sarah. on the run.

Sarah's Laotian Adventure Wrap-Up

I'm learning that I should never follow guidebook suggestions too closely. After all, the person who wrote that great waterfall description could very well have terrible taste in scenery. I also can't get my heart too set on experiencing something amazing I read about in a guidebook, because in a place like Laos, nothing is set in stone.

Case in point: We knew we wanted to take a boat up the Nam Ou River from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw, the first stop along the famous "Phongsali Loop", a stretch of river and road in Lao's wild northern province. However, when we went to the boat ticket office the day before to reserve our seats, the kid informed us that he didn't know if there would be a boat tomorrow.

Me: "So, no boat tomorrow?"

"Maybe boat, maybe no boat, if not enough passenger," he says with a smile. Always with a smile. The Lao are unflappably zen. What he means is that the boat operator won't bother if there aren't enough people who want to go to Nong Khiaw (read: enough people paying), and there's really no way to know until you show up at the dock in the morning.

Miraculously, four other travelers wanted to go to Nong Khiaw at 8 am the next day, so off we went on a narrow, wooden affair built for little people. The seven-hour ride was unbelievably beautiful (what's new), albeit murderous on the derriere. We enjoyed the views and met a lot of curious kids along countless river beaches. Once in a while the boat would pull up to a bank and we'd all stand around awkwardly while the boat crew fiddled with the failing engine, or watch each other try to pee inconspicuously behind a shrub (made you look, sickos!).

When we cruised into Nong Khiaw, another boat offered to take us an hour further upriver to the smaller town of Muong Ngoi. It wasn't our original plan to go that far, but we were feeling adventurous and pressed on.

Muong Ngoi is the smallest, most modest village we've stayed in yet, consisting of a handful of dwellings built along a single muddy street. No motorized traffic exists. Electricity only comes on from about 6-9 pm, which keeps entertainment options very basic. Thankfully, the setting is breathtaking, at least during daylight hours.

Our first hotel was a precariously built bamboo shack on some rickety old sticks overlooking the river for $1 per night. $1 per night!!! We giggled and tittered and thought the whole thing was just precious. That is, until well after nightfall when after it started pouring rain and I had to perform my nightly face-washing and tooth-brushing routine in a pitch-black roachy outhouse up the hill, I slipped and fell in the mud on the way back down.

The next morning, we checked into a $4 room with an en-suite bathroom and admitted defeat.

Most travelers come to this region of Laos to take "treks" to even more remote ethnic minority villages, of which there are many. The Hmong tribes are the most accessible here, but a handful of others exist if you know where to hike. While it's not really feasible to attempt it on your own, for about $20 you can hire a local to take you around for the day. So early one morning, we set out with an older guy (name sadly forgotten) to see the countryside. He didn't speak much English but was very chatty all the same, and the three of us got along just fine. He had heard of California and asked us lots of random questions about our lives there.

For example:

Our guide: "You know Mike Tyson?"

Me: "The boxer Mike Tyson? Oh, yes. Well, no. Well, yes, I know him, but he is not my friend."

Guide: "Does Mike Tyson live in California?"

Me: "I do not know."

Guide: "Oh. I heard that it is so hot in California that people die."

Me: "Oh, ha ha, well yes, sometimes that happens, but only in certain places and not very often."

Guide: "Oh. What time is it in California?"

Me: "Um...it's about 8 pm yesterday."

Guide: "Hmm. I saw Mike Tyson on TV."

And so on.

A few hours into the day we stopped in a Hmong village for lunch, and were immediately surrounded by dozens of small children who stared at us and squealed with glee when we waved at them. They all were fascinated with our eye-wear, but the real hit was the video feature of my digital camera. I'd record two kids looking shyly into the lens while off-screen I coaxed them to "say hi, say hi", and every time I played it back through the little viewfinder the whole group would go nuts. Too cute. Even the older folks got a kick out of our funny toys and made us feel welcome.

What's interesting is that Hmong people (and other minority tribes in Laos) don't speak the official Lao language and have very little interaction with the rest of the country other than to trade goods here and there. Our guide added that Hmong people are forbidden from marrying Lao people, though he wasn't sure why.

The second half of the trek was a little too muddy for my tastes, especially in the dense jungle areas where B and I started picking leeches off our ankles (rubbing lime juice on your skin helps them fall off, but screaming and crying does not, go figure). However, I survived to tell the tale, and overall it was a great experience.

The original plan was to continue north along the "Phongsali Loop" from Muong Ngoi up to the small town of Hat Sa, but when we asked about getting boat tickets, we got shot down. Apparently outside of high season (November-March), it's impossible to cover the whole loop without hiring a private boat and paying a lot more. So we went back to Nong Khiaw, secured an ultra-private cottage (en-suite, natch) on the hill for $7, and settled in for a few days.

At this point, we had time to kill before flying out of Vientiane on 9/26, so we took a minibus back to Luang Prabang for a couple more days. Once there, we enjoyed the luxury of 24-hour electricity (hooray!), day-tripped to  the Kouang Si waterfall (awesome!), and replied to our parents' emails that no, we hadn't been caught in the Thai coup (silly parents!).

Retracing our steps on the same stretch of Highway 13 back down to Vientiane didn't exactly appeal to us, but taking any other route would have added days to the journey, so we boarded The V.I.P. Bus That Acid Flashbacks Are Made Of and sunk into our iPod hazes for ten hours.

To be completely honest, arriving in Vientiane was a little disappointing after Luang Prabang and the north. It's not much to look at for a capital city, plus it poured rain the entire time we were there. I think more than anything we were mentally ready to move on from Laos and just kind of gave up for three days. The only thing I can confidently recommend is the Sticky Fingers bar (great salads!). I'm sorry, Vientiane. You deserve better.

Next stop on the world tour ... Phnom Penh, Cambodia!

Love,
Sarah

PS- I've stopped taking my anti-malarials, but you'll have to tune in next time to find out why. It isn't pretty.

Luang Prabang definitely does not suck.

After boarding the bus that would take us north from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang, we managed to get away with two seats each on either side of the aisle by making our backpacks seem much larger and clumsier than they actually were so nobody would try to squeeze in next to us. It's a trick that almost never works! We are rock stars!

Route 13 is the busiest highway in Laos, and the stretch of road between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang is also considered to be the prettiest. And sure enough, about an hour into our seven-hour bus ride, we started climbing in elevation and the scenery went wild. I really can't think of any place I've ever been with views quite as stunning as these. Maybe Switzerland? But in a different way. Laos is incredible, it really is. My "out the bus window" pics don't do it justice.

B and I kept looking at each other with googly eyes, pointing out the windows at peaks and valleys and mouthing phrases like "can you believe this shit?!" We always have to mouth phrases back and forth on buses because neither of us can hear the other over our respective iPod headphones, which are always inserted at high volume to drown out reality, always. No bus ride could be attempted without a musical soundtrack to help dull the pain of impossibly dusty/muddy roads, crater-sized potholes, frequent near-collisions, bus drivers who put their feet up on the dashboard and honk at villagers to scurry out of the way instead of braking, etc. Headphones are The Only Way To Survive.

We finally pulled into the Luang Prabang (also known as Luang Phabang, and I'm not sure which is more acceptable) bus station, hopped on a tuk-tuk, and had the driver drop us off in the center of town. Feeling clueless, we ended up following a young guy who promised us paradise and luxury for $7/night at his "brother's" guesthouse (it's always a family member, they think it makes the transaction sound more friendly and homey, and I guess it kind of does because you can't really prove that it isn't really his brother's guesthouse, they might really be one big happy family with rooms for rent, right? even though it's total BS and I am not fooled, no sir).

I never like giving into these family-oriented guesthouse salespeople. In my mind, if a guesthouse is that great, they shouldn't have to actively solicit business from backpackers...paying customers will just magically gravitate there by word-of-mouth and make them rich. Brendan hates this theory of mine and never wants to engage in my "we're in a new town, so let's just spend half an hour looking at rooms and comparing prices" routine. He wants to put his backpack down. He doesn't care about a few extra dollars. I know I shouldn't either, but I also hate feeling like a sucker because I didn't try. Plus, bargain hunting is like a game, and games are FUN!

We took the $7 room. It was not luxurious and did not resemble paradise in the least, but it did have dark wooden walls, a bed, a fan, and a balcony with a view of the Mekong River, so all was not lost.

Luang Prabang is often described with adjectives like "magical" and "majestic", which is annoying until you actually get here and discover that they're right. The old part of town (French colonial splendor) is charming to say the least, built on and around a hill and surrounded by the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers. It also boasts a thriving economy and barely resembles most of poverty-stricken Laos. At least ten wats are within short walking distance from our guesthouse. We can order banana bread and sip espresso next to an attractive redhead at the local bakery, reading the International Herald Tribune while watching the monks go by for hours and hours if we want, or browse locally-made textile and silver jewelry shops. Spiritual meets Cosmopolitan meets Easy-Going. People are genuinely happy to be here. The Morans certainly are, even though we haven't accomplished a whole lot beyond wat-seeing, bike riding, and inner peace. But everybody else is doing the same thing so it's perfect. Much as I enjoyed Vietnam, this lifestyle wasn't possible there. Too much bustle. Too much hassle. Too much wheeling and dealing and getting accosted and always having to say "no thanks", "I don't want any". Laos is such a relief in that way. Long Live Laos!

We're heading up the Nam Ou river by boat tomorrow, into territory designated by our guidebook as "The Far North". Sounds cool. Can't wait.

Until then, I remain,
Sarah: Lover of Laos

In Laos and Moving North, Baby!

After hanging in Savannakhet for four days (and hanging really is the correct term, as in "hanging out doing very little besides eating "), B and I decided to blow. We wanted to get up to a little town called Vang Vieng, which is only accessible from the south by way of Vientiane, the capital of Laos (we decided not to actually stay in Vientiane since we have to be back there later in September anyway to catch a flight into Cambodia). So we booked ourselves on an overnight "V.I.P. bus" and hoped that we were very important enough to be able to sleep soundly (though our illusions of sleeping soundly on overnight buses, V.I.P. or no, have faded considerably in recent months).

You're wondering what makes a V.I.P. bus a V.I.P. bus, right? Sadly, it's not as sexy as it sounds, because no real V.I.P. is taking an overnight bus anytime anywhere ever unless they are John Madden or in a rock band (and even then it wouldn't be in Laos). But our bus did have intermittent A/C and seats that reclined a tiny bit more than airplane seats, so we considered ourselves very privileged. And I slept pretty well, thanks to Mr. Ambien (who I'm developing a mad, mad crush on and who is going to break my heart into a million pieces when he runs out, which is going to be very soon I'm afraid because we only got a 30-pill prescription from our doctor back in LA and B insists on taking an Ambien every time that I take an Ambien, even though he can sleep fine without one).

We arrived in Vientiane around sunrise and immediately got on a "local bus" headed to Vang Vieng. Local buses differ from V.I.P buses in several ways: there is no A/C. The seats don't recline. The seats are also constructed to barely fit the frames of small Lao people. It kind of works for me, but not for Brendan. Oh, and the bus aisles are crammed waist-high with all sorts of things that local people do not want to have to balance on their laps during long trips (20 lb. bags of rice, wet things made out of bamboo, live chickens). Do not ever ride a local bus in Laos if you have any issues with claustrophobia or fire safety.

Five hours later, we sighed with relief. Vang Vieng is gorgeous. Surrounded by limestone mountains and rivers, it's truly picturesque. After experimenting with various classes of buses for the better part of 24 hours, we laid our weary backpacks to rest at Elephant's Crossing guesthouse for $20/night (which is totally high-end in Vang Vieng, home to at least a dozen cheaper guesthouses, but the room was great - CNN International, bathtub, killer view).

Vang Vieng is firmly on the tourist trail and caters totally to westerners. Obviously, that's good and bad. As I explained in TTM Episode 10, a handful of restaurant/bars are set up specifically so kids can recline, drink and smoke while watching "Friends" episodes on mounted TVs all day and night. It's a little peculiar that people aren't embarrassed to get through three seasons of "Friends" in one sitting while vacationing in Laos. You'll also find a "The Simpsons" bar and a bunch of other restaurants playing newish bootleg DVD movies for anyone anti-"Friends" (though in all honesty it's way funnier now that it's dated a bit, and when I mentioned the people who sat through three seasons of "Friends" in one sitting I was referring to B and myself, so there).

However, the main point of coming to Vang Vieng is to go tubing. More specifically, renting huge inner-tubes and floating down the river for an afternoon, periodically hopping out at various riverside bars to drink beer and perform gymnastic dismounts off rope swings. It's fabulous. I wish I had pics to show you, but there was nowhere dry to put the camera.

Besides tubing, a handful of caves are also accessible by hiking or biking several kilometers from the town center. The cave we chose had a giant buddha shrine inside and was too dark and scary for me to go much farther (where there's dark, there's probably a deadly spider), but climbing around was fun. The next afternoon we paddled around on some rented kayaks and felt thoroughly, thoroughly outdoorsy.

It's worth passing on that Vang Vieng is a bit of a stoner hangout and you can buy a variety of mind-altering substances on the back pages of restaurant menus if you're so inclined. I don't think any of these drugs are legal in Laos, so I'm not really sure why it's so indiscreet here. And having vowed never to return to psychedelic drugs after a particularly scary Pink Floyd reunion concert pre-party in the parking lot of the Oakland Coliseum back in high school, I can't personally vouch for the quality of any of the stuff being sold. I just thought you'd like to know. I am an objective messenger of truth. 

Next stop: Luang Prabang, the second largest city in Laos and former capital. B and I are excited to get up there (7 hours north via bus) as we've heard good things from fellow travelers. Then again, many of those fellow travelers were tripping on mushrooms at the time of said praise. Grains of salt, my friends, grains of salt.

:)
s

Laos\Savannakhet\Safe\Sound

Before I get on with things, all apologies for being so distant. I did not die in the most recent Thai coup. And it's not that I didn't want to post anything sooner. Really I did. I actually feel weird and guilty when I don't update regularly, as if somehow my travel blog helps the world stay safe and neutral and right. Which I know is ridiculous. But electricity has been spotty at best for the last couple weeks, so you've all had to suffer in my candlelit silence. Life shouldn't be this unfair, should it? I demand more stable internet connections across the world! More! Anyway, I've been keeping notes as I go along and will split the last few weeks up into multiple posts to keep things organized. By the way, if you've noticed that sometimes my posts' date stamps do not jive with when they actually show up online, then you are a very, very observant soul and deserve a large piece of chocolate cake. I do this for myself so that in five years when I've forgotten a lot of details and I'm poking around here, the blog dates will correspond with when I was in particular destination, rather than just catching up in an internet cafe.

Now, where were we?
---------------------

Ah yes.

I'm pleased to report that the Lao Bao crossing from Vietnam into Laos (a.k.a. Route 9 west) was nowhere near as horrendous as advertised. My guess is that they paved the road recently. It was a long ride (complete with actual border crossing! whee!), but not terribly uncomfortable. On the bus we made friends with a couple British girls on "holiday from Uni" who were very impressed by our year-long adventure story.

I must admit I've grown weary of telling our year-long adventure story. It's just not the kind of thing I can throw out there casually in conversation without committing to a longer explanation about where exactly we've been and have yet to go, what it took to get so much time off, what our goals and aspirations are and how we're hoping to grow and become wiser somewhere between India and Peru, etc etc. I can't blame anyone for being curious, it's just that I'm beginning to feel a little more like I'm stuck in "Groundhog Day" every time I hear Brendan say, "Well, we lived in LA most recently, and before that we both lived in San Francisco, but I'm actually from Chicago originally...Nope, quit our jobs...Yep, a whole year..."

When I used to be a TV host I was often reluctant to tell strangers what I did for a living, because then I'd end up having to explain what exactly it was that I DID all day, which was both silly and complicated ("well, they get really mad if I'm not in wardrobe by 1:30, and they think I look best in pigtails, blah blah blah"). Now don't get me wrong, I truly am thankful to still be doing fascinating things with my life, but I'd also like to hand out a FAQ sheet next time someone wants to hear the year-long adventure story. I know, I know... Brendan thinks I'm unreasonable too.

Before the year-long adventure got underway, we budgeted a maxiumum of $30 per night on accommodation throughout our time in Southeast Asia. Now the idea is that anytime we stay somewhere for less than $30/night, we gain a little more spending money. So upon arrival in Savannakhet, we found a dingy little guesthouse for $5 and decided to suck it up.

Savannakhet is the third largest city in Laos behind Vientiane and Luang Prabang, but you'd never know it. The place is like a dusty ghost town filled with French colonial architecture that's half gone back to nature. There's a tad of traffic on the main thoroughfare, but for the most part the streets are empty and locals are sitting around eating, watching Thai soap operas, or napping. Savannakhet is situated just east of the Mekong River which serves as a natural border between Laos and Thailand, so that when you're looking across the river you're actually looking at Thailand. Surreal!

Our first night we went out to dinner with Isaac, a Cambodian-American who we met on the bus from Vietnam. I guess the three of us were a little too eager to let loose after the long trip, because a few Beer Laos later, we wandered into a random nightclub and ended up taking shots with a bunch of enthusiastic teenage boys. I also danced a lot.

**Fun trivia bonus: Beer Lao is produced by the Lao Brewery Co. which is nationally referred to as the LBC, for all you Snoop Dogg fans. You know who you are.

The next day was not fun. It was more like the opposite of fun. I suspect my malaria medication (doxycyline) interferes with my body's ability to process alcohol properly, because the hangover was a lot meaner than it should have been. Or maybe I'm just losing my edge. No, that's too depressing. I stand by my first theory.

The following day B was under the weather and not in the mood to stray too far from the air conditioner (for a $5 room, A/C is quite a find), so I rented a bicycle and set off alone to check out the city. I'd heard that I needed to dress modestly (arms and legs covered) when visiting Buddhist temples, but wouldn't you know it just so happened to be the hottest day in the history of the solar system, so I was a modestly dressed sweaty mess within minutes. The heat is just insane here. No amount of cold showering, applying and re-applying of anti-perspirant or matte makeup has any effect at all. But the wats were totally worth it.

A wat, by the way, is like a temple. Or more specifically, a buddhist monastery where monks live, work, teach, and learn, the grounds usually comprised of a temple or temples, living quarters, various buddha statues, and other pretty things painted whimsical colors. Nothing really happens at a wat outside of prayer times, though any visitor who wants to make conversation with the resident monks will be happily rewarded (they love practicing English). However, four wats later I had only enountered younger monks between the ages of 10-25 who seemed to be in the novice stage of monk life. They were all very sweet and polite and I enjoyed their company, but I was secretly hoping for some highly coveted, hard-to-come-by Buddhist wisdom to be imparted to me, changing my life forever. Maybe next time.

Speaking of next time, we're going into the mountains! Wait till you see the pics! Well, actually I've already posted some of the cool pics in our Photos section, which is technically still ahead of this blog. Rats. But soon there will be more pics here! Yay!

 

xo