The first days of Laos

Its strange to think that we have been in Laos for a month (at least when I started writing this; we're back in Vancouver now…).  It seems like we have been here no time at all.  Maybe this is because there is an appalling similarity about all of the places we have gone to.  Don't get me wrong everywhere is different, has new and interesting things on offer, but Laos (unlike Malaysia) seems to have the same mentality the whole way through it  (this is also not really true; the tourist spots all do though).  We had high hopes for our time in Laos and this was probably not fair to it.  Our first disappointment was immediate upon our entry into Vientiane (Laos' capital and largest city).  We had been expecting a quiet city with few cars or any motorized vehicles of any sort.  What we were presented with was noisy streets crammed with cars (though surely still less than Bangkok or KL).  Where were the trafficless streets of Vientiane we were informed of?  The ones that we could ride bikes down without any worries.  We did eventually find some, yet to be paved roads, that had few cars or motorbikes on them.  This is a city on the up towards being developed, to take its place beside other great cities, or at least that's what it seems to be aspiring to.  New paved roads and covered manholes are important in any new city, but one wonders why the touristy areas are the ones that were first (obviously) to be paved.  Why there are so many restaurants along the Mekong that only cater to tourists.  I do not think I saw a single Lao person eating at one of these restaurants while we were there, though I could be wrong about that.  Certainly the vast majority of the clientele were foreigners.  Well tourism is a big business here and there are locals working at all of them the tourist outlets (though from what we heard they were largely owned by foreigners).  Perhaps Vientiane will not become the Bangkok of Laos, there seem to be no sky scrapers going up and construction actually stops promptly at 6 everyday, in every village or town we have been in thus far.  It certainly must be better than it was in 1973 when Paul Theroux described it as a brothel for American soldiers fighting  in Vietnam, where opium was easier to get than a can of coca cola.  Development has its costs, but when it seems that development is largely for the sake of those visiting your country perhaps it is best to step back and take stock.  Wide spread corruption of officials does not help.  This was partly my initial view of Laos through the lens of its capital city.  It has changed somewhat in the past month.  My view of the government has not.

My other impression, first garnered at our guesthouse, was not of Laos but of the people visiting it.  This at least has improved since then, we have met many culturally sensitive and genuinely caring people since leaving Vientiane, but we met almost none in Vientiane.  Foreigners in Vientiane seemed very tightly wound, ready to snap at the smallest thing.  They seemed to complain about everything and seemed to take pains to speak as loudly as possible.  For instance, I overheard one girl complaining about the slow internet speed at our guesthouse, "slow like Laotian people."  She said to her friend while looking snidely at the people behind the counter.  In a temple, which was more or less tranquil, I recall a woman chew her gum so loudly that I could hear it from across the temple.  When I looked over to see who was making the noise I could not help but compare her to a cow chewing its cud, so vapid was the expression on her face.  There was one man who (apparently frustrated by all the offers of Tuk-tuk drivers) screeched "TUK-TUK! TUK-TUK!" back at the latest offerer, while flapping his arms like a chicken.  And making a proper ass of himself.  There were a lot of Tuk-Tuk drivers about, just like taxi drivers in Malaysia and were usually silenced by a simple "no thank you".  Some tuk-tuk drivers would lower their voices and offer marijuana or opium.  Another simple "No thank you." would do.  A large group of foreigners apparently thought that having a loud argument was a good thing to do just outside Wat Sisaket.  There were many more such events, I'm still not really sure what everyone was so keyed up about.  We met one Australian man who told us that they were worse in Vang Vieng which was our next destination.  He also said that he wished he had stayed in Myanmar, which was much better.  We seriously considered abandoning Laos and heading to Myanmar a few times.

There were some very nice things about Vientiane our two favourites were Wat (that means temple by the way; just like in Thailand and Cambodia) Sisaket, which was so calm and peaceful that we did not want to leave.  It was apparently the only temple in Vientiane that the Siamese left standing when they sacked the city about 200 years ago.  Wat Sisaket held some of the damaged buddha images from that sacking.  The main square has them all facing the main temple.  Inside the main temple there are many images from Buddhist mythology and more large and tranquil Buddha images.

The other place was COPE visitors centre.  COPE is the .  We met a young man as we walked in named Peterkim.  He asked us to read out a Skype message he had just received.  He had no hands and was blind, but he seemed quite capable of doing most things with the stumps on the end of his arms and a cane that he kept under his shoulder.  We never asked what happened to him, but the contents of the visitors centre perhaps was enough to let us guess.  Despite his impediments, Peterkim was very happy, bubbly even.  He told me I sounded like a politician or something when I read his message to him (I'm fairly sure he meant this as a compliment) and asked if Nancy had a sister (he was disappointed to find she only had brothers).  After Peterkim made his way out of the centre we explored.

Laos has the dubious record of being the most bombed country in history.  More bombs were dropped on Laos than on Germany during the second world war.  This was all done "secretly" as the USA was not at war with Laos.  But as the North Vietnamese were wandering through Laos on their way south (and they did have Lao allies; known as the Pathet Lao they eventually took over Laos in 1975), this gave the US cause to bomb the areas that the Vietnamese and their Lao allies were.  Apparently, since this was a secret bombing campaign the bombers had no protocol on what to avoid dropping their bombs on (1000 year old temples or isolated villages say) they could drop bombs anywhere they pleased.  And they did.  All over the country.  Now almost 40 years after the bombs stopped falling people in Laos are still being blown up by bombs that did not explode on impact, but needed a little extra kick from something (a farmer digging in new land; a kid running over it) to go off.  COPE provides free prosthetic limbs and such for anyone who is in need of them (mostly for those who have come across a bomb and not faired well for the experience).  Actually there were so many bombs dropped on Laos that there is now a lucrative trade in bomb scrap all over the country.  Of course some people also try to pull unexploded bombs from the ground for the scrap metal too.  Not really a good idea.  We were told that at the current rate of of clean up by MAG (the Mine Advisory Group), Laos will be free of UXOs (unexploded ordinance) in about 200 years.  We also watched a great (and surprisingly funny) movie about the bomb clean up called Bomb Harvest.  You should watch it.

A "bombie" display at COPE.

There was also a very informative and friendly woman at the front counter named Zai, who we struck up a conversation with.  She told us a lot about Laos and its people as well as about the trouble with the UXOs.  She also told us several dishes to try in Laos.  One of which she told us she would make for us if we ever returned to Vientiane, as she did not trust any restaurant to make is half as well as she could do it at home.  This was Bamboo soup and was excellent (we did return to Vientiane briefly to get our Visas extended and contacted Zai before we arrived; she had it ready for us the day after we arrived and got as many people as possible to try it as well; seriously one of the best meals we had in Laos).  

Speaking of food, my favourite Laos dish is Laap, a meat salad with lots of herbs and spices in it.  Fortunately the meat is no longer served raw, as it was traditionally.  Nancy's favourite dish (of sorts) seems to be sticky rice.  Guess what that is.  There were also a lot of nice coffee shops and bakeries in Vientiane, which probably did not help us stay fit...

We left Vientiane by local bus, which was a cheerful and cultural experience.  There were no livestock coming with us fortunately and over all it was a pretty uneventful ride, though at one stop several people boarded the bus to sell what appeared to be small birds, fried.  We did get lots of stares though; most foreigners usually take the air conditioned buses.  We found that fans and open windows are much more appealing (especially given that the air con is unlikely to be working).

Bus stations in Laos seemed to be universally located away from city centres, in what seems to simply be a way to give Tuk-tuk drivers business.  So we found ourselves 4 KM away from Vang Vieng centre with (of course) "Tuk-Tuk!" coming at us from all sides.  Irritated, we walked the 4 KM.

We stayed one night in Vang Vieng proper, saw the stoned foreigners watching Friends, Family Guy or The Simpsons in restaurants around town; saw the advertisements of "happy" (read: drug infused) pizza or shake or muffin.  Well maybe under different circumstances we may have thought to join.  As it was we were not thrilled.  Especially with the loud music that was on the entire night, seemingly everywhere.

The bridge across the river in Vang Vieng

Fortunately on the other side of the river, looking out at the beautiful scenery that Vang Vieng has to offer and in a butterfly garden, we found our sanctuary for our next 4 days.  This was the Maylyn Guesthouse and for 50000 Kip (about $6CND) we got a bungalow that looked out on the mountains and rice fields (en suite bathroom too).  The owner, a guy named Joe, was crotchety, but in a good way and good to talk to once he got started.  He said he had been here the longest of the foreigners in Vang Vieng (he was Irish but raise in London) and had seen a lot of changes to the area.  From the time that people came to Vang Vieng only for the scenery to now where it seemed to be largely for the drugs.  He had seen a lot of guys pack up and leave after a few years of running a guesthouse.  And the seeming hunting to near extinction of everything in the area that could be hunted and eaten.  He was not all together happy about these things.  We also talked some about books (travel types mostly) and he put on someone "Canadian" when he found out that all of the people in the restaurant were Canadian (Alanis Morriset).  The restaurant was also awesome.

From the Maylyn we could ride bikes to a place called the Blue Lagoon which was a large swimming hole with a cave above it.  The cave had a reclining Buddha in it and got very dark (not surprisingly) the farther you got from the entrance.  The Blue Lagoon was cold and fresh and wonderful to swim in.  We are still considering a return trip to Vang Vieng simply to swim there.  We swam a few days in the Blue Lagoon and explored some more caves and trails around Vang Vieng in the next few days.  One of the more concerning things about the area was that every Lao child we saw along the road from the Maylyn to the Blue Lagoon seemed to think that we would give them money.  They would put one hand palm up and twirl the index finger of their other hand on top of it.  We did not know what this meant at first but after a child yelled "money" along with this gesture we got the message.  This is apparently a big problem all over Laos, kids skip school and beg for money from the foreigners in tourist spots.  Its terrible and heart breaking to see but, of course, the worst thing you can do is give them money.  The only kid we gave money to was a boy who fixed Nancy's bike (and that was largely because he did not ask for it; it was also not a school day).  On one of our rides home we were stopped by four girls who ran out in front of us.  They just wanted a ride back to their homes which were in our direction as it turned out and (they were small after all and our bikes did have "passenger seats") we managed to get them all on our bikes (two each).  Much to our disappointment they did ask for money the moment they got off.  To be fair we should have asked for money from them, but we did give them some water (they looked thirsty).

Nancy entering a cave.

Some Vang Vieng's karst mountains.

The Blue Lagoon

More of Vang Vieng's impressive scenery.

And still more.

At the Maylyn another Canadian couple was also staying (well actually several Canadians were staying there but this was the only couple that we talked to for a goodly amount of time) who we talked to on several occasions.  They were Jason and Dawn Bernard from Calgary but would be heading to New Brunswick (where Jason was originally from) after they finished their vacation.  Their vacation had thus far lasted 16 months.  They had saved for a few years and then sold everything (sounded like they had owned a fair bit of stuff) before heading on vacation.  They were also travelling until they ran out of money and had been all over Oceania and Southeast Asia (most recently Vietnam, which they weren't huge fans of) and were off to Europe next by the sounds of it.  We talked a lot about travel and its ups and downs.  It was nice to share travel stories and travel feelings.  Unfortunately we never could find them on Facebook (we can never find anyone on Facebook though).

Further North was the call and we eventually had to depart from Vang Vieng to the UNESCO heritage city (and former capital) of Luang Prabang.  As the bus was supposed to leave early we got up early paid our bill and even took a Tuk-Tuk to the bus station.  We needn't of bothered as the bus left 2 hours after we had expected it to and waited for a whole horde of other foreigners to arrive before departing.  So ended our first week in Laos.