The chill out vibe of Luang Probang, and Laos in general is impossible to esacape. You sink into a shanti MO that allows you to move into the days and nights with an ease that ensures that nothing is too rushed, there is no panic (less the manifestations of Intestinal Armageddon) or pressure... the overwhelming feeling is one of being present without anticipation or expectation. Laos is one of the poorest countries in SE Asia and the world... and yet somehow, with village life pervasive, the poverty seems less intense. When life is composed of the urban environment, it seems easier to compare one country to another; the "poorness" can be seen in a context that is familiar. When your witnessing a country where the majoirty of life is lived in villages populated with bamboo huts on stilts, the poverty is not as apparaent. The people may not have many of the material things that can be associated with "non-poverty" but somehow those "things" don't fit into the model of village life. I understand that I am a farang (foreigner) looking at a foreign country through distinctly colored glasses, but my experience was that poverty is relative and that while Laos is a very poor country by per capita GDP measures they have a wealth that is difficult to measure.
My experience with the Buffalo then led to "friend" deciding to cohabitate with me. This friend ensured that nothing was "normal" for a few days. After a particularly difficult night and careful consultations with my travel companions, I decided to (was told that I must) seek professional help. I started by going to the Luang Probang medical clinic. Most of the building was boarded up, looking like it hadn't admitted a patient in ten years. I stumbled across a young man standing on his balcony looking at me exactly as I felt: out of place and confused (I was dehydrated as well, but that's a difficult look to pull off). His name was Mr. Bounmy Phimmachane (it is pronounced nothing like it looks). I called him "Boo" for short. He spoke a total of 4 words of English, but my charades were effective in telling him what the problem. I was able to figure out that he was a medial student. He indicated that he would help me find a doctor.
Boo and I visited 2 different clinics that were more like small houses, only to find that the doctors were both in Vientienne (the capital of Laos) for two weeks. After walking for an hour, I decided that it was worth sporting the $1 to get a tuk tuk (a kind of rickshaw converted from a pikcup truck). We took the tuk tuk to the formal Luang Probang hospital that had about as much activity as the boarded up building I had visited earlier, however it was cleaner and newer. Once at the hospital I was told to take off my shirt and lie down on the bed. Boo was not there for some reason, so I repeated my charade, visibly demonstrating bloating, gas pains, diareha and general digestive discomfort. I do wish someone was filming, as the 7 Laos nurses were laughing hysterically, some of them pointing, and still, not a lick of English being spoken. I did as I was told and laid down on the bed, and took my shirt off. I'm not sure if it was the red beard, the hairines, the freckles or the ghost white body complexion (godbless the Danes), but I saw a mixture of intrigue, confusion and pity as these seven women were standing around the bed and poking me. Another woman then walked through the door and it was obvious that she commanded respect from the other 7. She was the doctor. Boo conveniently appeared behind her and after I got a quick check with a stethoscope and some more poking, I was given a prescription for three different medications and sent on my way. I have no idea how they diagnosed my problem, but I did get better. Boo was a godsend and I thanked him with a nice tip as I found my way back to my guest house, hopeful of a night's rest less painful then the night before.
My time in Luang Probang came to end peacefully as I extended my Laos visa anticipating my trip to the south of Laos.
I took an easy bus to Vang Vien, where I met up with a couple friends I had been travelling with. Vang Vien is incredibly beautiful... a mixture of meandering rivers and dramatic peaks.
The town itself is very much a backpacker purgatory. The main street is a dirt road of all guest hosues and restaurants. There were two restaurants that had lounging style wooden couches with a rather western menu and televisions at the front that played nothing but Friends reruns from 6am to midnight. I had a hard time believing it, but it was true.. and the places were packed most of the time with people riveted to the sitcom. My general feeling was disappointment and disbelief. I realized quickly that I didn't miss television in the slightest. One activity that we engaged in included tubing down the river while occassionally paddling over to entrepreneurial folks that had set up rope swings and zip lines that were free to use with the purchase of a BeerLao (the best beer in SE Asia, I might add). The rope swings and zip lines were a blast.
Vang Vien, for all it's beauty was not quite the vibe we were seeking, so we continued our push south to Vientienne. We did so by means of kayaking. We kayaked for the day from an hour south of Vang Vien to an hour north of Vientienne, and it included one very fun class 3 rapid, some wonderful meandering and one great cliff jumping. Cliff jumping, I was reminded experientially, is one of the great thrills in life. I could've stayed there all day jumping off the 10 meter ledge. Alas, we had to meet our bags further downriver. I realized later that night that in my abscence my bags had been pilfered and $100 and my leatherman had been stolen. No wonder our driver was smiling so warmly. Looking back on it, I was more pissed off that I was taken for an the extra dollar on the ride down to Pakse, paying 40,000 kip instead of 30,000 than I was about the $100, as it was the principle of it all. This was the only time I had anything stolen during my trip, so all things considered, I'm not complaining (not to say I wouldn't like to have a "meeting" with our driver again).
Vientienne has to be the most mellow capital of a country in the world. By Laos standards this place is hopping, but anywhere else this town would be a bore. I liked it very much. While in Vientienne we spent a day at a Buddhist temple that organizes a wonderful Vipassana (insight) meditation. After a couple hours of this wonderful meditation, we adjourned to a steam bath and massage parlor conveniently located right next door. Without the time for a massage, I was able to have a great steam and some hilarious conversations with the proprietors of the "spa." Having a wonderful sit followed by a steam was tough to beat. It was a good thing, as I would need all that grounding to withstand the onslaught of the horrible Lao pop music I would have to endure on my overnight bus from Vientienne to Pakse (continuing to move south). In my humble opinion, Thai pop music is horrendous and Laos pop music is a bad version of that. Withstand it we did, and arrived in Pakse at 6am. We found a guest house after numerous failed attempts and explored the town a bit. In Pakse I was able to start the process of getting my visa for Cambodia. With those wheels in motion and after a day trip to Champasak to see the beautiful temple Wat Pho (and a hitchhike back after two of the girls I was travelling with refused to pay $3 for a tuk tuk... the hitchhiking ended up being a blast... we actually got picked up, thanks to the girls, sharing the back of a pickup truck with a chicken tied up but still running around, sensing its impending demise. Something tells me that I wouldn't have had as much luck hitchiking by myself.. the whole white skin/bald/red beard thing is a bit odd to most Laos people I encountered.
We took the second most crowded ride I have ever experienced from Pakse to Don Det in the 4,000 islands area of Laos in the far south. I know what you're thinking: "Eben, how in the WORLD are you going to visit 4,000 island in 5 days?!?!?"
4,000 islands is the type of place where 4 days could easily slip into 5 weeks. It is an area where the MeKong splits into many different sections creating, well, 4,000 islands with incredible waterfalls. There is electricity, maybe, from 6pm to 9pm, definitely no internet, and all guest houses are right on the MeKong river in the midst of the village life. When the farangs are not around (hot season and wet season) it's easy to see that everyone is kept busy with harvesting rice and doing all the other activities that make village life viable. Of all the places I visited during my travels, never did I feel as relaxed as I did at Don Det. The days were warm and consisted of lots of walking (there are not cars in the area), more floating in innertubes, yoga, reading, chatting with the locals, eating (lots of eating), visiting disgustingly beautiful waterfalls, attempting to see the rare river dolphin (goose egg), and napping. The nights were incredibly clear with no sounds but the wind in the trees and the occassional lapping of the river. The clarity of walking at night by moonlight amongst this kind of peace is something I will never forget.
With great difficulty we made the trek back to Pakse in the most crowded ride I have ever experienced (see qualification of ride down to 4,000 islands from Pakse). Imagine a covered pickup truck, wiht two 2 by 8 planks of wook on either side and another 2 by 8 in the middle as a bench. For this 5 hour ride I was sitting on the side with my knees pushed together due to the rest of the Laos population that was also along for the ride. I had one child sitting on my left knee and further to my left was an 80lb pig in a burlap bag that occassionally squeeled with such volume that made it sound like the end of the world. There were two Italian women across from me, and if anyone wanted to move at all, it required everyone else to uncomfortably move. After 3.5 hours one of the people I was travelling with decided she had had enough and climbed out through the bars of the cover and climbed to the roof to ride out the remainder of the trip. Everytime the tuk tuk stopped we were swarmed with people attempting to sell us coconut stickyrice served in a piece of bamboo, chicken skewers, grilled plantains, daikon radishes and water. If I could've moved to reach my wallet it would've been nice to get some food. We made it back to Pakse and arrived back at our same guest house without incident, except for the blood clots that had started to form in my legs.
The next day we were onto Siem Reap, Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat. We flew from Pakse to Siem Reap due to time constraints, also due to fear from the numerous stories we had heard of the horrendous road conditions in Cambodia (that are supposedly kept that way to incourage us westerners to fly). Siem Reap is going through a very big boom time due to the explosion in tourism to Angkor Wat. Angkor not only is an incredible treasure but also a source of intense national pride. Pictures of the temples adorn everything. Angkor Wat is a series of temples and supporting building that were built between the 9th and 13th centuries. They are spread over 500 square kilometers or so and represent temples dedicated to organic spirit-based devotions, Hinduism and Buddhism. It is breathtaking. Much restoration work is underway, but many of the temples are in remarkable condition. We bought three day passes to the temples and rented bikes for the first two days.
Cambodia was very warm and humid. It's slowly approaching the hot season, but darn if it didn't feel like we were in the middle of it while we were there. Siestas were a part of the everyday experience, spreading a blanket out under a bazillion year-old tree that was growing out of some secluded temple. We would bring bread, chesse and fruit, eat and then nap for a couple hours. Come 2.30 or 3pm it was manageable to start exploring again. We made 3 sunsets and 1 sunrise at Angkor Wat. They were truly incredible. The scope, expanse and detail of the stone carving is hard to imagine. Three days is a perfect amount of time. At the end of the third day I experienced the "Templed-out" feeling that had been described to me. It's also called "Wat-ed Out".
One claim to fame of Siem Reap (and Angkor, I suppose), is that it was the sight of the movie "Tomb Raider." Though I never saw the movie, Angelina Jolie is a bit of a hero here, her picture adorning more than one of the restaurant menus we chose our meals from. One bar, the Red Piano, is known as the place where the crew would party every night while they were filming. Now that I read this, I'm not sure why I included it in this blog... but there it is...
Even with Siem Reap being a boom town, the scars of the last 30 years are just below the surface. The Khmer Rouge killed more then 2 million Cambodian people from 1975 to 1979. This is one quarter of the population. People were killed because they were teachers, because they spoke a foreign language, or simply becuase they wore glasses. Some were killed for no reason. There is an edge to the people in the country that I didn't experience in Laos or Thailand. The Khmer Rouge killed the intellectual, learned base of the country and it is still recovering, struggling in trying to enter the world economy. From what I've heard it is almost impossible to find someone over 30 years old that didn't lose a close family member during the Khmer Rouge's rule. Pol Pot was the head of the Khmer Rouge and was ultimately responsible for the killing fields... for killing 2 million people, he was put under house arrest where he eventually died not too long ago. It makes you sick, especially when you hear the people's stories and experience what he did to the collective psyche of the country. It's no wonder Cambodia is having a hard time shifting into a service-based economy.
Siem Reap as a town has many of the western amenities that Laos did no have. There were many restaurants that served western meals. And the first dinner we all had included spaghetti, a nicoise salad and a pizza. There is also a nice selection of French wines in the town, so that was also a treat. We stayed there for 6 days before my travel companions headed to Phenom Phen then onto the southern coast for some beach time and I made my way to Bangkok for the last day and night of my journey.
I arrived into Bangkok at 1pm and spent the day visiting some incredible temples, taking a ferry ride down the river during sunset, and getting turned down entrance into the Oriental Hotel due to the fact that I was wearing sandals (I was told by my friend Ed and Karen that is a must do... interesting how now I have a reason to go back!). Ed also gave me a WSJ article about a restaurant called Luk & Let which is essentially aluminum tables with plastic stools on a street corner that has some of the best seafood served anywhere "in the world." After lots of meandering through Bangkok's Chinatown district, I found the "restaurant." I ordered as the artcile instructred: a whole Kingfish wrapped in foil with a corriander chutney, Tom Yam (spicy Thai seafood soup), Fresh crab fried rice, and a large Singha. They weren't kidding. It was some of the best seafood I have ever tasted. I was the only whitie as far as the eye could see which I took as a very good thing, and I was whiping my brown and sniffling through the entire experience as the spices took hold (memories of the "the chili pepper episode" in Pai not far below the surface). This last meal was a wonderful memory of immersion as I ate, sat back, breathed deep breaths, and took in everything around me. The outside fire burning incredibly hot with hundreds of items being cooked and people running around everywhere. This experience allowed for beautiful calm in the midst of commotion and I savored every bite. The entire meal cost me $2.50. (including a second Singha :)
I brought myself back to my guest house: The Thai Cozy House, which is also the same guest house Dave and I stayed in 3 months earlier. It was a great feeling having spent the first night and the last night of my trip in the same guest house. All I did was fill in between the bookends.
The folowing day was an early morning for my 6.30 am flight to San Francisco through Tokyo. I arrived without incident and Dave picked me up at the airport.
Sigh.........
