036 Laos from North to South

While I read how most of the visitors to this blog are being snowed-in in the new Siberian region of Europe, I am sitting in an internet cafe in the sweltering heat. Sweating over my keyboard, I am plotting my way through the story of Laos. Not a general history story, but my own personal and comparatively short history with this land-locked state. It is a history, because I left the country already again. I didn't find the time to update my blog for a while, mainly because I was too busy adventuring to be able to write about it. In an effort to catch up, I will write a bit more now that you're used to from me.

Luang Prabang, and for that matter the whole of Laos, invites its visitors to relax and do as little as possible. Laid back, it's seven million inhabitants go about their business without stress. The country is filled with store owners that don't push you to buy anything. Restaurants are staffed with waiters that will patiently wait for half and hour while you study the menu, and only come to ask what you want to eat when you signal them you're ready for it. It also means that buses easily take eight hours for five hour journeys without anyone so much as lifting an eyebrow. But the people are so friendly and helpful, it is a delight to be here.

Luang Prabang is a beautiful town in the north of Laos, situated at the Mekong river, and filled with French Colonial buildings, now all converted into restaurants and guesthouses. Things to do here are: sleeping, eating, buying souvenirs and cycling around town. After sufficiently doing the first three activities, I rent a bike, and head out of town to see some waterfalls. It is a very nice ride, I eat some road-side noodle soup in a fly invested tiny restaurant where one of the guys hanging around helps me to tighten the chain of my bike so it stops from falling off, and head back to town. I decide to explore the area on the other side of the river a bit before I hand back the bike, and cross the pedestrian-and-bicycle only bridge. It is warm, so I have my small backpack in the cute basket on the front of the bike. A big mistake, I soon find out.

Once I am in a more quiet area, just outside of town, I hear a motor coming from behind and decelerate. I turn my head to take a look at what's happening, and am just in time to see a motorbike with two guys come drive next to me. The guy on the back stretches out his arm, lifts my backpack from its basket, give a signal to his accomplish, and they speed of down the road.

Ow Sh*t!

In a first irrational reaction I try to keep up with the bag snatchers, but on my single gear Chinese bike I am no match for their off-road racing machine. They quickly disappear around a corner, never to be seen again.

Ow Sh*t! Ow Sh*t!

The first thought running through my head is "how could this happen to me?" Then my mind races through the content of my backpack. What was inside, what did I loose? Passport: still in the right-hand pocket of my trousers. Wallet: still in the back pocket. Camera: in the left-hand pocket, after I have taken it from my backpack not ten minutes ago to make a picture of the pedestrian bridge. Pfiew!

Ok, so what was inside the bag? Guidebook, novel, sweater, rain jacket, small book for writing notes, headphones, camera-case, extra memory cards. After a while I realize that it could have been much much worse, that everything except for my notes are replaceable, and that I didn't loose anything very valuable. Good.

I decide to visit the police station anyway, and learn that this is something that happens more often here. They are actually quite cross, not with me, but with the bike rental companies, because they should take off the baskets from the bikes, or at least warn their customers not to put their backpacks in it. I can't disagree.

I had planned to leave the city the next morning, but now decide to stay an extra day. Mainly because I have to buy some new equipment, but also because I don't want to run from this city with only this negative experience to remind me of it, because this town deserves better. The next day, I find a nice backpack which says it is made by The Northface but only costs me six euros, and a surprisingly cheap Lonely Planet guidebook with an unsurprisingly copied feeling to it. It is warm here and I will mainly be traveling towards the even warmer south, so for the time being I replace my sweater and jacket for a nice scarf. I agree with myself to net let this minor incident ruin my image of this country and treat myself to a nice big lunch overlooking the Mekong river.

I shift to Vang Vieng, known as the party capital of Laos. It doesn't have a good reputation, it's main attraction a combination between floating down the river in an inflated inner-tire and drinking copious amounts of alcohol in the riverside bars. Unsurprisingly a number of intoxicated people drown here every year, having lost their ability to swim when their tube hits one of the many submerged rocks.The tiny town exists out of bars and more bars. I'm not sure if this is my kind of place, but it is in the middle of where I am and where I want to go, so I make a stop there. In the bus that takes us down the thousands of hairpin bends I meet a fellow Dutchman who I tell of my plan to go rock climbing the next day, and he decides to join me.

The rock climbing is one of the best things I have done during my trip up to now. First of all, it is outside of the town, and there are no bars in sight. Secondly, once you leave the village, you realize how incredibly impressive the landscape is here. To all sides, very steep mountains surround the town. These rocks, sticking out of the ground as if a giant with a score to settle threw handfuls of really big pointy stones at the river plain, are made from very hard and porous Karst stone. And we are going to learn how to climb them.
The guides are fantastic, speaking English far above average and taking their time to explain the techniques of climbing and securing your partner before they let us get near to anything climbable. We then spend the rest of the day going up some pretty steep rock faces ranging from very easy (lots of handholds) to very hard (for us that is, the guides jump up these routes like spider monkeys).

The next day is another traveling day, this time to Vientiane, Loas'  capital city, right on the border with Thailand. Everyone I met on my trip who had been there, told me to skip it because it was boring. I think now that they were mainly correct. Being the capital, there are some nice restaurants, very good bookstores and overpriced coffee joints all trying to look like Starbucks. In the evening I walk around looking for a nice place to eat, and although I normally try to stick to local fare in stead of too expensive and badly prepared western food, tonight I succumb to my cravings for European cuisine. I find a small bar, inexplicably called 'The Blue Banana' which exclusively serves British dishes. I know what you think, the English don't know anything about cooking. But today the sound of Beef Pie, Mashed Potato and Mushroom-Gravy sounded like music to my ears. Funny, isn't it, that you start realizing what you miss when you're away. It will be great to see my friends and family again, but somehow it's food that I feel most immediate pining for, usually around supper time.

During a long night-bus ride, in which I share my two person bus-bed with a uncommunicative Laotian (oh, the joys of traveling alone), I try to construct an image of Laos and its people. Not having had many conversations with locals beyond the ubiquitous shop and restaurant attendants, I will have to go by external observations.
Laotians keep to themselves, not running out to try to sell you stuff, not so worried, it appears, about making a sale, sometimes seemingly uninterested but always friendly.
Outside of the cities, most people live in small houses almost directly at the roadside, which gives the bus traveler a one-sided view of a typical house. Most recurring is the furniture that adorns every driveway. Made out of concrete, and available in square and circular shapes, every house has a table and three or four matching benches around it. And when I say every house, you can take that literally. I tried to spy houses that were devoid of this feature, and on the countryside there aren't any. Maybe they are a gift from the government, and you're not a loyal follower of this one-party states' socialist leadership if you hide or sell your table and chairs. Most of the tables are decorated with an inlayed chess board in the middle, although in the entire country I haven't seen chess being played even once.
Another useless morsel of information I would like to share are the fantastic English translations on restaurant menus. Mass tourism is a relatively new phenomenon here, and the people translating signs, labels and menus are clearly still getting the hang of it. Thus, restaurants serve local specialties such as 'Banana Panckakeds' and 'Friet Nodles', beer sometimes comes in 'Cands' and I saw a restaurant that claimed an order of soup would be served in a 'Blow'.
It all tastes fantastic though.

After a days' stopover in the tranquil city of Pakse, where the most memorable activities were eating an incredibly spicy rice with squid and seeing dragon dances in the Chinese part of town to celebrate Chinese New Year, I head towards the Four Thousand Islands. This group of island, just a handful of them inhabited, are Laos' landlocked answer to the bounty beaches of its neighbors. In this part of the Mekong, the river spreads out over an enormous area, creating a sea of bigger and smaller islands where travelers, on their way to or from Cambodia (only 20 kilometers away) seek refuge from the heat. Incomparable with slightly degenerate Vang Vieng, the islands have the right mix of tranquility, bars, hammocks and palms to enthrall even the most seasoned travelers, many of them spending more time here than they initially set out to.
To get here, I have for once not taken the ever available VIP bus. The Laotian bus companies have a good thing going with those buses. They cost a bit more (say eight euro in stead of five), but they include a free guesthouse pickup, and are generally a bit faster than the local bus. Unfortunately they have a tendency to drop you off at a far away VIP bus station where a cartel of tuktuk drivers stands at the ready to relieve you of a euro or two extra to transport you the last bit of the way into the city (always just a little bit to far to walk. I'm sure the bus companies get a nice kickback from this setup) But saving yourself a few hours on a long trip, not to mention the hassle of getting to a bus station in the morning and finding the right bus, usually is the most attractive option for transport in trainless Laos. But not today, because the Islands are only three hours away and I am curious about local transport. So I negotiate my way on a tuktuk to the local bus station, navigate my way though the complete chaos of running kids, begging ladies, salesmen, dogs, chickens and old buses without destination signs, and claim a seat in a bus that used to be a truck but now carries people, mainly. As with all local transport in this part of the world, the term total-capacity is completely meaningless, so once we are fully crammed with men, women, crying children and enough boxes and bags to staff a medium size grocery store, some more people climb on the back and we leave. The ride is good, and halfway through some people get off and we can breath again and massage our sleeping legs back to life. Some of the bags of potatoes that I was sitting next to are destined for a small village halfway through, and when no-one comes to pick them up, the driver and his helper leave them in the middle of the crossroad, presumably to be collected later by their owner.

I spend a couple of lazy days on the islands, walking and cycling a bit. I rent a bike from an old lady that I cannot communicate with. I realize how save and laid-back these islands must be when she doesn't even ask after my name or guesthouse, and only indicates that I have to pay her the equivalent of a euro now and should return the bicycle around seven. The bike doesn't have a lock. None of them do, it is not necessary, you cannot take the bikes far anyway. I meet up with some nice people I shared the boat to get here with. we go for dinner and drinks. Life is good. on the third day I decide that I want to do something a little bit more active, so I join a Kayaking tour. With the exception of two small rapids, the river doesn't go very fast, so it is mainly a nice day of peddling. We also make two stops to look at majestic waterfalls that run between the islands and would absolutely shred you if you would try to kayak down them. And we see dolphins. This part of the river is the last place in Laos where you can see the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins. First I am skeptical if we will really see them, but then, with our kayaks laying still in the wide river, they come to the surface and swim around, making hissing sounds when they release their breath and take in fresh air before they dive under again.