Living Without Cheese

I never really managed to get to sleep properly, what with the dog and rain and the stupid English girl that persisted in brushing her hair all night and fear that I was going to be robbed, but I did manage to doze off for a while just before dawn.

I awoke to perfect stillness. The storm had left us. The dog was nowhere to be seen. A strange looking Frenchman with straggly white hair was sitting in the middle of us smoking, and staring into space.

One thing I’ll say about the barn – it gave a good view across the Mekong river (cos of having no walls like) to Laos. It was kind of exciting. My first sight of Laos. More specifically, dawn breaking over Houay Xai. It looked different. There was a shanty town feel to it, things just seemed to be stuck together in no particular method. It looked poor and disheveled.

I started to feel that maybe Laos was a totally different world.

And so we crossed by boat, after a brief fight with a gang of Vietnamese tourists (Learn how to use a fucking queue people! Look it up! It’s in the dictionary!), queued for this, queued for that, an hour later, visas stamped and paid for, we were officially in Laos. All the (fucking really annoying) Vietnamese tourists had managed to get there before us (hundreds of the fuckers) and taken all the buses. Because travel takes so long in Laos, there’s not much point in a bus leaving after 10am, cos it’s not going to get anywhere before dark.

And we were tired. Really really tired. And everything was so different. The people were so different. We didn’t have the energy to deal with it. So we decided to get a bus to the nearest town, just to get us away from the border and the crazy Vietnamese and the feeling that nobody wanted us there. We chose Luang Nam Tha.

I sat down on the bus. I was so tired. I hadn’t slept for so long. I dozed off.

I was woken on the bus by a strange Lao man yelling over me “Luang Nam Tha! LUANG NAM THAAAAA!”.

Um. Ok (you crazy bastard). Say it don’t spray it.

So I gathered my belongings, dragged myself up, and went to check out Luang Nam Thaaaaaaaaa.

And a few hours later, realized, too late, that I’d left my camera on the bus, which was well on it’s way back to the border. My initial reaction was, Aoife, you stupid bitch, followed by a general feeling of being gutted.

It’s weird how important your camera is to you when you‘re travelling. It’s like, if you don’t have a camera to document what you see, then it didn’t really happen. Or, you become sort of unwilling to go see beautiful things because you can’t take photos to remember them. And you’ll feel bad. It’s a crazy feeling, but it’s true.

So I moped and whined, smoked cigarette after cigarette, a topless lady tried to sell me some cotton, the guesthouse people tried to rip us off by adding a couple of phantom beers onto our bill (which turns out happens quite a lot in this country, in 4 days it happened 7 times. Weird), and I just thought to myself, this is so not what I was expecting or hoping things would be like.

The country had me confused. I got Thailand. Thailand is easy to get. The people are easy because most of the time, what you see is what you get. They’re so used to dealing with us falang that we’re almost part of their culture. And they know how to deal with us. Here, things run deeper. People live their lives around you, almost oblivious of your presence. And when they do notice you, sometimes I’m not sure if they like what they see. To be honest, during my first few days in Laos, every local I met was either grumpy, rude, or dismissive. Now, everybody’s got a right to feel like that every now and again, but at times I felt it was directed specifically at tourists. Especially when one shop lady yelled at Tracey about foreigners coming over spending their money. We weren’t quite sure exactly what she said or what she meant, but she was mad. And I was disappointed.

But onwards and upwards.

I never really managed to get to sleep properly, what with the dog and rain and the stupid English girl that persisted in brushing her hair all night and fear that I was going to be robbed, but I did manage to doze off for a while just before dawn.

I awoke to perfect stillness. The storm had left us. The dog was nowhere to be seen. A strange looking Frenchman with straggly white hair was sitting in the middle of us smoking, and staring into space.

One thing I’ll say about the barn – it gave a good view across the Mekong river (cos of having no walls like) to Laos. It was kind of exciting. My first sight of Laos. More specifically, dawn breaking over Houay Xai. It looked different. There was a shanty town feel to it, things just seemed to be stuck together in no particular method. It looked poor and disheveled.

I started to feel that maybe Laos was a totally different world.

And so we crossed by boat, after a brief fight with a gang of Vietnamese tourists (Learn how to use a fucking queue people! Look it up! It’s in the dictionary!), queued for this, queued for that, an hour later, visas stamped and paid for, we were officially in Laos. All the (fucking really annoying) Vietnamese tourists had managed to get there before us (hundreds of the fuckers) and taken all the buses. Because travel takes so long in Laos, there’s not much point in a bus leaving after 10am, cos it’s not going to get anywhere before dark.

And we were tired. Really really tired. And everything was so different. The people were so different. We didn’t have the energy to deal with it. So we decided to get a bus to the nearest town, just to get us away from the border and the crazy Vietnamese and the feeling that nobody wanted us there. We chose Luang Nam Tha.

I sat down on the bus. I was so tired. I hadn’t slept for so long. I dozed off.

I was woken on the bus by a strange Lao man yelling over me “Luang Nam Tha! LUANG NAM THAAAAA!”.

Um. Ok (you crazy bastard). Say it don’t spray it.

So I gathered my belongings, dragged myself up, and went to check out Luang Nam Thaaaaaaaaa.

And a few hours later, realized, too late, that I’d left my camera on the bus, which was well on it’s way back to the border. My initial reaction was, Aoife, you stupid bitch, followed by a general feeling of being gutted.

It’s weird how important your camera is to you when you‘re travelling. It’s like, if you don’t have a camera to document what you see, then it didn’t really happen. Or, you become sort of unwilling to go see beautiful things because you can’t take photos to remember them. And you’ll feel bad. It’s a crazy feeling, but it’s true.

So I moped and whined, smoked cigarette after cigarette, a topless lady tried to sell me some cotton, the guesthouse people tried to rip us off by adding a couple of phantom beers onto our bill (which turns out happens quite a lot in this country, in 4 days it happened 7 times. Weird), and I just thought to myself, this is so not what I was expecting or hoping things would be like.

The country had me confused. I got Thailand. Thailand is easy to get. The people are easy because most of the time, what you see is what you get. They’re so used to dealing with us falang that we’re almost part of their culture. And they know how to deal with us. Here, things run deeper. People live their lives around you, almost oblivious of your presence. And when they do notice you, sometimes I’m not sure if they like what they see. To be honest, during my first few days in Laos, every local I met was either grumpy, rude, or dismissive. Now, everybody’s got a right to feel like that every now and again, but at times I felt it was directed specifically at tourists. Especially when one shop lady yelled at Tracey about foreigners coming over spending their money. We weren’t quite sure exactly what she said or what she meant, but she was mad. And I was disappointed.

But onwards and upwards.

We thought we were being smart.

We thought we were doing it the fast and easy way.

A thing I’ve learned about Asia.

The fastest way is NEVER the easiest.

The plan was to grab a minibus from Pai straight to the border town of Chiang Khong, grab a few hours kip at a guesthouse there, get up early, scoot across the border and be in Luang Prabang in Laos by dinner time.

This is what actually happened. (Jesus I feel like I’m writing a script for Law & Order)

At 8pm we settled ourselves into a wee minivan. There were only 6 of us onboard so plenty of room to stretch out and try and get a bit of sleep. And then we started driving.

There are 762 bends in the road between Pai and Chiang Mai. No, I did not count them. Somebody else did, and printed it on a load of t-shirts, but whatever, I believe them, because even though I didn’t count them, I felt every single one of them. Sleep was impossible. When you weren’t being flung to the left, you were being tossed to the right. When you weren’t climbing up steep mountains sides, you were hurtling in the dark through a foggy gap between cliff faces. And all you can tell for sure in the dark is that you can’t see a fucking thing, but you can sure smell the girl puking out the window behind you.

At about bend 24, the thunderstorm hit. Lightening raged over our little silver bus, following us for the rest of the night. The wind whipped us all over the road, and not a sound could be heard over the rain pounding on the roof. Not even puking.

At least it brought a bit of light, so now you could actually SEE the sheer cliff faces and menacing curves now.

Halfway through the journey, we pulled up at a petrol station. A few people dashed in to use the loo. And came running out gasping that there were swarms of mosquitoes, armies of angry ants and a few slightly irate cockroaches patrolling the bathrooms against foreign invaders. Or maybe just hiding from the rain.

There would be no peeing that night.

Another bus pulled up and emptied itself into us. 6 became 20. We told ourselves it was cozy, whilst positioning limbs carefully to avoid special areas being damaged by flailing limbs. And then came the potholes. Many potholes. Potholes of all sizes and shapes. Potholes who dreamed of being valleys and were emphatic about achieving this dream. More fog. Some bouncing. A little puking. And potholes. Always potholes.

At 4am we arrived in Chiang Khong. Thank Christ, we thought. A bed! A bathroom! Shelter from the storm! Yippee!

Cheerfully, we made our way inside and were told to leave our bags in a corner of a semi outdoor sort of barn. It had a roof that only met 2 of the walls, because, well, there only were 2 walls. With rugs on the floor. And a table. And a chair. Lots of rugs. About 20 rugs.

It was when the owner started yelling at the big black dog that had made himself comfortable on one of the rugs that I began to suspect that we would not be getting a bed that night.

I’ll gloss over the horror dawning on the faces of all my fellow bus goers, followed by disbelief, followed by revulsion, followed by a fervent desire to grab a rug that was still dry and a patch of ground that was not being rained upon. We legged it, rugs and bags tossed up into the air, the dismayed dog running for cover under the table.

Did I mention the thunderstorm was still in full swing? Cos, yeah, it was.

Ryan and I met each other eyes at one stage and burst into laughter. Because if you don’t laugh, you’re only going to cry.

And so we settled down for night, using our bags as pillows, the floor as a bouncy mattress, and a doggy rug as cozy duvet cover. All the while the rain poured around us, leaving us covered in a fine mist by morning.

This is interesting, I thought to myself.