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Can’t Get There From Here

- February 24, 2006 - - -

The most magical light in Laos lives on the Bolevan Plateau. For some reason not many tourists seem to make it out to the Bolevan Plateau, in spite of the fact that the roads are quite good, transport runs regularly, the villages peaceful, relaxed, even sleepy, little hamlets, a rarely used word that fits exactly what I mean.

All in all the Bolevan Plateau is wonderful, and not the least in part because no one else is there. In eight days of traveling we saw maybe ten tourists. The curious thing about it was that those we did meet seemed to for some reason think that we must know what we were doing and where we were going, which is comical to us since nothing could be further from the truth. Nevertheless, as luck would have it, often the first question someone asked would be the one thing we did know and so perhaps for that reason we came off as semi-knowledgeable. We met a very nice British couple our last night in Sekong, Jules and Ben, which for Francois Truffaut fans such as myself, was eerily close to Jules et Jim so I took an immediate liking to them. We ended up running into Jules and Ben again on the bus to Attapeu and shared a tuk-tuk to the guesthouse, which was actually more of a luxury hotel (by Laos standards anyway). Matt, Debi and I discovered that many of the nicer hotels have rooms with a double and single bed, thus fitting three people and solving the chief dilemma of traveling with three people—who has to pay more for their own room. Splitting the nice hotel three ways brought the costs down to roughly equal what we would typically pay at a rundown guesthouse and is obviously, well, nicer.

-As I've mentioned before, wandering around this area of Laos without a guide is not the safest activity in the world, but guides cost money. Luckily, with the addition of Jules and Ben (and yes I am going to keep typing their names out, because it's fun to say), the price of three motorbikes and guide became roughly the same as the two motorbikes we would have needed anyway. So we went for it especially given that the place we were interested in visiting was the epicenter of American bombing—the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Ask your average American to describe what they think the Ho Chi Minh Trail looks like and they would likely paint you a picture bearing some resemblance to an Oliver Stone film, a thin trail snaking though the jungle, a network of tunnels and, as I used to think, they would likely say it ran through Vietnam. In fact the Ho Chi Minh "Trail" was a road, and not just one road, but a whole network of roads crisscrossing the jungle and vast majority of it ran through Laos and Cambodia, not Vietnam.

Although we asked to be taken to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in the morning our guide took us out to see a "tribal village", which turned out to be rather more like one woman camped out in the middle of the jungle, roasting a mouse for lunch. Not to say that we were ripped off, but it was sort of a waste of a morning. It was nice to meet her and see how the villagers live when they're out in the jungle (not very well, most having been driven out of the more fertile hill areas by the government), but it was hardly worth the effort it took to get there.

The afternoon was somewhat better; we headed to Pa'am a small village at a junction on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The road getting there was a bit bumpy, especially for Matt and I. With the two of us on one motorbike we easily outweighed the rest of the group and on an aging Honda Dream with nothing much in the way of shocks (or brakes or mirrors for that matter), weight is not what you want. On the way there I made some attempts at dodging potholes and gullies (often skidding to do so), on the way back Matt drove and decided that the straight path was at least quicker, if not smoother.

In case anyone had any doubts about whether or not the Russians were helping the North Vietnamese in the war, they left behind a now rusted and falling apart SAM missile and launcher (presumably the warhead has been removed, but we never got a straight answer on that one). Otherwise the Ho Chi Minh Trail was somewhat anti-climatic, more of what I like to call a checklist site, that is, see it, check it off the list and move on.

Back in Attapeu we took a stroll around the evening market and then headed down to the banks of Sekong River to watch the sunset and sip a Beer Lao. The sunset was gorgeous, reflecting off the water and lingering on the distant clouds far longer than anywhere else we've seen in Laos. We watched the fishermen casting nets and canoes plying their way up and down the river with various cargos. Up the shoreline from us a group of boys played volleyball (a very popular sport in Laos) in the fading light.

If you look at a map of Laos (the one thing I haven't been good about on this site is showing maps, I'll work on that), there is a road that continues from Attapeu back around to Champasak where it joins route 13. This bit of road would make it possible to complete a loop around the Bolevan Plateau without having to retrace your steps. Unfortunately no public transport plies this road. Later in the evening after the sun had gone down and we climbed up the bank of the river to a restaurant, we ran into an Austrian man who was traveling by motorcycle (real motorcycle, not a Honda Dream) who had come over the road. He put it at roughly eighteen hours to cover one hundred kilometers and muttered something about "lots of rivers." At one point in his trip it had started to rain at which point he said he was covering about five kilometers an hour.

The next day we rented motorbikes again and set out down that road for a day trip to see what sort of villages and sights might be found along the way. At least leaving Attapeu the road wasn't too bad, but looking off at the distant cliffs and hills of the Bolevan Plateau it was easy to see how the road would likely get pretty bad. Nevertheless we had a good ride through the countryside stopping here and there to amuse the locals (we contemplated various song and dance routines, but just our existence seemed to sufficient for side-splitting entertainment, especially for children).

The one regret I have about traveling in Laos is that I'm here at the peak of the dry season, as such, as I've mentioned before, most plant life is brown or leafless, sort of like what you would find in Massachusetts right about now, but hot. Every now and then though we run across an irrigated rice paddy and for a moment it's possible to imagine how beautiful Laos is around the end of August or beginning of September when the wet season is just ending and everything that's now brown has turned a bright, almost iridescent green. If you ever come to Laos I recommend August or September, though it will be hot and probably pretty steamy.

It was nearly nightfall by the time we made it back to Attapeu. We grabbed a bite to eat at small restaurant where some Vietnamese truck drivers tried to ply us with drinks and make conversation in very rough English with the occasional Laos phrase. Walking home we decided to stop by the carnival that was in town for a few days. We wandered about the various stalls and played a few rounds of the apparently worldwide game where you throw darts at balloons. Debi and I won mints; Matt was somewhat more successful and won an orange drink of some sort. We also paid to see two obviously poorly treated monkeys ride bicycles around a centrifuge, which we at first thought might spin them around or something rather awful like that, but luckily for the monkeys their act was short and involved no spinning. The spinning was left to the bigger and perhaps one it tempted to say, not as bright monkeys—humans. Using the centrifugal force about six circus performers climbed walls, sat on chairs and did other tricks for about five minutes. It made me dizzy just to watch them. My understanding of centrifuges was that they separated fluids of different densities (ah Mr. Dukes would be so proud that I remember that), but apparently, at least in Southeast Asia, it's a circus act as well.

Eventually the number of people began to dwindle and not wanting to steal too much attention from the real circus acts, we headed home, feeling not a little bit guilty about contributing to the rough treatment of what looked like some truly miserable monkeys. Back in the hotel we sat up watching Lost in Translation on my laptop and drinking some of the wine Debi had brought from Thailand, all and all the perfect way to end a day.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/cant-get-there-here.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/cant-get-there-here.html deleted file mode 100644 index 3eea8e1..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/cant-get-there-here.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,460 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Can’T Get There From Here - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Home → - -
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Can’t Get There From Here

Riding motorbikes in the magical light of the Bolevan Plateau

Attapeu, Lao (PDR)

- – Map -

- February 24, 2006 - -

The light of Bolevan Plateau is unlike any I have seen before. It has something more. It has something indescribable, ineffable, something you want to see everywhere, but never will again.

Not many tourists make it out to the Bolevan Plateau. I’m not sure why. The roads are good, transport runs regularly. The villages out here are peacefully quiet. You might even call them sleepy little hamlets if you were a travel guide writer.

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man paddling a boat across the river, near Xekong Laos photographed by luxagraf

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All in all the Bolevan Plateau is wonderful, but possibly in part because no one else is out here. It’s just you, the river, the people, and the light.

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Sunset over the river, near Attapeu Laos photographed by luxagraf

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In eight days of traveling we saw maybe ten tourists. The curious thing about it was that those we did meet seemed to assume that we must know what we were doing, where we were going, where they should be going. In fact we never have any idea what we’re doing, out here especially. We were usually just wandering around, probably lost. Nevertheless, as luck would have it, the first question someone asked always turned out to be the one thing we did know, which gave this illusion that we knew what we were doing.

Our last night in Sekong we met a very nice British couple who knew even more than us. And we ended up running into Jules and Ben again on the bus to Attapeu so we all shared a tuk-tuk to the guesthouse, which was actually more of a luxury hotel (by our standards anyway).

This was where we discovered that many of the nicer hotels have rooms with a double and single bed, thus fitting three people and solving the chief dilemma of traveling with three people, which is that someone has to pay more for their own room. Splitting the nice hotel three ways brought the costs down to roughly equal what we would typically pay at a rundown guesthouse and it was, well, much nicer.

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me matt and debi, Sekong Laos photographed by luxagraf

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As I’ve mentioned before, wandering off in the bush around this area of Laos without a guide is not the safest activity in the world, unexploded ordinance and all. Attapeu is about the closest you can get to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, epicenter of American bombing for much of the Vietnam war. Every other guesthouse and restaurant in these villages wants to take you out to see whatever is left of the war.

Guides cost a good bit of money though. War tourism isn’t all that appealing to me, especially if it’s expensive. This time though, with five people, we were able to work out a deal that wasn’t too much more than just the price of a motorbike for one person. So we went out to see the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Ask your average American to describe what they think the Ho Chi Minh Trail looks like and they would likely paint you a picture bearing some resemblance to a cheesy Oliver Stone film, a thin trail snaking though the jungle, a network of tunnels and, as I used to think, they would likely say it ran through Vietnam.

In fact the Ho Chi Minh “Trail” was a road, and not just one road, but a whole network of roads crisscrossing the jungle. The vast majority of it ran through Laos and Cambodia, not Vietnam.

This is Laos though, so even though we asked to be taken to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, we were first taken somewhere else. Our guide really thought we would want to see a “tribal village”, which turned out to be rather more like one woman camped out in the middle of the jungle, roasting a mouse for lunch. It reminded me far too much of the zoo-like aspects of Shilpogram to enjoy it. It was one of the many moments I wish I knew more Laos.

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Laos countryside photographed by luxagraf

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The afternoon was somewhat better; we headed to Pa’am a small village at a junction on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The road getting there was a bit bumpy, especially for Matt and I. With the two of us on one motorbike we easily outweighed the rest of the group by quite a bit. On an aging Honda Dream with nothing much in the way of shocks (or brakes or mirrors for that matter), weight is not what you want. On the way there I made some attempts at dodging potholes and gullies (often skidding to do so), on the way back Matt decided that the straight path was at least quicker, if not smoother.

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rest break, riding motorbikes, Laos photographed by luxagraf

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matt riding a motorbike across ricketty wooden bridge in Laos photographed by luxagraf

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rider in the distance, laos countryside photographed by luxagraf

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In case anyone had any doubts about whether or not the Russians were helping the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, they left behind a SAM missile and launcher (presumably the warhead has been removed, but we never got a straight answer on that). Otherwise the Ho Chi Minh Trail was somewhat anti-climatic. It’s a famous road that turns out to be, well, a road.

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Russian SAM missile, Laos photographed by luxagraf

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Back in Attapeu we took a stroll around the evening market and then headed down to the banks of Sekong River to watch the sunset and sip a Beer Lao. The light catches the water and seems to linger on clouds far longer than should be possible, like time is moving just a little slower than normal out here. We watched fishermen cast nets and canoes plying their way up and down the river with cargo hidden under tarps. Up the shoreline from us a group of boys played volleyball in the fading light.

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another orange sunset over the river, near Sekong Laos photographed by luxagraf

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sunset over the river, near Sekong Laos photographed by luxagraf

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If you look at a map of Laos there is a road that continues from Attapeu back around to Champasak where it rejoins route 13. This bit of road would make it possible to complete a loop around the Bolevan Plateau without having to retrace your steps. Unfortunately no public transportation plies this road.

Later that evening, after the sun had gone down and we climbed up the bank of the river to a restaurant, we ran into an Austrian man who was traveling by motorcycle (real motorcycle, not a Honda Dream). He had just come over the road. He put it at roughly eighteen hours to cover one hundred kilometers and muttered something about “lots of rivers.” He said he managed about five kilometers an hour most of the way, much of it in pouring rain. It made me wish, not for the first time, that I had a motorcycle of my own.

The next day we did what we could and rented motorbikes again to see if we couldn’t at least see a little of the now infamous (to us at least) road. Leaving Attapeu the road wasn’t too bad, but looking off at the distant cliffs and hills of the Bolevan Plateau it was easy to see how the road would likely turn pretty awful, pretty quick.

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little boy by the side of a rice field, Laos photographed by luxagraf

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riding in the countryside, Laos photographed by luxagraf

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setting sun from the road, laos photographed by luxagraf

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We ran out of daylight before we got that far. Nevertheless we had a good ride through the countryside stopping here and there to amuse the locals with our existence. I considered starting some sort of song and dance routine, but just showing up always seemed sufficient for side-splitting entertainment, especially for children.

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riding in the sunset, laos photographed by luxagraf

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mountains of laos photographed by luxagraf

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It was nearly nightfall by the time we made it back to Attapeu. We grabbed a bite to eat at small restaurant where some Vietnamese truck drivers plied us with drinks and made conversation in very rough English with the occasional Laos phrase.

Walking home we decided to stop by the carnival that was in town for a few days. We wandered about the various stalls and threw a few rounds of darts at balloons. Debi and I won mints; Matt was somewhat more successful and won an orange drink of some sort.

We also paid to see two obviously poorly treated monkeys ride bicycles around a centrifuge, which we at first thought might spin them around or something rather awful like that, but luckily for the monkeys their act was short and involved no spinning.

The spinning was left to the bigger and perhaps one it tempted to say, not as bright monkeys — humans. Using the centrifugal force about six circus performers climbed walls, sat on chairs and did other tricks for about five minutes. It made me dizzy just to watch them.

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dancers spinning at the local fair, laos photographed by luxagraf

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Eventually the number of people began to dwindle and not wanting to steal too much attention from the real circus acts, we headed home, feeling not a little bit guilty about contributing to the rough treatment of what looked like some truly miserable monkeys. Back in the hotel we sat up watching Lost in Translation and drinking wine Debi brought from Thailand. The perfect way to end a day.

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Thoughts?

Please leave a reply:

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All comments are moderated, so you won’t see it right away. And please remember Kurt Vonnegut's rule: “god damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” You can use Markdown or HTML to format your comments. The allowed tags are <b>, <i>, <em>, <strong>, <a>. To create a new paragraph hit return twice.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/cant-get-there-here.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/cant-get-there-here.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ed4b937..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/cant-get-there-here.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,88 +0,0 @@ -Can’t Get There From Here -=============================== - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Friday, 24 February 2006 - -The light of Bolevan Plateau is unlike any I have seen before. It has something more. It has something indescribable, ineffable, something you want to see everywhere, but never will again. - -Not many tourists make it out to the Bolevan Plateau. I'm not sure why. The roads are good, transport runs regularly. The villages out here are peacefully quiet. You might even call them sleepy little hamlets if you were a travel guide writer. - -

- -All in all the Bolevan Plateau is wonderful, but possibly in part *because* no one else is out here. It's just you, the river, the people, and the light. - -

- -In eight days of traveling we saw maybe ten tourists. The curious thing about it was that those we did meet seemed to assume that we must know what we were doing, where we were going, where they should be going. In fact we never have any idea what we're doing, out here especially. We were usually just wandering around, probably lost. Nevertheless, as luck would have it, the first question someone asked always turned out to be the one thing we did know, which gave this illusion that we knew what we were doing. - -Our last night in Sekong we met a very nice British couple who knew even more than us. And we ended up running into Jules and Ben again on the bus to Attapeu so we all shared a tuk-tuk to the guesthouse, which was actually more of a luxury hotel (by our standards anyway). - -This was where we discovered that many of the nicer hotels have rooms with a double and single bed, thus fitting three people and solving the chief dilemma of traveling with three people, which is that someone has to pay more for their own room. Splitting the nice hotel three ways brought the costs down to roughly equal what we would typically pay at a rundown guesthouse and it was, well, much nicer. - -

- -As I've mentioned before, wandering off in the bush around this area of Laos without a guide is not the safest activity in the world, unexploded ordinance and all. Attapeu is about the closest you can get to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, epicenter of American bombing for much of the Vietnam war. Every other guesthouse and restaurant in these villages wants to take you out to see whatever is left of the war. - -Guides cost a good bit of money though. War tourism isn't all that appealing to me, especially if it's expensive. This time though, with five people, we were able to work out a deal that wasn't too much more than just the price of a motorbike for one person. So we went out to see the Ho Chi Minh Trail. - -Ask your average American to describe what they think the Ho Chi Minh Trail looks like and they would likely paint you a picture bearing some resemblance to a cheesy Oliver Stone film, a thin trail snaking though the jungle, a network of tunnels and, as I used to think, they would likely say it ran through Vietnam. - -In fact the Ho Chi Minh "Trail" was a road, and not just one road, but a whole network of roads crisscrossing the jungle. The vast majority of it ran through Laos and Cambodia, not Vietnam. - -This is Laos though, so even though we asked to be taken to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, we were first taken somewhere else. Our guide really thought we would want to see a "tribal village", which turned out to be rather more like one woman camped out in the middle of the jungle, roasting a mouse for lunch. It reminded me far too much of the [zoo-like aspects of Shilpogram](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2005/11/around-udaipur) to enjoy it. It was one of the many moments I wish I knew more Laos. - -

- - -The afternoon was somewhat better; we headed to Pa'am a small village at a junction on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The road getting there was a bit bumpy, especially for Matt and I. With the two of us on one motorbike we easily outweighed the rest of the group by quite a bit. On an aging Honda Dream with nothing much in the way of shocks (or brakes or mirrors for that matter), weight is not what you want. On the way there I made some attempts at dodging potholes and gullies (often skidding to do so), on the way back Matt decided that the straight path was at least quicker, if not smoother. - -

- -In case anyone had any doubts about whether or not the Russians were helping the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, they left behind a SAM missile and launcher (presumably the warhead has been removed, but we never got a straight answer on that). Otherwise the Ho Chi Minh Trail was somewhat anti-climatic. It's a famous road that turns out to be, well, a road. - -

- -Back in Attapeu we took a stroll around the evening market and then headed down to the banks of Sekong River to watch the sunset and sip a Beer Lao. The light catches the water and seems to linger on clouds far longer than should be possible, like time is moving just a little slower than normal out here. We watched fishermen cast nets and canoes plying their way up and down the river with cargo hidden under tarps. Up the shoreline from us a group of boys played volleyball in the fading light. - -

- -If you look at a map of Laos there is a road that continues from Attapeu back around to Champasak where it rejoins route 13. This bit of road would make it possible to complete a loop around the Bolevan Plateau without having to retrace your steps. Unfortunately no public transportation plies this road. - -Later that evening, after the sun had gone down and we climbed up the bank of the river to a restaurant, we ran into an Austrian man who was traveling by motorcycle (real motorcycle, not a Honda Dream). He had just come over the road. He put it at roughly eighteen hours to cover one hundred kilometers and muttered something about "lots of rivers." He said he managed about five kilometers an hour most of the way, much of it in pouring rain. It made me wish, not for the first time, that I had a motorcycle of my own. - -The next day we did what we could and rented motorbikes again to see if we couldn't at least see a little of the now infamous (to us at least) road. Leaving Attapeu the road wasn't too bad, but looking off at the distant cliffs and hills of the Bolevan Plateau it was easy to see how the road would likely turn pretty awful, pretty quick. - -

- -

- -We ran out of daylight before we got that far. Nevertheless we had a good ride through the countryside stopping here and there to amuse the locals with our existence. I considered starting some sort of song and dance routine, but just showing up always seemed sufficient for side-splitting entertainment, especially for children. - -

- -

- -It was nearly nightfall by the time we made it back to Attapeu. We grabbed a bite to eat at small restaurant where some Vietnamese truck drivers plied us with drinks and made conversation in very rough English with the occasional Laos phrase. - -Walking home we decided to stop by the carnival that was in town for a few days. We wandered about the various stalls and threw a few rounds of darts at balloons. Debi and I won mints; Matt was somewhat more successful and won an orange drink of some sort. - -We also paid to see two obviously poorly treated monkeys ride bicycles around a centrifuge, which we at first thought might spin them around or something rather awful like that, but luckily for the monkeys their act was short and involved no spinning. - -The spinning was left to the bigger and perhaps one it tempted to say, not as bright monkeys -- humans. Using the centrifugal force about six circus performers climbed walls, sat on chairs and did other tricks for about five minutes. It made me dizzy just to watch them. - -

- -Eventually the number of people began to dwindle and not wanting to steal too much attention from the real circus acts, we headed home, feeling not a little bit guilty about contributing to the rough treatment of what looked like some truly miserable monkeys. Back in the hotel we sat up watching *Lost in Translation* and drinking wine Debi brought from Thailand. The perfect way to end a day. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.amp deleted file mode 100644 index afca16a..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,186 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Everyday the Fourteenth - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Everyday the Fourteenth

- February 14, 2006 - - -

If the water had been high enough we could have simply headed downstream from Konglor village and followed the Hin Bun River all the way to a small village where we could walk to route 13, the major north south artery of Laos.

The boat was powered by the ever-present-in-southeast-Asia long tail motor which is essential a lawnmower engine with a three meter pole extending out of it to which a small propeller is attached—perfect for navigating shallow water. And by shallow I mean sometimes a mere inch between the hull and the riverbed. -

The scenery was beautiful, but the sun baked our skin and the hard wooden planks on which we sat for five hours without stopping did nothing to help our already sore butts. In fact even two weeks later as I write this, I still have difficulty sitting on anything wooden for more than an hour. There is certain point at which even molded plastic chairs seem like luxurious padding.

We were dropped off in a small unremarkable roadside town and after paying Bon's cousin we walked up to route 13 just as the sun was setting and plopped our bags at the side of the road. I will admit that our prospects for a ride did not look good. We bet on how long it would take and it was Jackie, ever the optimist, who got closest—a mere ten minutes. We barely had time to buy some oranges before a bus came to a roaring stop next to our bags. We threw our belongings on the roof and climbed over the various bags of rice and still flopping fish that are standard fare on any Lao bus ride. We didn't meet them that night, but there was another western couple of the bus who later confessed to being deeply impressed that we were just standing at the side of the road in a town that doesn't even make it on most maps. Of course the truth is our journey off the beaten path was anything but challenging, but naturally we didn't tell them that.

Matt and I remained standing in the aisle most of the four hour ride to Savannakhet, which was just fine with me since I had been sitting for fifteen hours previously. Checking into a guesthouse in Savannakhet proved a surreal experience since the owner was watching BBC news; I hadn't seen the news since I left Thailand almost six weeks ago. It was vaguely depressing to notice that while the names changed and the countries involved were sometimes different, the news was essentially the same, probably always was the same and probably always will be the same. Ofir and I flipped on the in room TV and watched some Mad Max, which, like the news, was essentially the same as last time I saw it, but Mad Max has a character named "feral boy" which is something the news generally lacks.

We spent the next day exploring Savannakhet by bicycle, but really there wasn't much to see so we mainly sat in the room recuperating and watching movies. Early next morning we continued on to Pakse, but after one night there we didn't see much point in staying. Jackie, Matt and I headed up onto the Bolaven Plateau to a small town named Tat Lo, which was essentially the same as Vang Vieng though slightly less touristy. Ofir decided to part ways and head down to the four thousand islands area since his visa was about to expire. We were sorry to see him go, especially me since I had been traveling with him for over a month by that point. Good luck Ofir, enjoy the rest of your time in Thailand.

As I mentioned earlier the idea behind going to Tat Lo was to find somewhere pleasant to wait for Debi to catch up, but Jackie was out of time and went to join Ofir in the four thousand Islands before her visa ran out. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip Jackie and I promise I'll visit you in Berlin. Matt and I were a little unsure what to do since we had told Debi to come to Tat Lo, but we didn't like it much so we elected to head farther out over the Bolaven Plateau to the town of Sekong. It turned out that Debi was having her own little misadventure having flown to the wrong city in Thailand. So she had to catch an over night bus to Pakse, which despite the hilarity of it (never have your brother's exgirlfriend book your plane flight, even if she is Thai), worked out perfectly when she met us the next night in Sekong.

Many thanks to Ofir and Jackie for the use of their photos; the first is Ofir's and the one of us at the side of the road is Jackie's.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.html deleted file mode 100644 index e42641c..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,339 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Everyday The Fourteenth - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Savannakhet, Lao (PDR)

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- February 14, 2006 - -

Boat, Hin Bun River, Laos Unfortunately for us the water level was too low to leave from Konglor so we set off at 6 AM by sawngthaew to retrace the brutal journey of the day before. Perhaps it was the fact that we already knew where we were going, perhaps we stopped less along the way, perhaps we went faster, whatever the case, the second time the road didn’t seem as long or as bad. We got dropped off at Ralph’s restaurant, ate some breakfast and then took a tuk-tuk down to the river with Bon’s cousin who was piloting the boat. We then piled four large bags, four daypacks and five people in a six meter dugout canoe. At least it looked like a dugout canoe, but it leaked like a sieve which leads me to believe there must have been a seam somewhere. Jackie and I traded off bailing to keep our bags dry.

Hin Bun River, Laos We passed through series of stunning valleys with jagged karst mountains on all sides. The dark limestone has a way of looking menacing and foreboding even in the glare of the midday sun. As with the untapped spelunking, there is a wealth of amazing climbing routes just waiting for first ascents from someone willing the brave the tigers and UXO.

We were dropped off in a small unremarkable roadside town and after paying Bon’s cousin we walked up to route 13 just as the sun was setting and plopped our bags at the side of the road. I will admit that our prospects for a ride did not look good. We bet on how long it would take and it was Jackie, ever the optimist, who got closest—a mere ten minutes. We barely had time to buy some oranges before a bus came to a roaring stop next to our bags. Waiting for the Bus, Hin Bun, Laos We threw our belongings on the roof and climbed over the various bags of rice and still flopping fish that are standard fare on any Lao bus ride. We didn’t meet them that night, but there was another western couple of the bus who later confessed to being deeply impressed that we were just standing at the side of the road in a town that doesn’t even make it on most maps. Of course the truth is our journey off the beaten path was anything but challenging, but naturally we didn’t tell them that.

Matt and I remained standing in the aisle most of the four hour ride to Savannakhet, which was just fine with me since I had been sitting for fifteen hours previously. Checking into a guesthouse in Savannakhet proved a surreal experience since the owner was watching BBC news; I hadn’t seen the news since I left Thailand almost six weeks ago. It was vaguely depressing to notice that while the names changed and the countries involved were sometimes different, the news was essentially the same, probably always was the same and probably always will be the same. Ofir and I flipped on the in room TV and watched some Mad Max, which, like the news, was essentially the same as last time I saw it, but Mad Max has a character named “feral boy” which is something the news generally lacks.

We spent the next day exploring Savannakhet by bicycle, but really there wasn’t much to see so we mainly sat in the room recuperating and watching movies. Early next morning we continued on to Pakse, but after one night there we didn’t see much point in staying. Jackie, Matt and I headed up onto the Bolaven Plateau to a small town named Tat Lo, which was essentially the same as Vang Vieng though slightly less touristy. Ofir decided to part ways and head down to the four thousand islands area since his visa was about to expire. We were sorry to see him go, especially me since I had been traveling with him for over a month by that point. Good luck Ofir, enjoy the rest of your time in Thailand.

Tat Lo Waterfall, Laos Tat Lo was peaceful and swimming in the waterfall on a hot afternoon was very refreshing but the place didn’t really grab us. We decided to wait one extra day and see if Debi would indeed meet up with us again. The only remarkable thing that happened in Tat Lo was Valentines Day which we celebrated by, well, going to bed early and alone the way single people tend to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Jackie very thoughtfully gave both Matt and I paper roses and cigarette lighters which she found god knows where. And of course we had nothing to reciprocate with which might go a long way to explain why the both of us are single. But then again the day before, riding in the back of a sawngthaew we watched a young Lao lad on a motorbike try to give a rose to a young Lao girl on the back of another motorbike, which would have been terribly endearing except that she didn’t accept it. Sorry we’re such flakes Jackie, but you already knew that; this post is hereby dedicated to you. Happy Valentine’s Day.

As I mentioned earlier the idea behind going to Tat Lo was to find somewhere pleasant to wait for Debi to catch up, but Jackie was out of time and went to join Ofir in the four thousand Islands before her visa ran out. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip Jackie and I promise I’ll visit you in Berlin. Matt and I were a little unsure what to do since we had told Debi to come to Tat Lo, but we didn’t like it much so we elected to head farther out over the Bolaven Plateau to the town of Sekong. It turned out that Debi was having her own little misadventure having flown to the wrong city in Thailand. So she had to catch an over night bus to Pakse, which despite the hilarity of it (never have your brother’s exgirlfriend book your plane flight, even if she is Thai), worked out perfectly when she met us the next night in Sekong.

Many thanks to Ofir and Jackie for the use of their photos; the first is Ofir’s and the one of us at the side of the road is Jackie’s.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4f5a7f9..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/everyday-fourteenth.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,29 +0,0 @@ -Everyday the Fourteenth -======================= - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Tuesday, 14 February 2006 - -If the water had been high enough we could have simply headed downstream from Konglor village and followed the Hin Bun River all the way to a small village where we could walk to route 13, the major north south artery of Laos. - - Boat, Hin Bun River, Laos

Unfortunately for us the water level was too low to leave from Konglor so we set off at 6 AM by sawngthaew to retrace the brutal journey of the day before. Perhaps it was the fact that we already knew where we were going, perhaps we stopped less along the way, perhaps we went faster, whatever the case, the second time the road didn't seem as long or as bad. We got dropped off at Ralph's restaurant, ate some breakfast and then took a tuk-tuk down to the river with Bon's cousin who was piloting the boat. We then piled four large bags, four daypacks and five people in a six meter dugout canoe. At least it looked like a dugout canoe, but it leaked like a sieve which leads me to believe there must have been a seam somewhere. Jackie and I traded off bailing to keep our bags dry. - -The boat was powered by the ever-present-in-southeast-Asia long tail motor which is essential a lawnmower engine with a three meter pole extending out of it to which a small propeller is attached—perfect for navigating shallow water. And by shallow I mean sometimes a mere inch between the hull and the riverbed. - - - Hin Bun River, Laos

We passed through series of stunning valleys with jagged karst mountains on all sides. The dark limestone has a way of looking menacing and foreboding even in the glare of the midday sun. As with the untapped spelunking, there is a wealth of amazing climbing routes just waiting for first ascents from someone willing the brave the tigers and UXO. - -The scenery was beautiful, but the sun baked our skin and the hard wooden planks on which we sat for five hours without stopping did nothing to help our already sore butts. In fact even two weeks later as I write this, I still have difficulty sitting on anything wooden for more than an hour. There is certain point at which even molded plastic chairs seem like luxurious padding. - -We were dropped off in a small unremarkable roadside town and after paying Bon's cousin we walked up to route 13 just as the sun was setting and plopped our bags at the side of the road. I will admit that our prospects for a ride did not look good. We bet on how long it would take and it was Jackie, ever the optimist, who got closest—a mere ten minutes. We barely had time to buy some oranges before a bus came to a roaring stop next to our bags. Waiting for the Bus, Hin Bun, Laos

We threw our belongings on the roof and climbed over the various bags of rice and still flopping fish that are standard fare on any Lao bus ride. We didn't meet them that night, but there was another western couple of the bus who later confessed to being deeply impressed that we were just standing at the side of the road in a town that doesn't even make it on most maps. Of course the truth is our journey off the beaten path was anything but challenging, but naturally we didn't tell them that. - -Matt and I remained standing in the aisle most of the four hour ride to Savannakhet, which was just fine with me since I had been sitting for fifteen hours previously. Checking into a guesthouse in Savannakhet proved a surreal experience since the owner was watching BBC news; I hadn't seen the news since I left Thailand almost six weeks ago. It was vaguely depressing to notice that while the names changed and the countries involved were sometimes different, the news was essentially the same, probably always was the same and probably always will be the same. Ofir and I flipped on the in room TV and watched some Mad Max, which, like the news, was essentially the same as last time I saw it, but Mad Max has a character named "feral boy" which is something the news generally lacks. - -We spent the next day exploring Savannakhet by bicycle, but really there wasn't much to see so we mainly sat in the room recuperating and watching movies. Early next morning we continued on to Pakse, but after one night there we didn't see much point in staying. Jackie, Matt and I headed up onto the Bolaven Plateau to a small town named Tat Lo, which was essentially the same as Vang Vieng though slightly less touristy. Ofir decided to part ways and head down to the four thousand islands area since his visa was about to expire. We were sorry to see him go, especially me since I had been traveling with him for over a month by that point. Good luck Ofir, enjoy the rest of your time in Thailand. - - Tat Lo Waterfall, Laos

Tat Lo was peaceful and swimming in the waterfall on a hot afternoon was very refreshing but the place didn't really grab us. We decided to wait one extra day and see if Debi would indeed meet up with us again. The only remarkable thing that happened in Tat Lo was Valentines Day which we celebrated by, well, going to bed early and alone the way single people tend to celebrate Valentine's Day. Jackie very thoughtfully gave both Matt and I paper roses and cigarette lighters which she found god knows where. And of course we had nothing to reciprocate with which might go a long way to explain why the both of us are single. But then again the day before, riding in the back of a sawngthaew we watched a young Lao lad on a motorbike try to give a rose to a young Lao girl on the back of another motorbike, which would have been terribly endearing except that she didn't accept it. Sorry we're such flakes Jackie, but you already knew that; this post is hereby dedicated to you. Happy Valentine's Day. - -As I mentioned earlier the idea behind going to Tat Lo was to find somewhere pleasant to wait for Debi to catch up, but Jackie was out of time and went to join Ofir in the four thousand Islands before her visa ran out. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip Jackie and I promise I'll visit you in Berlin. Matt and I were a little unsure what to do since we had told Debi to come to Tat Lo, but we didn't like it much so we elected to head farther out over the Bolaven Plateau to the town of Sekong. It turned out that Debi was having her own little misadventure having flown to the wrong city in Thailand. So she had to catch an over night bus to Pakse, which despite the hilarity of it (never have your brother's **ex**girlfriend book your plane flight, even if she is Thai), worked out perfectly when she met us the next night in Sekong. - -Many thanks to Ofir and Jackie for the use of their photos; the first is Ofir's and the one of us at the side of the road is Jackie's. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/index.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/index.html deleted file mode 100644 index aaaf3f0..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/index.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,119 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Luxagraf - Topografical Writings: Archive - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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February

Archive: February 2006

Little Corner of the World - Feb 28, 2006 -
Can’t Get There From Here - Feb 24, 2006 -
Safe as Milk - Feb 18, 2006 -
Everyday the Fourteenth - Feb 14, 2006 -
Water Slides and Spirit Guides - Feb 10, 2006 -
The Lovely Universe - Feb 04, 2006 -

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- - - - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.amp deleted file mode 100644 index 4c66cba..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,183 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Little Corner of the World - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Little Corner of the World

- February 28, 2006 - - -

After my time in Attapeu I felt I had had my fill of the various small towns in southern Laos. Debi and Matt opted to head up to Salavan and then on to a small village called Tahoy, where rumor had it the tigers were so plentiful it wasn't safe to go out at night. It sounded fun and if they had seen tigers, I would have regretted my decision, but I've come to be pretty wary of anything written in a guidebook so I opted to take the bus straight back to Pakse where I was pretty sure some website revisions would be waiting for me in my inbox.

-My hunch was correct and I spent a day and a half in Pakse working on the website I started way back in Vang Vieng. After a trip to the morning market the next day, I caught a truck down to Champasak where I was to wait for Matt and Debi. The chief draw in Champasak is an aging wat that dates from the Angkor period and was apparently the northern most outpost of the Angkor Empire. Aside from the wat, the town of Champasak is yet another very sleepily and very small town along the Mekong, but not an unpleasant place to pass a few days. I briefly toured around the wat, which was nice, and perhaps a bit of warm up for Angkor Wat, but regrettably most of the great artifacts from Wat Phu were at some point carted off and then later returned and now housed in a museum at the base of the wat.

Wat Phu is another UNESCO site and was at the time I was there an active archeological dig. Perhaps at some point the original statues, figures and carvings will be returned to the grounds of the wat, but for the time being there are house in air conditioned comfort and thus the wat itself is rather lacking. Just to once again slag the Lonely Planet Guide to Laos, if, as the book says, this is "one of the highlights" to your visit to Laos, well, I pity you, you have not seen much of Laos. [I have a sneaking suspicion that the authors of the Laos Lonely Planet deliberately build up the more touristy areas and neglect the lesser known parts out of self-interest—they want to keep the good stuff to themselves—which is fine with me since it isn't that hard to figure everything out once you get here, provided you invest a modicum of effort].

Mainly I spent my time in Champasak sitting of the veranda of my guesthouse reading and writing. The second afternoon, somewhat to my surprise, Debi and Matt wandered up the stairs. I wanted to meet up with them again, but given that we had no real means of communication I wasn't sure it would happen, but luckily it did. The next day I met an American woman, Christie, and we all caught the bus down to the four thousand Islands to relax for a few days before heading into Cambodia.

It's difficult to explain but the further south you go in Laos the more relaxed life becomes. Since life in the north is not exactly high stress, by the time we arrived in the four thousand Islands we had to check our pulse periodically to ensure that time was in fact still moving forward. That sounds like a complaint, but it's not meant to be. Southern Laos is simply, well, the villagers tend to the fields in the morning and evening, or fish or weave and generally the heat of the day is spent lying around trying not to move. There is good reason for that, it's hot and the air is deathly still most of the time. When the air does move it's somewhat like the puff of heat that might come from a convention oven when you open the door.

I have long held to a theory that the environment shapes culture and the people who create it. For instance heavy industrial development does not seem to happen in equatorial areas and there's a good reason for that. Those that think the west is more "advanced" because of their work ethic or that sort of thing, ought to come out here to Laos and see how motivated for work they are at one in the afternoon.

I came to the four thousand islands to avoid everything involving heavy machinery and peacefully wind down my time in Laos. There isn't much to see nor much to do, which provides some excellent time for lying in hammock and reflecting on the two months I've spent here. Just down the Mekong lies a whole new experience—Cambodia—but before I move on I wanted to spend a few days thinking about where I've been.

Farewell Laos and people of Laos, I look forward to returning one day.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.html deleted file mode 100644 index 09f63af..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,337 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Little Corner Of The World - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Four Thousand Islands, Lao (PDR)

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- February 28, 2006 - -

After my time in Attapeu I felt I had had my fill of the various small towns in southern Laos. Debi and Matt opted to head up to Salavan and then on to a small village called Tahoy, where rumor had it the tigers were so plentiful it wasn’t safe to go out at night. It sounded fun and if they had seen tigers, I would have regretted my decision, but I’ve come to be pretty wary of anything written in a guidebook so I opted to take the bus straight back to Pakse where I was pretty sure some website revisions would be waiting for me in my inbox.

-My hunch was correct and I spent a day and a half in Pakse working on the website I started way back in Vang Vieng. After a trip to the morning market the next day, I caught a truck down to Champasak where I was to wait for Matt and Debi. Morning Market, Pakse, Laos The chief draw in Champasak is an aging wat that dates from the Angkor period and was apparently the northern most outpost of the Angkor Empire. Aside from the wat, the town of Champasak is yet another very sleepily and very small town along the Mekong, but not an unpleasant place to pass a few days. I briefly toured around the wat, which was nice, and perhaps a bit of warm up for Angkor Wat, but regrettably most of the great artifacts from Wat Phu were at some point carted off and then later returned and now housed in a museum at the base of the wat.

Wat Phu is another UNESCO site and was at the time I was there an active archeological dig. Perhaps at some point the original statues, figures and carvings will be returned to the grounds of the wat, but for the time being there are house in air conditioned comfort and thus the wat itself is rather lacking. Just to once again slag the Lonely Planet Guide to Laos, if, as the book says, this is “one of the highlights” to your visit to Laos, well, I pity you, you have not seen much of Laos. [I have a sneaking suspicion that the authors of the Laos Lonely Planet deliberately build up the more touristy areas and neglect the lesser known parts out of self-interest—they want to keep the good stuff to themselves—which is fine with me since it isn’t that hard to figure everything out once you get here, provided you invest a modicum of effort].

Mainly I spent my time in Champasak sitting of the veranda of my guesthouse reading and writing. The second afternoon, somewhat to my surprise, Debi and Matt wandered up the stairs. View from Guesthouse, Champasak, Laos I wanted to meet up with them again, but given that we had no real means of communication I wasn’t sure it would happen, but luckily it did. The next day I met an American woman, Christie, and we all caught the bus down to the four thousand Islands to relax for a few days before heading into Cambodia.

It’s difficult to explain but the further south you go in Laos the more relaxed life becomes. Since life in the north is not exactly high stress, by the time we arrived in the four thousand Islands we had to check our pulse periodically to ensure that time was in fact still moving forward. That sounds like a complaint, but it’s not meant to be. Southern Laos is simply, well, the villagers tend to the fields in the morning and evening, or fish or weave and generally the heat of the day is spent lying around trying not to move. There is good reason for that, it’s hot and the air is deathly still most of the time. When the air does move it’s somewhat like the puff of heat that might come from a convention oven when you open the door.

I have long held to a theory that the environment shapes culture and the people who create it. For instance heavy industrial development does not seem to happen in equatorial areas and there’s a good reason for that. Those that think the west is more “advanced” because of their work ethic or that sort of thing, ought to come out here to Laos and see how motivated for work they are at one in the afternoon.

I came to the four thousand islands to avoid everything involving heavy machinery and peacefully wind down my time in Laos. There isn’t much to see nor much to do, which provides some excellent time for lying in hammock and reflecting on the two months I’ve spent here. Just down the Mekong lies a whole new experience—Cambodia—but before I move on I wanted to spend a few days thinking about where I’ve been.

Sunset over the Sekong River, Laos As I’ve written before I had no intention of spending more than a few weeks in Laos, just enough time to see the big sights and then drop back into Thailand with a new visa. As fate or life or what have you often works my plans disappeared in a puff of smoke somewhere on the Mekong that first day in Laos. This compounded with some personal events that I will not mention here compelled me to dig deeper into Laos. For these reasons and many more, too many to list, Laos will always occupy a profoundly vivid spot in my memory. The people of Laos did what I did not think would be possible, they topped the enthusiasm, warmth and friendliness of India (which is in no way meant to diminish the Indians). The landscape is some of the most beautiful I’ve seen in Southeast Asia and I will return here someday, I wouldn’t consider any trip to Southeast Asia complete without a few months in Laos.

Farewell Laos and people of Laos, I look forward to returning one day.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c820b04..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/little-corner-world.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25 +0,0 @@ -Little Corner of the World -========================== - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Tuesday, 28 February 2006 - -After my time in Attapeu I felt I had had my fill of the various small towns in southern Laos. Debi and Matt opted to head up to Salavan and then on to a small village called Tahoy, where rumor had it the tigers were so plentiful it wasn't safe to go out at night. It sounded fun and if they had seen tigers, I would have regretted my decision, but I've come to be pretty wary of anything written in a guidebook so I opted to take the bus straight back to Pakse where I was pretty sure some website revisions would be waiting for me in my inbox. - - -My hunch was correct and I spent a day and a half in Pakse working on the website I started way back in Vang Vieng. After a trip to the morning market the next day, I caught a truck down to Champasak where I was to wait for Matt and Debi. Morning Market, Pakse, Laos

The chief draw in Champasak is an aging wat that dates from the Angkor period and was apparently the northern most outpost of the Angkor Empire. Aside from the wat, the town of Champasak is yet another very sleepily and very small town along the Mekong, but not an unpleasant place to pass a few days. I briefly toured around the wat, which was nice, and perhaps a bit of warm up for Angkor Wat, but regrettably most of the great artifacts from Wat Phu were at some point carted off and then later returned and now housed in a museum at the base of the wat. - -Wat Phu is another UNESCO site and was at the time I was there an active archeological dig. Perhaps at some point the original statues, figures and carvings will be returned to the grounds of the wat, but for the time being there are house in air conditioned comfort and thus the wat itself is rather lacking. Just to once again slag the Lonely Planet Guide to Laos, if, as the book says, this is "one of the highlights" to your visit to Laos, well, I pity you, you have not seen much of Laos. [I have a sneaking suspicion that the authors of the Laos Lonely Planet deliberately build up the more touristy areas and neglect the lesser known parts out of self-interest—they want to keep the good stuff to themselves—which is fine with me since it isn't that hard to figure everything out once you get here, provided you invest a modicum of effort]. - -Mainly I spent my time in Champasak sitting of the veranda of my guesthouse reading and writing. The second afternoon, somewhat to my surprise, Debi and Matt wandered up the stairs. View from Guesthouse, Champasak, Laos

I wanted to meet up with them again, but given that we had no real means of communication I wasn't sure it would happen, but luckily it did. The next day I met an American woman, Christie, and we all caught the bus down to the four thousand Islands to relax for a few days before heading into Cambodia. - -It's difficult to explain but the further south you go in Laos the more relaxed life becomes. Since life in the north is not exactly high stress, by the time we arrived in the four thousand Islands we had to check our pulse periodically to ensure that time was in fact still moving forward. That sounds like a complaint, but it's not meant to be. Southern Laos is simply, well, the villagers tend to the fields in the morning and evening, or fish or weave and generally the heat of the day is spent lying around trying not to move. There is good reason for that, it's hot and the air is deathly still most of the time. When the air does move it's somewhat like the puff of heat that might come from a convention oven when you open the door. - -I have long held to a theory that the environment shapes culture and the people who create it. For instance heavy industrial development does not seem to happen in equatorial areas and there's a good reason for that. Those that think the west is more "advanced" because of their work ethic or that sort of thing, ought to come out here to Laos and see how motivated for work they are at one in the afternoon. - -I came to the four thousand islands to avoid everything involving heavy machinery and peacefully wind down my time in Laos. There isn't much to see nor much to do, which provides some excellent time for lying in hammock and reflecting on the two months I've spent here. Just down the Mekong lies a whole new experience—Cambodia—but before I move on I wanted to spend a few days thinking about where I've been. - - Sunset over the Sekong River, Laos

As I've written before I had no intention of spending more than a few weeks in Laos, just enough time to see the big sights and then drop back into Thailand with a new visa. As fate or life or what have you often works my plans disappeared in a puff of smoke somewhere on the Mekong that first day in Laos. This compounded with some personal events that I will not mention here compelled me to dig deeper into Laos. For these reasons and many more, too many to list, Laos will always occupy a profoundly vivid spot in my memory. The people of Laos did what I did not think would be possible, they topped the enthusiasm, warmth and friendliness of India (which is in no way meant to diminish the Indians). The landscape is some of the most beautiful I've seen in Southeast Asia and I will return here someday, I wouldn't consider any trip to Southeast Asia complete without a few months in Laos. - -Farewell Laos and people of Laos, I look forward to returning one day. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.amp deleted file mode 100644 index 84d2648..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,191 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -The Lovely Universe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Lovely Universe

- February 4, 2006 - - -

Because we didn't find out about the Gibbon Experience until we were halfway to Luang Prabang, we ended up making a loop through northern Laos and in the end Robin, Ofir and I found ourselves once more in the border town of Huay Xai. Robin had to return to Thailand and then headed home to Sweden.

After talking it over for a while, Ofir and I decided that two more days on the slow boat back to Luang Prabang was marginally less miserable than taking the bus back over the dusty roads. Beside which the slow boat is good way to meet new people, so we ended up returning full circle to Luang Prabang.

As it turned out the second trip down the river was an entirely different experience. Our boat was not a talkative bunch and we didn't meet anyone, but I did spend a good bit of time listening to music and contemplating the life the Strangler Fig Tree.

In the west (or America anyway) the Strangler Fig is more commonly known as the Banyan tree and is most notable for its long drooping roots (which make it ideal for building tree houses since it's a very stable tree). But the most interesting thing about the Strangler Fig is how it grows. The seeds from a mature tree are eaten by arboreal animals that then deposit them (crap them out for the none scientific among us) in the branches of some unsuspecting and already full-grown tree. For a while the Strangler Fig lives a bit like an orchid (and is perhaps one of the reasons people think orchids are parasitic, but they aren't) attached to the host tree, but not yet parasitic.

As the Strangler Fig grows its roots head downward, thin tendrils searching for the ground. When the roots finally reach the ground they dig in and begin to wrap around the host tree's roots stealing its water and nutrients. From there the fig just sort of takes over and eventually the original tree dies, but you can generally still see the trunk buried somewhere under the roots of the full grown fig. The largest Banyan tree in the world is somewhere in India and occupies the better part of two acres, but in Laos, because the fig must reach up out of the jungle canopy to get light, the trees tend to be tall rather than spread out.

The fig is, though it may be a bit cynical to say so, is not unlike the ever growing tourism industry. One can almost see the way in which the first guest house in any given town started as a purely separate existence, an oddity growing in the branches of a village, but then, over time, the roots of travelers begin to squeeze out what was once a farming or fishing village, until at some point a critical mass is reached. Sometimes, as in case of Luang Prabang, it's fairly easy to find that tipping point, things like the UNESCO seal of approval and the completion of an airport might well be the moment the roots of the original tree finally give in, the economy shifted and what remains is merely tourism, a fig tree in which an endless amount of guesthouses and western style restaurants begin to appear.

But perhaps the tree is best left simply as a tree, a good place to build a tree house if that is your inclination, or maybe just something to marvel out while you float down the same river that already took everything out of you; what's left when everything is gone? Laos. Whatever the case Ofir and I had already decided we didn't want to spend any more time in Luang Prabang.

The plan was to buy a bus ticket and then take it easy, eat an early dinner and catch up on some sleep. Of course when you're traveling that's easier said that done. We were sitting in small cafe on the main street in Luang Prabang when suddenly Ofir jumped up and took off down the street. I saw him talk for a while to someone and then the two of them came back over to the table and I met Andy, a German man Ofir had traveled with some months ago in India. Andy invited us to dinner (which is strange invitation to people eating dinner, but hey) with some people he had met on the slow boat two days before, which is the semi-convoluted way in which I met, Matt from Holland, Jackie, Keith, Matt from London, Georgia, and Debi. Of course the names mean nothing to you, so lets at least try it with a picture, from the back left corner: Ofir, Matt from Holland, Keith from Ireland, Jackie from Germany, Debi from London, Matt also from London, Georgia from Australia and me.

Ofir and I were headed for Vang Vieng and so was everyone else so we made plans to meet up at some point. After traveling more or less constantly for ten days over some very bad roads and very long rivers, Ofir and I arrived in Vang Veing with the intention of doing nothing for at least a week. After that we were planning to head back into Thailand. I had some work to do, articles to write and websites to build so the down time was good for me. Vang Vieng was a curious little town, a town where the strangler fig of tourism long ago squeezed out whatever the village used to be. But sometimes you need a bit of westernism. At this point Vang Vieng is chiefly famous for inner tubing trips down the river and its endless row of bars, the majority of which play old episodes of Friends from morning far into the night.

I spent the majority of my time in Vang Vieng lying back in a small thatched awning hut beside the river, feet kicked up, alternately reading, writing and watching the light change hues through the afternoon. In the evenings, just after sundown, the cliffs in the distance emitted a massive smoky-looking plume out the western cliff face—bats, thousands and thousands of bats heading out into the night sky. It was one of the more amazing sights I've witnessed in Laos and it happened so regularly you could set your clock by it.

When Andy and the rest of the larger group showed up, Ofir and followed them to new guesthouse which had nice sitting area, a free sauna, a great restaurant and cheap massages, which isn't bad for three dollars a night (Thank you Georgia). I would like to say that I have something memorable to write about Vang Vieng, but the truth is we mostly sat around doing nothing, making new friends, drinking a beer round the fire at night.

The only thing I managed to do was make a day trip down to Vientiane with Debi. Debi had an infected cut on her foot and wanted to have it look at by real doctors at the Australian clinic and I need to extend my Laos visa, which is strange considering I was only planning on spending a few days here to renew my Thai visa. So it was that we found ourselves at the bus station at six thirty in the morning trying to make a day trip to the capital. After taking care of the various medical and paperwork necessities in Vientiane, we passed the afternoon drinking beer at massage/spa (yes that is a strange place to spend your afternoon drinking beer, but if I were to list all the strange places there wouldn't be much else to write about). Having had no problem getting to Vientiane we assumed it would be no problem to get back, but such was not the case. Finally, after making a tuktuk powered tour of all three Vientiane bus stations, we finally found a bus back to Vang Vieng.

The piece of bad new we discovered on our day trip to Vientiane was that Chinese new years was in full swing and unlike a western new years, the Asia countries take the whole week off, which meant none of us could get Cambodian visas until the following Monday. And so we were forced to relax beside the river for several more days than we intended. Yes friends, traveling is hard, but I do it for you.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.html deleted file mode 100644 index d29d5ee..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,344 +0,0 @@ - - - - - The Lovely Universe - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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The Lovely Universe

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Vang Vieng, Lao (PDR)

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- February 4, 2006 - -

Because we didn’t find out about the Gibbon Experience until we were halfway to Luang Prabang, we ended up making a loop through northern Laos and in the end Robin, Ofir and I found ourselves once more in the border town of Huay Xai. Robin had to return to Thailand and then headed home to Sweden.

As it turned out the second trip down the river was an entirely different experience. Our boat was not a talkative bunch and we didn’t meet anyone, but I did spend a good bit of time listening to music and contemplating the life the Strangler Fig Tree.

In the west (or America anyway) the Strangler Fig is more commonly known as the Banyan tree and is most notable for its long drooping roots (which make it ideal for building tree houses since it’s a very stable tree). But the most interesting thing about the Strangler Fig is how it grows. The seeds from a mature tree are eaten by arboreal animals that then deposit them (crap them out for the none scientific among us) in the branches of some unsuspecting and already full-grown tree. For a while the Strangler Fig lives a bit like an orchid (and is perhaps one of the reasons people think orchids are parasitic, but they aren’t) attached to the host tree, but not yet parasitic.

As the Strangler Fig grows its roots head downward, thin tendrils searching for the ground. When the roots finally reach the ground they dig in and begin to wrap around the host tree’s roots stealing its water and nutrients. From there the fig just sort of takes over and eventually the original tree dies, but you can generally still see the trunk buried somewhere under the roots of the full grown fig. The largest Banyan tree in the world is somewhere in India and occupies the better part of two acres, but in Laos, because the fig must reach up out of the jungle canopy to get light, the trees tend to be tall rather than spread out.

The fig is, though it may be a bit cynical to say so, is not unlike the ever growing tourism industry. One can almost see the way in which the first guest house in any given town started as a purely separate existence, an oddity growing in the branches of a village, but then, over time, the roots of travelers begin to squeeze out what was once a farming or fishing village, until at some point a critical mass is reached. Sometimes, as in case of Luang Prabang, it’s fairly easy to find that tipping point, things like the UNESCO seal of approval and the completion of an airport might well be the moment the roots of the original tree finally give in, the economy shifted and what remains is merely tourism, a fig tree in which an endless amount of guesthouses and western style restaurants begin to appear.

But perhaps the tree is best left simply as a tree, a good place to build a tree house if that is your inclination, or maybe just something to marvel out while you float down the same river that already took everything out of you; what’s left when everything is gone? Laos. Whatever the case Ofir and I had already decided we didn’t want to spend any more time in Luang Prabang.

Sunset view from the river, Vang Veing, Laos

The plan was to buy a bus ticket and then take it easy, eat an early dinner and catch up on some sleep. Of course when you’re traveling that’s easier said that done. We were sitting in small cafe on the main street in Luang Prabang when suddenly Ofir jumped up and took off down the street. I saw him talk for a while to someone and then the two of them came back over to the table and I met Andy, a German man Ofir had traveled with some months ago in India. Andy invited us to dinner (which is strange invitation to people eating dinner, but hey) with some people he had met on the slow boat two days before, which is the semi-convoluted way in which I met, Matt from Holland, Jackie, Keith, Matt from London, Georgia, and Debi. Of course the names mean nothing to you, so lets at least try it with a picture, from the back left corner: Ofir, Matt from Holland, Keith from Ireland, Jackie from Germany, Debi from London, Matt also from London, Georgia from Australia and me.

Group shot, Vang Veing, Laos

Vang Vieng, Laos

I spent the majority of my time in Vang Vieng lying back in a small thatched awning hut beside the river, feet kicked up, alternately reading, writing and watching the light change hues through the afternoon. In the evenings, just after sundown, the cliffs in the distance emitted a massive smoky-looking plume out the western cliff face—bats, thousands and thousands of bats heading out into the night sky. It was one of the more amazing sights I’ve witnessed in Laos and it happened so regularly you could set your clock by it.

When Andy and the rest of the larger group showed up, Ofir and followed them to new guesthouse which had nice sitting area, a free sauna, a great restaurant and cheap massages, which isn’t bad for three dollars a night (Thank you Georgia). I would like to say that I have something memorable to write about Vang Vieng, but the truth is we mostly sat around doing nothing, making new friends, drinking a beer round the fire at night.

Vang Vieng River Bar, Laos

The only thing I managed to do was make a day trip down to Vientiane with Debi. Debi had an infected cut on her foot and wanted to have it look at by real doctors at the Australian clinic and I need to extend my Laos visa, which is strange considering I was only planning on spending a few days here to renew my Thai visa. So it was that we found ourselves at the bus station at six thirty in the morning trying to make a day trip to the capital. After taking care of the various medical and paperwork necessities in Vientiane, we passed the afternoon drinking beer at massage/spa (yes that is a strange place to spend your afternoon drinking beer, but if I were to list all the strange places there wouldn’t be much else to write about). Having had no problem getting to Vientiane we assumed it would be no problem to get back, but such was not the case. Finally, after making a tuktuk powered tour of all three Vientiane bus stations, we finally found a bus back to Vang Vieng.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e523e39..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/lovely-universe.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,40 +0,0 @@ -The Lovely Universe -=================== - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Saturday, 04 February 2006 - -Because we didn't find out about the Gibbon Experience until we were halfway to Luang Prabang, we ended up making a loop through northern Laos and in the end Robin, Ofir and I found ourselves once more in the border town of Huay Xai. Robin had to return to Thailand and then headed home to Sweden. - -After talking it over for a while, Ofir and I decided that two more days on the slow boat back to Luang Prabang was marginally less miserable than taking the bus back over the dusty roads. Beside which the slow boat is good way to meet new people, so we ended up returning full circle to Luang Prabang. - -As it turned out the second trip down the river was an entirely different experience. Our boat was not a talkative bunch and we didn't meet anyone, but I did spend a good bit of time listening to music and contemplating the life the Strangler Fig Tree. - -In the west (or America anyway) the Strangler Fig is more commonly known as the Banyan tree and is most notable for its long drooping roots (which make it ideal for building tree houses since it's a very stable tree). But the most interesting thing about the Strangler Fig is how it grows. The seeds from a mature tree are eaten by arboreal animals that then deposit them (crap them out for the none scientific among us) in the branches of some unsuspecting and already full-grown tree. For a while the Strangler Fig lives a bit like an orchid (and is perhaps one of the reasons people think orchids are parasitic, but they aren't) attached to the host tree, but not yet parasitic. - -As the Strangler Fig grows its roots head downward, thin tendrils searching for the ground. When the roots finally reach the ground they dig in and begin to wrap around the host tree's roots stealing its water and nutrients. From there the fig just sort of takes over and eventually the original tree dies, but you can generally still see the trunk buried somewhere under the roots of the full grown fig. The largest Banyan tree in the world is somewhere in India and occupies the better part of two acres, but in Laos, because the fig must reach up out of the jungle canopy to get light, the trees tend to be tall rather than spread out. - -The fig is, though it may be a bit cynical to say so, is not unlike the ever growing tourism industry. One can almost see the way in which the first guest house in any given town started as a purely separate existence, an oddity growing in the branches of a village, but then, over time, the roots of travelers begin to squeeze out what was once a farming or fishing village, until at some point a critical mass is reached. Sometimes, as in case of Luang Prabang, it's fairly easy to find that tipping point, things like the UNESCO seal of approval and the completion of an airport might well be the moment the roots of the original tree finally give in, the economy shifted and what remains is merely tourism, a fig tree in which an endless amount of guesthouses and western style restaurants begin to appear. - -But perhaps the tree is best left simply as a tree, a good place to build a tree house if that is your inclination, or maybe just something to marvel out while you float down the same river that already took everything out of you; what's left when everything is gone? Laos. Whatever the case Ofir and I had already decided we didn't want to spend any more time in Luang Prabang. - - Sunset view from the river, Vang Veing, Laos

Sunset view from the river, Vang Veing, Laos

- -The plan was to buy a bus ticket and then take it easy, eat an early dinner and catch up on some sleep. Of course when you're traveling that's easier said that done. We were sitting in small cafe on the main street in Luang Prabang when suddenly Ofir jumped up and took off down the street. I saw him talk for a while to someone and then the two of them came back over to the table and I met Andy, a German man Ofir had traveled with some months ago in India. Andy invited us to dinner (which is strange invitation to people eating dinner, but hey) with some people he had met on the slow boat two days before, which is the semi-convoluted way in which I met, Matt from Holland, Jackie, Keith, Matt from London, Georgia, and Debi. Of course the names mean nothing to you, so lets at least try it with a picture, from the back left corner: Ofir, Matt from Holland, Keith from Ireland, Jackie from Germany, Debi from London, Matt also from London, Georgia from Australia and me. - - Group shot, Vang Veing, Laos

- -Ofir and I were headed for Vang Vieng and so was everyone else so we made plans to meet up at some point. After traveling more or less constantly for ten days over some very bad roads and very long rivers, Ofir and I arrived in Vang Veing with the intention of doing nothing for at least a week. After that we were planning to head back into Thailand. I had some work to do, articles to write and websites to build so the down time was good for me. Vang Vieng was a curious little town, a town where the strangler fig of tourism long ago squeezed out whatever the village used to be. But sometimes you need a bit of westernism. At this point Vang Vieng is chiefly famous for inner tubing trips down the river and its endless row of bars, the majority of which play old episodes of *Friends* from morning far into the night. - - Vang Vieng, Laos

- -I spent the majority of my time in Vang Vieng lying back in a small thatched awning hut beside the river, feet kicked up, alternately reading, writing and watching the light change hues through the afternoon. In the evenings, just after sundown, the cliffs in the distance emitted a massive smoky-looking plume out the western cliff face—bats, thousands and thousands of bats heading out into the night sky. It was one of the more amazing sights I've witnessed in Laos and it happened so regularly you could set your clock by it. - -When Andy and the rest of the larger group showed up, Ofir and followed them to new guesthouse which had nice sitting area, a free sauna, a great restaurant and cheap massages, which isn't bad for three dollars a night (Thank you Georgia). I would like to say that I have something memorable to write about Vang Vieng, but the truth is we mostly sat around doing nothing, making new friends, drinking a beer round the fire at night. - - Vang Vieng River Bar, Laos

- -The only thing I managed to do was make a day trip down to Vientiane with Debi. Debi had an infected cut on her foot and wanted to have it look at by real doctors at the Australian clinic and I need to extend my Laos visa, which is strange considering I was only planning on spending a few days here to renew my Thai visa. So it was that we found ourselves at the bus station at six thirty in the morning trying to make a day trip to the capital. After taking care of the various medical and paperwork necessities in Vientiane, we passed the afternoon drinking beer at massage/spa (yes that is a strange place to spend your afternoon drinking beer, but if I were to list all the strange places there wouldn't be much else to write about). Having had no problem getting to Vientiane we assumed it would be no problem to get back, but such was not the case. Finally, after making a tuktuk powered tour of all three Vientiane bus stations, we finally found a bus back to Vang Vieng. - -The piece of bad new we discovered on our day trip to Vientiane was that Chinese new years was in full swing and unlike a western new years, the Asia countries take the whole week off, which meant none of us could get Cambodian visas until the following Monday. And so we were forced to relax beside the river for several more days than we intended. Yes friends, traveling is hard, but I do it for you. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.amp deleted file mode 100644 index ae28d07..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,184 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Safe as Milk - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Safe as Milk

- February 18, 2006 - - -

Sekong was a nice little town with not much in it save the UXO museum, which took all of five minutes to explore. The peculiar thing about the UXO museum was, well, you would think, if you were the United States and you were illegally and unofficially bombing a foreign country you might not want to stamp "US Bomb" on the side of your bombs, and yet there it was: "US Bomb."

Of course the bomb in the photo below is probably fake, but plenty of the real ones lying about (disarmed and hollow of course) still had paint flakes that clearly read "US" on the side of them. Obviously somebody didn't think things all the way through, especially given that roughly one third of said bombs failed to explode.

-Sekong province was the most heavily bombed area in all of the "Second Indochina War" as it's referred to around here. Indeed everyday we were in the Bolaven Plateau area we saw at least one U.N. UXO jeep either coming or going somewhere off in the countryside. That said, the threat to tourists is small, the major towns are clear (or simple relocated in the case of Paksong) and even the villages are for the most part no threat. Still Sekong province is not a good place to live out those cross-country bushwhacking-over-the-mountains-to-Vietnam fantasies you've been thinking about for years. If you are planning to travel off the major roads it's a good idea to hire a guide who knows where is safe and where isn't. And keep in mind that UXO is not just a problem here, the same trucks are scouring the hills of Bosnia right now as well, and as Matt and Debi told me even London still turns up the occasional German bomb when somebody digs a new foundation deeper than they should. The tragic reality of war is that it doesn't end when a truce is signed.

One thing I did not know until I got to Sekong was that there were major ground battles in this area and in fact a U.S. led collection of Thai, Laos, and South Vietnamese armies held the area for a while before being driven out by the NVA. Most of the evidence of such activities, abandoned tanks, jeeps and downed warplanes, has long since been chopped up and carted off to Thailand or Vietnam for sale as scrap metal. Still one does see rather odd things like a thousand-pound bomb sawed in half length wise and turned into a planter for flowers, or a water trough for livestock. The hotel where I am writing this has chopped smaller bombs in half and turned then on their fins to use as ashtrays.

But the reason we spent an extra day in Sekong has nothing to do with scrap metal or UXO; it was the people. I have written before about how friendly the Lao are, but the farther south we go the friendlier they get. Nearly everywhere we went in Sekong we attracted a throng of people just curiously following along, some stopping to practice their English or find out where we were from (and no they didn't seem to hold it against me that my country bombed the living hell out of them for ten years).

The very first night, after we met up with Debi, we were all headed out for dinner when two teenage Lao girls riding by on a bike stopped to talk to us. For the most part they talked to Matt and Debi and I continued on ahead not thinking too much about it, people always stop to talk to you on the street. When Matt later joined us, he said that the girls wanted to show us around the town. Again we didn't think too much of it, people always want to show you around, sometimes you let them sometimes you don't. But then the next morning the girls were knocking on the hotel door at ten in the morning. At this point Matt began to get a little nervous thinking perhaps he might end up in Lao wedding if he wasn't careful. So when we ran into them again down at the market and they helped negotiate a cheaper price for our tuk-tuk ride out to see a local waterfall, it seemed only polite to invite them along. I think Matt may have actually started sweating for a minute when we had to stop by the girls' house and meet their parents. It did seem for a while like Matt might be going on a date and of course I did nothing to discourage him from thinking that (hey what are friends for?), but at least half of his suspicions were unfounded. Or maybe a quarter of them. Actually, looking back on it now, he was probably right, he was on a date with a girl and her sister.

Whatever their intentions were the girls were very nice and spent the afternoon with us at the waterfall. The waterfall deserves mention if only because the pool below it is apparently home to fresh water pufferfish with, and I quote from The Rough Guide, "a piranha like appetite." The locals claim the pufferfish seems to have a penchant for biting off the tip of a man's penis and we didn't see anyone venture into the lower pool the whole time we were there. Between UXO, penis eating pufferfish and teenage girls chasing blond Londoners through the countryside, we had an interesting afternoon. Speaking of blond I never realized how fascinating blond is to the people of southeast Asia; Matt gets stared at wherever he goes and sometime children will come up and try to pull the hair out of his arms as if checking to make sure it's real. Any westerner who travels to the smaller towns and villages will get stared out, but the attention you get if you're blond is easily double what I get.

The next morning we left for Attapeu but not before the girls stopped by and gave us presents, some polished gourds whose purpose we weren't exactly clear on, but they were very nice. Debi and I couldn't help laughing when we noticed that Matt's gourd was larger, had been more ornately decorated and had a couple extra woven baskets attached to it.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.html deleted file mode 100644 index 1cfad70..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,337 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Safe As Milk - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Sekong, Lao (PDR)

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- February 18, 2006 - -

Sekong was a nice little town with not much in it save the UXO museum, which took all of five minutes to explore. The peculiar thing about the UXO museum was, well, you would think, if you were the United States and you were illegally and unofficially bombing a foreign country you might not want to stamp “US Bomb” on the side of your bombs, and yet there it was: “US Bomb.”

Of course the bomb in the photo below is probably fake, but plenty of the real ones lying about (disarmed and hollow of course) still had paint flakes that clearly read “US” on the side of them. Obviously somebody didn’t think things all the way through, especially given that roughly one third of said bombs failed to explode.

- US Bomb, Sekong, Laos Sekong province was the most heavily bombed area in all of the “Second Indochina War” as it’s referred to around here. Indeed everyday we were in the Bolaven Plateau area we saw at least one U.N. UXO jeep either coming or going somewhere off in the countryside. That said, the threat to tourists is small, the major towns are clear (or simple relocated in the case of Paksong) and even the villages are for the most part no threat. Still Sekong province is not a good place to live out those cross-country bushwhacking-over-the-mountains-to-Vietnam fantasies you’ve been thinking about for years. If you are planning to travel off the major roads it’s a good idea to hire a guide who knows where is safe and where isn’t. And keep in mind that UXO is not just a problem here, the same trucks are scouring the hills of Bosnia right now as well, and as Matt and Debi told me even London still turns up the occasional German bomb when somebody digs a new foundation deeper than they should. The tragic reality of war is that it doesn’t end when a truce is signed.

But the reason we spent an extra day in Sekong has nothing to do with scrap metal or UXO; it was the people. I have written before about how friendly the Lao are, but the farther south we go the friendlier they get. Nearly everywhere we went in Sekong we attracted a throng of people just curiously following along, some stopping to practice their English or find out where we were from (and no they didn’t seem to hold it against me that my country bombed the living hell out of them for ten years).

The very first night, after we met up with Debi, we were all headed out for dinner when two teenage Lao girls riding by on a bike stopped to talk to us. For the most part they talked to Matt and Debi and I continued on ahead not thinking too much about it, people always stop to talk to you on the street. When Matt later joined us, he said that the girls wanted to show us around the town. Again we didn’t think too much of it, people always want to show you around, sometimes you let them sometimes you don’t. But then the next morning the girls were knocking on the hotel door at ten in the morning. Matt contempates the details of a Lao Wedding, Sekong, Laos At this point Matt began to get a little nervous thinking perhaps he might end up in Lao wedding if he wasn’t careful. So when we ran into them again down at the market and they helped negotiate a cheaper price for our tuk-tuk ride out to see a local waterfall, it seemed only polite to invite them along. I think Matt may have actually started sweating for a minute when we had to stop by the girls’ house and meet their parents. It did seem for a while like Matt might be going on a date and of course I did nothing to discourage him from thinking that (hey what are friends for?), but at least half of his suspicions were unfounded. Or maybe a quarter of them. Actually, looking back on it now, he was probably right, he was on a date with a girl and her sister.

Whatever their intentions were the girls were very nice and spent the afternoon with us at the waterfall. Debi at the pufferfish pool, Sekong, Laos The waterfall deserves mention if only because the pool below it is apparently home to fresh water pufferfish with, and I quote from The Rough Guide, “a piranha like appetite.” The locals claim the pufferfish seems to have a penchant for biting off the tip of a man’s penis and we didn’t see anyone venture into the lower pool the whole time we were there. Between UXO, penis eating pufferfish and teenage girls chasing blond Londoners through the countryside, we had an interesting afternoon. Speaking of blond I never realized how fascinating blond is to the people of southeast Asia; Matt gets stared at wherever he goes and sometime children will come up and try to pull the hair out of his arms as if checking to make sure it’s real. Any westerner who travels to the smaller towns and villages will get stared out, but the attention you get if you’re blond is easily double what I get.

Waterfall, Sekong, Laos In spite of the pufferfish we swam for a while (in the small pools above the falls rather than the big one below) and even sat in the middle of the falls and let the water cascade over us. Eventually it began to look like rain and thunder rumbled off in the distance (or possibly that was the UXO teams at work you never know), so we headed back to Sekong and had a late lunch.

The next morning we left for Attapeu but not before the girls stopped by and gave us presents, some polished gourds whose purpose we weren’t exactly clear on, but they were very nice. Debi and I couldn’t help laughing when we noticed that Matt’s gourd was larger, had been more ornately decorated and had a couple extra woven baskets attached to it.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b70a1f8..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/safe-milk.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25 +0,0 @@ -Safe as Milk -============ - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Saturday, 18 February 2006 - -Sekong was a nice little town with not much in it save the UXO museum, which took all of five minutes to explore. The peculiar thing about the UXO museum was, well, you would think, if you were the United States and you were illegally and unofficially bombing a foreign country you might not want to stamp "US Bomb" on the side of your bombs, and yet there it was: "US Bomb." - -Of course the bomb in the photo below is probably fake, but plenty of the real ones lying about (disarmed and hollow of course) still had paint flakes that clearly read "US" on the side of them. Obviously somebody didn't think things all the way through, especially given that roughly one third of said bombs failed to explode. - - - US Bomb, Sekong, Laos

Sekong province was the most heavily bombed area in all of the "Second Indochina War" as it's referred to around here. Indeed everyday we were in the Bolaven Plateau area we saw at least one U.N. UXO jeep either coming or going somewhere off in the countryside. That said, the threat to tourists is small, the major towns are clear (or simple relocated in the case of Paksong) and even the villages are for the most part no threat. Still Sekong province is not a good place to live out those cross-country bushwhacking-over-the-mountains-to-Vietnam fantasies you've been thinking about for years. If you are planning to travel off the major roads it's a good idea to hire a guide who knows where is safe and where isn't. And keep in mind that UXO is not just a problem here, the same trucks are scouring the hills of Bosnia right now as well, and as Matt and Debi told me even London still turns up the occasional German bomb when somebody digs a new foundation deeper than they should. The tragic reality of war is that it doesn't end when a truce is signed. - -One thing I did not know until I got to Sekong was that there were major ground battles in this area and in fact a U.S. led collection of Thai, Laos, and South Vietnamese armies held the area for a while before being driven out by the NVA. Most of the evidence of such activities, abandoned tanks, jeeps and downed warplanes, has long since been chopped up and carted off to Thailand or Vietnam for sale as scrap metal. Still one does see rather odd things like a thousand-pound bomb sawed in half length wise and turned into a planter for flowers, or a water trough for livestock. The hotel where I am writing this has chopped smaller bombs in half and turned then on their fins to use as ashtrays. - -But the reason we spent an extra day in Sekong has nothing to do with scrap metal or UXO; it was the people. I have written before about how friendly the Lao are, but the farther south we go the friendlier they get. Nearly everywhere we went in Sekong we attracted a throng of people just curiously following along, some stopping to practice their English or find out where we were from (and no they didn't seem to hold it against me that my country bombed the living hell out of them for ten years). - -The very first night, after we met up with Debi, we were all headed out for dinner when two teenage Lao girls riding by on a bike stopped to talk to us. For the most part they talked to Matt and Debi and I continued on ahead not thinking too much about it, people always stop to talk to you on the street. When Matt later joined us, he said that the girls wanted to show us around the town. Again we didn't think too much of it, people always want to show you around, sometimes you let them sometimes you don't. But then the next morning the girls were knocking on the hotel door at ten in the morning. Matt contempates the details of a Lao Wedding, Sekong, Laos

Matt contempates the details of a Lao Wedding, Sekong, Laos

At this point Matt began to get a little nervous thinking perhaps he might end up in Lao wedding if he wasn't careful. So when we ran into them again down at the market and they helped negotiate a cheaper price for our tuk-tuk ride out to see a local waterfall, it seemed only polite to invite them along. I think Matt may have actually started sweating for a minute when we had to stop by the girls' house and meet their parents. It did seem for a while like Matt might be going on a date and of course I did nothing to discourage him from thinking that (hey what are friends for?), but at least half of his suspicions were unfounded. Or maybe a quarter of them. Actually, looking back on it now, he was probably right, he was on a date with a girl and her sister. - -Whatever their intentions were the girls were very nice and spent the afternoon with us at the waterfall. Debi at the pufferfish pool, Sekong, Laos

Debi at the pufferfish pool, Sekong, Laos

The waterfall deserves mention if only because the pool below it is apparently home to fresh water pufferfish with, and I quote from The Rough Guide, "a piranha like appetite." The locals claim the pufferfish seems to have a penchant for biting off the tip of a man's penis and we didn't see anyone venture into the lower pool the whole time we were there. Between UXO, penis eating pufferfish and teenage girls chasing blond Londoners through the countryside, we had an interesting afternoon. Speaking of blond I never realized how fascinating blond is to the people of southeast Asia; Matt gets stared at wherever he goes and sometime children will come up and try to pull the hair out of his arms as if checking to make sure it's real. Any westerner who travels to the smaller towns and villages will get stared out, but the attention you get if you're blond is easily double what I get. - - Waterfall, Sekong, Laos

In spite of the pufferfish we swam for a while (in the small pools above the falls rather than the big one below) and even sat in the middle of the falls and let the water cascade over us. Eventually it began to look like rain and thunder rumbled off in the distance (or possibly that was the UXO teams at work you never know), so we headed back to Sekong and had a late lunch. - -The next morning we left for Attapeu but not before the girls stopped by and gave us presents, some polished gourds whose purpose we weren't exactly clear on, but they were very nice. Debi and I couldn't help laughing when we noticed that Matt's gourd was larger, had been more ornately decorated and had a couple extra woven baskets attached to it. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.amp deleted file mode 100644 index 532e7d7..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,204 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Water Slides and Spirit Guides - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Water Slides and Spirit Guides

- February 10, 2006 - - -

The quiet clatter of palm fronds in the evening breeze reminded me of Goa for a while, but soon, as the sun disappeared behind the western mountains, the similarities disappeared, the wind kicked up and the temperatures dropped dramatically, hinting perhaps at an impending storm and which is something that never happened in Goa.

The dramatic black karst limestone mountains ringing Ban Na Hin grew darker as the light faded and were it not the dry season it would be easy to believe the monsoon had arrived. I was sitting alone on the back porch of our guesthouse watching the light fade from the bottoms of the clouds and wondering absently how many pages it would take to explain how I came to be in the tiny town of Ban Na Hin, or if there even existed an explanation. Just to consider how many first dates had to work out to even produce the DNA you call home is more or less a complete reconstruction of the history of the world. But then as we walked down to Ralph's restaurant I realized that kind of detail is best left to William T. Vollman and other prodigious folks with real publishers that deal print on real paper. -

My reconstructions are limited to the last several weeks, though at times even such limited recollections feel as though they might grow ever more detailed with every reexamination, another memory daisy-chained to the back of the one that preceded it, an effort that might ultimately require several chapters. Let us start with Ralph, or, as this chapter could be called, The English are Everywhere. On the bus ride from Vientiane to Vieng Kham we met an Englishman named Ralph, or, if I were to tell the story properly I would say, at some point on the bus ride, right near the end as a matter of fact, Matt wandered off for a bathroom break and returned from the bushes with an Englishman, which, as everyone knows, is not really uncommon, in fact I believe it's more unusual to find bushes lacking Englishman. Were I to ever climb Mt. Everest I would fully expect to arrive at the summit to see an Englishman enjoying an afternoon tea; the English are like that, wherever you go, there they are—Dr. Livingstone I presume? What's even more curious is that often these English folks are often not tourists but simply ended up wherever they are and apparently decided returning home was more traumatic than staying. So yes, out of the bushes came Ralph who as it turned out owned a restaurant in the Ban Na Hin (its worth pointing out that he had been on our bus the whole time, but see Englishmen don't meet each other on buses, they have to be out in foreign bushes before they notice each other).

So with Ralph's help we were able to reach Ban Na Hin with no trouble at all and even better Ralph's wife Bon helped organize our trip to Tham Lot Kong Lo Cave (which was the real reason we had deviated off the main road in the first place). Bon seemed happy to arrange our transport to and from the cave and also went to the trouble of calling her cousin and arranging for him to make a five hour journey up river to pick us up and take us back down the Hin Bun River to the Mekong where we could continue southward. The Hin Bun River journey was the idyllic way out of the valley, which even the guidebook said could be tricky to arrange; I didn't have high hopes of finding a boatman, but it all worked out.

The truth is though that it started much earlier than even this. Way back in Vang Vieng. Not unlike Agatha Christie's mystery novel Ten Little Indians people began to disappear from the group before we even left Vang Vieng. Some went back to Thailand and others on to Cambodia or Vietnam until in the end there remained only five of us, Jackie, Matt, Ofir, Debi and me. As I mentioned previously we were waiting for the Cambodian Embassy to reopen, or rather Matt, Debi and I were waiting since we had plans to head from southern Laos into Cambodia via the Mekong River. Jackie and Ofir wanted to see southern Laos, but were then headed to Vietnam and Thailand respectively.

The five of us set out for Vientiane early one morning several weeks ago. Or possibly it was less than that; time is problematic when you're traveling. Whatever day it might have been, we reached Vientiane around noon. Vientiane is the largest city and capital of Laos, but it still manages to feel like a small town clustered beside the Mekong and looking peacefully across at the bustling Thai city, Nong Khai, on the opposite shore. Of course Vientiane has the usual amenities like internet and a wide variety of guesthouses and nicer hotels as well as a large selection of international restaurants, but for all intents and purposes it is more or less an oversized villages with houses made of concrete rather than bamboo. It is without a doubt the most laid back and relaxing capital city in the world. The only real reason we stopped for two nights in Vientiane was to renew our Laos visas and get Cambodian visas since the Mekong border in the far south is the one and only Cambodian border crossing that doesn't offer a visa on entry (I have since heard on good authority that the Cambodian border does now offer visas, but better to be on the safe side).

After dropping our passports at the various agencies Matt and Debi and I went to the Laos National Museum. The National Museum was an interesting mix of natural history and political ideology. The highlight for me was getting to see the largest of the stone Jars that dot the Plain of Jars just outside Phonsavan, an area I originally wanted to go to, but ended up skipping out of sloth. The highlight for Matt and Debi was the signage in the political history area which constantly referred to "the Imperialist Americans and their puppet soldiers." Naturally I had to travel to the National Museum of the one country that Britain never colonized in the company of two Londoners. But I am winning on the "are-they-yours-or-are-they-mine" game that Matt and I came up with, which consists in finding the silliest looking, idiotic dressed or just generally annoying tourists and finding out whether they are British or American, because they invariably are one or the other. I am happy to report that the score is thus far 3-6, though I am willing to concede that since only 6% of the America population actually holds a passport, I do have a distinct advantage in the game.

Other than the beating I took on the propaganda, the National Museum was surprisingly informative about the history of Laos and maybe the only place in the world where the French and Americans get lumped together as indistinguishable imperialists. The interesting thing is not one Lao person, even those that I knew are old enough to have been alive when American (and possibly even French) bombs were falling seem to care that I am American, which is a distinct contrast to some stories I have heard of both Americans and Canadians being insulted and spit on by the Vietnamese (why the Canadians got such ill treatment is a mystery, maybe they're guilty by proximate geography or something).

In fact we liked Ban Na Hin so much we decided to stay an extra night and spend an afternoon hiking to a waterfall. Unfortunately as previous mentioned, this is the dry season and in many places Laos looks more like Africa than the jungle you might envision, and the waterfall was no exception, trickling over the cliff with little more power than a gibbon with a full bladder. So it was that I found myself back early, showered and city on the back porch watching the sky, listening to breeze and waiting for the others.

Konglor Cave

Though mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebooks it seemed few people deviated from route 13 on their way from Vientiane to Pakse in the south, indeed in the four days we were in the Ban Ha Hin/Konglor Cave area we saw one other western tourist, Andy from Scotland who was traveling by motorcycle toward Vietnam. I would not say we were off the beaten path, but we were at the very least lucky enough to feel like we off the beaten path.

Despite the rough ride the scenery was spectacular and there is nothing like careening across a dried up rice paddy with the afternoon light playing across the distant trees and limestone cliffs to make you feel like yes, finally I have made it out there, whatever out there may mean. After roughly four perhaps five hours, we finally made it to the small village of Konglor where we would be spending the night with a host family. But before we had time to do much more than drop off the bags and grab a bowl of noodle soup, we were ushered down to the river and immediately set off for the cave. We were trying to make the trip through to the other side, see the hidden valley and make it back before nightfall so there wasn't a lot of time it linger.

As would happen for the remainder of the time Matt and I traveled with her, the villagers immediately assumed he was her husband (later, in other places they would variously assume I was her husband); we decided without much debate to just leave it alone, since explaining cultural differences in broken English, French and Laos would be more confusing than just rolling with it. The idea that an unmarried woman would travel with three men is apparently unfathomable for the Lao. So it was that Matt and Jackie piled into one canoe and Ofir and I in the other and we set off down the river toward the cave.

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting the cave to be like, but I wasn't quite prepared for how absolutely massive it would be inside. According to Lonely Planet it's about 150 meters at its widest and about as high at its tallest. There were several places where the river was too low and we had to get out and wade while the guides carried the boats over various rapids and rocks, but then at other times my headlamp disappeared into to water that seemed like it may well have been 150 meters deep. When I talked to Ralph about it later he said that no one has any idea how deep it is in some spots and the large cavern where we stopped to look at some stalactites and stalagmites has been extensively explored but no end yet found. If you happen to be into spelunking and such, this is definitely the place for you.

On the far side of the cave from the village is a huge hidden valley ringed on all sides by karst limestone ridges. The water level was not high enough, nor was there enough daylight left, to go very far into the valley, but we did stop at the first village and enjoy some warm sodas and played with the local children. The sodas and everything else that the village gets that isn't grown by them must come like we did, through the cave. The surrounding ridges are impassible to all but the hardiest of climbers and for all intents and purposes impenetrable. The tribal people that live here came through to escape persecution at various times in their history and so far it has proved entirely successful.

After taking some pictures and sharing them with the local children (the digital camera is a boon to the language barrier the world over, snap, display, laugh, etc), we piled back in the boats and set off. The boat Ofir and I were in was decidedly slower than the other and we were soon alone in the darkness of the cave, this time without the light of the other boat in the distance. But being the slow boat was actually quite nice since when we finally came out the other side of the cave the sunset was in full swing and as we headed upstream the local people were just wading out into the water and beginning to cast their nets looking for tomorrow's food.

Back at the stilt home where we were staying Ofir and I had dinner with our host family, sticky rice and an omelet with some instant noodles (for whatever reason in Laos, instant ramen noodles are regarded as a delicacy, I think more for the ease with which they can be prepared than for the taste, but many a restaurant proudly advertises "instant noodles here"). The dinner conversation was, well, it was non-existent since our Laos was probably better than their English, but we managed to convey a few ideas through hand gestures and some consolation with the back of the guidebook. After dinner Ofir and I went out to explore the village and maybe stumble across a cold Beer Lao, which we managed to find and again endured the awkwardness of impenetrable language barriers. I have managed to pick up a little Lao, I can count to ten, order food, say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, you're welcome, how much, and more of these sorts of things, but nothing approaching conversation. But the Laos people seemed quite happy to talk amongst themselves and watch us drink our beer. We already knew it would be an early night; Lao villagers go to bed around eight pm, which was just as well since we had to get back in the truck at six AM.

I lay in bed for a while with my headphones on, listening to music and thinking about life in Lao villages. I was trying to go over our actions of the last few hours and make sure that we had not offended anyone; the majority of villages in central and south Laos are animists and believe in spirits, the most important of which is often the house spirit. Consequently there are a number of things listed in the Lonely Planet book that one ought not to do inside a villager's house. For instance clapping is big no-no and will likely result in the slaughter of a buffalo to appease the offended spirits, which is something the villagers can't afford and certainly don't want to do. I'm not sure how intact these beliefs still are given the prevalence of satellite television in Laos (yes even the smallest villages the first thing they do when the get electricity is not refrigeration, it's television), but I didn't want to be responsible for the death of any buffalo.

According to Ralph, and I relate this as purely anecdotal evidence, shortly after the quake that triggered the tsunami there was a residual quake somewhere in the mountains north and here and it would seem that some sort of large fissure opened up and for the better part of the day the river was swallowed by the earth. The villagers were naturally freaked out by having their livelihood disappear and after gathering the stranded, beached fish they promptly sacrificed a buffalo. One hour later the water begin to refill the riverbed and within the week the river was back to normal. So perhaps their faith in the spirits is understandably quite intact.

There is a saying in Southeast Asia that the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow. I'm not exactly sure what this is getting at since I haven't been to Vietnam or Cambodia, but I think the gist of what it's saying is that the Lao are very very relaxed. And please don't confuse relaxed with lazy; when there is work to be done the Lao do it, but they do it at a Lao pace and according to what everyone who visits comes to refer to as "Lao time," distinctly slower and more relaxed than western time, Lao time accords plenty of the day to having fun. As Ralph said, when the Lao want to build a house they first have a party, when they get done building the house, they have another party. But it isn't that they don't want to build the house, they just seem to recognize that life is in some sense, or is for them anyway, much more of a relaxed, fun-filled experience than for many of us in the west with all our so-called modern worries. I don't know how long it will be before the Lao start to adopt such western worries, or even if they ever will, but let us hope it is no time soon.

Its easy to see why communism is popular here, the Laos are essentially communist without the ideology, which is not to say that the ideology does not get in the way or that there is none of the usual corruption, of course there is that, but it is no worse than the States. For instance several Lao have complained to us that the hill tribes are being driven out of the mountains and down to the river plains so that the government can award illegal contracts to Vietnamese logging companies which then clear-cut the hills. But the people themselves in their everyday actions are close to what Karl Marx wrote about than anything I have ever seen elsewhere. Or perhaps really they are closer to what Rousseau wanted the ideal pre-civilized man to be; except that the Laos are highly civilized and yet they retain a spirit of community that simple does not exist in the west.

And they do so without being tight lipped or exclusive, the Laos are in fact probably friendlier and even more inviting than the Indians. I'm not going to pretend to understand Lao culture, nor pretend I have been a part of it, but if you are walking down the street you will be inundated with calls of sabaai-dii (hello) from small children, babies perched in their parents arms, old women smoking cheroot, school children walking home in uniforms, teenagers on bikes, middle-aged Lao eager to practice their English and always excited to teach you some Lao. Late at night there is always someone willing to break the law, sell you a little Beer Lao and try to communicate through a mixture of all languages including the most universal—excitement. Of all the places I have been Laos would be top of the list for a return trip; perhaps it is after all really just a matter or listening to rice grow.

The next morning we awoke at five and walked down to the river to watch the sunrise as the women gathered water in buckets and the children splashed on the banks. Ofir and I then had a quick breakfast with our host family, after which, despite some harsh sounding words from the sawngthaew driver, our hosts preformed what is know as a Baci ceremony. We held a boiled egg and a bit of sticky rice in our right hand while the host waved their hands over ours, saying prayers and offering the rice to the spirits in exchange for luck. The ceremony ended with a simple pieced of string tied about our wrists. Because he was able to speak some French with the other host family, we later learned from Matt that the string brings the luck and blessing of the spirits with you on your journey. Say what you will of animism or any other primitivism spirituality, we have had extraordinary luck ever since those simple pieces of string were tied around our wrist.

Many thanks to Bon and Ralph as well as Bon's cousin and all the others who helped us see the Hin Bun River Valley and welcomed us into their homes.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.html deleted file mode 100644 index 58263bc..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,355 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Water Slides And Spirit Guides - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Water Slides and Spirit Guides

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Konglor Cave, Lao (PDR)

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- February 10, 2006 - -

The dramatic black karst limestone mountains ringing Ban Na Hin grew darker as the light faded and were it not the dry season it would be easy to believe the monsoon had arrived. I was sitting alone on the back porch of our guesthouse watching the light fade from the bottoms of the clouds and wondering absently how many pages it would take to explain how I came to be in the tiny town of Ban Na Hin, Ralph's Restaurant, Ban Na Hin, Laos or if there even existed an explanation. Just to consider how many first dates had to work out to even produce the DNA you call home is more or less a complete reconstruction of the history of the world. But then as we walked down to Ralph’s restaurant I realized that kind of detail is best left to William T. Vollman and other prodigious folks with real publishers that deal print on real paper. -

My reconstructions are limited to the last several weeks, though at times even such limited recollections feel as though they might grow ever more detailed with every reexamination, another memory daisy-chained to the back of the one that preceded it, an effort that might ultimately require several chapters. Let us start with Ralph, or, as this chapter could be called, The English are Everywhere. On the bus ride from Vientiane to Vieng Kham we met an Englishman named Ralph, or, if I were to tell the story properly I would say, at some point on the bus ride, right near the end as a matter of fact, Matt wandered off for a bathroom break and returned from the bushes with an Englishman, which, as everyone knows, is not really uncommon, in fact I believe it’s more unusual to find bushes lacking Englishman. Were I to ever climb Mt. Everest I would fully expect to arrive at the summit to see an Englishman enjoying an afternoon tea; the English are like that, wherever you go, there they are—Dr. Livingstone I presume? What’s even more curious is that often these English folks are often not tourists but simply ended up wherever they are and apparently decided returning home was more traumatic than staying. So yes, out of the bushes came Ralph who as it turned out owned a restaurant in the Ban Na Hin (its worth pointing out that he had been on our bus the whole time, but see Englishmen don’t meet each other on buses, they have to be out in foreign bushes before they notice each other).

So with Ralph’s help we were able to reach Ban Na Hin with no trouble at all and even better Ralph’s wife Bon helped organize our trip to Tham Lot Kong Lo Cave (which was the real reason we had deviated off the main road in the first place). Bon seemed happy to arrange our transport to and from the cave and also went to the trouble of calling her cousin and arranging for him to make a five hour journey up river to pick us up and take us back down the Hin Bun River to the Mekong where we could continue southward. The Hin Bun River journey was the idyllic way out of the valley, which even the guidebook said could be tricky to arrange; I didn’t have high hopes of finding a boatman, but it all worked out.

The truth is though that it started much earlier than even this. Way back in Vang Vieng. Not unlike Agatha Christie’s mystery novel Ten Little Indians people began to disappear from the group before we even left Vang Vieng. Some went back to Thailand and others on to Cambodia or Vietnam until in the end there remained only five of us, Jackie, Matt, Ofir, Debi and me. As I mentioned previously we were waiting for the Cambodian Embassy to reopen, or rather Matt, Debi and I were waiting since we had plans to head from southern Laos into Cambodia via the Mekong River. Jackie and Ofir wanted to see southern Laos, but were then headed to Vietnam and Thailand respectively.

The five of us set out for Vientiane early one morning several weeks ago. Or possibly it was less than that; time is problematic when you’re traveling. Whatever day it might have been, we reached Vientiane around noon. Vientiane is the largest city and capital of Laos, but it still manages to feel like a small town clustered beside the Mekong and looking peacefully across at the bustling Thai city, Nong Khai, on the opposite shore. Of course Vientiane has the usual amenities like internet and a wide variety of guesthouses and nicer hotels as well as a large selection of international restaurants, but for all intents and purposes it is more or less an oversized villages with houses made of concrete rather than bamboo. It is without a doubt the most laid back and relaxing capital city in the world. The only real reason we stopped for two nights in Vientiane was to renew our Laos visas and get Cambodian visas since the Mekong border in the far south is the one and only Cambodian border crossing that doesn’t offer a visa on entry (I have since heard on good authority that the Cambodian border does now offer visas, but better to be on the safe side).

After dropping our passports at the various agencies Matt and Debi and I went to the Laos National Museum. The National Museum was an interesting mix of natural history and political ideology. The highlight for me was getting to see the largest of the stone Jars that dot the Plain of Jars just outside Phonsavan, an area I originally wanted to go to, but ended up skipping out of sloth. The highlight for Matt and Debi was the signage in the political history area which constantly referred to “the Imperialist Americans and their puppet soldiers.” Naturally I had to travel to the National Museum of the one country that Britain never colonized in the company of two Londoners. But I am winning on the “are-they-yours-or-are-they-mine” game that Matt and I came up with, which consists in finding the silliest looking, idiotic dressed or just generally annoying tourists and finding out whether they are British or American, because they invariably are one or the other. I am happy to report that the score is thus far 3-6, though I am willing to concede that since only 6% of the America population actually holds a passport, I do have a distinct advantage in the game.

Dinner by the Mekong, Vientiane, Laos Both nights we ate dinner at the food venders along the banks of the river gorging ourselves on grilled pork ribs and plenty of laap, the national dish of Laos, or at least it should be, though truthfully it may be the only dish of Laos. In either case it’s usually pretty good, mint, basil, chili and lime mixed with either chicken, pork, beef or, when by a river, fish. The second night in Vientiane we said goodbye to Debi whose foot still had not healed and was told by the Australian Clinic to go to Bangkok and seek, as they put it, “proper medical attention.” Laos is not totally backward, though it is fairly primitive in some areas, medicine being one of them. The general consensus among travelers is that if you injure yourself in Laos, you go to Thailand. Or just amputate, whatever you prefer. Debi apparently wanted to keep her foot attached to her leg so she booked an early morning flight to Bangkok while the rest of us caught the bus south with the vague idea that we would get off in a small town named Vieng Kham and then catch a truck to the even smaller town of Ban Na Hin. Ralph and Bon made the journey simpler than we thought and even cooked us up some dinner at their restaurant.

Konglor Cave

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Road to Konglor Cave, Laos Our journey began the next morning after knocking back an English breakfast at Ralph’s restaurant. We were picked up by a sawngthaew, piling in with a dozen or so Lao people and a few bags of rice, the odd chicken and duck here and there, all in all a full load. The road, if it may be called that, which heads south from Ban Na Hin to the cave was every bit the torturous, bumpy, dusty experience we all knew it would be, but somehow having travel live up to your worst fears does not make it any easier to bear the bone-jarring, ass-numbing roller coaster ride on wooden planks. The best part was we already knew we would have to repeat the trip the next morning to catch the boat.

Despite the rough ride the scenery was spectacular and there is nothing like careening across a dried up rice paddy with the afternoon light playing across the distant trees and limestone cliffs to make you feel like yes, finally I have made it out there, whatever out there may mean. After roughly four perhaps five hours, we finally made it to the small village of Konglor where we would be spending the night with a host family. Tree, Road to Konglor Cave, Laos But before we had time to do much more than drop off the bags and grab a bowl of noodle soup, we were ushered down to the river and immediately set off for the cave. We were trying to make the trip through to the other side, see the hidden valley and make it back before nightfall so there wasn’t a lot of time it linger.

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting the cave to be like, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how absolutely massive it would be inside. According to Lonely Planet it’s about 150 meters at its widest and about as high at its tallest. There were several places where the river was too low and we had to get out and wade while the guides carried the boats over various rapids and rocks, but then at other times my headlamp disappeared into to water that seemed like it may well have been 150 meters deep. Inside Konglor Cave, Laos When I talked to Ralph about it later he said that no one has any idea how deep it is in some spots and the large cavern where we stopped to look at some stalactites and stalagmites has been extensively explored but no end yet found. If you happen to be into spelunking and such, this is definitely the place for you.

On the far side of the cave from the village is a huge hidden valley ringed on all sides by karst limestone ridges. The water level was not high enough, nor was there enough daylight left, to go very far into the valley, but we did stop at the first village and enjoy some warm sodas and played with the local children. The sodas and everything else that the village gets that isn’t grown by them must come like we did, through the cave. The surrounding ridges are impassible to all but the hardiest of climbers and for all intents and purposes impenetrable. The tribal people that live here came through to escape persecution at various times in their history and so far it has proved entirely successful.

Back at the stilt home where we were staying Ofir and I had dinner with our host family, sticky rice and an omelet with some instant noodles (for whatever reason in Laos, instant ramen noodles are regarded as a delicacy, I think more for the ease with which they can be prepared than for the taste, but many a restaurant proudly advertises “instant noodles here”). The dinner conversation was, well, it was non-existent since our Laos was probably better than their English, but we managed to convey a few ideas through hand gestures and some consolation with the back of the guidebook. After dinner Ofir and I went out to explore the village and maybe stumble across a cold Beer Lao, which we managed to find and again endured the awkwardness of impenetrable language barriers. I have managed to pick up a little Lao, I can count to ten, order food, say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, you’re welcome, how much, and more of these sorts of things, but nothing approaching conversation. But the Laos people seemed quite happy to talk amongst themselves and watch us drink our beer. We already knew it would be an early night; Lao villagers go to bed around eight pm, which was just as well since we had to get back in the truck at six AM.

I lay in bed for a while with my headphones on, listening to music and thinking about life in Lao villages. I was trying to go over our actions of the last few hours and make sure that we had not offended anyone; the majority of villages in central and south Laos are animists and believe in spirits, the most important of which is often the house spirit. Consequently there are a number of things listed in the Lonely Planet book that one ought not to do inside a villager’s house. For instance clapping is big no-no and will likely result in the slaughter of a buffalo to appease the offended spirits, which is something the villagers can’t afford and certainly don’t want to do. I’m not sure how intact these beliefs still are given the prevalence of satellite television in Laos (yes even the smallest villages the first thing they do when the get electricity is not refrigeration, it’s television), but I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of any buffalo.

There is a saying in Southeast Asia that the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow. I’m not exactly sure what this is getting at since I haven’t been to Vietnam or Cambodia, but I think the gist of what it’s saying is that the Lao are very very relaxed. And please don’t confuse relaxed with lazy; when there is work to be done the Lao do it, but they do it at a Lao pace and according to what everyone who visits comes to refer to as “Lao time,” distinctly slower and more relaxed than western time, Lao time accords plenty of the day to having fun. As Ralph said, when the Lao want to build a house they first have a party, when they get done building the house, they have another party. But it isn’t that they don’t want to build the house, they just seem to recognize that life is in some sense, or is for them anyway, much more of a relaxed, fun-filled experience than for many of us in the west with all our so-called modern worries. I don’t know how long it will be before the Lao start to adopt such western worries, or even if they ever will, but let us hope it is no time soon.

And they do so without being tight lipped or exclusive, the Laos are in fact probably friendlier and even more inviting than the Indians. I’m not going to pretend to understand Lao culture, nor pretend I have been a part of it, but if you are walking down the street you will be inundated with calls of sabaai-dii (hello) from small children, babies perched in their parents arms, old women smoking cheroot, school children walking home in uniforms, teenagers on bikes, middle-aged Lao eager to practice their English and always excited to teach you some Lao. Late at night there is always someone willing to break the law, sell you a little Beer Lao and try to communicate through a mixture of all languages including the most universal—excitement. Of all the places I have been Laos would be top of the list for a return trip; perhaps it is after all really just a matter or listening to rice grow.

Sunrise Hin Bun River, Laos The next morning we awoke at five and walked down to the river to watch the sunrise as the women gathered water in buckets and the children splashed on the banks. Ofir and I then had a quick breakfast with our host family, after which, despite some harsh sounding words from the sawngthaew driver, our hosts preformed what is know as a Baci ceremony. We held a boiled egg and a bit of sticky rice in our right hand while the host waved their hands over ours, saying prayers and offering the rice to the spirits in exchange for luck. The ceremony ended with a simple pieced of string tied about our wrists. Because he was able to speak some French with the other host family, we later learned from Matt that the string brings the luck and blessing of the spirits with you on your journey. Say what you will of animism or any other primitivism spirituality, we have had extraordinary luck ever since those simple pieces of string were tied around our wrist.

Many thanks to Bon and Ralph as well as Bon’s cousin and all the others who helped us see the Hin Bun River Valley and welcomed us into their homes.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c670680..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/02/water-slides-and-spirit-guides.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,59 +0,0 @@ -Water Slides and Spirit Guides -============================== - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Friday, 10 February 2006 - -The quiet clatter of palm fronds in the evening breeze reminded me of Goa for a while, but soon, as the sun disappeared behind the western mountains, the similarities disappeared, the wind kicked up and the temperatures dropped dramatically, hinting perhaps at an impending storm and which is something that never happened in Goa. - -The dramatic black karst limestone mountains ringing Ban Na Hin grew darker as the light faded and were it not the dry season it would be easy to believe the monsoon had arrived. I was sitting alone on the back porch of our guesthouse watching the light fade from the bottoms of the clouds and wondering absently how many pages it would take to explain how I came to be in the tiny town of Ban Na Hin, Ralph's Restaurant, Ban Na Hin, Laos

or if there even existed an explanation. Just to consider how many first dates had to work out to even produce the DNA you call home is more or less a complete reconstruction of the history of the world. But then as we walked down to Ralph's restaurant I realized that kind of detail is best left to William T. Vollman and other prodigious folks with real publishers that deal print on real paper. - - -My reconstructions are limited to the last several weeks, though at times even such limited recollections feel as though they might grow ever more detailed with every reexamination, another memory daisy-chained to the back of the one that preceded it, an effort that might ultimately require several chapters. Let us start with Ralph, or, as this chapter could be called, The English are Everywhere. On the bus ride from Vientiane to Vieng Kham we met an Englishman named Ralph, or, if I were to tell the story properly I would say, at some point on the bus ride, right near the end as a matter of fact, Matt wandered off for a bathroom break and returned from the bushes with an Englishman, which, as everyone knows, is not really uncommon, in fact I believe it's more unusual to find bushes lacking Englishman. Were I to ever climb Mt. Everest I would fully expect to arrive at the summit to see an Englishman enjoying an afternoon tea; the English are like that, wherever you go, there they are—Dr. Livingstone I presume? What's even more curious is that often these English folks are often not tourists but simply ended up wherever they are and apparently decided returning home was more traumatic than staying. So yes, out of the bushes came Ralph who as it turned out owned a restaurant in the Ban Na Hin (its worth pointing out that he had been on our bus the whole time, but see Englishmen don't meet each other on buses, they have to be out in foreign bushes before they notice each other). - -So with Ralph's help we were able to reach Ban Na Hin with no trouble at all and even better Ralph's wife Bon helped organize our trip to Tham Lot Kong Lo Cave (which was the real reason we had deviated off the main road in the first place). Bon seemed happy to arrange our transport to and from the cave and also went to the trouble of calling her cousin and arranging for him to make a five hour journey up river to pick us up and take us back down the Hin Bun River to the Mekong where we could continue southward. The Hin Bun River journey was the idyllic way out of the valley, which even the guidebook said could be tricky to arrange; I didn't have high hopes of finding a boatman, but it all worked out. - -The truth is though that it started much earlier than even this. Way back in Vang Vieng. Not unlike Agatha Christie's mystery novel *Ten Little Indians* people began to disappear from the group before we even left Vang Vieng. Some went back to Thailand and others on to Cambodia or Vietnam until in the end there remained only five of us, Jackie, Matt, Ofir, Debi and me. As I mentioned previously we were waiting for the Cambodian Embassy to reopen, or rather Matt, Debi and I were waiting since we had plans to head from southern Laos into Cambodia via the Mekong River. Jackie and Ofir wanted to see southern Laos, but were then headed to Vietnam and Thailand respectively. - -The five of us set out for Vientiane early one morning several weeks ago. Or possibly it was less than that; time is problematic when you're traveling. Whatever day it might have been, we reached Vientiane around noon. Vientiane is the largest city and capital of Laos, but it still manages to feel like a small town clustered beside the Mekong and looking peacefully across at the bustling Thai city, Nong Khai, on the opposite shore. Of course Vientiane has the usual amenities like internet and a wide variety of guesthouses and nicer hotels as well as a large selection of international restaurants, but for all intents and purposes it is more or less an oversized villages with houses made of concrete rather than bamboo. It is without a doubt the most laid back and relaxing capital city in the world. The only real reason we stopped for two nights in Vientiane was to renew our Laos visas and get Cambodian visas since the Mekong border in the far south is the one and only Cambodian border crossing that doesn't offer a visa on entry (I have since heard on good authority that the Cambodian border does now offer visas, but better to be on the safe side). - -After dropping our passports at the various agencies Matt and Debi and I went to the Laos National Museum. The National Museum was an interesting mix of natural history and political ideology. The highlight for me was getting to see the largest of the stone Jars that dot the Plain of Jars just outside Phonsavan, an area I originally wanted to go to, but ended up skipping out of sloth. The highlight for Matt and Debi was the signage in the political history area which constantly referred to "the Imperialist Americans and their puppet soldiers." Naturally I had to travel to the National Museum of the one country that Britain never colonized in the company of two Londoners. But I am winning on the "are-they-yours-or-are-they-mine" game that Matt and I came up with, which consists in finding the silliest looking, idiotic dressed or just generally annoying tourists and finding out whether they are British or American, because they invariably are one or the other. I am happy to report that the score is thus far 3-6, though I am willing to concede that since only 6% of the America population actually holds a passport, I do have a distinct advantage in the game. - -Other than the beating I took on the propaganda, the National Museum was surprisingly informative about the history of Laos and maybe the only place in the world where the French and Americans get lumped together as indistinguishable imperialists. The interesting thing is not one Lao person, even those that I knew are old enough to have been alive when American (and possibly even French) bombs were falling seem to care that I am American, which is a distinct contrast to some stories I have heard of both Americans and Canadians being insulted and spit on by the Vietnamese (why the Canadians got such ill treatment is a mystery, maybe they're guilty by proximate geography or something). - - Dinner by the Mekong, Vientiane, Laos

Both nights we ate dinner at the food venders along the banks of the river gorging ourselves on grilled pork ribs and plenty of laap, the national dish of Laos, or at least it should be, though truthfully it may be the **only** dish of Laos. In either case it's usually pretty good, mint, basil, chili and lime mixed with either chicken, pork, beef or, when by a river, fish. The second night in Vientiane we said goodbye to Debi whose foot still had not healed and was told by the Australian Clinic to go to Bangkok and seek, as they put it, "proper medical attention." Laos is not totally backward, though it is fairly primitive in some areas, medicine being one of them. The general consensus among travelers is that if you injure yourself in Laos, you go to Thailand. Or just amputate, whatever you prefer. Debi apparently wanted to keep her foot attached to her leg so she booked an early morning flight to Bangkok while the rest of us caught the bus south with the vague idea that we would get off in a small town named Vieng Kham and then catch a truck to the even smaller town of Ban Na Hin. Ralph and Bon made the journey simpler than we thought and even cooked us up some dinner at their restaurant. - -In fact we liked Ban Na Hin so much we decided to stay an extra night and spend an afternoon hiking to a waterfall. Unfortunately as previous mentioned, this is the dry season and in many places Laos looks more like Africa than the jungle you might envision, and the waterfall was no exception, trickling over the cliff with little more power than a gibbon with a full bladder. So it was that I found myself back early, showered and city on the back porch watching the sky, listening to breeze and waiting for the others. - -

Konglor Cave

- -Though mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebooks it seemed few people deviated from route 13 on their way from Vientiane to Pakse in the south, indeed in the four days we were in the Ban Ha Hin/Konglor Cave area we saw one other western tourist, Andy from Scotland who was traveling by motorcycle toward Vietnam. I would not say we were off the beaten path, but we were at the very least lucky enough to *feel* like we off the beaten path. - - Road to Konglor Cave, Laos

Our journey began the next morning after knocking back an English breakfast at Ralph's restaurant. We were picked up by a sawngthaew, piling in with a dozen or so Lao people and a few bags of rice, the odd chicken and duck here and there, all in all a full load. The road, if it may be called that, which heads south from Ban Na Hin to the cave was every bit the torturous, bumpy, dusty experience we all knew it would be, but somehow having travel live up to your worst fears does not make it any easier to bear the bone-jarring, ass-numbing roller coaster ride on wooden planks. The best part was we already knew we would have to repeat the trip the next morning to catch the boat. - -Despite the rough ride the scenery was spectacular and there is nothing like careening across a dried up rice paddy with the afternoon light playing across the distant trees and limestone cliffs to make you feel like yes, finally I have made it out there, whatever out there may mean. After roughly four perhaps five hours, we finally made it to the small village of Konglor where we would be spending the night with a host family. Tree, Road to Konglor Cave, Laos

But before we had time to do much more than drop off the bags and grab a bowl of noodle soup, we were ushered down to the river and immediately set off for the cave. We were trying to make the trip through to the other side, see the hidden valley and make it back before nightfall so there wasn't a lot of time it linger. - -As would happen for the remainder of the time Matt and I traveled with her, the villagers immediately assumed he was her husband (later, in other places they would variously assume I was her husband); we decided without much debate to just leave it alone, since explaining cultural differences in broken English, French and Laos would be more confusing than just rolling with it. The idea that an unmarried woman would travel with three men is apparently unfathomable for the Lao. So it was that Matt and Jackie piled into one canoe and Ofir and I in the other and we set off down the river toward the cave. - -I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting the cave to be like, but I wasn't quite prepared for how absolutely massive it would be inside. According to Lonely Planet it's about 150 meters at its widest and about as high at its tallest. There were several places where the river was too low and we had to get out and wade while the guides carried the boats over various rapids and rocks, but then at other times my headlamp disappeared into to water that seemed like it may well have been 150 meters deep. Inside Konglor Cave, Laos

When I talked to Ralph about it later he said that no one has any idea how deep it is in some spots and the large cavern where we stopped to look at some stalactites and stalagmites has been extensively explored but no end yet found. If you happen to be into spelunking and such, this is definitely the place for you. - -On the far side of the cave from the village is a huge hidden valley ringed on all sides by karst limestone ridges. The water level was not high enough, nor was there enough daylight left, to go very far into the valley, but we did stop at the first village and enjoy some warm sodas and played with the local children. The sodas and everything else that the village gets that isn't grown by them must come like we did, through the cave. The surrounding ridges are impassible to all but the hardiest of climbers and for all intents and purposes impenetrable. The tribal people that live here came through to escape persecution at various times in their history and so far it has proved entirely successful. - -After taking some pictures and sharing them with the local children (the digital camera is a boon to the language barrier the world over, snap, display, laugh, etc), we piled back in the boats and set off. The boat Ofir and I were in was decidedly slower than the other and we were soon alone in the darkness of the cave, this time without the light of the other boat in the distance. But being the slow boat was actually quite nice since when we finally came out the other side of the cave the sunset was in full swing and as we headed upstream the local people were just wading out into the water and beginning to cast their nets looking for tomorrow's food. Sunset, Hin Bun River, Laos

- -Back at the stilt home where we were staying Ofir and I had dinner with our host family, sticky rice and an omelet with some instant noodles (for whatever reason in Laos, instant ramen noodles are regarded as a delicacy, I think more for the ease with which they can be prepared than for the taste, but many a restaurant proudly advertises "instant noodles here"). The dinner conversation was, well, it was non-existent since our Laos was probably better than their English, but we managed to convey a few ideas through hand gestures and some consolation with the back of the guidebook. After dinner Ofir and I went out to explore the village and maybe stumble across a cold Beer Lao, which we managed to find and again endured the awkwardness of impenetrable language barriers. I have managed to pick up a little Lao, I can count to ten, order food, say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, you're welcome, how much, and more of these sorts of things, but nothing approaching conversation. But the Laos people seemed quite happy to talk amongst themselves and watch us drink our beer. We already knew it would be an early night; Lao villagers go to bed around eight pm, which was just as well since we had to get back in the truck at six AM. - -I lay in bed for a while with my headphones on, listening to music and thinking about life in Lao villages. I was trying to go over our actions of the last few hours and make sure that we had not offended anyone; the majority of villages in central and south Laos are animists and believe in spirits, the most important of which is often the house spirit. Consequently there are a number of things listed in the Lonely Planet book that one ought not to do inside a villager's house. For instance clapping is big no-no and will likely result in the slaughter of a buffalo to appease the offended spirits, which is something the villagers can't afford and certainly don't want to do. I'm not sure how intact these beliefs still are given the prevalence of satellite television in Laos (yes even the smallest villages the first thing they do when the get electricity is not refrigeration, it's television), but I didn't want to be responsible for the death of any buffalo. - -According to Ralph, and I relate this as purely anecdotal evidence, shortly after the quake that triggered the tsunami there was a residual quake somewhere in the mountains north and here and it would seem that some sort of large fissure opened up and for the better part of the day the river was swallowed by the earth. The villagers were naturally freaked out by having their livelihood disappear and after gathering the stranded, beached fish they promptly sacrificed a buffalo. One hour later the water begin to refill the riverbed and within the week the river was back to normal. So perhaps their faith in the spirits is understandably quite intact. - -There is a saying in Southeast Asia that the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow. I'm not exactly sure what this is getting at since I haven't been to Vietnam or Cambodia, but I think the gist of what it's saying is that the Lao are very very relaxed. And please don't confuse relaxed with lazy; when there is work to be done the Lao do it, but they do it at a Lao pace and according to what everyone who visits comes to refer to as "Lao time," distinctly slower and more relaxed than western time, Lao time accords plenty of the day to having fun. As Ralph said, when the Lao want to build a house they first have a party, when they get done building the house, they have another party. But it isn't that they don't want to build the house, they just seem to recognize that life is in some sense, or is for them anyway, much more of a relaxed, fun-filled experience than for many of us in the west with all our so-called modern worries. I don't know how long it will be before the Lao start to adopt such western worries, or even if they ever will, but let us hope it is no time soon. - -Its easy to see why communism is popular here, the Laos are essentially communist without the ideology, which is not to say that the ideology does not get in the way or that there is none of the usual corruption, of course there is that, but it is no worse than the States. For instance several Lao have complained to us that the hill tribes are being driven out of the mountains and down to the river plains so that the government can award illegal contracts to Vietnamese logging companies which then clear-cut the hills. But the people themselves in their everyday actions are close to what Karl Marx wrote about than anything I have ever seen elsewhere. Or perhaps really they are closer to what Rousseau wanted the ideal pre-civilized man to be; except that the Laos are highly civilized and yet they retain a spirit of community that simple does not exist in the west. - -And they do so without being tight lipped or exclusive, the Laos are in fact probably friendlier and even more inviting than the Indians. I'm not going to pretend to understand Lao culture, nor pretend I have been a part of it, but if you are walking down the street you will be inundated with calls of sabaai-dii (hello) from small children, babies perched in their parents arms, old women smoking cheroot, school children walking home in uniforms, teenagers on bikes, middle-aged Lao eager to practice their English and always excited to teach you some Lao. Late at night there is always someone willing to break the law, sell you a little Beer Lao and try to communicate through a mixture of all languages including the most universal—excitement. Of all the places I have been Laos would be top of the list for a return trip; perhaps it is after all really just a matter or listening to rice grow. - - Sunrise Hin Bun River, Laos