|
Laos: Lao
a go-go
Author: Anders Porter - 2000
It is the dream of every
young traveller to get as far off the beaten path as possible. That's
nothing new. The Kerouac in all of us can drive even the most devoted
post-collegiate cubicle dweller to abandon the corporate world and
get out there. But not just out there. Out there and beyond.
When I left my marketing
job in San Francisco to take a look at what is out there, I chose
South-East Asia as my starting point. While I know it seems absurd
to leave the comforts of a regular paycheck, more than adequate
health insurance and the oh-so-glorious din from the buzzing fluorescent
lights overhead, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
And South-East Asia is what I decided I had to do. So I turned in
the Palm Pilot, boxed up my dress shoes and ties, and shut down
the PC for one last time. I was Bangkok bound.
I was greeted at the
Bangkok airport by an old friend who had been teaching in Vientiane,
Laos, for two years, and was now doing a bit of travelling herself.
Kathleen's sweet smile and warm embrace were exactly what I needed
after what seemed like five days of punishment in coach. The hot,
steamy Bangkok air was evil enough to lead me to disrobe immediately,
tearing off my fleece and unzipping my pants. Rest assured that
I wasn't flashing anybody, simply zipping the legs off of my convertible
pants to allow my lower half some much needed breathing room.
We hopped into a taxi
and sped (sort of … our driver was about 118 and pretty much
blind) to a little guesthouse off the infamous Khao San Road. This
is where I finally came to visualize precisely what is referred
to as "double room with fan." A more appropriate description
might have been "cell block twelve." The diverse graffiti
on the walls led me to believe that we were not to be the first
occupants of this lavish dwelling. Kathleen squeezed by me (the
size of the room dictated that unless one person was standing on
a bed, you had to shimmy by each other to get around) and pointed
out the luxurious amenities: "You see, the fan has high and
low." This is what I came for.
We laughed and headed
out for a drink. I was jetlagged enough to know darn well that the
only thing that would set me straight was to have a few cocktails.
Shocked and confused, we made our way through the annoyances of
Khao San Road. Without going into too much detail (which believe
me I could) Khao San Road is a disgusting trap to be avoided at
all costs: a cesspool of hundreds of dreadlocked and scantily clad
travellers, all competing for the coveted "Most Lost Soul"
award. Khao San offers imitation designer clothing, counterfeited
tapes and CDs, fake student IDs and press badges, hair braiding,
overpriced Thai souvenirs and (my favorite) every size disco ball
imaginable. Why anybody would need any of these things while on
the road is unimaginable. Unless, of course, that impromptu dance
party you run into in Kathmandu is without a disco ball. Then I
guess you'd be quite the rock star.
She took me through the
mess to a quiet little place called Dali Bar, a couple blocks away
from Khao San. This interesting place is owned by a clever young
man who was born in Thailand, raised in Sweden and now teaches English
in Bangkok (along with owning the bar). The place is covered with
interesting art; most of it Salvador Dali copies, but others being
original pieces, which the contributing and travelling artists have
never come back to retrieve. The bar offers music upstairs most
nights and is a nice break from the fraternity-drinking mode of
Khao San Road.
Catching up over a couple
of gin and tonics while tapping toes to Frank Sinatra, we started
to discuss our travel plans. Travel is cheap and relatively easy
in South-East Asia, so our options seemed endless. Other than wanting
to see Cambodia and flying down to Indonesia to meet friends in
Bali, I didn't care where I ended up.
"How about Laos?" she asked me.
"You've just spent two years there… you haven't had enough?"
"I never made it down south, down the Mekong. Supposed to be
beautiful… the land of 4000 islands… Irrawaddy dolphins,
waterfalls, you name it."
I had no idea that southern
Laos had this much to offer, not even including it in my pre-trip
research. What a fantastic opportunity this would be: to embark
on a journey to what seemed like such a mysterious place to me,
with a good friend who knows the culture and the language. The circumstances
were right and now a combination of jetlag, gin and Sinatra was
making me giddy with anticipation… or maybe just drunk. Whatever
the case, I grinned at her over my drink and said, "Done. Let's
go to Laos."
The next morning we began
making the necessary arrangements to secure visas for Laos. While
Bangkok can tend to overwhelm and offend with its traffic, heat,
pollution and other random chaos, it makes up for it with its many
conveniences and amenities for the weary traveller. It's the only
city I know of where you can have haircut and a shave, see an optometrist,
buy an inexpensive minidisk player, see a doctor, have your teeth
cleaned, launder your clothes, pay a visit to the pharmacist for
those necessary long flight meds, watch Leonardo unfortunately survive
his visit to The Beach (shucks!) and get a visa for Laos all in
one day. And after such a rough day, if you are so inclined to relax
with a traditional Thai massage and be entertained by women who
can open beer bottles with seven different parts of their anatomy,
well, those options are also available.
Our visas would be ready
the following afternoon, so I filled my day with some (and I must
emphasize some) of the aforementioned activities and hit the sack
early. The next morning I awoke and headed to Chatuchak, the big
weekend market in Bangkok. This is an amazing excursion. Think of
a thing. Any thing. Chatuchak will have it. There are apparently
something like 20-30,000 vendors selling their goods to around 200,000
customers on any given Saturday. You can find real stuff, fake stuff
and everything in between. My favorites are the fakes that are spelled
wrong in an attempt to avoid copyright infringement. The best example
was an attempt to copy the women's label ESPRIT. The sweatshirts
that they were selling now read SPRITE. All around this stall were
fashionable young Thai girls who were unknowingly pushing a soft
drink. Oh, well.
I wandered aimlessly
around that market, buying souvenirs here and there. I almost bought
a flying squirrel to try to take back to the States, but since I'd
probably have my hands full smuggling in my newly purchased pieces
of coral, I decided to hold off. When I found myself intently gazing
at fluorescent paintings of aliens on black velvet, I knew it was
time to get back, pick up the visas and meet Kathleen. And get the
hell out of Dodge.
A night departure was
necessary in order to facilitate our escape from Bangkok, so we
grabbed our gear and headed to the train station to catch an overnighter
to Ubon Ratchathani, north-east of Bangkok. From Ubon we hopped
two buses to the border town of Chong Mek, where we crossed into
Vronlao, Laos. Then we piled into another vehicle of sorts and waited
over an hour for them to cram it full of people and their wares
so we could head to Pakse, the nearby booming border town. This
songthaew (taxi/bus) was filled to capacity when we approached it.
Boxes and crates were stacked to the sky on top, several ducks were
tied together in the "aisle" in the center, a woman had
a plastic bag with several fish (still flopping around, of course)
on her lap, and little kids were tucked into every nook and cranny
of space. Then the driver gestured for us to throw our packs on
top and get in. That's when the wait began.
To me it seemed that
we were right at maximum occupancy once we boarded… not the
case. The driver and his wife were able to almost double their load,
due to a fantastic understanding of the mechanics of weight distribution
along with some rather uncanny Tetris-like manoeuvres. At the end
of it I felt like applauding their efforts. And if I could have
moved my arms to clap, I would have. It is safe to say if you are
claustrophobic, impatient or just plain don't like other people
in your "space", then don't go to Laos. As with most destinations,
you can bring all the compact, high-tech, super amazing gear you
want, but if you don't bring your patience and understanding, you
might as well stay home.
A short boat ride across
the Mekong finally brought us to Pakse, which is a small town with
a few guesthouses, a lively central market, and an Internet café.
The city serves as a stopover for people heading to southern Laos
from either Vientiane (the Lao capital) or Thailand. We wandered
around town until we found a cheap guesthouse to stay in for the
night. We found that the most exciting thing to do in Pakse was
to walk around and look for exciting things to do. We did that for
a couple hours before calling it a day.
The next morning we were
up early to catch the 9am longboat to Champasak, our next stop.
Please note that the 9am boat to Champasak actually leaves around
11am, but they still call it the 9am boat… for marketing purposes,
I presume. I chose to ride on the roof and get some sun while Kathleen
stayed inside. One of the best things about public transportation
in Laos is that if the vehicle has a roof, they will generally let
you sit on it. For those of us who love to stick our heads out the
window while driving, this is a refreshing option.
Our 30-minute boat ride
turned into about 2 ½ hours, due to a faulty rotor in the
boat's motor. The boat's owner was somehow able to secure another
one, after yelling something to a young man on shore, who ran a
few kilometres upstream to get it. When all was said and done and
the motor sputtered to life again, the boat was filled with cheers
and laughter. We waved goodbye to the group that had assembled on
the shore. Some had helped and some had just watched, but it was
a clear example of how communities in this part of the world operate:
as a team. Kathleen had spoken often of the radiance and hospitality
of the Lao people and now I was seeing it for myself. I leaned back
against a crate of dried squid, feeling the warm sun against my
face, squinting at passing green fields and low rolling mountains.
Champasak is a quaint
little village alongside the river, nestled up against lush, beautiful
mountains. The main attraction in the area is Wat Phu, a 10th-13th
century Khmer style temple, about eight kilometres outside the town.
We rented bicycles and made the ride early the following morning.
The overcast day was perfect for our trip through fields of rice
paddies and small bamboo villages.
We gave a small donation
to enter the grounds of Wat Phu and were immediately overwhelmed
by its magnificence. Similar in style to Cambodia's Angkor Wat and
its surrounding temples, I found the combination of Wat Phu's architecture
with its serene setting to be exquisite. The base of the temple
has two small buildings on either side of the main stairway, and
while they are both in equal states of crumble, you can imagine
what effect they would have had on visitors who worshipped there
hundreds of years ago. The stairs to the main temple were lined
with Dok Champa trees, their beautiful white flowers forming a natural
archway through which to pass.
Tucked into the side of a mountain, Wat Phu contains very well preserved
stone carvings, including an elephant, an alligator, and a giant
Buddha footprint; talk about big shoes to fill… definitely
not my size. A natural spring trickled down through the cliffs and
collected in a rock basin, surrounded by offerings of incense and
Dok Champa flowers. Inside the main temple sat, of course, your
standard ornately decorated golden Buddha. While the Buddha was
quite impressive, we found the scenery outside to be much more invigorating.
Seen one Buddha, seen 'em all. So Kathleen and I spent the morning
tramping and climbing around the grounds.
Before leaving, we were
accosted by three little Lao boys selling incense. We had watched
them earlier, using long bamboo poles to reach the Dok Champa flowers
from the branches high overhead. The flowers are then tied around
the incense sticks to be burned in and around the temple. After
giving in and making a couple of purchases, I was invited to participate
in a round of the very festive "Throw the Unripened Mango as
Far as You Can." If you've never played this game, I suggest
you give it a whirl. Turns out you can play this game for hours.
(Which is indeed indicative of just about everything in Laos. There
are many things you can do for hours: wait for your food, wait for
the rice to grow, wait for the boat to leave and so on.) Naturally,
I threw much further than those little cheaters, so I grew bored
with the game and began looking for a new challenge. The oldest
of the three boys pointed to a nearby jackfruit tree. Climb it?
I think so. Smelling victory again, I looked at him and said, "You're
on."
The goal here was to
actually get a jackfruit out of the tree. Not being a huge fan of
this spiky and somewhat pungent fruit, I must admit that I was clearly
in it for the thrill of competition, not the trophy. I aimed for
the largest of the bunch, which was, not surprisingly, the one furthest
out of reach. Incidentally, this was the only time during my trip
when I found myself contemplating that decision to forgo travel
insurance. "It's not like I'll be climbing trees or anything,"
was I think my rationalization at the time. Right. After much twisting
and stretching and flailing, I managed somehow to break the damn
thing loose. I went from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat
in mere seconds when one of the little guys informed Kathleen that
it wasn't ripe yet. Thanks, kid.
We got an early start
the following day, heading farther south to investigate these so-called
Mekong islands. The longboat we took had a refrigerator on the roof,
hundreds of pounds of bagged cement, and a pig… a big pig.
Not to mention the seven Lao women older than God, chewing and spitting
beetlenut everywhere. It is great to have these distractions when
on a twelve-hour boat ride down the Mekong in the blistering sun.
When you get too hot, you can always just look at the refrigerator
and wish that it were plugged in. That's always fun. Thankfully,
there were a few locals on board who were celebrating yet another
day with a healthy supply of Lao Lao, which they were kind enough
to share with us. Lao Lao, to the uninformed taste bud, is a whiskey
made from rice and is actually quite smooth… after about twelve
shots.
Our first island stop
was Mon Sene, which is on Don Khong, the largest of what is said
to be 4,000 islands. Are there really 4,000? Since I had no intention
of counting them, I'll just go ahead and agree. Sure, why not 4,000?
We spent a very relaxing two nights there, once again renting bicycles
to get around. This part of the Mekong is quite lush and green,
dotted with little villages along it banks. The small dirt path
we pedaled took us through pleasant little communities with very
friendly inhabitants and their smiling, waving children.
Don Det had come highly
recommended to us by other travellers, so we stopped there next.
It is one of the southernmost islands in Laos, bordering Cambodia.
In fact, when you take a boat trip from the island to see the endangered
Irrawaddy dolphins, you could spit on Cambodia, if you were so inclined.
We found a very nice row of seven bamboo bungalows right along the
river and moved on in. After meeting the neighbors (an English couple
and two Australian guys) we settled in to what would prove to be
the first of several nights of festivities. Our initiation to the
community started as a men-only Lao-Lao-a-thon. I sat with my Western
comrades and a collection of locals who had stopped to join us and
we passed that damn bottle around, taking shot after shot. This
turns out to be a game, too. After you take a shot of this poison,
you "flick" whatever drops are left in the shot glass
at one of the other drunken idiots at the table and they have to
take the next shot. You can see where this is going. By 9pm, I was
passed out under my mosquito net and Kathleen was waking me for
dinner. "Food? Who needs food?"
We stayed on Don Det
for about a week. Our theme for the stay was, "Life on Don
Det is hard." We spent the mornings reading on our porch, nodding
in and out of little naps. Occasionally a neighbor would stop by
and share a beer. Then we'd nap again. Life on Don Det is hard.
One day, one of the Australian guys, Shane, decided it would be
a good project to build a bamboo railing and stairway that would
facilitate the exit from the river after swimming and bathing. He
had been taking his baths in the river every morning and always
struggled to get back on land. So we scurried around collecting
bamboo and whatever bits of wood we could find and got busy. This
quickly got the attention of the locals, who gathered around to
point and laugh. I was busy sawing bamboo with the saw blade of
my Swiss Army Tool when Mr. Tung, one of our Lao Lao buddies, brought
over his machete and whacked that thing into shape in no time. Mr.
Tung's used and abused machete made my saw look like a Fisher-Price
toy. So much for the evolution of tools, I guess. Go figure.
We only left these Don
Det bungalows a handful of times. Once was to check out the nearby
waterfalls, which were spectacular, and another time to have a go
at seeing the Irrawaddy dolphins. This short boat ride took us to
a rock in the middle of the river, right at the Cambodia border.
The trip was breathtaking. It was like the setting for Apocalypse
Now, minus the heavy artillery. From our precarious perch in the
middle of the river, we sat with cameras ready in anticipation of
Irrawaddy sightings. While we finally did see a couple in the distance,
it was definitely no Sea World show. My visions of playing with
them in the water and training them to jump through rings of fire
were a bit ambitious, I will admit. But it was a treat nonetheless,
knowing that this rare breed of dolphin continues to struggle for
its own species' survival. To watch them, even from afar, was quite
an honor.
After the week lazily
dribbled by, we said our goodbyes to our companions and offered
heart-felt thanks to our hosts. The short boat ride back to the
mainland was followed by a 6-hour bus ride back towards Pakse. While
going back by boat would have been ideal, our visas were running
out and we had little time to spare. With only a few days left,
we headed straight to Tadlo, a waterfall resort just east of Pakse.
Kathleen and I packed a picnic lunch and headed up the falls for
a picturesque lunch. Soon, some locals joined us. The kids were
splashing in the water while the women looked for small freshwater
snails. After eating, I decided I would lend a hand with the collecting.
They showed me what I should be looking for and I dove right in.
Not having any idea whatsoever about how I would prepare said snails,
I decided not to keep any for myself. After about half an hour,
I had collected a couple good handfuls, which I added to their stash.
We headed back to our room above the falls for a relaxing evening
and final night's sleep.
We left Laos through
Pakse the same way we had entered: boat, songtow, bus and taxi.
After a day of travel, we found ourselves in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand,
once again. Kathleen was on her way back to Bangkok and I was heading
north to Chiang Mai. We said our goodbyes at the train station,
and just like that, Laos was a memory.
The people, the places,
the sounds and the smells of Laos are unforgettable. The consistent
hospitality and charm of its citizens has left an imprint on my
soul that I will always cherish. It is refreshing to visit a place
where the simplicity and ease of life is so prevalent. Laos is changing,
and as it does, its beauty and charm are attracting more and more
travellers every year. This change will bring resorts, air-conditioned
buses and Jet Ski rentals to even its most remote areas. Whether
the country will be ruined or enhanced by it is at this point indeterminable.
The tourism boom in Thailand over the last twenty years has had
both positive and negative effects on old Siam, so we can assume
similar results with Laos.
Regardless, Laos is a
beautiful country with huge opportunities ahead. And as for providing
me with an escape from the 8-5 corporate world, it was a perfect
success. There are much nicer things to look at than a computer
screen. Trust me.
Author: Anders Porter
gather no moss... el_loco_grande@yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaplAnders2/join
|
