that I would expect them, too), so we either spread sweetened condensed milk on our pancakes (much better than pouring puddles of it into coffee), or sprinkled sugar and lime juice. Most pancakes we had in Laos were too think and greasy. These were really good.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in our air conditioned rooms listening to music, reading, chatting, playing guessing games. I also spent time playing my Nintendo DS Lite. I finished up my book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (it's really good -- highly recommended -- thanks Aleks (my cousin) for the suggestion!) and started The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (which Alex (my traveling buddy) traded to me). I also spent lots of time sitting on the deck chairs on the guesthouse patio. Life was hard. It was still excessively hot out, so you can't blame us for taking it easy.
Occasionally we ventured out to find food. My Lonely Planet guidebook told me that there was another guesthouse (the Mekong Guesthouse) in town that made the audacious claim that they served Canadian-style pancakes and Tim Horton's-style coffee. This was ludicrous. We had to investigate.
The pancakes were indeed very light and fluffy -- as I would expect proper pancakes from Canada. Sadly, they lacked maple syrup -- but honey made a very nice substitute. Alex admitted to being a Tim Horton's addict (she is from Hamilton, Ontario, after all). She confirmed that the coffee really did taste like Timmy's coffee! I don't know how they did it, but they did. Since they managed to meet our expectations, we went to that guesthouse twice. There were really only like four places to eat in town, so quite a few places managed to score our repeat business.
One night, we were eating at this guesthouse patio overlooking the river. There weren't many other tourists in town, but there were some. There were a couple of families from France. That night, while the French parents chatted with each other (and smoked like chimnies), the kids were happily playing with each other. I guess one of the kids (I think he was only three years old) got bored and decided to play with us for a while. He spent like an hour sitting on Damaris' lap demanding that we draw pictures of cars, trucks, dolphins, bananas and other things. Once it was announced that it was I that was the artiste, the kid switched over to my lap and made me draw for him. It was mostly Damaris and Alex that spoke to the kid, though. Damaris speaks flawless French (as she should, since she is from Switzerland). Alex's French is better than mine, too, since she went to university in Montreal and took French immersion.
The kid was a liar, though. When we asked him where he was from, he said he was from Marseilles. His parents' corrected him and said that they were really from Nantes! Punk!
The riverfront view on Don Khong.
Alex tries to "roll up the rim" on her Tim Horton's coffee on Don Khong
April 19, 2008
Today was the last day on Alex's and my visas for Laos. We had to exit the country that day. We said our goodbyes to Damaris (I promised I would visit her if I ended up backpacking in Europe next year). She was going to go north through Laos to return to Chiang Mai, while we were headed south into Cambodia.
It was a long day of travel. We spent a long time at the border. There was a lot of border bureaucracy (e.g.: crap) to deal with. First we had to pay our US$2 "exit fee" to get leave Laos. Then we had to pay US$21 to get our visa for Cambodia. Finally, we had to pay a US$1 "entrance fee" to enter Cambodia. Really, most of these fees were really enforced bribes to the border guards. The only cost we were really supposed to pay was US$20 for the Cambodia visa. Damn border guards. There really wasn't much we could do.
Much of the journey was spent in a couple of different minibuses. The bus had seating for thirteen people, but there was usually about fifteen people in it. The air conditioning was weak so we had to travel with the windows open. One section of the road was completely made out of dust and sand, so we ate a lot of dirt. Bleck. The ride was so long that the guys in the back of the bus kept lighting up cigarettes. Some of them had the decency to try and keep close to the windows to keep the smoke out, but not all of them did. Double triple vomity bleck.
I was excited to reach Cambodia, though. Laos really sucked for beer and liquor. Beer Lao is not good. Many people say that it's one of the better beers available in Southeast Asia. I think they are wrong. W R O N G. Lao Lao is really harsh stuff, too. The problem is, though, that Laos claims to be a communist country (they're not really communist though -- see rant below) and they are landlocked -- so the selection of imported products is pretty limited. Cambodia claims to be a democratic country (they've got some issues with that, too, though), and is not landlocked. Hence, the selection of imported products is much better. The most popular Cambodia beer, Angkor, is pretty decent, too.
We finally pulled into Phnom Penh at like 10:30 PM. Alex and I had pre-decided that would stay in a REAL HOTEL when we got to Phnom Penh. We had lived on the cheap in Laos for a full thirty days, and we needed a taste of luxury to relieve our travel fatigue. The auberge on Don Khong was nice, but we needed more! Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, and the biggest city we've been in since Bangkok in Thailand, so it was a good candidate for a recharge.
We had a couple choice locations picked out in our guidebooks, so we grabbed a tuk-tuk from the backpacker ghetto that the minibus from Laos dropped us off in and puttered over to the swankier section of town. Alas, the first two hotels we looked for were closed or moved. We walked around for like an hour in after-dark Phnom Penh (which many people say you shouldn't do), before finding the Anise Hotel. We got a really swanky (by our standards) room for US$45. Yes, that's really expensive, but we deserved it. It was 11:30 PM and we were tired of looking. We got a couple of draught Angkor beers from the hotel bar, cracked open the minibar and looted it for chocolate, cleaned the dust and dirt from ourselves with the shower and passed out.
To be continued...
Rant about Communism in Laos!
Oh yeah! I wanted to rant about the communist government in Laos. I didn't really feel comfortable ranting about this while I was actually in Laos, but now that I'm in Cambodia, here goes.
Laos is trying out the same messed up form of communism that China and Vietnam are doing. I don't like the regular socialist form of Communism either, but the capitalist form of Communism popular in Asia these days is just messed up. The people of Laos have to pay to send their kids to school or get health care from hospitals. That's not real communism -- not even close. That's just an example of greedy government leadership. They're just saying they're "communist" to maintain their grip on power while they continue to exploit their population. That's greedy and just plain evil.
In the morning, we checked out of the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos. While checking out, the staff dude looked at my last name and commented about it. I said, "Yeah, it's a Polish name." The staff dude said that the owner of the guesthouse, Mr. Vong, spoke Polish. I thought to myself, "No way... I've already heard him speak in excellent English and French... but Polish? No one in Southeast Asia speaks Polish." So I struck up Mr. Vong in conversation. His Polish was even better than mine. Apparantly he studied mechanical engineering in Warsaw for ten years. That makes for THREE really interesting guesthouse/hostel owners whose names end with -ong: Pong (Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Mr. Kong (Kong Keo Guesthouse in Phonsavan, Laos), and Mr. Vong (Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in Pakse, Laos). Just odd...
Alex, Damaris, and I boarded a minibus to take us two hours south. From there, it was a short boat ride to Don Khone.
We had heard about Don Khone in Pakse. The staff of Sabaidy 2 said it was a really nice and quiet island to visit. Not really very rustic, but very comfortable. It was exactly what we were looking for. When we got to Don Khone, we realized our error. We were really supposed to go to Don Khong, not Don Khone. Their names are so similar, we got mixed up! Oh well, Don Khone was still a pretty island and we would stay there instead.
Don Khone was very pretty, but not quiet at all. Pi Mai Lao was still in full swing here and the villagers were PARTYING constantly. Our guesthouse (Mr. Pan's) had a restaurant and the staff of the restaurant were VERY aggressive about soaking people with water when they came by. We saw a pair of girls on a scooter totally wipe out while trying to dodge the water from their hose. Eep. Not only did they like to soak you, but they liked to spread lipstick on your face (as Alex found out, and I ran away from). They liked to put talcum powder in your hair and on your face, too. Oi!
Additionally, the villagers played a LOT of loud Lao music during the afternoon and evening. First the restaurant on one side of our guesthouse would play. Then the restaurant across the street. Then the house beside that. Then the house on the other side of our guesthouse. They were taking turns playing their music as loudly as possible. Sometimes they would play at the same same ("same same" -- that's a common saying on T-Shirts here -- I don't know why) time and try and drown each other out. I know that it's their biggest holiday of the year, but combined with my recent travel fatigue, it was really getting old for me fast.
Also, there were lots of roosters crowing. I just couldn't escape these guys. Would I never know peace again?
Don Khone is very rustic, too. They only have electricity for a few hours in the evening. The afternoons there are very very hot. Short of jumping into the Mekong River, there's no way to cool off in the afternoons. You can't even get an icy fruit shake to cool off with since there's no electricity to run the blenders.
Don Khone was VERY PRETTY, and had really nice food and cheap liquor, but it really was way too rustic for us to handle. We decided to bear with it for two days and then would take the boat to nearby Don Khong.
We spent the afternoons trying to lie in hammocks and barely surviving. I tried to drink a lot of water (probably like three hours per day) and take three or four showers per day to keep cool. I occasionally let the restaurant staff hose me down, too. Damaris didn't drink nearly enough water and started to feel ill. Doh. Drinking water is important, you know!
In the evenings we visited a pretty nice restaurant beside the river. One night, before sunset, we watched a bunch of locals on motorbikes set up a toll booth on the bridge beside the restaurant. It was not your normal kind of toll booth though. They made anyone who passed on their motorbikes stop and have some shots of Lao Lao before continuing. They were forcing people to drink and drive! That's something you'd never see in Canada!
The "Lao Lao Toll Booth"
We prefered to drink and sit. The restaurant had the cheapest liquor I had yet seen in Lao. They charged only 10,000 kip (about CA$1.20) for a generous shot of Pastis and a bottle of water. The water usually costs 2,000 kip (about CA$0.20). Getting a drink of imported liquor for only CA$1 was very cheap in Laos -- usually it cost closer to CA$3. We drank a lot of Pastis and Gin and Tonics there! They also had a fantastic Thai red curry with pumpkin there. Mmm!
Sunset on Don Khone
April 16 to 18, 2008
On the morning of April 16 we chartered a long tail boat to take us a hour and half back up river to Don Khong -- the real island we wanted. It turned out to be everything we wanted. They had twenty-four electricity, guesthouses with AIR CONDITIONING (since our stay in Don Khong, every guesthouse or hotel we've stayed in has had air conditioning). There were very few tourists there. Strangely enough, there weren't any crowing roosters as well. I saw chickens and chicks, so the roosters must have been somewhere... I just couldn't see or hear them. Maybe they kept them muzzled in some shack out back somewhere. Hallelujah! It was a very pretty island, too. Don Khong was like a holiday away from our holiday. I needed it!
We didn't see (or hear) any Pi Mai Lao celebrations on Don Khong. We knew they were still going somewhere, though. Our guesthouse kitchen was closed every night. When we asked why, they said it was because of Pi Mai Lao. We assumed that the cook was out drunk or passed out somewhere. Hehe.
We did very very little on Don Khong. We'd wake up in the morning and enjoy the free breakfast at our guesthouse -- Auberge sa la Done Khong. The guesthouse was less like your typical cheapo-guesthouse and more like an old French colonial hotel that was starting to show its rough edges. My bathroom was completely overrun with mosquitos and I was afraid to go in there. Otherwise, it was really quite pleasant. It cost me US$10/day. Not that bad, really.
Oh yeah! Back to the breakfast! They served really nice coffee (which I usually got two or three cups of), fried eggs, fruit salad, and very fluffy pancakes. They didn't have maple syrup (not that I would expect them, too), so we either spread sweetened condensed milk on our pancakes (much better than pouring puddles of it into coffee), or sprinkled sugar and lime juice. Most pancakes we had in Laos were too think and greasy. These were really good.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in our air conditioned rooms listening to music, reading, chatting, playing guessing games. I also spent time playing my Nintendo DS Lite. I finished up my book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (it's really good -- highly recommended -- thanks Aleks (my cousin) for the suggestion!) and started The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (which Alex (my traveling buddy) traded to me). I also spent lots of time sitting on the deck chairs on the guesthouse patio. Life was hard. It was still excessively hot out, so you can't blame us for taking it easy.
Occasionally we ventured out to find food. My Lonely Planet guidebook told me that there was another guesthouse (the Mekong Guesthouse) in town that made the audacious claim that they served Canadian-style pancakes and Tim Horton's-style coffee. This was ludicrous. We had to investigate.
The pancakes were indeed very light and fluffy -- as I would expect proper pancakes from Canada. Sadly, they lacked maple syrup -- but honey made a very nice substitute. Alex admitted to being a Tim Horton's addict (she is from Hamilton, Ontario, after all). She confirmed that the coffee really did taste like Timmy's coffee! I don't know how they did it, but they did. Since they managed to meet our expectations, we went to that guesthouse twice. There were really only like four places to eat in town, so quite a few places managed to score our repeat business.
One night, we were eating at this guesthouse patio overlooking the river. There weren't many other tourists in town, but there were some. There were a couple of families from France. That night, while the French parents chatted with each other (and smoked like chimnies), the kids were happily playing with each other. I guess one of the kids (I think he was only three years old) got bored and decided to play with us for a while. He spent like an hour sitting on Damaris' lap demanding that we draw pictures of cars, trucks, dolphins, bananas and other things. Once it was announced that it was I that was the artiste, the kid switched over to my lap and made me draw for him. It was mostly Damaris and Alex that spoke to the kid, though. Damaris speaks flawless French (as she should, since she is from Switzerland). Alex's French is better than mine, too, since she went to university in Montreal and took French immersion.
The kid was a liar, though. When we asked him where he was from, he said he was from Marseilles. His parents' corrected him and said that they were really from Nantes! Punk!
The riverfront view on Don Khong.
Alex tries to "roll up the rim" on her Tim Horton's coffee on Don Khong
April 19, 2008
Today was the last day on Alex's and my visas for Laos. We had to exit the country that day. We said our goodbyes to Damaris (I promised I would visit her if I ended up backpacking in Europe next year). She was going to go north through Laos to return to Chiang Mai, while we were headed south into Cambodia.
It was a long day of travel. We spent a long time at the border. There was a lot of border bureaucracy (e.g.: crap) to deal with. First we had to pay our US$2 "exit fee" to get leave Laos. Then we had to pay US$21 to get our visa for Cambodia. Finally, we had to pay a US$1 "entrance fee" to enter Cambodia. Really, most of these fees were really enforced bribes to the border guards. The only cost we were really supposed to pay was US$20 for the Cambodia visa. Damn border guards. There really wasn't much we could do.
Much of the journey was spent in a couple of different minibuses. The bus had seating for thirteen people, but there was usually about fifteen people in it. The air conditioning was weak so we had to travel with the windows open. One section of the road was completely made out of dust and sand, so we ate a lot of dirt. Bleck. The ride was so long that the guys in the back of the bus kept lighting up cigarettes. Some of them had the decency to try and keep close to the windows to keep the smoke out, but not all of them did. Double triple vomity bleck.
I was excited to reach Cambodia, though. Laos really sucked for beer and liquor. Beer Lao is not good. Many people say that it's one of the better beers available in Southeast Asia. I think they are wrong. W R O N G. Lao Lao is really harsh stuff, too. The problem is, though, that Laos claims to be a communist country (they're not really communist though -- see rant below) and they are landlocked -- so the selection of imported products is pretty limited. Cambodia claims to be a democratic country (they've got some issues with that, too, though), and is not landlocked. Hence, the selection of imported products is much better. The most popular Cambodia beer, Angkor, is pretty decent, too.
We finally pulled into Phnom Penh at like 10:30 PM. Alex and I had pre-decided that would stay in a REAL HOTEL when we got to Phnom Penh. We had lived on the cheap in Laos for a full thirty days, and we needed a taste of luxury to relieve our travel fatigue. The auberge on Don Khong was nice, but we needed more! Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, and the biggest city we've been in since Bangkok in Thailand, so it was a good candidate for a recharge.
We had a couple choice locations picked out in our guidebooks, so we grabbed a tuk-tuk from the backpacker ghetto that the minibus from Laos dropped us off in and puttered over to the swankier section of town. Alas, the first two hotels we looked for were closed or moved. We walked around for like an hour in after-dark Phnom Penh (which many people say you shouldn't do), before finding the Anise Hotel. We got a really swanky (by our standards) room for US$45. Yes, that's really expensive, but we deserved it. It was 11:30 PM and we were tired of looking. We got a couple of draught Angkor beers from the hotel bar, cracked open the minibar and looted it for chocolate, cleaned the dust and dirt from ourselves with the shower and passed out.
To be continued...
Rant about Communism in Laos!
Oh yeah! I wanted to rant about the communist government in Laos. I didn't really feel comfortable ranting about this while I was actually in Laos, but now that I'm in Cambodia, here goes.
Laos is trying out the same messed up form of communism that China and Vietnam are doing. I don't like the regular socialist form of Communism either, but the capitalist form of Communism popular in Asia these days is just messed up. The people of Laos have to pay to send their kids to school or get health care from hospitals. That's not real communism -- not even close. That's just an example of greedy government leadership. They're just saying they're "communist" to maintain their grip on power while they continue to exploit their population. That's greedy and just plain evil.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
New Photos Posted: Si Phan Don
Hiiiiiiiii....
I've uploaded another album of photos to my Picasa Web Albums. Now you can enjoy the beauty of Si Phan Don (The"Four Thousand Islands") of Laos without leaving your chair! See, I'm out here seeing these things so that you don't have to. Just leave the hard work to me.
This photo album will be the LAST one from Laos. The next one should be for Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, which I'm in right now.
You'd also see a blog post today with my story leading up to this point (Vientiane to here). However, the internet and computers here are so CRAP that after I wrote it and thought I had posted it, I discovered that about 90% of it was missing. @(&#$%^^@#%. Sorry, I don't have the heart to rewrite it today.
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I've uploaded another album of photos to my Picasa Web Albums. Now you can enjoy the beauty of Si Phan Don (The"Four Thousand Islands") of Laos without leaving your chair! See, I'm out here seeing these things so that you don't have to. Just leave the hard work to me.
This photo album will be the LAST one from Laos. The next one should be for Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, which I'm in right now.
You'd also see a blog post today with my story leading up to this point (Vientiane to here). However, the internet and computers here are so CRAP that after I wrote it and thought I had posted it, I discovered that about 90% of it was missing. @(&#$%^^@#%. Sorry, I don't have the heart to rewrite it today.
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
New Photos Posted: Pakse
Howdy Hi.
I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It's stifingly hot outside, but they've got lots of fans in here to try and keep us from sliding off of our seats in slicks of slippery sweat. I've also got myself a cold Asahi Super Dry beer from the Lucky Supermarket to keep myself cool. I am SO RELIEVED that there is an actual selection of beers here in Cambodia. Yay democracy! Yippee capitalism! There's an Indian restaurant next door, and it smells like curry in here. Dee-licious!
Anyways, the internet is VERY slow here, but, just for you, I've uploaded a new album of photos on my Picasa Web Albums. It's only a few pictures, but you should be able to see what the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Years) festival looked like in Pakse, including some of my escapades on my crazy jeep ride.
Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It's stifingly hot outside, but they've got lots of fans in here to try and keep us from sliding off of our seats in slicks of slippery sweat. I've also got myself a cold Asahi Super Dry beer from the Lucky Supermarket to keep myself cool. I am SO RELIEVED that there is an actual selection of beers here in Cambodia. Yay democracy! Yippee capitalism! There's an Indian restaurant next door, and it smells like curry in here. Dee-licious!
Anyways, the internet is VERY slow here, but, just for you, I've uploaded a new album of photos on my Picasa Web Albums. It's only a few pictures, but you should be able to see what the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Years) festival looked like in Pakse, including some of my escapades on my crazy jeep ride.
Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Forging Further South: Vientiane to Pakse (Pi Mai Lao part 1)
Sorry for the lack-of-updates lately. I've recently passed through a pretty rural area with sketchy and expensive internet access. Now I'm in Siem Reap, Cambodia -- an actual real city -- so updates can continue.
April 10, 2008 (continued)
Anyways, I last wrote about getting to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
We only stayed in Vientiane for one night. We booked ourselves onto an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. We still got to spend the day enjoying the cafes, restaurants, and internet joints of Vientiane. We spent about three hours in the morning sitting in the JoMa cafe in Vientiane. Yes, even though we visited it six times in Luang Prabang, we were positively itching to hit up its branch in the capital. I was well rewarded with excellent coffee, quiche, and pain au chocolat (a chocolate croissant!).
The sleeper bus was a painful experience, to say the least.
Aside: AAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I just realized that the internet connection at the shit internet cafe I was just at has caused me to lose about one hour's worth of writing on this post. I'm going to have to rewrite it from scratch. ARGH!GH!G#H@!$G!H$G#!H$G#%*^@%$@#^$% Sorry folks, it probably won't be as good the second time around.
That night, Alex and I boarded an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. While waiting for the bus, we ran into Lisa (from England) whom we met at the internet cafe earlier that day. The overnight sleeper bus was quite an experience. We knew that we were supposed to be sleeping on bunks, but we didn't really expect that bunks to be extremely-Asian sized (though I guess we should have expected it). We had to sleep two people per bunk. I was going to share a bunk with Alex, but Lisa was traveling alone and was assigned to share a bunk with some random Lao guy (RLG). Both her and RLG felt uncomfortable sharing a bunk together so Alex and RLG switched. I ended up sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with RLG. Fortunately, I took a Gravol pill and passed out for most of the eight hour bus ride.
April 11, 2008
We arrived in Pakse at 6 AM and checked into the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in town. Since Alex and I were supposed to meet Damaris (the Swiss girl we met in Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Alex and I picked up the triple room. However, since Damaris wasn't supposed to show up for two more days, Lisa joined us in the room that night.
All of us had a rough night and we really took it easy that day. It was extremely hot and our guesthouse didn't have air conditioning, so it was all we could do just to stay ALIVE.
April 12,2008
Alex and Lisa went on a bus tour of the Bolaven Plateau outside of Pakse. I really wasn't feeling well, so I decided to stay in town. Why wasn't I feeling well? It was probably a combination of the extreme heat, the bad sleep the day before, travel fatigue, relative lack of decent places to eat in the small city of Pakse, the crappiness of Lao beers, and I was suffering from diarrhea! To top it off, Pakse was basically the ugliest town I'd seen in my travels. Lots of run down concrete buildings with no character or charm. Ugh.
I spent the day being asocial and spent most of it reading House of Leaves and playing Nintendo DS Lite in my room. I made good progress on Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales and Cooking Mama 2.
I also made the decision that I would try and avoid taking out any more money when I was in Laos. I only had about eight days left in the country and I had about 600,000 kip. I figured, that if I lived as cheaply as possible, I could squeeze through.
April 13, 2008
I still wasn't feeling that great in the morning. When you travel for a long time, you definitely feel your ups and downs. I was definitely at a "down" point in the cycle.
Thankfully, I got out of it today. I realized that my decision to spend the last week of my time in Laos living as cheaply as possible would NOT work. Being as cheap as possible never really makes me happy, to be honest. Spending money on good food and drink almost always makes me happy, so I decided that I had to spend my way out of my depression (do any politicians read this blog? hello!).
I know that one reason for my depression is the difficulty in finding good coffee in Laos. Almost all the time, the Laotians serve their coffee with puddles of sickeningly sweet condensed milk pooling in the bottom of the glass. They use WAY TOO MUCH of the stuff -- and I don't even like it. The coffee is often instant coffee, too. Y U C K. I wasn't a real coffeeholic when I left home, but when most days I do rarely more than visit the cafe or some restaurant, getting a nice coffee is important to me. I'm definitely a "foodie", so getting good stuff is key! Instant coffee with too much condensed milk is NOT GOOD STUFF.
Anyways, this rant does eventually go somewhere. That morning in Pakse, Alex and I went to Sinouk Cafe and ordered cappucinos. The cafe serves coffee grown on its own private plantation on the Bolaven Plateau. It was a very good cappucino and instantly made me feel better when I drank it. Seriously. I felt depressed before drinking it, and much better after. I'm not the kind of person who is unable to function before having a coffee in the morning, but that day, I definitely needed a good brew!
We met up with Damaris early that afternoon. She had arrived right in time for the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) celebrations in Pakse. These celebrations are held right during the HOTTEST (lucky us!) time of the year. It's the time of year that the Buddha statues are washed with holy water in all of the temples in the country. Because it's so freakin' hot, almost every person is also washed (let's say, more like splashed, deluged, soaked and showered) with water, too. There's a lot of water flying around. Since the colour of my skin gave me away as a visible minority in Laos, and the Lao people love to have a good time, I was a HUGE TARGET and got way wet all the time.
Anyways! Damaris, Alex, and I bought some Cornettos (remember that I was spending my way out of my depression) and headed down to the temple in Pakse to watch the New Year's festivities. There was a neato parade that wound its way down the main street in town then circled around the temple grounds.
After the parade, the three of us went to Nazim Indian Restaurant in town (since it was the ONLY place that was open -- also, it was the fourth time I went there to eat because the town had so few restaurants, and most were closed for Pi Mai Lao). The scene in front of the restaurant was one of carnage... pure carnage. Water guns, buckets, and hoses were all being liberally used by the staff of the restaurant and its patrons. The targets were the patrons and staff of the restaurant, and ANYONE else who happened to pass by the restaurant, regardless if they were walking or in any sort of vehicle. Lots of Lao people piled into pick-up trucks or tuk-tuks and drove up and down the main street of town to participate in the wide spread water fights. The fighting was thick and furious.
As I watched (and happily participated) in the water fight fury, I watched the people in trucks with awe. I thought to myself, "It sure would be fun to ride in one of those trucks!" Not too long late, a jeep full of Lao dudes pulled up beside the restaurant to get vigourously hosed down. I saw my chance! I jumped into the back of the jeep! The Lao dudes were happy for me to join them! They briefly implied that they might return to the restaurant later, and that was good enough for me! I waved "bye bye" to Alex and Damaris at the restaurant. Alex said something back like "Where are you going? Ack!", but I couldn't really hear her -- we were off and revving!
We drove up the main street real slow-like. There was lots of singing, chanting and shouting (in addition to throwing water balloons made from condoms). Since the jeep was filled only with guys, whenever a truck or scooter filled with girls went by, there was lots of cat-calling and whistling. We drove up 11 km (it took like an hour) to a temple and stopped. Surprise, surprise, the dudes had a full case of Beer Lao in the front of the jeep. We drank a bunch and headed back to town. I know that I resolved not to drink more Beer Lao (since it sucks), but I couldn't refuse my guys.
On the way back, the Lao dudes let me sit in the front passenger seat of the jeep. It was more fun than standing in the back and nearly falling out of the jeep with every bump, but it made me a MUCH MORE VISIBLE target. I think having white skin was basically like wearing a big bullseye on the face (since that's where a few water balloons exploded on me).
It was all good fun!
Despite the fun of the first day of Pi Mai Lao in Pakse, Alex, Damaris and I decided to skip town and head farther south to Si Phan Don (the "Four Thousand Islands") at the extreme south end of Laos. We booked our tickets and were going to head out in the morning!
To be continued..
April 10, 2008 (continued)
Anyways, I last wrote about getting to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
We only stayed in Vientiane for one night. We booked ourselves onto an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. We still got to spend the day enjoying the cafes, restaurants, and internet joints of Vientiane. We spent about three hours in the morning sitting in the JoMa cafe in Vientiane. Yes, even though we visited it six times in Luang Prabang, we were positively itching to hit up its branch in the capital. I was well rewarded with excellent coffee, quiche, and pain au chocolat (a chocolate croissant!).
The sleeper bus was a painful experience, to say the least.
Aside: AAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I just realized that the internet connection at the shit internet cafe I was just at has caused me to lose about one hour's worth of writing on this post. I'm going to have to rewrite it from scratch. ARGH!GH!G#H@!$G!H$G#!H$G#%*^@%$@#^$% Sorry folks, it probably won't be as good the second time around.
That night, Alex and I boarded an overnight sleeper bus to Pakse in the far south of Laos. While waiting for the bus, we ran into Lisa (from England) whom we met at the internet cafe earlier that day. The overnight sleeper bus was quite an experience. We knew that we were supposed to be sleeping on bunks, but we didn't really expect that bunks to be extremely-Asian sized (though I guess we should have expected it). We had to sleep two people per bunk. I was going to share a bunk with Alex, but Lisa was traveling alone and was assigned to share a bunk with some random Lao guy (RLG). Both her and RLG felt uncomfortable sharing a bunk together so Alex and RLG switched. I ended up sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with RLG. Fortunately, I took a Gravol pill and passed out for most of the eight hour bus ride.
April 11, 2008
We arrived in Pakse at 6 AM and checked into the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse in town. Since Alex and I were supposed to meet Damaris (the Swiss girl we met in Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, Thailand), Alex and I picked up the triple room. However, since Damaris wasn't supposed to show up for two more days, Lisa joined us in the room that night.
All of us had a rough night and we really took it easy that day. It was extremely hot and our guesthouse didn't have air conditioning, so it was all we could do just to stay ALIVE.
April 12,2008
Alex and Lisa went on a bus tour of the Bolaven Plateau outside of Pakse. I really wasn't feeling well, so I decided to stay in town. Why wasn't I feeling well? It was probably a combination of the extreme heat, the bad sleep the day before, travel fatigue, relative lack of decent places to eat in the small city of Pakse, the crappiness of Lao beers, and I was suffering from diarrhea! To top it off, Pakse was basically the ugliest town I'd seen in my travels. Lots of run down concrete buildings with no character or charm. Ugh.
I spent the day being asocial and spent most of it reading House of Leaves and playing Nintendo DS Lite in my room. I made good progress on Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales and Cooking Mama 2.
I also made the decision that I would try and avoid taking out any more money when I was in Laos. I only had about eight days left in the country and I had about 600,000 kip. I figured, that if I lived as cheaply as possible, I could squeeze through.
April 13, 2008
I still wasn't feeling that great in the morning. When you travel for a long time, you definitely feel your ups and downs. I was definitely at a "down" point in the cycle.
Thankfully, I got out of it today. I realized that my decision to spend the last week of my time in Laos living as cheaply as possible would NOT work. Being as cheap as possible never really makes me happy, to be honest. Spending money on good food and drink almost always makes me happy, so I decided that I had to spend my way out of my depression (do any politicians read this blog? hello!).
I know that one reason for my depression is the difficulty in finding good coffee in Laos. Almost all the time, the Laotians serve their coffee with puddles of sickeningly sweet condensed milk pooling in the bottom of the glass. They use WAY TOO MUCH of the stuff -- and I don't even like it. The coffee is often instant coffee, too. Y U C K. I wasn't a real coffeeholic when I left home, but when most days I do rarely more than visit the cafe or some restaurant, getting a nice coffee is important to me. I'm definitely a "foodie", so getting good stuff is key! Instant coffee with too much condensed milk is NOT GOOD STUFF.
Anyways, this rant does eventually go somewhere. That morning in Pakse, Alex and I went to Sinouk Cafe and ordered cappucinos. The cafe serves coffee grown on its own private plantation on the Bolaven Plateau. It was a very good cappucino and instantly made me feel better when I drank it. Seriously. I felt depressed before drinking it, and much better after. I'm not the kind of person who is unable to function before having a coffee in the morning, but that day, I definitely needed a good brew!
We met up with Damaris early that afternoon. She had arrived right in time for the Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) celebrations in Pakse. These celebrations are held right during the HOTTEST (lucky us!) time of the year. It's the time of year that the Buddha statues are washed with holy water in all of the temples in the country. Because it's so freakin' hot, almost every person is also washed (let's say, more like splashed, deluged, soaked and showered) with water, too. There's a lot of water flying around. Since the colour of my skin gave me away as a visible minority in Laos, and the Lao people love to have a good time, I was a HUGE TARGET and got way wet all the time.
Anyways! Damaris, Alex, and I bought some Cornettos (remember that I was spending my way out of my depression) and headed down to the temple in Pakse to watch the New Year's festivities. There was a neato parade that wound its way down the main street in town then circled around the temple grounds.
After the parade, the three of us went to Nazim Indian Restaurant in town (since it was the ONLY place that was open -- also, it was the fourth time I went there to eat because the town had so few restaurants, and most were closed for Pi Mai Lao). The scene in front of the restaurant was one of carnage... pure carnage. Water guns, buckets, and hoses were all being liberally used by the staff of the restaurant and its patrons. The targets were the patrons and staff of the restaurant, and ANYONE else who happened to pass by the restaurant, regardless if they were walking or in any sort of vehicle. Lots of Lao people piled into pick-up trucks or tuk-tuks and drove up and down the main street of town to participate in the wide spread water fights. The fighting was thick and furious.
As I watched (and happily participated) in the water fight fury, I watched the people in trucks with awe. I thought to myself, "It sure would be fun to ride in one of those trucks!" Not too long late, a jeep full of Lao dudes pulled up beside the restaurant to get vigourously hosed down. I saw my chance! I jumped into the back of the jeep! The Lao dudes were happy for me to join them! They briefly implied that they might return to the restaurant later, and that was good enough for me! I waved "bye bye" to Alex and Damaris at the restaurant. Alex said something back like "Where are you going? Ack!", but I couldn't really hear her -- we were off and revving!
We drove up the main street real slow-like. There was lots of singing, chanting and shouting (in addition to throwing water balloons made from condoms). Since the jeep was filled only with guys, whenever a truck or scooter filled with girls went by, there was lots of cat-calling and whistling. We drove up 11 km (it took like an hour) to a temple and stopped. Surprise, surprise, the dudes had a full case of Beer Lao in the front of the jeep. We drank a bunch and headed back to town. I know that I resolved not to drink more Beer Lao (since it sucks), but I couldn't refuse my guys.
On the way back, the Lao dudes let me sit in the front passenger seat of the jeep. It was more fun than standing in the back and nearly falling out of the jeep with every bump, but it made me a MUCH MORE VISIBLE target. I think having white skin was basically like wearing a big bullseye on the face (since that's where a few water balloons exploded on me).
It was all good fun!
Despite the fun of the first day of Pi Mai Lao in Pakse, Alex, Damaris and I decided to skip town and head farther south to Si Phan Don (the "Four Thousand Islands") at the extreme south end of Laos. We booked our tickets and were going to head out in the morning!
To be continued..
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Jars and Bombs
April 6, 2008
It's been a few years since I went on a roller coaster ride, however, I think I managed to find the closest thing today. We took a grueling nine hour bus ride through the mountains from Vang Vieng, Laos to Phonsavan, Laos. There were bumps. There were turns. There were sharp jolts. There were more turns and more bumps ... for hours at a time. It was in a full-sized bus, so we weren't overly crowded. Every seat was full, but we weren't really packed in like sardines, so that was a small mercy. The music wasn't as loud as rides before either, so that was good, too. It was the longest and roughest ride that I've experienced so far, though.
On several bus rides before, the bus staff would hand out plastic bags to people if they wanted them. The plastic bags are not for holding food or gabage... they are PUKE BAGS. On this bus ride, there were a few people that used the puke bags with gusto and passion. Poor Chris was seated beside a Lao women and behind two other Lao women who were basically vomitting for the entire ride. It was disgusting. The women in front of Chris would fill up her puke bag so often that she had to keep chucking them out the window.
Oh yeah, that reminds me! I wanted to rant about the manners of Lao people. They are the friendliest people I've ever met, but they do some things that really bother me.
1. Spitting in public. It's not just Lao people that spit in public. I've seen Thais do it, too. I hear and see it basically every day here. They often preceed the spit with a really solid HOOORRRKKK to get as much as they can out. Both men and women do it. It's disgusting.
2. Littering. People will throw out their garbage anywhere. I've seen so many plastic bags and bottles pitched out bus windows on the side of highways that I want to weep. I know that the Lao government wants to market Laos as a Eco Tourism Destination, but they have to keep the roads and countryside clean if they want it to work! Laos is developing very quickly these days and they're starting to pick up the consumer culture of the Thais (and our own). Since there are so many vendors selling disposable goods and little snacks in disposable packaging now, I'm sure the problem with roadside litter will get worse here before it gets better.
Enough ranting.
We got to Phonsavan and found the guesthouse that was recommended by our guidebooks, Kong Keo. The owner of the guesthouse is quite a character: Mr. Kong (though his friends call him Crazy Kong). It's funny that we keep meeting guesthouse owners who's names rhyme with "ong" -- first Pong in Chiang Mai, then Kong in Phonsavan.
We booked ourselves a tour for the next day and had dinner in the guesthouse. The dinner consisted of very yummy coconut soup and barbecued shishkebobs. The kebobs were grilled on an open fire in half an old bomb shell.
Bombs are everywhere in Phonsavan. The region is the centre of the largest bombing campaign in history. From 1964 to 1973 the United States aided the Lao Royalists in their civil war against the Pathet Lao communist forces. The Pathet Lao were centred in the northeastern provinces of the country and were subjected to a massive bombing campaign by the Americans, even though that the Americans had signed treaties stipulating the neutrality of Laos. The entire bombing campaign was a secret -- not even the American Congress knew what the American military was doing.
As a result, bombs and landmines litter many parts of Laos. Development of the country is slowed because many bombs still remain hidden in fields, under roads, and in the forests. They can really be almost anywhere. The bombs are being cleared, but its a labourious and painstaking process.
Anyways! Yeah, dinner was good (and cheap). We drank from Beer Lao. Alex and Chris went to bed early and I continued sitting around chatting with Jan and Becks -- both from England. I had actually met Jan twice before -- he slept in the bunk below mine in Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai and I ran into him while tubing in Vang Vieng. While sitting around the patio there, we met Kong's brother, Wel. He was totally hammered, but talked with us for at least an hour before pulling out a mattress and falling asleep on the patio. With that, it was time for us to go to bed, too.
April 7, 2008
In the morning Kong returned from the party he went to the night before. He was still wearing the same clothes and said that he was hungover from drinking and smoking too much. He showed us his pot plants in the front yard of the guesthouse. Someone asked him if many people smoke in Phonsavan. Kong proudly told us that "No one smokes in Phonsavan, only me and my brother!"
Kong and his other other brother, Insin, were our tour guides that day. Despite his hungover state, Kong would still drive the bus on the tour. The man is a trooper! On the tour that day was Alex, Chris, Becks, Jan, and I.
Our first stop was the market where we picked up food for breakfast. We got sticky rice, various meats on various sticks, some pork steamed in banana leaves, some bamboo shoots, and some fruit.
We then drove to a field outside of town that was littered with bomb craters. Kong told us about The Secret War and its affect on the country. From there, we drove to a Hmong village where people used old bomb shells as construction material. They used bomb shells to make fences, stilts for houses, barbecues, anvils, lamps, and flower and herb gardens. Apparently the village used to have many more bombs around it, but they were sold off for scrap metal a while ago. The few houses that still keep bombs around consider them to be "savings accounts" and are waiting for the price of iron to increase before selling them.
For lunch, we treked down a steep mountain trail to the base of a waterfall for a picnic. I was looking forward to my steamed pork, hoping it would be similar to the pork that I had in the Akha village on my trek. Alas, it wasn't even close! It was sloppy pasty substance consisting of pork and flour. It tasted so bad, I could only take a couple of nibbles before rejecting it. That says a lot, considering I eat almost anything! The rest of the food was good, thankfully. While eating, Kong told us amusing stories about water buffalo. I'll repeat one for you right now!
Did you know why the water buffalo seems to be missing many of its front teeth and smiles with its upper lip covering the top half of its mouth? Well, according to legend, back in the mists of time Buddha gave the water buffalo an important message to deliver to the people on earth. Buddha wanted the people to live a quiet life without much work. He wanted the villagers to have only one meal every three days to keep things on the down low. When the water buffalo descended from heaven he got mixed up and told the villagers to have three meals every single day. Oh man! When Buddha found out, he was so angry that he threw a hammer and knocked up many of the water buffalo's teeth (that seems like a very un-Buddha-like thing to do, to me!). As further punishment, the water buffalo was sent to earth to labour in the fields with the villagers in order to help them meet the needs of growing all the food they would need in order to eat three times a day. Silly water buffalo.
After lunch we climbed up the waterfall a bit and went for a swim in the refreshingly crisp (read: cold) water there. It was fun to swim under the falling water! It was a hot day, so it was worth it.
We climbed back the hill side and saw many cascades of water all the way up. It was beautiful. However, when we got to the top, we had a gruesome discover! A leach had attached itself to Chris' foot! TWO leaches had attached themselves to Alex's foot! GROSS! We had to pull them off. It was the second time that we had encountered leaches, since Chris was molested by one our trek before. Thankfully, I still remained leach free.
After the waterfall we drove to the Plain of Jars. It was a bit of a drive. On the way Kong swore and shouted at other drivers on the road that were in his way. It was pretty hilarious. He was the least-Lao-like Lao person I've met in Laos so far.
The plains around Phonsavan are covered with hundreds (maybe thousands) of ancient stone jars. No one really knows how old they really are, or who created them, or what they were used for. They were all carved from solid pieces of limestone, and many of them weigh several tons. There are like 80 groups of jars on the plains, but only 3 of them have been cleared of bombs and are safe to visit.
The Jars are definitely "the" tourist attraction of Northeastern Laos. Many tours visit all three of the open sites. Our tour only visited the one since, to be honest, one plain full of stone jars looks like any other plain full of stone jars.
That night was huge drunken piss up and dinner at the guest house. All of the people from the tour were there, including crazy Kong and his brother. Many other people from the guest house came out to drink too. We drank a LOT of beer and a LOT of Lao Lao. Quite shammered we got, lemme tell you. It was for a good cause, though. In a couple days Chris had to part ways with us since she was going north to Vietnam, but we were heading south to the south part of Laos then to Cambodia. It was sad, but we agreed to meet up again in the future. The current plan is for the three of us to meet up in August for the Burning Man festival in Nevada. Brent (from Spicythai Backpackers) has completely sold me on going to the festival and he's going to indoctrinate us there. It should be good.
April 8, 2008
Ugh. Head hurts today. Alex was in rough shape, too. Chris was doing okay. We knew it would be a quiet day. We hunted around for internet access, but both of the internet shops in town said that the internet wasn't working that day. Doh. Instead, we spent most of the day sitting around the guesthouse reading. At night, we went to the Mine Advisory Group (MAG) Information Centre in town to watch a couple of documentaries about the bombings and bomb removal programs in Laos. It's pretty heart wrenching to see what this country had to go through, and is still going through today. It's estimated that, at the current rate, it will still take one hundred years to clean up all the unexploded bombs left behind by the bombings more than thirty years ago.
April 9, 2008
We woke up early and got a ride with Insin back to the bus station. Alex and I parted ways with Chris. She boarded a northbound bus to Xam Neua (and eventually Hanoi in Vietnam) while we boarded a southbound bus to Vientiane -- the capital city of Laos.
This bus ride was a brutal one, too. Nine and a half hours long, back over the mountains again. It was hot since the air conditioning didn't work well. The driver played the CRAPTASTIC Lao music louder than before, and I wasn't successful drowning it out with my iPod. Thankfully, there were so few people on the coach-sized bus that we each had lots of space. We both had empty seats beside us so we could stretch out.
Vientiane isn't really much like the rest of Laos. I hadn't seen a single other traffic light in my first three weeks in the country -- until I got to Vientiane. There were lots of cars zipping by, too, so we actually had to wait and look both ways before crossing the streets. If this city were the only city in the whole country that people got to see, I'd feel sad for them, since it's not representative of the country at all.
We booked ourselves into a hotel room for one night. Vientiane was only a stop-over for us... we were on our way to Pakse (in the southern part of Laos), and the busy big city wasn't the place we really wanted to be.
Regardless, since its the capital, the city actually has good food. For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant and had really cheap and really tasty curry. I enjoy Thai curries, but I think Indian ones are much better.
To be continued!
It's been a few years since I went on a roller coaster ride, however, I think I managed to find the closest thing today. We took a grueling nine hour bus ride through the mountains from Vang Vieng, Laos to Phonsavan, Laos. There were bumps. There were turns. There were sharp jolts. There were more turns and more bumps ... for hours at a time. It was in a full-sized bus, so we weren't overly crowded. Every seat was full, but we weren't really packed in like sardines, so that was a small mercy. The music wasn't as loud as rides before either, so that was good, too. It was the longest and roughest ride that I've experienced so far, though.
On several bus rides before, the bus staff would hand out plastic bags to people if they wanted them. The plastic bags are not for holding food or gabage... they are PUKE BAGS. On this bus ride, there were a few people that used the puke bags with gusto and passion. Poor Chris was seated beside a Lao women and behind two other Lao women who were basically vomitting for the entire ride. It was disgusting. The women in front of Chris would fill up her puke bag so often that she had to keep chucking them out the window.
Oh yeah, that reminds me! I wanted to rant about the manners of Lao people. They are the friendliest people I've ever met, but they do some things that really bother me.
1. Spitting in public. It's not just Lao people that spit in public. I've seen Thais do it, too. I hear and see it basically every day here. They often preceed the spit with a really solid HOOORRRKKK to get as much as they can out. Both men and women do it. It's disgusting.
2. Littering. People will throw out their garbage anywhere. I've seen so many plastic bags and bottles pitched out bus windows on the side of highways that I want to weep. I know that the Lao government wants to market Laos as a Eco Tourism Destination, but they have to keep the roads and countryside clean if they want it to work! Laos is developing very quickly these days and they're starting to pick up the consumer culture of the Thais (and our own). Since there are so many vendors selling disposable goods and little snacks in disposable packaging now, I'm sure the problem with roadside litter will get worse here before it gets better.
Enough ranting.
We got to Phonsavan and found the guesthouse that was recommended by our guidebooks, Kong Keo. The owner of the guesthouse is quite a character: Mr. Kong (though his friends call him Crazy Kong). It's funny that we keep meeting guesthouse owners who's names rhyme with "ong" -- first Pong in Chiang Mai, then Kong in Phonsavan.
We booked ourselves a tour for the next day and had dinner in the guesthouse. The dinner consisted of very yummy coconut soup and barbecued shishkebobs. The kebobs were grilled on an open fire in half an old bomb shell.
Bombs are everywhere in Phonsavan. The region is the centre of the largest bombing campaign in history. From 1964 to 1973 the United States aided the Lao Royalists in their civil war against the Pathet Lao communist forces. The Pathet Lao were centred in the northeastern provinces of the country and were subjected to a massive bombing campaign by the Americans, even though that the Americans had signed treaties stipulating the neutrality of Laos. The entire bombing campaign was a secret -- not even the American Congress knew what the American military was doing.
As a result, bombs and landmines litter many parts of Laos. Development of the country is slowed because many bombs still remain hidden in fields, under roads, and in the forests. They can really be almost anywhere. The bombs are being cleared, but its a labourious and painstaking process.
Anyways! Yeah, dinner was good (and cheap). We drank from Beer Lao. Alex and Chris went to bed early and I continued sitting around chatting with Jan and Becks -- both from England. I had actually met Jan twice before -- he slept in the bunk below mine in Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai and I ran into him while tubing in Vang Vieng. While sitting around the patio there, we met Kong's brother, Wel. He was totally hammered, but talked with us for at least an hour before pulling out a mattress and falling asleep on the patio. With that, it was time for us to go to bed, too.
April 7, 2008
In the morning Kong returned from the party he went to the night before. He was still wearing the same clothes and said that he was hungover from drinking and smoking too much. He showed us his pot plants in the front yard of the guesthouse. Someone asked him if many people smoke in Phonsavan. Kong proudly told us that "No one smokes in Phonsavan, only me and my brother!"
Kong and his other other brother, Insin, were our tour guides that day. Despite his hungover state, Kong would still drive the bus on the tour. The man is a trooper! On the tour that day was Alex, Chris, Becks, Jan, and I.
Our first stop was the market where we picked up food for breakfast. We got sticky rice, various meats on various sticks, some pork steamed in banana leaves, some bamboo shoots, and some fruit.
We then drove to a field outside of town that was littered with bomb craters. Kong told us about The Secret War and its affect on the country. From there, we drove to a Hmong village where people used old bomb shells as construction material. They used bomb shells to make fences, stilts for houses, barbecues, anvils, lamps, and flower and herb gardens. Apparently the village used to have many more bombs around it, but they were sold off for scrap metal a while ago. The few houses that still keep bombs around consider them to be "savings accounts" and are waiting for the price of iron to increase before selling them.
For lunch, we treked down a steep mountain trail to the base of a waterfall for a picnic. I was looking forward to my steamed pork, hoping it would be similar to the pork that I had in the Akha village on my trek. Alas, it wasn't even close! It was sloppy pasty substance consisting of pork and flour. It tasted so bad, I could only take a couple of nibbles before rejecting it. That says a lot, considering I eat almost anything! The rest of the food was good, thankfully. While eating, Kong told us amusing stories about water buffalo. I'll repeat one for you right now!
Did you know why the water buffalo seems to be missing many of its front teeth and smiles with its upper lip covering the top half of its mouth? Well, according to legend, back in the mists of time Buddha gave the water buffalo an important message to deliver to the people on earth. Buddha wanted the people to live a quiet life without much work. He wanted the villagers to have only one meal every three days to keep things on the down low. When the water buffalo descended from heaven he got mixed up and told the villagers to have three meals every single day. Oh man! When Buddha found out, he was so angry that he threw a hammer and knocked up many of the water buffalo's teeth (that seems like a very un-Buddha-like thing to do, to me!). As further punishment, the water buffalo was sent to earth to labour in the fields with the villagers in order to help them meet the needs of growing all the food they would need in order to eat three times a day. Silly water buffalo.
After lunch we climbed up the waterfall a bit and went for a swim in the refreshingly crisp (read: cold) water there. It was fun to swim under the falling water! It was a hot day, so it was worth it.
We climbed back the hill side and saw many cascades of water all the way up. It was beautiful. However, when we got to the top, we had a gruesome discover! A leach had attached itself to Chris' foot! TWO leaches had attached themselves to Alex's foot! GROSS! We had to pull them off. It was the second time that we had encountered leaches, since Chris was molested by one our trek before. Thankfully, I still remained leach free.
After the waterfall we drove to the Plain of Jars. It was a bit of a drive. On the way Kong swore and shouted at other drivers on the road that were in his way. It was pretty hilarious. He was the least-Lao-like Lao person I've met in Laos so far.
The plains around Phonsavan are covered with hundreds (maybe thousands) of ancient stone jars. No one really knows how old they really are, or who created them, or what they were used for. They were all carved from solid pieces of limestone, and many of them weigh several tons. There are like 80 groups of jars on the plains, but only 3 of them have been cleared of bombs and are safe to visit.
The Jars are definitely "the" tourist attraction of Northeastern Laos. Many tours visit all three of the open sites. Our tour only visited the one since, to be honest, one plain full of stone jars looks like any other plain full of stone jars.
That night was huge drunken piss up and dinner at the guest house. All of the people from the tour were there, including crazy Kong and his brother. Many other people from the guest house came out to drink too. We drank a LOT of beer and a LOT of Lao Lao. Quite shammered we got, lemme tell you. It was for a good cause, though. In a couple days Chris had to part ways with us since she was going north to Vietnam, but we were heading south to the south part of Laos then to Cambodia. It was sad, but we agreed to meet up again in the future. The current plan is for the three of us to meet up in August for the Burning Man festival in Nevada. Brent (from Spicythai Backpackers) has completely sold me on going to the festival and he's going to indoctrinate us there. It should be good.
April 8, 2008
Ugh. Head hurts today. Alex was in rough shape, too. Chris was doing okay. We knew it would be a quiet day. We hunted around for internet access, but both of the internet shops in town said that the internet wasn't working that day. Doh. Instead, we spent most of the day sitting around the guesthouse reading. At night, we went to the Mine Advisory Group (MAG) Information Centre in town to watch a couple of documentaries about the bombings and bomb removal programs in Laos. It's pretty heart wrenching to see what this country had to go through, and is still going through today. It's estimated that, at the current rate, it will still take one hundred years to clean up all the unexploded bombs left behind by the bombings more than thirty years ago.
April 9, 2008
We woke up early and got a ride with Insin back to the bus station. Alex and I parted ways with Chris. She boarded a northbound bus to Xam Neua (and eventually Hanoi in Vietnam) while we boarded a southbound bus to Vientiane -- the capital city of Laos.
This bus ride was a brutal one, too. Nine and a half hours long, back over the mountains again. It was hot since the air conditioning didn't work well. The driver played the CRAPTASTIC Lao music louder than before, and I wasn't successful drowning it out with my iPod. Thankfully, there were so few people on the coach-sized bus that we each had lots of space. We both had empty seats beside us so we could stretch out.
Vientiane isn't really much like the rest of Laos. I hadn't seen a single other traffic light in my first three weeks in the country -- until I got to Vientiane. There were lots of cars zipping by, too, so we actually had to wait and look both ways before crossing the streets. If this city were the only city in the whole country that people got to see, I'd feel sad for them, since it's not representative of the country at all.
We booked ourselves into a hotel room for one night. Vientiane was only a stop-over for us... we were on our way to Pakse (in the southern part of Laos), and the busy big city wasn't the place we really wanted to be.
Regardless, since its the capital, the city actually has good food. For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant and had really cheap and really tasty curry. I enjoy Thai curries, but I think Indian ones are much better.
To be continued!
New Photos Posted: Phonsavan
Hi! More pictures up. Enjoy seeing some fun stuff from Phonsavan.
Laters. I'm out of time to write for today. I'm heading on an overnight bus from Vientiane, Laos to Pakse, Laos in less than an hour. I'll try to get caught up later!
--
Rob Sz
Laters. I'm out of time to write for today. I'm heading on an overnight bus from Vientiane, Laos to Pakse, Laos in less than an hour. I'll try to get caught up later!
--
Rob Sz
The Journey Back South and Vang Vieng
I've been away for a while now, so I've completely lost the ability to remember which day of the week it is anymore. I'd forget the day of the month, too, but my camera and my watch remind me of that. I expected this to happen, so I'm not alarmed. I could use a calendar to reconstruct the days of the week when I write these blog posts anymore, but I'm lazy, and there's no point. Since the day of the week isn't affecting my life anymore, I see no advantage in reporting it back to you, either.
April 1
It was time for us to leave the north. We were kinda hungover from the festivities the day before, but it didn't matter! It took us three boat trips over four days just to reach Muong Khuoa from Luang Prabang, but it would take us only one day to cover the same distance in a bus. It also cost 80,000 kip instead of like 330,000 kip. However, as you'll see, the boat journey was MUCH more enjoyable than the same one on bus.
We attempted to take the 9:30 AM bus from Muong Khuoa to Odomxai (a town on the road in between Muong Khuoa and Luang Prabang), but it was full when we got there. Ack. Luckily, there was a second bus that day at 12:30 PM. Whew. In the meanwhile, we did what we did several times before over the previous few days... we sat on the patio at Nam Ou guest house, drank something (this time -- water and coffee), and wasted time. I learned how to play Rummy from the girls. Playing cards is fun!
However, the bus ride was not fun. It was a local bus, filled with locals. I use the word "filled" loosely, though. The bus was the size of your average cube van at home stuffed to overfilling with about 30 people. Some men had to stand up in the open doorway for a few hours as the bus barreled down the mountainous roads. The bus was filled with sacks of cargo, too. The old man who had to sit on a sack in the aisle beside me had a puppy in a burlap sack. It was cramped, to say the least. The seats weren't really sized for Westerners, so my knees were squished the whole time.
I learned that day (and over several other bus trips in the succeeding days) that many bus drivers in Lao like to play Lao music while driving. Some drivers play it quietly as to not overwhelm the passengers. Some play it VERY LOUDLY because they wish to anger me. Some drivers seem to prefer particular tracks and skip and repeat them. From my experience on these bus rides, the music is typically very painful. Women singing in ululating high pitched voices with men crooning counterpoint. Piercing trilling flute solos punctuated by overly dramatic Carlos Santana style guitar riffs. The music sounds pretty ballady, and I don't really enjoy most ballads sung in English, let alone in an incomprehensible language. It's VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY IRRITATING. I dislike it greatly. If it's not too loud, then I will try to drown it out with my iPod. Often it's much too loud for that. Le sigh.
The bus ride to Oudomxai was three hours. I couldn't get out once during that time.
When we got there, I paid 1000 kip (about CA$0.12) to use the toilet at the bus station and grabbed some food. We learned, to our luck, there was another bus to Luang Prabang that left in less than an hour. We didn't want to spend the night in Oudomxai and wanted to get to Luang Prabang as soon as possible, so yippee.
The second bus was even smaller than the first. It was really just a minivan filled with seats. It had about 15 people squished inside. I felt bad for the person sitting in front of me since my knees were digging straight into their seatback (and her own back as well). There was no choice... the seats were not designed with Westerner's in mind. I have never been more squished in my life. Also, the road south of Oudomxai was in terrible condition. Potholes, washed out sections, hilly, and curvy. It was the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my whole life. The first three hours were the worst. After that, a few of the locals were dropped off and we were able to stretch out a bit.
We reached Luang Prabang at around 9 PM and headed back to the guesthouse we stayed at our first time there, the Nock Noi. I took my own room for 100,000 kip/night (about CA$12) -- double bed, private bathroom with heated shower and sit-down toilet. It was pure luxury, and I felt that I needed it! Chris and Alex split their own room -- same price and features as mine, except two beds instead of one.
April 2, 2008
Weather was warm and sunny most of the day, with light rain in the evening.
Today was a nothing day -- just recovering from the pains of our journey in the rustic regions. We went to our favourite cafe, JoMa, in the morning, spent six hours on the internet, shopped, and did little else.
April 3, 2008
We woke up early, went to JoMa for breakfast, and caught a bus going south to Vang Vieng. It was only about seven hours straight over and down a mountain range. The bus driver was much more merciful with the music this time around. The hills were very steep and the bus definitely struggled on its way up them.
In Vang Vieng we quickly found a guest house with a triple room (two big beds) for 90,000 kip (about CA$10). Pretty cheap, especially when you divide it three ways! We went to find dinner. Chris found a couple of people that she met in India: Jocelyn and Nathan from Vancouver. It seems crazy that you could run into people in Laos that you met in India, but it seemed to happen to Chris and Alex a few times (since they both went to India prior to S.E. Asia). We agreed to meet up with Jocelyn and Nathan the next day at 10 AM for breakfast and tubing!
After dinner, we went back to our guest house and started to chill. While were were there we discovered that our room was literally infested with a zoo of insects: fleas, cockroaches, ants, mosquitoes, and beetles. All these things were somewhat bearable (though both Alex and Chris fled the room until I slayed the cockroach), but when we discovered the BED BUGS we had enough. We quickly packed up and ran out of the guest house in our pajamas to find a better place. One of the guesthouse staff tried to stop us on our way out, but we were not to be reasoned with. If THAT room was so bad, we wouldn't feel comfortable ANYWHERE in that guesthouse.
We ended up another place a bit down the street. This place was even cheaper... 40,000 kip (about CA$5) for 3 people. It wasn't the cleanest, but we didn't find bed bugs, so we went to bed.
April 4, 2008
We decided to spend only one night in the second seedy guesthouse and seek better accommodation in the morning. While we were getting ready in the morning, some guy just opened the door to our room while Alex and I were waiting for Chris to get out of the shower. It was the owner of the guesthouse we fled the previous night. He said that he wanted us to pay for the night before. We said, we didn't stay there over the night, so why should we pay? He said that we held the room for about four hours before we up and left, so he didn't have a chance to rent out the room after we left and owed him for it. We said that it's his responsibility to provide a clean place for us to stay and his place was definitely not clean. He then said something like, "Okay, if we can't agree then get your passports and we'll go to the police." Alex then said, "Okay! We need to wait for our friend to get out of the shower, so we'll meet you downstairs. Wait for us."
Apparently the guy was bluffing, since he wasn't there when we showed up 15 minutes later. I guess he didn't want to deal with the police even more than we did. Ha! I give props to Alex for calling that slumlord's bluff.
After that we found a new place to stay that was MUCH NICER. It was a bit pricier, but after all that stress it was worth it.
All that stuff happened before breakfast. We needed good food and coffee.
We met up with Jocelyn and Nathan at Luang Prabang Bakery -- a cafe recommended by our guide books. It was somewhat pricey, but delicious. After breakie, it was time for TUBING.
TUBING in Vang Vieng is fantastic. The idea is that a tuk-tuk drives you 5 km up river and drops you off. You float down the river in an inner tube. Sounds simple? There's more to it then that!
Approximately every 50 meters down the river you'll find a bar. If you want to stop, you signal the dude on the river side and he'll throw you a line and pull you in. Most bars have rope swings that you can use to jump into the river. Some swings are low. Some are high. Some are very high. Some bars play good music. Some play bad music. Some have DJs and you can request your own music! Many offer free shots of Lao Lao (rice whiskey). There are hundreds of other tourists there doing the same thing as you. It's literally a huge party.
Sadly, there are no pictures of us on the river. We bought a cheapo waterproof camera in town, but it busted after taking only four pictures. With so few photos, we decided it wasn't worth developing me. I decided that I would return the next day, on scooter, to take photos with my own camera.
One moment on the river really stands out in my mind. We had built up a chain of about seven people in their tubes down the river. With beers in our hand and feet dangling in the water we tried to figure out which day of the week it was. Some people guessed Tuesday. I think I guessed Saturday. It was really Friday! We then looked around us and and watched the sunset over the really gorgeous mountain scape. I was really happy at this point. Alex said I was "a romantic" because I'm often savouring moments, places, foods, whatever and declaring them to be most fun, most beautiful, most delicious, most awesome ever. I think she's right. Looking back on my blog, I'm often found describing things using superlatives like that.
It's supposed to take about two hours to cover the 5 km of river to get back to town -- if you don't stop. We seemed to stop at almost every bar and I took advantage of almost every rope swing, so it took us more than seven hours to get back to town -- after dark even. Traveling down a rocky river in the dark while wearing sunglasses isn't the best. Thankfully, I didn't drink a huge amount, so I made it back only semi-drunk. Chris and Alex got carried away and got mega-drunk.
After dinner, Chris and Alex went to bed, but I went to Smile Bar with a couple Italian guys we met on the river. Smile Bar is an outdoor bar built around a bonfire. Drinks were pricey. Music was decent. Sadly, because of the curfew, the party shut down at 11:30 PM. The Italians went to an after party, but I was too tired so I went to bed.
April 5, 2008
Alex and Chris were out of commission today. Our guesthouse was awesome enough that it actually had a TV with satellite, so they decided that they would sit around all day and just watch movies on HBO.
So, I headed to a motorcycle rental place to find some wheels. I had never ridden on a scooter before. However, you don't need a license to drive one in Laos... they don't even check your driver's license before they'll rent you one. Sweet.
The driver showed me how to ride the thing, but.... I wasn't very good. I kind of ran into some bushes and bent the foot rests on the thing. Oops. I told the guy that maybe riding a motorcycle wasn't the right thing for me, so I walked away. Ack.
I found a mountain bike to ride instead. Definitely more my thing! I don't even like motorcycle anyways. Noisy, pushy things that just get in your way. Blecks! Bicycles for me!!
It was super hot that day and I rapidly built up a dripping pool of sweat around me. I stopped for some (nonspicy) curry at the Organic Cafe for lunch and drank a whole bottle of water. I visited the river again and took pictures of people tubing and jumping from the swings.
Near the river I found a sign leading to a cave. I knew that I wanted to try out going into a cave, so I decided to go for it. I parked by bike and left it with the people selling admission tickets (10,000 kip (CA$1.20)) and headed towards the cave entrance. Little did I know that the cave entrance was like halfway up the mountain. I carefully picked myself over sharp limestone boulders and rickety ladders made of bamboo. Since I was only wearing flip-flops, I was exceedingly careful on my way up. I didn't want to fall and get a huge scratch on the sharp limestone... that would ruin my day!
It took me like twenty minutes of climbing to reach the entrance of the cave and was even sweatier than I was when I was biking. When I got there, I stood for like five minutes to enjoy the cool air flowing from the interior of the cave. The people at the cave entrance gave me a flashlight and I went in!
For the first fifteen minutes in the cave, my glasses kept fogging up and I had to keep wiping them off. I climbed down over more limestone boulders and iron ladders (felt safer than bamboo!). It was kind of slippery in there. It was hard to keep my balance in my flip flops. At one point, I slipped and fell. I scratched up my left leg pretty bad. I used the rest of my water to wash off the blood and mud and decided to cut my first self-caving adventure short. One of the kids who worked at the cave came across me on my way out and helped me out.
When I got back to the cave entrance, I didn't really relish the descent over sharp limestone boulders to get back to my bike. I finally got a good look at my injury. I had a lot of scratches and my legs were covered in mud. Thankfully, the scratches weren't deep at all and had already stopped bleeding. They didn't really hurt much either. I scoff at pain!
There were a couple of monks sitting at the cave entrance. They walked down the mountain with me. One of them spoke fairly good English and we chatted on the way down. When we got to the bottom, the one monk said he enjoyed talking to me because I was "funny," whatever that means.
I cycled back to town without stopping. I was only about twenty minutes away by that point. When I got back to the guesthouse, Chris and Alex were still watching movies. When they saw me covered with mud with blood on my leg they thought I had gotten into some kind of motorcycle accident! Ha!
Overall, our impression of Vang Vieng wasn't a really good one. Sure, tubing was super fun, but the rest of the town was kind of seedy and gimmicky. As one of the well known "backpacker havens", its actually more expensive to visit than many places. If you ever make the assumption that they typical backpacker havens are probably cheaper because backpackers like them, then you're wrong. Just like Byron Bay in Australia, it seems like they're more expensive. That's backpacker exploitation! That, and the seedy guesthouses we saw, and just the "hippie" vibe of the place, we liked it much less than Luang Prabang. Oh well, it's a good thing we only stayed there for three nights before moving on!
April 1
It was time for us to leave the north. We were kinda hungover from the festivities the day before, but it didn't matter! It took us three boat trips over four days just to reach Muong Khuoa from Luang Prabang, but it would take us only one day to cover the same distance in a bus. It also cost 80,000 kip instead of like 330,000 kip. However, as you'll see, the boat journey was MUCH more enjoyable than the same one on bus.
We attempted to take the 9:30 AM bus from Muong Khuoa to Odomxai (a town on the road in between Muong Khuoa and Luang Prabang), but it was full when we got there. Ack. Luckily, there was a second bus that day at 12:30 PM. Whew. In the meanwhile, we did what we did several times before over the previous few days... we sat on the patio at Nam Ou guest house, drank something (this time -- water and coffee), and wasted time. I learned how to play Rummy from the girls. Playing cards is fun!
However, the bus ride was not fun. It was a local bus, filled with locals. I use the word "filled" loosely, though. The bus was the size of your average cube van at home stuffed to overfilling with about 30 people. Some men had to stand up in the open doorway for a few hours as the bus barreled down the mountainous roads. The bus was filled with sacks of cargo, too. The old man who had to sit on a sack in the aisle beside me had a puppy in a burlap sack. It was cramped, to say the least. The seats weren't really sized for Westerners, so my knees were squished the whole time.
I learned that day (and over several other bus trips in the succeeding days) that many bus drivers in Lao like to play Lao music while driving. Some drivers play it quietly as to not overwhelm the passengers. Some play it VERY LOUDLY because they wish to anger me. Some drivers seem to prefer particular tracks and skip and repeat them. From my experience on these bus rides, the music is typically very painful. Women singing in ululating high pitched voices with men crooning counterpoint. Piercing trilling flute solos punctuated by overly dramatic Carlos Santana style guitar riffs. The music sounds pretty ballady, and I don't really enjoy most ballads sung in English, let alone in an incomprehensible language. It's VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY IRRITATING. I dislike it greatly. If it's not too loud, then I will try to drown it out with my iPod. Often it's much too loud for that. Le sigh.
The bus ride to Oudomxai was three hours. I couldn't get out once during that time.
When we got there, I paid 1000 kip (about CA$0.12) to use the toilet at the bus station and grabbed some food. We learned, to our luck, there was another bus to Luang Prabang that left in less than an hour. We didn't want to spend the night in Oudomxai and wanted to get to Luang Prabang as soon as possible, so yippee.
The second bus was even smaller than the first. It was really just a minivan filled with seats. It had about 15 people squished inside. I felt bad for the person sitting in front of me since my knees were digging straight into their seatback (and her own back as well). There was no choice... the seats were not designed with Westerner's in mind. I have never been more squished in my life. Also, the road south of Oudomxai was in terrible condition. Potholes, washed out sections, hilly, and curvy. It was the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my whole life. The first three hours were the worst. After that, a few of the locals were dropped off and we were able to stretch out a bit.
We reached Luang Prabang at around 9 PM and headed back to the guesthouse we stayed at our first time there, the Nock Noi. I took my own room for 100,000 kip/night (about CA$12) -- double bed, private bathroom with heated shower and sit-down toilet. It was pure luxury, and I felt that I needed it! Chris and Alex split their own room -- same price and features as mine, except two beds instead of one.
April 2, 2008
Weather was warm and sunny most of the day, with light rain in the evening.
Today was a nothing day -- just recovering from the pains of our journey in the rustic regions. We went to our favourite cafe, JoMa, in the morning, spent six hours on the internet, shopped, and did little else.
April 3, 2008
We woke up early, went to JoMa for breakfast, and caught a bus going south to Vang Vieng. It was only about seven hours straight over and down a mountain range. The bus driver was much more merciful with the music this time around. The hills were very steep and the bus definitely struggled on its way up them.
In Vang Vieng we quickly found a guest house with a triple room (two big beds) for 90,000 kip (about CA$10). Pretty cheap, especially when you divide it three ways! We went to find dinner. Chris found a couple of people that she met in India: Jocelyn and Nathan from Vancouver. It seems crazy that you could run into people in Laos that you met in India, but it seemed to happen to Chris and Alex a few times (since they both went to India prior to S.E. Asia). We agreed to meet up with Jocelyn and Nathan the next day at 10 AM for breakfast and tubing!
After dinner, we went back to our guest house and started to chill. While were were there we discovered that our room was literally infested with a zoo of insects: fleas, cockroaches, ants, mosquitoes, and beetles. All these things were somewhat bearable (though both Alex and Chris fled the room until I slayed the cockroach), but when we discovered the BED BUGS we had enough. We quickly packed up and ran out of the guest house in our pajamas to find a better place. One of the guesthouse staff tried to stop us on our way out, but we were not to be reasoned with. If THAT room was so bad, we wouldn't feel comfortable ANYWHERE in that guesthouse.
We ended up another place a bit down the street. This place was even cheaper... 40,000 kip (about CA$5) for 3 people. It wasn't the cleanest, but we didn't find bed bugs, so we went to bed.
April 4, 2008
We decided to spend only one night in the second seedy guesthouse and seek better accommodation in the morning. While we were getting ready in the morning, some guy just opened the door to our room while Alex and I were waiting for Chris to get out of the shower. It was the owner of the guesthouse we fled the previous night. He said that he wanted us to pay for the night before. We said, we didn't stay there over the night, so why should we pay? He said that we held the room for about four hours before we up and left, so he didn't have a chance to rent out the room after we left and owed him for it. We said that it's his responsibility to provide a clean place for us to stay and his place was definitely not clean. He then said something like, "Okay, if we can't agree then get your passports and we'll go to the police." Alex then said, "Okay! We need to wait for our friend to get out of the shower, so we'll meet you downstairs. Wait for us."
Apparently the guy was bluffing, since he wasn't there when we showed up 15 minutes later. I guess he didn't want to deal with the police even more than we did. Ha! I give props to Alex for calling that slumlord's bluff.
After that we found a new place to stay that was MUCH NICER. It was a bit pricier, but after all that stress it was worth it.
All that stuff happened before breakfast. We needed good food and coffee.
We met up with Jocelyn and Nathan at Luang Prabang Bakery -- a cafe recommended by our guide books. It was somewhat pricey, but delicious. After breakie, it was time for TUBING.
TUBING in Vang Vieng is fantastic. The idea is that a tuk-tuk drives you 5 km up river and drops you off. You float down the river in an inner tube. Sounds simple? There's more to it then that!
Approximately every 50 meters down the river you'll find a bar. If you want to stop, you signal the dude on the river side and he'll throw you a line and pull you in. Most bars have rope swings that you can use to jump into the river. Some swings are low. Some are high. Some are very high. Some bars play good music. Some play bad music. Some have DJs and you can request your own music! Many offer free shots of Lao Lao (rice whiskey). There are hundreds of other tourists there doing the same thing as you. It's literally a huge party.
Sadly, there are no pictures of us on the river. We bought a cheapo waterproof camera in town, but it busted after taking only four pictures. With so few photos, we decided it wasn't worth developing me. I decided that I would return the next day, on scooter, to take photos with my own camera.
One moment on the river really stands out in my mind. We had built up a chain of about seven people in their tubes down the river. With beers in our hand and feet dangling in the water we tried to figure out which day of the week it was. Some people guessed Tuesday. I think I guessed Saturday. It was really Friday! We then looked around us and and watched the sunset over the really gorgeous mountain scape. I was really happy at this point. Alex said I was "a romantic" because I'm often savouring moments, places, foods, whatever and declaring them to be most fun, most beautiful, most delicious, most awesome ever. I think she's right. Looking back on my blog, I'm often found describing things using superlatives like that.
It's supposed to take about two hours to cover the 5 km of river to get back to town -- if you don't stop. We seemed to stop at almost every bar and I took advantage of almost every rope swing, so it took us more than seven hours to get back to town -- after dark even. Traveling down a rocky river in the dark while wearing sunglasses isn't the best. Thankfully, I didn't drink a huge amount, so I made it back only semi-drunk. Chris and Alex got carried away and got mega-drunk.
After dinner, Chris and Alex went to bed, but I went to Smile Bar with a couple Italian guys we met on the river. Smile Bar is an outdoor bar built around a bonfire. Drinks were pricey. Music was decent. Sadly, because of the curfew, the party shut down at 11:30 PM. The Italians went to an after party, but I was too tired so I went to bed.
April 5, 2008
Alex and Chris were out of commission today. Our guesthouse was awesome enough that it actually had a TV with satellite, so they decided that they would sit around all day and just watch movies on HBO.
So, I headed to a motorcycle rental place to find some wheels. I had never ridden on a scooter before. However, you don't need a license to drive one in Laos... they don't even check your driver's license before they'll rent you one. Sweet.
The driver showed me how to ride the thing, but.... I wasn't very good. I kind of ran into some bushes and bent the foot rests on the thing. Oops. I told the guy that maybe riding a motorcycle wasn't the right thing for me, so I walked away. Ack.
I found a mountain bike to ride instead. Definitely more my thing! I don't even like motorcycle anyways. Noisy, pushy things that just get in your way. Blecks! Bicycles for me!!
It was super hot that day and I rapidly built up a dripping pool of sweat around me. I stopped for some (nonspicy) curry at the Organic Cafe for lunch and drank a whole bottle of water. I visited the river again and took pictures of people tubing and jumping from the swings.
Near the river I found a sign leading to a cave. I knew that I wanted to try out going into a cave, so I decided to go for it. I parked by bike and left it with the people selling admission tickets (10,000 kip (CA$1.20)) and headed towards the cave entrance. Little did I know that the cave entrance was like halfway up the mountain. I carefully picked myself over sharp limestone boulders and rickety ladders made of bamboo. Since I was only wearing flip-flops, I was exceedingly careful on my way up. I didn't want to fall and get a huge scratch on the sharp limestone... that would ruin my day!
It took me like twenty minutes of climbing to reach the entrance of the cave and was even sweatier than I was when I was biking. When I got there, I stood for like five minutes to enjoy the cool air flowing from the interior of the cave. The people at the cave entrance gave me a flashlight and I went in!
For the first fifteen minutes in the cave, my glasses kept fogging up and I had to keep wiping them off. I climbed down over more limestone boulders and iron ladders (felt safer than bamboo!). It was kind of slippery in there. It was hard to keep my balance in my flip flops. At one point, I slipped and fell. I scratched up my left leg pretty bad. I used the rest of my water to wash off the blood and mud and decided to cut my first self-caving adventure short. One of the kids who worked at the cave came across me on my way out and helped me out.
When I got back to the cave entrance, I didn't really relish the descent over sharp limestone boulders to get back to my bike. I finally got a good look at my injury. I had a lot of scratches and my legs were covered in mud. Thankfully, the scratches weren't deep at all and had already stopped bleeding. They didn't really hurt much either. I scoff at pain!
There were a couple of monks sitting at the cave entrance. They walked down the mountain with me. One of them spoke fairly good English and we chatted on the way down. When we got to the bottom, the one monk said he enjoyed talking to me because I was "funny," whatever that means.
I cycled back to town without stopping. I was only about twenty minutes away by that point. When I got back to the guesthouse, Chris and Alex were still watching movies. When they saw me covered with mud with blood on my leg they thought I had gotten into some kind of motorcycle accident! Ha!
Overall, our impression of Vang Vieng wasn't a really good one. Sure, tubing was super fun, but the rest of the town was kind of seedy and gimmicky. As one of the well known "backpacker havens", its actually more expensive to visit than many places. If you ever make the assumption that they typical backpacker havens are probably cheaper because backpackers like them, then you're wrong. Just like Byron Bay in Australia, it seems like they're more expensive. That's backpacker exploitation! That, and the seedy guesthouses we saw, and just the "hippie" vibe of the place, we liked it much less than Luang Prabang. Oh well, it's a good thing we only stayed there for three nights before moving on!
New Photos Posted: Vang Vieng
Hi. I'm sorry for being so behind. The internet and the computers here are VERY slow and painful to use. I wanted to do a blog update when I was in Phonsavan, but the internet was just not working in the whole town the one day that I alloted to do it. Doh.
It takes me usually about two or three hours to upload a photo album to Picasa. Since I'm also answering emails and writing messages on Facebook at the same time, that really sucks up a lot of time, the blog entries themselves are starting to lag. I consider photos (since I am a photographer!) and emails a higher priority so I think this blog is starting to suffer. I will endeavour to be better in the future.
Anyways, here are some photos from Vang Vieng in Laos. Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Vientiane, Laos
It takes me usually about two or three hours to upload a photo album to Picasa. Since I'm also answering emails and writing messages on Facebook at the same time, that really sucks up a lot of time, the blog entries themselves are starting to lag. I consider photos (since I am a photographer!) and emails a higher priority so I think this blog is starting to suffer. I will endeavour to be better in the future.
Anyways, here are some photos from Vang Vieng in Laos. Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Vientiane, Laos
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Rivers, Mountain Climbing, and PURE MADNESS
Even though Luang Prabang was quite touristy itself, we still wanted to head off the beaten track and explore areas that many falang ("foreigners") still don't travel to yet. Chris, Alex, and I decided to take a boat journey up the Nam Ou river into the far northern reaches of Laos, up close the Chinese and Vietnamese borders. Our goal was to reach Phongsali, which should take us three full days boating up the river.
Wednesday March 26, 2008
The first leg of our journey involved an eight hour boat ride up the Nam Ou from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw. It cost 110,000 kip (about CA$12). Yes, that is expensive, given where we are.
This section of the river valley was described to us as one of the most beautiful boat journeys in the whole country of Laos. Even though we could take a bus to the same place in half the time and for one third of the cost, we decided that the boat would be worth it. It really was. We saw gorgeous mountainous landscapes with sheer cliffs and stark rocky outcrops. The boat pushed its way up through many rapids. At one point, the boat got stuck in a shallow section and the crew had to get out of the boat to push the boat through the shallow part!
When we got to Nong Khiaw we found ourselves in a small town nestled on steep river banks between scraggy mountains. A tall bridge over the river joined both sides of the community. We walked around to find a cheap guesthouse to stay in. From across the bridge, we could see a pocket of little bungalows on the opposite riverbank. All of the bungalows were raised on stilts, but two of them seemed to be caving in somewhat. They were definitely in disrepair. Chris remarked, "There's no way we're staying there!". However, when we got there, we discovered that the bungalows were REALLY CHEAP (40,000 kip (about CA$5) for one). Chris and Alex decided to share one bungalow and I took another for myself. It seemed almost natural to sleep in the slanty shanties, after all!
For me, it was my first experience sleeping in such rustic conditions. I had a private bathroom in my bungalow, but it was very basic. There was no shower, just a bucket with cold water I could pour over myself. To satisfy my bodily functions, there was a squat toilet. The toilet did not flush, but you had to use the bucket to pour your business down the drain. There was no sink -- yep, you guessed it -- you had to use the bucket to wash up. The town didn't have electricity 24 hours of the day, and I had to sleep on a hard bed under a mosquito net. It was a bit to put up with, but the price was right (you get what you pay for, right?), and it was part of the experience.
Thursday March 27, 2008
Nong Khiaw was pretty enough, and we had spent enough time on the boat the day before that we decided to spend a second night here.
We spent the morning on a bike ride on the road east of town. Again, we were in the middle of the mountains in the middle of some of the most beautiful terrain I had even seen.
We had purchased a bottle of rum in Luang Prabang and we decided to start working on it in Nong Khiaw. The afternoon was a scorcher, so we parked ourselves on a guesthouse patio beside the river with some banana milkshakes that we spiked with our own rum. I spent the afternoon writing postcards.
After drinking rum for a few hours in the hot hot heat, we were ready to pass out. The rest of the afternoon and evening was pretty quiet -- we just didn't have the energy to do much else.
We chatted to a few other backpackers. There were a few in town, but not many. Most of the people we talked to were traveling down river. We were one of the very very few who were making the journey up river. Later, we found out that that would prove to be rather unfortunate.
Friday March 28, 2008
From Nong Khiaw, we had two choices. We could take the boat up the river one hour to Mung Ngoi or five hours farther up to Mung Khuoa. Mung Ngoi sounded nice, but we wanted to push up all the way up if we could.
However, since there were so few travelers going north, there was no boat that day all the way to Mung Khuoa. We could charter one, but only at great expense. Instead, we had to take the boat to Mung Ngoi and hope we could find enough travelers there to help us get the rest of the way north. The one hour boat ride cost 20,000 kip (CA$2.30)
Mung Ngoi was pretty nice though. It's an even smaller place than Nong Khiaw. There's no road there -- the only way in or out is by the Nam Ou river. The bungalows we found here were even cheaper -- only 30,000 kip (CA$3.40). No private bathroom, though.
Apparently, Mung Ngoi has been "discovered" by the backpacker scene. There were more travelers, guesthouses, and restaurants here than in Nong Khiaw. More, but still not many. It was still a pretty quiet and rustic place.
We spent a good part of the afternoon floating on the river floating on inner tubes. The day was another hot and sunny one, so we soaked up the sun and relaxed.
The family that owned the bungalows we stayed at were somewhat uncomfortably friendly. There was this little kid (maybe like 6 years old) that Chris nicknamed "Little B & E" who like to play with the combination locks we put on the bungalow doors while we weren't there. Even if we were hanging out on the balcony of the next bungalow over, Little B & E would be fidgeting with the combination lock on the other or swaying in the hammock there. I'm not sure if he was trying to break into the bungalow, or just liked playing with shiny things, but it was a little annoying.
More annoying were these local men who came to hang out on our balconies and chat with us. They looked into the open bungalow doors frequently (to see what we had in there?) and very actively flirted with Alex and Chris. The girls were feeling very uncomfortable and they called me over to try and save them, but I was three-quarters passed out on my hammock, and couldn't be bothered to walk the twenty feet over there. Some gentleman I am! Nothing bad happened, though... it was just a bother.
We made a bit of a pub crawl that day. More banana milk shakes spiked with our own rum in the afternoon, and a few Beer Laos at night. I decided though, that I should try and cut back on the amount of Beer Lao that I drank though. It definitely had some kind of ingredient in it that induced hangovers too easily. I had heard rumours that Beer Lao was wonky that way, and I really started to believe it.
After the heat and drinking, I was passed out at 10 PM. What a party animal I am!
Saturday March 29, 2008
I was forced awake at the crack of dawn by the sound of crowing roosters making their rounds and babies crying. Already, the rustic experience was starting to try me.
We made our way to the boat landing in the morning (nothing more than a beach with some steps leading to town) to see if could catch a boat up to Mung Khuoa. Unfortunately, although there were several other travelers going south, there was no one other than us going north that day. We could wait it out another day, or charter a boat ourselves. We decided to not wait, and charter the damn boat. It cost us 200,000 kip each (CA$23)!!!!! Yes, that is very expensive for a four hour boat ride. It was nice not to have to share a boat with anyone though. With only three people on the boat, we had plenty of space to stretch out and be comfortable.
Finding a place to stay in Mung Khuoa was trickier than the last few places. It was a little bit bigger, so there it wasn't as simple as before. We walked into one place where this kid showed me a room with two beds and private bathroom for 50,000. It was pretty nice, but we figured it was too expensive and kept walking. At the next place, the owner was so sleepy or apathetic he could barely walk. He wearily showed us a dirty dirty room that we didn't want to stay in. When he held up five fingers to show us the price (50,000 kip, again), we moved on. We crossed a rickety, rockety, swaying, suspension bridge to the other side of town to try and find a guest house that our guide book recommended. It was under construction, though. We decided to give up and went back to the first place. This time, though, the kid showed us some other rooms that had only one bed each and shared bathrooms. That was more expensive and less nice than the first room he showed us that Chris and Alex could split. I asked for the kid to show us the room he had shown us only fifteen minutes before. He didn't know what we were talking about. I pointed to the closed doors of the rooms he showed us. He shook his head, "no" and claimed he had never showed us the rooms. Was this kid playing dumb, or trying to rip us off? We really doubted that the rooms had been taken in the past fifteen minutes, so I figured he was trying to rip us off.
We parked ourselves in the common room of that guest house while we took turns walking around the rest of town looking for somewhere else to stay. Eventually, I found a place to stay at the Nam Ou Guest House. Chris and Alex got a room with two beds/private bathroom for 50,000 kip and I got a single for 25,000 kip. A better deal than the other place, and still clean enough to be worthwhile.
The Nam Ou Guesthouse overlooked the Nam Ou river (of course). There is no bridge over the river there. Instead, highway traffic has to cross the river using a barge. The barge is not motorized, but is pushed by a noisy tugboat. We got to see (and hear) all this action from the patio of our guesthouse. When we got there, it seemed like the barge was STUCK on the dock. The tug boat pushed it over and over and it didn't move. We later learned that it had been stuck for about two weeks and there was a fleet of trucks parked on the beach there that had been stranded the whole time while trying to travel to Vietnam. Bummer. Even though it seems like Laos is catching up with the rest of the world, several key pieces of infrastructure (like bridges!) are still missing.
Given the difficulties we faced getting up the river all the way to Mung Khuoa, we figured that it would continue to be harder to continue up the river, too. We wanted to go up the river one more day to get to Phongsali. Time was running out on Chris' visa and we couldn't take forever. We wanted to do a trek from Phongsali. Fortunately, we saw advertisements for a trek guide in Mung Khuoa, too. Our guide book even recommended the same guide by name, too. We decided to forget about going all the way to Phongsali and do our trek out of Mung Khuoa.
We walked around town trying to find the recommended trek guide. Unfortunately, when we found his house, some woman who lived there (his wife, I assume), told us that he was already out on a trek and wouldn't be back for three days. Doh!
Reading our guide book, it also said that there were other trek guides available from Nam Ou Guesthouse, too. How convenient! That's where we were staying. We went back there and examined the poster that lead us on our wild goose chase. One of the guesthouse staff (we had seen him before chopping wood), approached us. We asked him if he knew where these other trek guides were. He told us that he was one and he could take us on a trek himself. We were a little surprised. It was certainly convenient that the guy who was chopping wood claimed to be a trek guide, too.
We talked to him for a while. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and we decided to trust him. He set us up for a two day trek on the east side of the Nam Ou river. He told us that the recommended travel guide went on trek on the west side of the river with a bus load of tourists. It was a much more "touristy" trek than the one he would take us on. We were excited by this news. It really was exactly what we wanted, after all... and we could do it there in Mung Khuoa instead of traveling farther up the river.
The two day trek would cost 350,000 kip (CA$40) each. That cost included all transport, food, and one night's accommodation. I don't know if that's expensive or not, but its the price we decided on. We would pay him 150,000 kip each before leaving and the balance when we got back.
Sunday March 30, 3008
Our trek guide's name was Khack. We met him in the morning on the boat landing. He had chartered a small boat to take us about one hour up the river. It was the smallest boat I had yet been on in Laos. It had no roof and there was only room to sit one person across. It was little more than a long canoe with a motor.
We traveled upriver and got out at small Laotian village. From there, Alex, Chris, and I proceeded to walk a trail through the jungle up a mountain with our guide Khack and our porter Ap. It was a hot morning and the trail was slippery in places. Chris was feeling ill, and we took turning carrying her pack for her. It was rough going, and I though, "What had we gotten ourselves into?"
It was about a three hour slog up the steep trail. As we got higher and higher, we could see farther and farther. Eventually, we could see very far indeed. We were on a jungle-covered mountain, surrounded by more jungle-covered mountains. Tired that I was, I was still happy. I love mountains, I wanted to get into hiking, so this was a Good Thing for me.
Around noon, we seemed to top out at a little village of hill-tribe village. It turns out that there are more people than just Laotian people living in Laos. The Laotian people themselves mostly lives in the valleys, plains, and lowlands. The country, however, is very mountainous and rugged. The Laotians don't venture onto the mountains much at all. Several hundred years ago, all sorts of tribes of people wandered in from the north (mostly from China or Tibet) and settled in the highlands of Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. Many of these tribes are distinct from each other and even speak their own languages. It was into one of these villages that we trudged into that afternoon.
The village of Khamu people came out to see us en masse. It really seemed that Khack really had taken us off the beaten path. Foreigners weren't seen here very often and many people, especially children, came out to stare at us. We were an oddity. For about twenty minutes, we were the centre of attention for the town. After a while, though, the novelty had worn off and people returned to their activities. Children played, puppies ran around, roosters strutted, and adults did whatever adults did in villages.
Khack prepared lunch for us in one of the villagers huts, while we sat in the shade and rested. When we got to each it, the lunch was VERY GOOD. We sat around a small table on small benches (I got the only chair -- I guess since I was the only man among the guests) and shared the food. There were tender young bamboo shoots in broth, spicy sausage, steamed minced pork, buffalo jerky, a mushy salad of mushrooms, spicy chili powder, and plenty of sticky rice. It turns out that the fresh bamboo shoots are only available for one month of the year and we were fortunate enough to be there at the right time to get them. I really felt fortunate, since the bamboo was just that delicious -- especially when dipped in the chili powder!
After lunch, we continued to rest for a while and watch the children play. Some kids were rolling a hoop around with a stick. Another kid was pushing a shoe around with a stick. The stick seemed to be covered with poo or mud and was easy to slide around. I took a turn pushing the poo-shoe, too.
Soon, we headed out again. We walked about three hours to another mountain top. Up and down and up again we went. There was less jungle cover on the other side of the mountain and there was little shade to screen us. It was pretty tiring, but the views were fantastic.
We reached another village -- this time of Akha people. Again, we were greeted with stares. Being an oddity again and again was a bit unnerving. After a while though, life returned to normal. We watched several of the men play a game that involved kicking, head butting, or shoulder-whacking a small rattan ball over a net. Those guys were really good. They offered to let me play, but I didn't really want to embarrass myself that badly. It took a lot of skill to play that game. I think it was called "Katto".
Dinner was good, too. More bamboo shoots, served with pork stir fry, vegetables, and the ever present sticky rice. We drank a lot of home brew rice whiskey ("Lao Lao") served from a yellow bottle labeled "Shell Brake Fluid."
A combination of sun, exhausted, and liquor completely wrecked us and we were in bed by 8:30 PM. While we were sleeping apparently our host family started watching TV that was powered by a big battery. I didn't even notice the dozen people watching TV only half a meter from my feet. I was just toooooo tired.
Monday March 31, 2008
In the morning I was woken at about 5 AM. The village came to life around me as I was subjected to a chorus of noises: roosters crowing, pigs squealing, babies crying, children playing, dogs barking, other dogs fighting, more roosters crowing, music playing, adults shouting or singing, cows mooing, and even more roosters crowing. Did I mention the roosters? I hate roosters. HATE. THEM. SO. MUCH.
I tried to lay in bed and fall back asleep, but I lost one of my earplugs, so I just tossed and turned and listened to the symphony all around me.
After a while though, I had a good reason to leave bed. Did I forget to mention that I had been constipated for the past four days? There was no movement since I had left Luang Prabang. However, up on that mountain top that morning, behind a couple different trees, it all came out. Why am I mentioning this in my blog for you all to read? I don't know. It was a proud moment, and I just wanted to share it.
Breakfast involved fried eggs, more sticky rice, and some ramen noodles, interrupted with several trips to trees outside of the village, if you know what I mean.
Khack had given us an choice. We could walk for seven hours to one more village (which he told us would actually be pretty similar to the one we had just been in), or only two hours to get back to the river where we could get back to town and attend a housewarming party. We were pretty tired and the party sounded pretty good, so that's what we did.
The slog down the mountain afforded more beautiful views. Parts of it were very steep and I ended up sliding down part of the mountain on my ass. When we got farther down, we had to cross several small streams. At first, I tried to get across by hopping across rocks, but after almost slipping a few times, I decided to just get my feet wet and walk across. It was never more than ankle deep, but I collected my fair share of mud.
By the time we reached the river we found ourselves in a lowland Laotian village again. We entered one of the huts and found ourselves to be an oddity again. Khack negotiated for a boat down river. When the negotiations were complete, a local brought out a bottle of Lao Lao (rice whiskey). At 11 AM we were already drinking. The bottle was passed around while half the village stared at us with curiousity. But it was good, we were friends -- we were bonding over millenia-old custom of opening a bottle and drinking it until it was empty.
I really felt like I was an explorer from hundreds of years ago. I was in a rustic village in the middle of nowhere with locals I couldn't really communicate with other then a couple words and hand gestures. We relied on our guide to get us through the situation. We bonded over liquor and were suddenly joking and laughing like old friends. Is this the same way explorers felt hundreds of years ago? It was a unique experience in my life.
Even though the trek was cut short, I don't know if I could have done more. I could have used force of will to get myself through a longer trek (and I know that I could have pulled it off if I set my mind to it), but going to a Laotian housewarming party sounded really appealing to me. When we got back to town and got cleaned up, we found the party on a street beside the market.
It was PURE MADNESS.
Khack brought us to a table with his friends. From there, it was time for serious drinking. There was a case of Beer Lao under our table. When the case ran out, another case would be brought in. When glasses were empty, they were refilled. If our glasses were full, then there was a toast and we would drink. The Lao men were pushers. If we didn't drink enough, they made sure we drank more! If we weren't drinking, then we were eating. If we weren't eating, then we were dancing. If we weren't dancing, then we were drinking.
It was PURE MADNESS.
Yes, the Lao people are serious drinkers, as we found. One man attached himself to Chris and wrote "I LOVE YOU" on the table. He then unabashedly jiggled his beer gut and wrote "89 kg" on the table. He was proud of his beer drinking ability, that's for sure!
We danced a lot with the Lao people, too. Being the only foreigners there, we were very popular and kept getting pulled to the dance floor.
How did these people drink so much? I observed, and quickly learned. They put a lot of ICE in their glasses. Not only does it help beat the heat, but it waters down the drinks so you can drink more! I made sure to use lots of ice and ate lots of sticky rice, too, and I survived the PURE MADNESS.
Nevertheless, by like 5 PM I was pretty hammered.
During the afternoon, I had managed to tag a few of the other foreigners that I saw walking by. They thought they weren't invited to the festivities. I fixed that. I made sure they sat down and drank with us. Of course it was okay. The Lao people didn't mind it. We were popular! Again, I played the role of the social organizer and got more people to have fun at my bidding. I'm good at it :)
By about 6 PM all of the foreigners were invited into the new house to formally congratulate the new house owners. About ten of us sat in a circle and gave them our best wishes while another Lao man translated. They thanked us. The other foreigners then wandered away, but the three of us were the special ones and continued to drink with the family for a while.
By about 7 PM Khack herded the three of us, along with another of his buddies to a restaurant for dinner. We thought, "isn't he a bit too drunk to drive?" but he assured us he was okay. Whatever, its not like he can drive fast in a crowded little place like this. There's not many cars on the road anyways. He used the horn liberally to force the pedestrians to take cover and we bumped our jostled in the van for about five minutes to get to the restaurant.
We ate fish soup, sticky rice, and fried eggs and danced to crazy Lao house music. Khack wanted us to drink and party more, but we couldn't anymore. We were so tired by then we were basically zombies. Khack is a great guy, and I really like him, but he partied us way too hard :)
Wednesday March 26, 2008
The first leg of our journey involved an eight hour boat ride up the Nam Ou from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw. It cost 110,000 kip (about CA$12). Yes, that is expensive, given where we are.
This section of the river valley was described to us as one of the most beautiful boat journeys in the whole country of Laos. Even though we could take a bus to the same place in half the time and for one third of the cost, we decided that the boat would be worth it. It really was. We saw gorgeous mountainous landscapes with sheer cliffs and stark rocky outcrops. The boat pushed its way up through many rapids. At one point, the boat got stuck in a shallow section and the crew had to get out of the boat to push the boat through the shallow part!
When we got to Nong Khiaw we found ourselves in a small town nestled on steep river banks between scraggy mountains. A tall bridge over the river joined both sides of the community. We walked around to find a cheap guesthouse to stay in. From across the bridge, we could see a pocket of little bungalows on the opposite riverbank. All of the bungalows were raised on stilts, but two of them seemed to be caving in somewhat. They were definitely in disrepair. Chris remarked, "There's no way we're staying there!". However, when we got there, we discovered that the bungalows were REALLY CHEAP (40,000 kip (about CA$5) for one). Chris and Alex decided to share one bungalow and I took another for myself. It seemed almost natural to sleep in the slanty shanties, after all!
For me, it was my first experience sleeping in such rustic conditions. I had a private bathroom in my bungalow, but it was very basic. There was no shower, just a bucket with cold water I could pour over myself. To satisfy my bodily functions, there was a squat toilet. The toilet did not flush, but you had to use the bucket to pour your business down the drain. There was no sink -- yep, you guessed it -- you had to use the bucket to wash up. The town didn't have electricity 24 hours of the day, and I had to sleep on a hard bed under a mosquito net. It was a bit to put up with, but the price was right (you get what you pay for, right?), and it was part of the experience.
Thursday March 27, 2008
Nong Khiaw was pretty enough, and we had spent enough time on the boat the day before that we decided to spend a second night here.
We spent the morning on a bike ride on the road east of town. Again, we were in the middle of the mountains in the middle of some of the most beautiful terrain I had even seen.
We had purchased a bottle of rum in Luang Prabang and we decided to start working on it in Nong Khiaw. The afternoon was a scorcher, so we parked ourselves on a guesthouse patio beside the river with some banana milkshakes that we spiked with our own rum. I spent the afternoon writing postcards.
After drinking rum for a few hours in the hot hot heat, we were ready to pass out. The rest of the afternoon and evening was pretty quiet -- we just didn't have the energy to do much else.
We chatted to a few other backpackers. There were a few in town, but not many. Most of the people we talked to were traveling down river. We were one of the very very few who were making the journey up river. Later, we found out that that would prove to be rather unfortunate.
Friday March 28, 2008
From Nong Khiaw, we had two choices. We could take the boat up the river one hour to Mung Ngoi or five hours farther up to Mung Khuoa. Mung Ngoi sounded nice, but we wanted to push up all the way up if we could.
However, since there were so few travelers going north, there was no boat that day all the way to Mung Khuoa. We could charter one, but only at great expense. Instead, we had to take the boat to Mung Ngoi and hope we could find enough travelers there to help us get the rest of the way north. The one hour boat ride cost 20,000 kip (CA$2.30)
Mung Ngoi was pretty nice though. It's an even smaller place than Nong Khiaw. There's no road there -- the only way in or out is by the Nam Ou river. The bungalows we found here were even cheaper -- only 30,000 kip (CA$3.40). No private bathroom, though.
Apparently, Mung Ngoi has been "discovered" by the backpacker scene. There were more travelers, guesthouses, and restaurants here than in Nong Khiaw. More, but still not many. It was still a pretty quiet and rustic place.
We spent a good part of the afternoon floating on the river floating on inner tubes. The day was another hot and sunny one, so we soaked up the sun and relaxed.
The family that owned the bungalows we stayed at were somewhat uncomfortably friendly. There was this little kid (maybe like 6 years old) that Chris nicknamed "Little B & E" who like to play with the combination locks we put on the bungalow doors while we weren't there. Even if we were hanging out on the balcony of the next bungalow over, Little B & E would be fidgeting with the combination lock on the other or swaying in the hammock there. I'm not sure if he was trying to break into the bungalow, or just liked playing with shiny things, but it was a little annoying.
More annoying were these local men who came to hang out on our balconies and chat with us. They looked into the open bungalow doors frequently (to see what we had in there?) and very actively flirted with Alex and Chris. The girls were feeling very uncomfortable and they called me over to try and save them, but I was three-quarters passed out on my hammock, and couldn't be bothered to walk the twenty feet over there. Some gentleman I am! Nothing bad happened, though... it was just a bother.
We made a bit of a pub crawl that day. More banana milk shakes spiked with our own rum in the afternoon, and a few Beer Laos at night. I decided though, that I should try and cut back on the amount of Beer Lao that I drank though. It definitely had some kind of ingredient in it that induced hangovers too easily. I had heard rumours that Beer Lao was wonky that way, and I really started to believe it.
After the heat and drinking, I was passed out at 10 PM. What a party animal I am!
Saturday March 29, 2008
I was forced awake at the crack of dawn by the sound of crowing roosters making their rounds and babies crying. Already, the rustic experience was starting to try me.
We made our way to the boat landing in the morning (nothing more than a beach with some steps leading to town) to see if could catch a boat up to Mung Khuoa. Unfortunately, although there were several other travelers going south, there was no one other than us going north that day. We could wait it out another day, or charter a boat ourselves. We decided to not wait, and charter the damn boat. It cost us 200,000 kip each (CA$23)!!!!! Yes, that is very expensive for a four hour boat ride. It was nice not to have to share a boat with anyone though. With only three people on the boat, we had plenty of space to stretch out and be comfortable.
Finding a place to stay in Mung Khuoa was trickier than the last few places. It was a little bit bigger, so there it wasn't as simple as before. We walked into one place where this kid showed me a room with two beds and private bathroom for 50,000. It was pretty nice, but we figured it was too expensive and kept walking. At the next place, the owner was so sleepy or apathetic he could barely walk. He wearily showed us a dirty dirty room that we didn't want to stay in. When he held up five fingers to show us the price (50,000 kip, again), we moved on. We crossed a rickety, rockety, swaying, suspension bridge to the other side of town to try and find a guest house that our guide book recommended. It was under construction, though. We decided to give up and went back to the first place. This time, though, the kid showed us some other rooms that had only one bed each and shared bathrooms. That was more expensive and less nice than the first room he showed us that Chris and Alex could split. I asked for the kid to show us the room he had shown us only fifteen minutes before. He didn't know what we were talking about. I pointed to the closed doors of the rooms he showed us. He shook his head, "no" and claimed he had never showed us the rooms. Was this kid playing dumb, or trying to rip us off? We really doubted that the rooms had been taken in the past fifteen minutes, so I figured he was trying to rip us off.
We parked ourselves in the common room of that guest house while we took turns walking around the rest of town looking for somewhere else to stay. Eventually, I found a place to stay at the Nam Ou Guest House. Chris and Alex got a room with two beds/private bathroom for 50,000 kip and I got a single for 25,000 kip. A better deal than the other place, and still clean enough to be worthwhile.
The Nam Ou Guesthouse overlooked the Nam Ou river (of course). There is no bridge over the river there. Instead, highway traffic has to cross the river using a barge. The barge is not motorized, but is pushed by a noisy tugboat. We got to see (and hear) all this action from the patio of our guesthouse. When we got there, it seemed like the barge was STUCK on the dock. The tug boat pushed it over and over and it didn't move. We later learned that it had been stuck for about two weeks and there was a fleet of trucks parked on the beach there that had been stranded the whole time while trying to travel to Vietnam. Bummer. Even though it seems like Laos is catching up with the rest of the world, several key pieces of infrastructure (like bridges!) are still missing.
Given the difficulties we faced getting up the river all the way to Mung Khuoa, we figured that it would continue to be harder to continue up the river, too. We wanted to go up the river one more day to get to Phongsali. Time was running out on Chris' visa and we couldn't take forever. We wanted to do a trek from Phongsali. Fortunately, we saw advertisements for a trek guide in Mung Khuoa, too. Our guide book even recommended the same guide by name, too. We decided to forget about going all the way to Phongsali and do our trek out of Mung Khuoa.
We walked around town trying to find the recommended trek guide. Unfortunately, when we found his house, some woman who lived there (his wife, I assume), told us that he was already out on a trek and wouldn't be back for three days. Doh!
Reading our guide book, it also said that there were other trek guides available from Nam Ou Guesthouse, too. How convenient! That's where we were staying. We went back there and examined the poster that lead us on our wild goose chase. One of the guesthouse staff (we had seen him before chopping wood), approached us. We asked him if he knew where these other trek guides were. He told us that he was one and he could take us on a trek himself. We were a little surprised. It was certainly convenient that the guy who was chopping wood claimed to be a trek guide, too.
We talked to him for a while. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and we decided to trust him. He set us up for a two day trek on the east side of the Nam Ou river. He told us that the recommended travel guide went on trek on the west side of the river with a bus load of tourists. It was a much more "touristy" trek than the one he would take us on. We were excited by this news. It really was exactly what we wanted, after all... and we could do it there in Mung Khuoa instead of traveling farther up the river.
The two day trek would cost 350,000 kip (CA$40) each. That cost included all transport, food, and one night's accommodation. I don't know if that's expensive or not, but its the price we decided on. We would pay him 150,000 kip each before leaving and the balance when we got back.
Sunday March 30, 3008
Our trek guide's name was Khack. We met him in the morning on the boat landing. He had chartered a small boat to take us about one hour up the river. It was the smallest boat I had yet been on in Laos. It had no roof and there was only room to sit one person across. It was little more than a long canoe with a motor.
We traveled upriver and got out at small Laotian village. From there, Alex, Chris, and I proceeded to walk a trail through the jungle up a mountain with our guide Khack and our porter Ap. It was a hot morning and the trail was slippery in places. Chris was feeling ill, and we took turning carrying her pack for her. It was rough going, and I though, "What had we gotten ourselves into?"
It was about a three hour slog up the steep trail. As we got higher and higher, we could see farther and farther. Eventually, we could see very far indeed. We were on a jungle-covered mountain, surrounded by more jungle-covered mountains. Tired that I was, I was still happy. I love mountains, I wanted to get into hiking, so this was a Good Thing for me.
Around noon, we seemed to top out at a little village of hill-tribe village. It turns out that there are more people than just Laotian people living in Laos. The Laotian people themselves mostly lives in the valleys, plains, and lowlands. The country, however, is very mountainous and rugged. The Laotians don't venture onto the mountains much at all. Several hundred years ago, all sorts of tribes of people wandered in from the north (mostly from China or Tibet) and settled in the highlands of Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. Many of these tribes are distinct from each other and even speak their own languages. It was into one of these villages that we trudged into that afternoon.
The village of Khamu people came out to see us en masse. It really seemed that Khack really had taken us off the beaten path. Foreigners weren't seen here very often and many people, especially children, came out to stare at us. We were an oddity. For about twenty minutes, we were the centre of attention for the town. After a while, though, the novelty had worn off and people returned to their activities. Children played, puppies ran around, roosters strutted, and adults did whatever adults did in villages.
Khack prepared lunch for us in one of the villagers huts, while we sat in the shade and rested. When we got to each it, the lunch was VERY GOOD. We sat around a small table on small benches (I got the only chair -- I guess since I was the only man among the guests) and shared the food. There were tender young bamboo shoots in broth, spicy sausage, steamed minced pork, buffalo jerky, a mushy salad of mushrooms, spicy chili powder, and plenty of sticky rice. It turns out that the fresh bamboo shoots are only available for one month of the year and we were fortunate enough to be there at the right time to get them. I really felt fortunate, since the bamboo was just that delicious -- especially when dipped in the chili powder!
After lunch, we continued to rest for a while and watch the children play. Some kids were rolling a hoop around with a stick. Another kid was pushing a shoe around with a stick. The stick seemed to be covered with poo or mud and was easy to slide around. I took a turn pushing the poo-shoe, too.
Soon, we headed out again. We walked about three hours to another mountain top. Up and down and up again we went. There was less jungle cover on the other side of the mountain and there was little shade to screen us. It was pretty tiring, but the views were fantastic.
We reached another village -- this time of Akha people. Again, we were greeted with stares. Being an oddity again and again was a bit unnerving. After a while though, life returned to normal. We watched several of the men play a game that involved kicking, head butting, or shoulder-whacking a small rattan ball over a net. Those guys were really good. They offered to let me play, but I didn't really want to embarrass myself that badly. It took a lot of skill to play that game. I think it was called "Katto".
Dinner was good, too. More bamboo shoots, served with pork stir fry, vegetables, and the ever present sticky rice. We drank a lot of home brew rice whiskey ("Lao Lao") served from a yellow bottle labeled "Shell Brake Fluid."
A combination of sun, exhausted, and liquor completely wrecked us and we were in bed by 8:30 PM. While we were sleeping apparently our host family started watching TV that was powered by a big battery. I didn't even notice the dozen people watching TV only half a meter from my feet. I was just toooooo tired.
Monday March 31, 2008
In the morning I was woken at about 5 AM. The village came to life around me as I was subjected to a chorus of noises: roosters crowing, pigs squealing, babies crying, children playing, dogs barking, other dogs fighting, more roosters crowing, music playing, adults shouting or singing, cows mooing, and even more roosters crowing. Did I mention the roosters? I hate roosters. HATE. THEM. SO. MUCH.
I tried to lay in bed and fall back asleep, but I lost one of my earplugs, so I just tossed and turned and listened to the symphony all around me.
After a while though, I had a good reason to leave bed. Did I forget to mention that I had been constipated for the past four days? There was no movement since I had left Luang Prabang. However, up on that mountain top that morning, behind a couple different trees, it all came out. Why am I mentioning this in my blog for you all to read? I don't know. It was a proud moment, and I just wanted to share it.
Breakfast involved fried eggs, more sticky rice, and some ramen noodles, interrupted with several trips to trees outside of the village, if you know what I mean.
Khack had given us an choice. We could walk for seven hours to one more village (which he told us would actually be pretty similar to the one we had just been in), or only two hours to get back to the river where we could get back to town and attend a housewarming party. We were pretty tired and the party sounded pretty good, so that's what we did.
The slog down the mountain afforded more beautiful views. Parts of it were very steep and I ended up sliding down part of the mountain on my ass. When we got farther down, we had to cross several small streams. At first, I tried to get across by hopping across rocks, but after almost slipping a few times, I decided to just get my feet wet and walk across. It was never more than ankle deep, but I collected my fair share of mud.
By the time we reached the river we found ourselves in a lowland Laotian village again. We entered one of the huts and found ourselves to be an oddity again. Khack negotiated for a boat down river. When the negotiations were complete, a local brought out a bottle of Lao Lao (rice whiskey). At 11 AM we were already drinking. The bottle was passed around while half the village stared at us with curiousity. But it was good, we were friends -- we were bonding over millenia-old custom of opening a bottle and drinking it until it was empty.
I really felt like I was an explorer from hundreds of years ago. I was in a rustic village in the middle of nowhere with locals I couldn't really communicate with other then a couple words and hand gestures. We relied on our guide to get us through the situation. We bonded over liquor and were suddenly joking and laughing like old friends. Is this the same way explorers felt hundreds of years ago? It was a unique experience in my life.
Even though the trek was cut short, I don't know if I could have done more. I could have used force of will to get myself through a longer trek (and I know that I could have pulled it off if I set my mind to it), but going to a Laotian housewarming party sounded really appealing to me. When we got back to town and got cleaned up, we found the party on a street beside the market.
It was PURE MADNESS.
Khack brought us to a table with his friends. From there, it was time for serious drinking. There was a case of Beer Lao under our table. When the case ran out, another case would be brought in. When glasses were empty, they were refilled. If our glasses were full, then there was a toast and we would drink. The Lao men were pushers. If we didn't drink enough, they made sure we drank more! If we weren't drinking, then we were eating. If we weren't eating, then we were dancing. If we weren't dancing, then we were drinking.
It was PURE MADNESS.
Yes, the Lao people are serious drinkers, as we found. One man attached himself to Chris and wrote "I LOVE YOU" on the table. He then unabashedly jiggled his beer gut and wrote "89 kg" on the table. He was proud of his beer drinking ability, that's for sure!
We danced a lot with the Lao people, too. Being the only foreigners there, we were very popular and kept getting pulled to the dance floor.
How did these people drink so much? I observed, and quickly learned. They put a lot of ICE in their glasses. Not only does it help beat the heat, but it waters down the drinks so you can drink more! I made sure to use lots of ice and ate lots of sticky rice, too, and I survived the PURE MADNESS.
Nevertheless, by like 5 PM I was pretty hammered.
During the afternoon, I had managed to tag a few of the other foreigners that I saw walking by. They thought they weren't invited to the festivities. I fixed that. I made sure they sat down and drank with us. Of course it was okay. The Lao people didn't mind it. We were popular! Again, I played the role of the social organizer and got more people to have fun at my bidding. I'm good at it :)
By about 6 PM all of the foreigners were invited into the new house to formally congratulate the new house owners. About ten of us sat in a circle and gave them our best wishes while another Lao man translated. They thanked us. The other foreigners then wandered away, but the three of us were the special ones and continued to drink with the family for a while.
By about 7 PM Khack herded the three of us, along with another of his buddies to a restaurant for dinner. We thought, "isn't he a bit too drunk to drive?" but he assured us he was okay. Whatever, its not like he can drive fast in a crowded little place like this. There's not many cars on the road anyways. He used the horn liberally to force the pedestrians to take cover and we bumped our jostled in the van for about five minutes to get to the restaurant.
We ate fish soup, sticky rice, and fried eggs and danced to crazy Lao house music. Khack wanted us to drink and party more, but we couldn't anymore. We were so tired by then we were basically zombies. Khack is a great guy, and I really like him, but he partied us way too hard :)
The Bagelgate Incident of Luang Prabang
Sorry for the lack of updates recently -- been busy and in some places that don't have internet access. I'll try and get you all caught up today.
When I left off, it was still my first day in Luang Prabang. As we roamed around town for a few hours, we kept running into people from our boat trip. It's a small town, and running into people we knew was inevitable. We told them about our plans for that night -- temple at sunset, all-you-can-fit-on-one-plate-vegetarian-buffet for 5000 kip (CA$0.60) for dinner, followed by general partying.
By the time we got to the el-cheapo vegetarian buffet, I was surprised with how much the word had spread. Something like 15 or 20 people from the slow boat had shown up for dinner. Given the number of empty bottles of Beer Lao on the table, many of them had already been drinking hard for a while. I felt pretty cool, since I knew I had a big part in the formation of this impromptu party!
From the veggie buffet we went to a bar called "The Hive" where we drank until it closed at 11:30 PM. Why so early? Laos has a curfew -- people are supposed to be at home by midnight. Foreigners get a little leeway, though. There is only one place in Luang Prabang where you can continue to drink after hours -- the BOWLING ALLEY. We all found tuk-tuks or scooters to take us there where we continued the party. They don't force you to wear bowling shoes there, so it was the first time I ever got to bowl in my bare feet. I think though, that lack-of-shoes, tiredness, and drunkenness had gotten the better of me by that point, since I rolled the meagre score of NINETEEN. Worst... bowling... ever.
We bowled with a few French people, where I got to use my very corniest lines in French... garbage like "De quelle coleur est la oiseaux dans la cuisine?" ("what colour is the bird in the kitchen?") and "Qu-est-que c'est la vie avec la bowling?" ("what is the life with bowling?"), and the classic "VIVE LA BOWLING!" They were very friendly and thought my crappy French skills were pretty entertaining.
The next day the day that we went to the waterfall in Luang Prabang. It is apparently "the" place to go in Luang Prabang. It must be, after all, since all of the tuk-tuk drivers want to take you there. You can't walk down the main street without being asked by a dozen tuk-tuk drivers to take you there. They don't push you to go (like a Thai tuk-tuk driver would -- so pushy they are), but they will usually ask you like once each. It must be good money for them, since it takes like an hour to get there and an hour back.
This place was really sweet. There were lots of different swimming pools to play in, including one with a rope swing. The waterfall itself was very pretty and afforded many photo opportunities. Sadly, the internet access in this cafe is pretty slow, so I'm having a lot of trouble uploading the pictures directly to my blog. You can check out the pictures on my Picasa Web Albums page directly.
I was surprised with how touristy Luang Prabang really is. I was lead to believe that Laos was an undeveloped country with few tourists. How far from the truth that really is. Since being opened to tourism about 10 years ago, the scene in Luang Prabang was really taken off. It used to be only backpackers that came here, but now its been colonized by "real" tourists, too. There are plenty of swanky guesthouses, hotels, cafes, and bistros to use. The tourism facilities are really excellent here. As a result, its somewhat more expensive to stay here than the rest of Laos, as I later discovered.
Pong met up with again later on his last night in Luang Prabang. He announced his good news to us... he had successfully made the deal with the owners of the guesthouse he was interested in. He was going to enter into a partnership with them and open the very first hostel in Laos -- the Spicylao Backpackers. We took a look at the house. It's an old French building that has been UNESCO World Heritage Listed (just like the city of Luang Prabang itself). It definitely shows potential to be a good hostel, and I'm sure that Pong will turn it into something wonderful. I felt special to play even a very small role in the creation of the first hostel in the whole country of Laos. So cool!
That night we met up with Pong for dinner to celebrate his new business venture. We went for traditional Laotian food, then wandered over to a bar that caught my eye with its supply of Belgian Beer (imagine -- finding Chimay Blue in Laos!). We finished the night with a bucket of liquor at Lao Lao Garden.
My last morning in Luang Prabang was spent at Joma cafe, of course. We actually ended up going to that cafe every single day. I was never the kind of person who would go to a cafe just to hang out for hours before, but Joma converted me.
Anyways, I ordered a multigrain bagel with ham, cheese, egg, and mayo. So tasty, and so good. Chris and Alex both ordered bagels, too, but didn't say they wanted multigrain ones. As we sat at the table, I received my multigrain bagel and ate it happily. Chris and Alex received multigrain bagels, too. It was a little confusing, but not a big deal. As we ate our multigrain bagels we noticed some confusion in the cafe. A few of the other people seemed to have received plain bagels instead of the multigrain bagels they ordered. It seems that the cafe served them to us by mistake. Ooops! But it wasn't our fault. One person marched out of the cafe and gave us a dirty look that we clearly didn't deserve. Two other people looked over at us, pointed directly at us, and exclaimed (loud enough for us to hear), "OUR BAGELS. THEY ARE EATING THEM!". Obviously they weren't impressed either (and obviously they wanted us to know). Too bad for them. We were the ones with the multigrain bagels!
Even though that was a week ago now, we still joke about the Bagelgate Incident at Joma Cafe.
When I left off, it was still my first day in Luang Prabang. As we roamed around town for a few hours, we kept running into people from our boat trip. It's a small town, and running into people we knew was inevitable. We told them about our plans for that night -- temple at sunset, all-you-can-fit-on-one-plate-vegetarian-buffet for 5000 kip (CA$0.60) for dinner, followed by general partying.
By the time we got to the el-cheapo vegetarian buffet, I was surprised with how much the word had spread. Something like 15 or 20 people from the slow boat had shown up for dinner. Given the number of empty bottles of Beer Lao on the table, many of them had already been drinking hard for a while. I felt pretty cool, since I knew I had a big part in the formation of this impromptu party!
From the veggie buffet we went to a bar called "The Hive" where we drank until it closed at 11:30 PM. Why so early? Laos has a curfew -- people are supposed to be at home by midnight. Foreigners get a little leeway, though. There is only one place in Luang Prabang where you can continue to drink after hours -- the BOWLING ALLEY. We all found tuk-tuks or scooters to take us there where we continued the party. They don't force you to wear bowling shoes there, so it was the first time I ever got to bowl in my bare feet. I think though, that lack-of-shoes, tiredness, and drunkenness had gotten the better of me by that point, since I rolled the meagre score of NINETEEN. Worst... bowling... ever.
We bowled with a few French people, where I got to use my very corniest lines in French... garbage like "De quelle coleur est la oiseaux dans la cuisine?" ("what colour is the bird in the kitchen?") and "Qu-est-que c'est la vie avec la bowling?" ("what is the life with bowling?"), and the classic "VIVE LA BOWLING!" They were very friendly and thought my crappy French skills were pretty entertaining.
The next day the day that we went to the waterfall in Luang Prabang. It is apparently "the" place to go in Luang Prabang. It must be, after all, since all of the tuk-tuk drivers want to take you there. You can't walk down the main street without being asked by a dozen tuk-tuk drivers to take you there. They don't push you to go (like a Thai tuk-tuk driver would -- so pushy they are), but they will usually ask you like once each. It must be good money for them, since it takes like an hour to get there and an hour back.
This place was really sweet. There were lots of different swimming pools to play in, including one with a rope swing. The waterfall itself was very pretty and afforded many photo opportunities. Sadly, the internet access in this cafe is pretty slow, so I'm having a lot of trouble uploading the pictures directly to my blog. You can check out the pictures on my Picasa Web Albums page directly.
I was surprised with how touristy Luang Prabang really is. I was lead to believe that Laos was an undeveloped country with few tourists. How far from the truth that really is. Since being opened to tourism about 10 years ago, the scene in Luang Prabang was really taken off. It used to be only backpackers that came here, but now its been colonized by "real" tourists, too. There are plenty of swanky guesthouses, hotels, cafes, and bistros to use. The tourism facilities are really excellent here. As a result, its somewhat more expensive to stay here than the rest of Laos, as I later discovered.
Pong met up with again later on his last night in Luang Prabang. He announced his good news to us... he had successfully made the deal with the owners of the guesthouse he was interested in. He was going to enter into a partnership with them and open the very first hostel in Laos -- the Spicylao Backpackers. We took a look at the house. It's an old French building that has been UNESCO World Heritage Listed (just like the city of Luang Prabang itself). It definitely shows potential to be a good hostel, and I'm sure that Pong will turn it into something wonderful. I felt special to play even a very small role in the creation of the first hostel in the whole country of Laos. So cool!
That night we met up with Pong for dinner to celebrate his new business venture. We went for traditional Laotian food, then wandered over to a bar that caught my eye with its supply of Belgian Beer (imagine -- finding Chimay Blue in Laos!). We finished the night with a bucket of liquor at Lao Lao Garden.
My last morning in Luang Prabang was spent at Joma cafe, of course. We actually ended up going to that cafe every single day. I was never the kind of person who would go to a cafe just to hang out for hours before, but Joma converted me.
Anyways, I ordered a multigrain bagel with ham, cheese, egg, and mayo. So tasty, and so good. Chris and Alex both ordered bagels, too, but didn't say they wanted multigrain ones. As we sat at the table, I received my multigrain bagel and ate it happily. Chris and Alex received multigrain bagels, too. It was a little confusing, but not a big deal. As we ate our multigrain bagels we noticed some confusion in the cafe. A few of the other people seemed to have received plain bagels instead of the multigrain bagels they ordered. It seems that the cafe served them to us by mistake. Ooops! But it wasn't our fault. One person marched out of the cafe and gave us a dirty look that we clearly didn't deserve. Two other people looked over at us, pointed directly at us, and exclaimed (loud enough for us to hear), "OUR BAGELS. THEY ARE EATING THEM!". Obviously they weren't impressed either (and obviously they wanted us to know). Too bad for them. We were the ones with the multigrain bagels!
Even though that was a week ago now, we still joke about the Bagelgate Incident at Joma Cafe.
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