Laos Diary

Oops, been a bit lax updating this! Sorry ... we HAVE been having adventures though, for anyone still reading! (And for those I see soon, I'll be testing ya!)

Right, where did we get to? Ahh ... during 10 hours on a local bus travelling from South Laos to the capital, Vientiane, we met some cool people. For your delight and delectation, there were:

• Viet Nam guy, who helped himself to my water whenever he felt like it, and Denis' cigarettes, but never. actually. said. anything.

• Lao Mafia Dudes. Oh boy did they look the part. The red roll-neck sweaters, the slicked back hair, the 50-year old well fed guts, the gold on every finger, the strange tattoos, the fact that they were from Laos and could afford a video camera which they took GREAT delight in filming the crazy farang with, until I very innocently asked if they were gangsters, at which point the camera was turned off, there was a short "ha! If only you knew, white boy ..." laugh, and they turned away

• and ... oh, that's it. Yup, that's all we had to entertain us for 10 hours on the bus, on the uncomfortable seats, with the huge amount of leg room.

It was a great bus journey. We 'bonded' with our new 'travel buddies', cos that's what you do when you're a scummy backpacker, you get over the "darling, I've met some terribly nice people at work, shall we invite them to dinner next month?" thang, and cut to the quick: "You seem OK after talking to you for 2 minutes, let's be friends! Hurrah!"
Its a wonder we haven't been dissected and dissolved in phosphor baths yet ...

Well, what'd we do in Vientiane? Umm - ah! Went to a night club that closed at 2330, where I got my arse felt up on the dance floor. Hmm ... making me feel pretty sexy there, mmm ... carry on ... now, let me turn around, and look into your deep brown MALE EYES AS YOU SQUEEZE MY BUTT-CHEEKS EVEN TIGHTER AND RUB YOUR CROTCH AGAINST ME ... AARRGGGHHHH!!! ... OH, go on then, ... when in Laos, you know ... er,

That is, AHEM! .. When in Laos, DON'T fraternise in a naughty way with the locals, cos its illegal innit? And ya get sent to prison. And that's TWUE IT IS! SO I didn't. But I did get felt up by a young man. Oh, the temptation!

So, Vientiane, capital city of Laos. Met some French Canadians there, very nice people, never heard of Monty Python mind (sorry, Mont-y Py-ThAWN as those USA types say), but really nice all the same. The city is a bit of a poo-hole, to be honest. Not great, kinda crumbling old colonial style, we drank Beerlao, officially the best beer in our travels, and then shoved off to a traveller hang-out town called Vang Vieng.

Ahh, Vang Vieng! I remember it well. Beautiful! The Karst Topography! The Sccoby-Doo Caves! The Paddy Fields! Ah, the Inner-Tubing down the river! Ahh! The cheap lao-lao rice whisky, that cost equivalent 20p (30c) for a full tumbler-full! Ah! The Sodding Boot Thieves Who Bloody Well Stole My Blinkin Hiking Boots When They Were Drying Out The Back Of Our Hostel! ARGH! The $(%^" Police Who Wanted 20% Of The Value Of My Boots For The Police Report. Ah! Vang Vieng! I remember it well!

it was very pretty though. You know in those TV programmes about China, where you see a fisherman in a small coracle-type-boat, on a little lake, and in the background is a jaggedy-type mountain, not too big, covered with trees, and you think "ahh! China! That old mysterious country! How I should love to visit!", well that's what it's like 'round Vang Vieng. Its gorgeous it is! I went for a walk round the surrounding villages, with the rain drifting down from the raggedy-type clouds that clung to the tops of the jaggedy-type mountains, and practised my phrase-book Lao on the locals, and the little Lao people laughed to see such fun, and then the dish ran away with the spoon! Oh no, wrong story, .. Where was I?
One of the French Canadians, and a bloody decent French chap called Clement duBarry who looks JUST LIKE our mate Big Gay Al, started chatting-up two of the Lao waitresses in our favourite local restaurant, which is very naughty indeed, cos of that illegal thing, remember? Needless to say it all ended with frustration on the westerners parts (fnarr!) ... what did they expect? I mean, really ...
Myself and Denis spent much time with the local police, as he also had his trekking shoes swiped at the same time as my boots. Met a Peruvian girl and a Spanish girl, which is very odd, cos the Spanish don't travel, see, not even in Las Americas Latinas where they can speak the language! You don't meet too many Peruvians travelling either. So had a bit of practise with the ol' Es-pan-yol like; and in another language-type incident, met another French guy (are you getting the French theme yet? -that'll be old colonial country thing going on), met another French guy who I practised my Swedish with. I mean, there's supposed to be BILLIONS of the Vikings out here, but do I ever meet any to practise min Svenska with? Do I? No. So, it comes to practising with French people, oh, and Danish people, which is a cardinal sin against the Swedes, cos they think those Danes are a bit odd like. Then again, the Danes think the Swedes talk funny! Scandavian rivalries! You'd never get that in Britain - oops, sorry Celtic minorities, I mean in Scotland, Wales and England; I keep forgetting you lot haven't got the hang of this hundreds of years old Union thing yet .. ;-)

Am I digresssing right off the parallel bars yet? Let's jump back on Champion the Wonder Horse, and ride back into the story ..

So, there we were, in Vang Vieng, and the last 2 days we were there, it rained a LOT; something to do with the rainy season or summat. And the internet was broken, so we couldn't play on the World Wide Wait either, and update our website. See, sometimes travelling is just boring. Well, not BORING as such, cos, y'know, we're in exotic climes, and we're so lucky to be here, but watching the rain slosh down for two days when you want to be risking Japanese Encepholitis as you tramp across paddy-fields so that you can shine failing torches around death-trap caves with deep invisible pits can be a bit frustrating ... where's the story in it? See, I've had to waffle on about bugger all for a paragraph to fill in a rainy 2 days of travelling ..

And then we were on the bus, zooming over a not-so-bad-as-Bolivia-but-still-clinging-to-a-very-muddy-cliff-over-precipitous-drop-Mountain Road, which had amazing views, and we all tried to spot the opium and marijuana fields that the hill tribes keep, but either they're well hidden, or we're all rubbish at spotting the leaf shapes that we see on "Drug Trafficking Is Illegal!" posters here.

After six hours on an almost-exclusively farang bus, horrendously dangerously over-crowded (they put little stools down the centre aisle so that they can squeeze more people on board; you try not to think of the consequences of a crash), we arrived in what one can only think of as a charming, rustic colonial city, Luang Prabang, a name that rolls around the mouth, and a city which nestles at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khang rivers. Wide river vistas, redolent with palm trees fill your vision, young Buddhist monks, heads shaved, orange robes dropping in the heat as they kick a football around on the river banks, or lean against their temple gates, Ray-Bans intact, occupy the small details of your observations as you walk around.

The fading French colonial past makes itself present in the crumbling architecture of the stuccoed buildings, first-floor balconies, with Mediterranean-style railings, laden with drying clothes, whilst underneath families spoon noodles and soup into their bowls, and crumple up aromatic herbs for flavour. Street food vendors sit all day, chopping pineapple for sale, or carefully making spring rolls and deep frying them, before leaving them to drain, dry and crisp, ready for eating.

And here, for some reason, lots and lots of nuclear families .. Mamma with her perm and handbag, Pappa with his long socks to his knees and long shorts to his knees and sturdy sandals, Child #2 approaching 10 yrs old, wondering why he couldn't have gone to Spain like his mates, and not quite sure what to make of it all, Child #1 in mid-teens, wanting to be excited, but not sure that there's actually anything to be excited about, wanting to go to a bar but unsure how to escape Ma'n'Pa, looking with envy at the travellers and their freedom. And all French!
And interspersed with them, the Aid Workers, here with the U.N., teaching the Tribes how to replace their opium crops with other crops, the Red Cross bringing basic sanitation to the villages (which we helped with by going for a massage and steam-bath at the Red Cross centre, administered by villagers, and all monies to the charity), and other development NGO-workers. Lao, that mysterious country that most people have never heard of, let alone know where it is, and its crawling with westerners! That was kind of a surprise.

Yes jolly western types, you can take a slow boat up the Mekong river; if you so desire you can indeed carry on to China, but we took the 2-day boat to Huay Xai, the bustling river-port opposite Thailand. That's the TWO -day boat you you understand

Having been told the previous day, by two young lady attendants who were fast asleep on duty until we woke them up, to arrive at the boat-dock at 0730, in order to pay for a ticket (at the farang price of US$11 - locals pay US$7, of course), we discovered, at 0720, that the boat didn't actually leave until 0800. We can cope with that! A young german man had been told to arrive somewhat earlier, expecting the boat to leave at 0730. Ah! That's why we won the War, see, better information!

Oh, arrogant young fools. Did you really think you would be leaving at 0800, on a 2-day boat to Thailand. Did you? Mm? Did you?

[meekly]: Yeeaahhh ...

Fools! The boat eventually left at 0930, laden with cargo (including a 150cc motorbike & some boxes of Beerlao [which came in handy]), festooned with locals - including the best Lao man we met, who we conversed with using sign language, and who laughed at ALL my jokes; what a splendid chap! - and sprorting a raggedy bunch of 6 farang.

And the boat was going to take, eventually, THREE days. That's right. The 2-day boat leaves Mon/ Wed/ Fri. We left on a Saturday, which meant we had a bonus day's adventure thrown in. As the South Korean kids say: "Upgrade!".

Cool. We settled into the boat. What sort of boat are you thinking of, dear reader? Pause for some seconds, and see how close your thoughts are, to the reality (assuming I can describe it adequately) ...

.

.

. About 15 metres long by 2.5 wide?
Wooden?
Wooden boards running down the sides, for sitting on?
Open sides?
Wooden planking running down the centre, with wooden cross-beams overhead to hit your head on?
Continually taking in water?
The 'head', at the back of the boat, a small square cut in the wooden floor-boards, in a room so small that one is forced to squat just to enter it?
An engine that should power a hair-dryer?

I can't believe that's what you were thinking, cos that's almost exactly like the boat we took! Clever old you!

Its difficult to describe the journey up the Mekong - chugging upstream against the current, you watch driftwood sidle by (that's when its not bumping under the boat); well, when I say driftwood, I mean whole trees washed into the river by the monsoon. You can take an 8-hr speedboat up / down the same stretch of river, and its not recommended - for a start, you wear crash-helmets and life jackets, and you know why? - In case you hit one of the trees, and go flying out of the craft (yes, it happens), or in case you skip across one of the wiiiiiide but shallow whirlpools that can kick your outboard motor the wrong way and flip the boat. Excuse my French, but boll*x to that matey!
No, no, watching the hills ooze by, coalescing out of the hazy distance, and dissolving again into the past of your journey, spying the whirlpools, guessing how fast the current is by seeing where it has flooded a small island and is gushing over a fully grown tree, counting the number of bamboo huts in the small villages clinging to the hill-sides, wondering how the slash'n'burn policy of the hill-tribes is affecting the forest, reading your book, realising you've only bought one bag of crisps for a 3-day journey, and 2 bottles of water ... all that, its difficult to describe what its actually like, how it feels, how the romantic side of you thrills at taking A 3-DAY BOAT UP THE MEKONG just like a Boy's Own Adventure (or Girl's!), how the uncomfortable wooden plank you have to sit on eventually squeezes expectation out of your butt, so that it too feels like its made of wood, how you start watching ants rushing around collecting debris, wondering if there's actually a nest on board, or whether they're very soon going to realise that they're cut off from the collective hive-mind, how the boredom melts into the scenery, and how, finally, you become Clive of India, and pretend for the locals that you are Ganesh, passing judgement on the miserableness of the other locals on the boat, so that you get them to laugh.

Think I lost the grammatically correct point of view then ... apologies.

Our first night, after about 12 hours sitting, lying on the benches, crouch-sitting in the open window parts, knowing you'll fall out at the slightest jog to the boat, but also knowing that that's the only thing keeping you amused at the moment, after that, we arrived at a small riverside village; big enough to have a generator somewhere, but probably, from an ethno-genetic point of view, not big enough to maintain a healthy gene-pool from the inhabitants if they did not have contact with other villages, or so big that you could't walk around it in 5 minutes, that including getting lost.

This motley collection of bamboo huts was to be our home for the night, and the farang were all to stay as the guest of one of the villagers, in their hut, sharing their sleeping and eating space, and watching their son smoke opium, as his ancestors had done for hundreds of generations beforehand.
We watched him taking in his dream-smoke, and wafts of it curled up our nostrils, a sweet-aromatic-pungent smell. The technique for smoking opium would appear to be so: squash some sticky black opium resin onto a stick, and heat it slightly; squash this resin into a long black pipe - there is no 'bowl' to the pipe, but rather a small hole, with a larger hollow behind the hole; lie on your side, put the mouth-piece of the pipe in your (yes ..) mouth; put the small hole over a heat source (a candle was sufficient), heat the resin, breathe in, and at the same time apply your small stick to the resin so that it doesn't drip out of the small hole.
Hold the smoke in the lungs, and then let out after a few minutes. To feel an effect, it seems you had to repeat this action about 10-15 times. None of us had the money to try it (er, not that we would have anyway!), but as an authentic cultural experience, it was certainly an eye-opener for us, although something of an eye-closer for the son of the family.

Next day, an early start saw us back in boat at about 0630, supplied with a bag of sticky rice (some excellent bargaining skills on my behalf) for breakfast. Another 10 hours on the boat, and we arrived at another small village for another overnight stay. Hmm ... I'm not going to describe it in too much, cos its one of those small intimate places that's better described in person, where you can make hand gestures, use objects around you to represent houses and so on ... so, that gives y'all something to question me or Gordy about when you eventually see us, right? (always leave your audience wanting more, I'm told).

The next day we were up again at early o'clock, and after 5 1/2hrs, we could see our final port of call; it was within sight; we were just 1/2hr away from it.

And then the bloody boat started sinking!
We watched the kids who were working on the boat start hurriedly ripping up the floorboards, and sloshing water out from underneath with old plastic oil drums; the BLINKIN YOOJ spiders that had hitherto been hiding underneath our feet (and I'm honestly not kidding here, these were monster spidddders, as big as my hand at full stretch, and I've got pretty long fingers) ran out, and up the wall that separated the cargo/ passenger area from the engine area. Even the kids stopped and stared at them.

Fearing that the kids weren't able to work fast enough, the remaining passengers - just 5 of us farang - rolled up our sleeves, picked up whatever containers were to hand, and helped with sloshing the dirty brown water over the sides. Memories of toilets in Central America sprang to mind for me ;-)

The captain, by this point, had turned off the engine, got us to the edge of the river, moored us to a load of rushes, and dived on to the small engine that operated the bilge pumps - it was all quite exciting.
After 20 minutes of frantic bailing of water, and hammering sounds coming from the engine room, the starboard-side bilge pump started to work, sufficient to get us to Huay Xai, 30 minutes further up-stream, where we departed and crossed to Thailand.

Whew!

So that was Laos: one of the most friendly, beautiful and relaxing places we've been (honestly), and which, as I write, is the subject of a new UN report into Human Rights violations in its prisons. Bugger.