Laos- A Bit Like Wales

It's not meant to be pejorative.  But Laos is a bit like Wales (weather aside).  It's just a bit out of the way.  Laid back.  Beautiful but no absolutely must-see attractions.  Friendly people speaking an unfamiliar dialect.  Sandwiched in-between Thailand and Vietnam, Burma, China and Cambodia, many people give it a miss if they miss anything on their tour of south east Asia.  But I'd say that was a shame.  Somewhat like missing out Wales on a tour of the UK, you'd be missing a whole piece of a jigsaw without which the larger picture is perhaps less likely to make sense.  Still, that would be to say that I'm some sort of expert in the history and traditions of Asian countries, which I am most certainly not, but it's just the way it feels to me.  Anyhow, we nearly didn't visit it either and as it was the visit was short- a shade under two weeks.  It was enough to see northern Laos, but not the south and the border with Cambodia.  Next time, next time.

You get the gist

We flew from Yangon in Burma to Udap Thani in Thailand and then took a transfer bus across the Laos border (the Friendship bridge) to Vientiane, the capital.  Yet another visa for the passport.  It is getting pretty full of stamps now.  How proud I feel!  Passport stamps are a bit like qualifications.  The more you have in your passport the prouder you should feel, and the more of a 'traveller' you really are.  It's rubbish of course.  Travelling is what you make of it.  You could spend a year travelling around one country and be an infinitely more seasoned peregrinator than someone country-hopping on a round-the-world ticket (which is me)!

Much French influence in Laos.  A popular emblem seen that of Herge's TinTin, who did considerably more travelling than me.

Vientiane is pretty laid back for a capital city.  Modern-ish.  I don't get the impression the people of Laos care that much about how quickly they embrace Western civilisation.  They will.  They are.  But at a pace that suits them.  They appear to reject the brashness of the Vietnamese, the mellifluousness of the Thai, and sit somewhere between the two, as they do in the geographic sense as well.  Sanguine yet pragmatic I suppose might be how I felt about the people of Laos.

An old friend of mine who was educated in China told me fifteen years ago that in twenty years time China would rule the world.  And in some ways he was right.  They (i think) financially rule the world.  But that isn't enough it seems.  You don't see Chinese culture creeping into places where hitherto it's been absent, as far as I know.  But you do with Western culture.  It is an interesting phenomenon, and one we've seen in every country we've visited.  What's interesting about it is not so much its becoming but more the nature of it's becoming.  No one makes a fuss about it as far as I can tell.  It feels like some sort of revolution by stealth, but without the intention behind it.  Paranoid conspiracy theories aside, as far as I can see it isn't being done by wars, or money, or drugs or politicians or activists or fanatics or even the machinations of a megalomaniacal and omniscient elite.  It's just television or, more precisely, media.  American TV and English football are good examples.  They are *everywhere*.  Even in Burma we saw families clustered around an old TV watching an American drama or film with subtitles.  Even in the poorest village in Madagascar they somehow screen the English premier league.  You can do no wrong if you give a kid a Man Utd key ring.  It's in every home.  On every street.  They're all talking about it.  They love it.  It is seemingly the quiet revolution of our time.  George Orwell was right.  He was just a bit maudlin about it all.  It doesn't quite have that depressive, organised oppression feel of 1984.  But then George Orwell was a depressive (and probably quite oppressed too).

Anyway, an amusing pictorial allegory of this creep of Westernised capitalism was the sight of two Buddhist monks drinking (admittedly tea) in a western coffee bar in a big shopping mall in Vientiane where we ended up trying to replace Ro's broken camera (bargaining essential even with goods such as this).  When I asked them for a photo they were a bit grudging about it actually (one wouldn't look at the camera at all and has a rather grim face on).  The other managed to force a smile, and it seemed to me that even if the social (if not spiritual) irony of the situation was lost on them, my slightly over-bearing request probably betrayed the fact that I wasn't just admiring their saffron robes and shaved heads.  Oh, how the world is changing it seems.  Just not in a way anyone (or at least me) has really predicted or got to grips with ahead of time (probably fortunately).

Modern spirituality

There's not much to see in Vientiane.  For a capital city it's about as laid back as you can get.  Still, with only 6 million people in the whole of Laos this is not so surprising.  There's a monument that looks very much like the Arc De Triomphe where you can get a good view down one of the main streets.  I really had no idea about French Indo-China before coming here but they were hugely influential, and perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in Vientiane, where this Arc de Triomphe replica opens out on to a vista not dissimilar, at least in terms of structure, to Paris. 

A replica of the Arc De Triomphe in Vientiane...

...with Buddhist touches...

...looking out over Vientiane.

 Bizarre really given the place is full of burning incense

Great street food...

...but with questionable names for the establishments

Then, aside from the obligatory wats and temples, a few statues and the presidential palace (off limits) that's pretty much it to Vientiane.  Good street food though.  Then on to Vang Vien, the tubing capital of Asia.

Tubing consists of sitting in a big rubber tube whilst you float down the river.  It used to be a lot more exciting, with rope swings and jumps from rocks into the river fuelled with booze, magic mushrooms and spliffs.  Having floated down it just before the rainy season though I can see why this was canned.  Too many people were bashing their brains out on the shallow rocks when the river is low.    But as you float down, making friends with your fellow floaters, you can still stop off and buy a beer and a spliff if you're seeking to augment the experience, and jump off a few bamboo bridges with the local kids.  Stunning scenery, with the sun setting behind the hills as we bobbed our way down the three hour route.  New friends made en route, who we spent the next week or so with.  

Tubing in Vang Vien

Fellow tubers

A very serene experience...

...at times.

...

At a local restaurant I was acquainted with the local way of cooking, with a charcoal stove over something that looks like an inverted colander.  You put a bit of pork fat at the top, which then drips down to provide the oil for cooking the meat, then you add soup to the bottom and use that to cook your veggies.  Then tip the lot out into your dish and scoff it down.  Yum. 

Next day we went off to a local swimming hole fed by water coming from the mountains.  Very blue water.  Very deep.  Very cold.  But in humid 35C heat it is just what you need.  Along with cold beer.  Laos doesn't export much, aside from Beerlao.  It's almost a national emblem actually.  You can buy it *everywhere* in Laos.  You could probably buy it at a detox clinic for alcoholics, if there were any in Laos.  Healthcare is apparently very poor.  They're very proud of it.  The Beerlao I mean.  It's a decent brew.  With beer I tend to only know if I don't like it.  Otherwise I can't really distinguish them, especially lagers.  Anyway we drank a lot of Beerlao.  And it was good.

Swimming near Poukham cave.  Deep.  Cold.  Lovely!

The view from Banana Bungalows, where we stayed in Vang Vien.

 The countryside outside Vang Vien

From Vang Vien we took another very uncomfortable bus to the UNESCO world heritage town of Luang Prabang.   It was a long, stomach churning and coccyx bruising journey, interspersed by one unfortunate man vomiting regularly all over the aisle.  

It *looks* modern and comfortable.  It isn't.

We were dumped unceremoniously on the outskirts of Luang Prabang 12 hours later, body and soul miraculously still intact.  After negotiating the ripoff tuk tuk merchants we found our way into this very pretty colonial town. 

The Buddhist temple at the Royal Palace, Luang Prabang

After 4 months of Buddhism, we were getting a little weary...

A street in Luang Prabang.  A very European feel to it.

I think if I am honest with myself we did not get as much out of Luang Prabang as we could have.  I put it down to the fact that we'd met some good people in Vang Vien and then travelled up with them to Luang Prabang and stayed with them for the next five days.  It's good to meet people and share plans for a bit, it's true, but you end up not doing what you wanted to do as well, which isn't so good.  I felt I had missed out on much of the cultural heritage of this little hidden gem of Asia, because we spent too much time drinking and larking about with our new found mates.  That said we were getting pretty tired of Buddhist wats and monasteries by now.  All the same.  The best day out was to a waterfall and a bear sanctuary.  The waterfall cascades down over five or six levels with picture postcard views and cobalt blue water pools with rope swings into them.  It's a popular attraction with the locals and the tourists.  And we got to see the bears having their tea.

Friends made in Luang Prabang

The 125cc Moped.  The workhorse of Asia.

Bears playing at the Luang Prabang Bear Sanctuary

The waterfalls near Luang Pranbang

Lots of picture postcard moments...

...

...

...!

Me taking advantage of the rope swing into the pool!  Thanks to Brett for the shot :)

Bears having their tea at the bear sanctuary as we left

The final adventure in Laos came via a two day slow boat up the Mekong river to a town on the border of Thailand called Hok Xuay.  From there we were whisked about 60km back east into the Laos jungle for The Gibbon Experience.  This is a zip line/trekking/sleeping in tree houses adventure which is really popular around this bit of the world.  This one is meant to revolve around a large conservation effort to preserve the Gibbon's rainforest habitat.  Only the amount of burning forest and scorched earth we saw on the way seemed to indicate that it wasn't working very well.  Curiously, since the Laos government outlawed the growing of poppies for opium production the rate of deforestation has jumped markedly as subsistence farmers burn it off to make way for coffee plantations.  A nice example of the devil and the deep blue sea I thought.  Interestingly, and incidentally, this is also part of the reason why it is very difficult to get medical grade diamorphine (heroin) anymore.  Used for the acute treatment of heart attacks, and as one of the best painkillers known to mankind, there are now many people suffering in hospital and elsewhere without it, all in the name of the war on drugs.  Anyway, I probably shouldn't start down that particular line.  Speaking of lines though, the Gibbon experience involves lots of them, of the cable variety, often strung between two sides of a valley and up to a kilometre long.  You attach yourself via a couple of runners and a harness to the cable and off you go, soaring out through the jungle into the open air for some spectacular views and a rush that's difficult to beat.  For two days we slept in tree houses built high off the ground and trekked and zip lined about the Laos jungle.  Abundant mosquitoes, but abundant fun too.  The morning was reserved for trekking from one treehouse to the next, whilst the afternoon was left free for jungle exploration and zip-lining.  It was a very rewarding experience.  As was the view from the loo. 

Trekking in to the Laos jungle

A brief lesson in zip-lining

Gorgeous views over the rain forest

Zip lining into the treehouse

A loo with a view

A long way down!

Treehouse shower...

...and its drainage system

Inside one of the tree houses.  Awesome really.

In the middle of the jungle...a sink with drinkable water.

And a lovely Laos lady with her little boy bringing us lunch

Best friends in the village closest to the jungle

Bizarrely, this was also the first time since leaving home that I was able to drink the tap water.  They managed to pump it up from some sort of base in the jungle.  I don't know how it worked.  Amazing really, but as I say, the first time I've been able to drink from the tap rather than from a bottle since leaving home.  It always amazes me, coming from a country with drinkable tap water, how few countries have managed this feat.  You would've thought it was a prerequisite to so many other things that it would be top of any government's list to achieve.  But that would assume that governing bodies make logical decisions, which they seem hardly ever to do.  Not even in South Africa (and definitely not in India) was the tap water clean enough to drink.  It's a global problem that I genuinely had not appreciated the gravity of before I came away.  So to be able to drink the tap water at the top of a treehouse in the middle of the Laos jungle was, shall we say, a bit surreal.  But it tasted good, didn't make me ill, and I was very grateful for it.

Two days later we'd finished our 'experience', and were driving back into Hok Xuay.  It was New Year for the Lao and this is marked with a water festival that also celebrates the oncoming rainy season.  At a practical level this means that loads of kids stand by the side of the road with buckets of water, hoses and water pistols and soak unwitting tourists (and each other) mercilessly.  By the time we arrived back in Hok Xuay we were drenched, but it was so hot it was preferable to being dry anyway.  Reunited with our luggage which we'd left at the Gibbon Experience office we took a long boat across the river and back into Thailand.  This was now the fourth time we'd entered Thaliand in as many months.  No problem though.  They just give you another visa and off you go.  After a well-deserved ice-latté (such things available in Thailand whereas in Laos you would be hard pressed to find ice, let alone a latté) we caught a maniacally driven mini-van to Thailand's second city, Chiang Mai.  You can read about that in the Thailand post if you like.  For now, safe travels, or travails, my friends xx