Part V: Laos - A happy drunk nation thanks to Beerlao

Are you bored of your day to day life? Do you think nothing can thrill you any longer? Are you looking for a good adrenalin burst in the water? Forget then about bamboo rafting or scuba diving in the Ganges… If on the top of that you want a first hand experience on economy class syndrome? Forget then about Indian buses or London underground, and get yourself in a speed boat on the Mekong River from Huai Xai to Luang Prabang, Laos, six hours at 80 km/h, with 0.5 x 0.5 m body room, 20 cm above the water in a 5 meters long egg shell, life jacket and helmet included!! (See picture)

I have been last two weeks in Laos, and there are a few stories to be told.

Laos is been the first country where I have felt, the poorest and the richest in just one day, I explain, I don’t know if I can count with the fingers of both hands the number of people that told me to be careful with money in Laos, since you can withdraw money from the cash machine in very few cities, but did I listen?... Of course not!! And crossed the border with barely 10 euros.

When I got to Laos, obviously there was no cash machines, so there was two options; go through Laos immigration, take the boat back to Thailand in the other side of the river, Thailand immigration, tuk tuk to the cash machine, tuk tuk back, Thailand immigration, boat to Laos and go through Laos immigration again or spend all the money I had in a speed boat to Luang Prabang, where I could withdraw money. The trip was three hours to Pak Beng, half an hour break and another three hours to Luang Prabang. As usual, I was so lucky that everybody in my boat got off in Pak Beng, mid way to my cash machine, they couldn’t afford to send a boat just with one passenger,... me. Mmmm, penniless in a town in the middle of nowhere,…

After a lot of smiling, diplomacy and insisting, I got free accommodation and dinner from the travel agency in Pak Beng. At the end, it happened to be a really good night, There was a nice bunch of people in the guest house, and the agency paid for beers as well,… well, I don’t know if they know about that,

So next day, well hangover, penniless, with the tongue sandpaper dry and the stomach empty, got into the eight hours slow boat to Luang Prabang on a bright boiling hot day. Somehow I managed to beg for some food and water. Once I got to the town, first thing to look for, was the cash machine. I think I got it wrong and people usually travel with dollars, which are accepted every where, but not me, I went straight to the kip, the Lao currency. One pound is 18.000 Lao kip, so planning to be here three weeks to one month, I withdraw 200 pounds. Taking into account that the biggest note in Laos is 20.000 kip, 200 pounds turned to be 4.000.000 kip, a good three fingers thick bundle of notes, that obviously didn’t fit in my wallet , after spreading all the notes between the various pockets of my trousers, I went to my room. I really felt like getting on the bed and throw all the notes to the air to have a millionaire shower, but couldn’t be bothered to pick them up later, so just put them under my pillow, to sleep with them.

Anyway, by now I have completely lost the sense of value, here in Laos you can pay with dollars, Bath (Thai currency) and kip. You use dollars to pay expensive things, Bath is the currency you have as a reference, since almost everyone comes to Laos though Thailand, you kind of know how much things cost in Baths and kip is the local money. If you speak to Europeans though, they will tell you prices in euros, but my budget is in pounds, so I basically smile and pay whatever they ask for…

If you want to do you daily good action, and make a few people have a laugh, I have discover that a very effective but painful way is to splash of some of your chilly sauce in the eyes, it guarantees at least ten minutes laugh while you are blind running to the toilet to put some water on your eyes and come back with your eyes blood red and the T-shirt all soaked in water, by the way, talking about food, the only thing that my mouth remembers now, is how my taste buds burn every time I have food,…

After three days in Luang Prabang, I was fed up of seeing so many tourist. It is a beautiful city, the French colonization left loads of old colonial houses with high ceilings and wooden floors and ceilings, there is a characteristic good sense of taste in the houses, that is quite impressive, but there are far too many tourists, couples, honey mooners,… so looking in the map, I decided to go to the furthest point, in the search of deep Lao, and I think I almost got there, Phongsali, a 20.000 people town, where you could count the tourists with the fingers of one hand.

After 25 hours in the bus, and engine reparation, two flat wheels and a driver nap in the middle of the road, I got to Phongsali, 1400 m high in the mountains. That night I heard some live music, so went to check it out. In a quite big open restaurant, there was a wedding, where the guests seemed to enjoy dancing and drinking at the rhythm of the some musicians. After 15 minutes watching this group of joyful drunk dancers, I decided to go for some food, but just when I was crossing the door, I met this friendly girl who introduced me to some of her friends. The bad thing about being tourist in these places is that everybody wants to tell you the two words of English they know, while drinking some Beerlao or Lao Lao, local bleach, so after a few hours chating, all the faces of these people started to be a bit blurred and similar, and couldn’t really recognize if I had speak about that with this guy or with the other, so at that time decided to leave...

There is no much to do in Phongsali, other than village trekking, so went trekking for three days. The guide, Alex, was my same age and could speak some English. The trekking was OK, I saw basically a lot of trees, because we were walking most of the time in the forest/jungle, so you couldn’t see much for most of the time, glimpses of the mountains every now and then. We spent two nights sleeping in the villages in the mountains, proper hard wooden beds for two nights. It is a shame that my English is too poor to describe the beauty of these places, because they were amazing. Such a different type of life!! I also want to apologize because some of the pictures are not as good as I wished, but spending just a few hours in each village if any, and being hard enough to ask them if you can take a picture of them not speaking their language, I couldn’t ask if they could move a bit to the right that there was more light or remove that from there, so anyway, first night we slept in the house of the vice-chief, who after finishing his duties, invited his brother to have a drink with us. According to the local habits we couldn’t turn down any drink until his friend had leave, so we had quite a long hard night. Even the grandmother, who was 90 was taking a few shots in the morning, always with her long tobacco pipe lighted on.

In the second village, the Akas, the chief had 9 children, which together with his wife, grandmother and us, added up to 14 in the table. This village was better located, on the top of the mountain, with amazing views over the valley.

It was great to wake up in these villages, high up on the mountains, over the clouds, far from roads and noises. At night you could only listen dozens of children playing around and singing in the dark. In the morning the cocks woke you up around 5 with incredible roar. Seeing so many kids reminded me a lot to Nepal, and you think, what children with no toys or TV do? There is loads to do, they do bubbles by breaking a special type of plant, make spinning tops (peonzas) out of big wood logs with sharp knifes, go to pick up fruits, berries and nuts, play for hours in the river, play around with all shorts of chicks, puppies, kitties, piglets, little goats... Is nice to see them all the time laughing and playing around, ignorant of any other world.

After Phongsali, on my way south to Vientiane, after 25 hours in the bus, 24 of them listening to Lao music, and you don’t want to know what is Lao music, always exactly the sssssame keyboard and the ssssssame guitar, with the sssssssame lyrics and sssssame sounds, after 10 hours listening to it, it still seems to be the first song, so, at some point I was starting to feel like a Nazi in an extermination camp, so decided to stop a few hours before getting to Vientiane, at Vang Vieng. In the guide it said that it is a travelers haven, so I though it would be like it actually is. One of these places like Pushkar, Goa or Hampi, beautiful landscape in a small town with loads of friendly backpackers, with no much to do other that swing the hammock in your hut from side to side, or go for a swim in the river.

Just to finish I can tell you now, that I have seen a big snake, and not exactly in the Snake farm, first day in Vang Vieng I hired a bike to go around the mountains, and went to see one of the thousand caves (sometimes just holes) that you can pay to see, when I got into it, with no guide, just the light, I saw a one meter snake right in the entrance. I didn't know if it was one of the dangerous ones or one of the friendly ones but didn't want to find out either. I was alone, so as soon as I walked in, walked out and finished with all that caving business.

Ok, this is getting too long now,

Have fun,

Qr,...

As usual, I recommend to see the pictures by saving them in a separate file, open the Windows Picture Viewer, and see them with the slide show mode function.