Lao(Lao) Lovers…
I left Vientiane in a hurry and under a cloud of suspicion…again. Of course I had read about and laughed at the prohibition of foreigners sleeping with locals…initially to my benefit. For the past few days I’d be kicking back at my guesthouse, reading or sleeping, when my lovely young friend would stop over to indulge in some merrymaking en route to work (hers, not mine). During my final night in town, Lana had come by at 8 p.m., unannounced, and we lost track of time…when we finally got around to checking the clock, it was 9:30 and she was late for work. Reminded me of my business school days, when I’d stop by my (law student) girlfriend’s apartment before going to my study group at school; that was to our mutual detriment, at least in terms of (academic) performance.
But the long arm of the law eventually catches up with you, particularly when you can’t read the local lawbooks. And so after visiting Lana at the disco that night, I returned to my guesthouse for a short snooze before she showed up again. I was the last one back, and the guard locked up behind me – I noticed that and got concerned. What if Lana couldn’t get in later on? I waited till the guard laid down on his cot, took off my flip-flops, and walked down to reverse his machinations. And sure enough, he’d barred the way – both the outside gate and the guesthouse door. I got ’em both open and went back upstairs.
Woke up randomly at around 2:30 a.m. – oddly, no Lana yet. Went back to sleep, then woke at a slight knock some time later. Opened the door – there she was. Cool. But it wasn’t to be – the guard had heard her come in. And he’d seen her come round before, and was on alert for her next visit. He wouldn’t let her stay – she only had a few minutes to tell me this before she had to leave. I was furious…and thought about bribing the guard, or perhaps giving him a beating…who the hell was this guy to tell me what I could do? But I counted to ten…during which time I remembered that I was in a Communist country, with laws against my favored sort of lifestyle, and I was in a shaky position – as was Lana, who actually had to go on living here ad infinitum. So I calmed down…we said our goodbyes…exchanged contact info…and I vowed to come back sometime soon and find a more friendly residence that wouldn’t involve this sort of nonsense. Or perhaps a good local lawyer who could run interference for me. After all, we American citizens do have our rights.
I had had my fun in Vientiane – no doubt about it. I had burrowed my way into the city’s underbelly and struck gold, at least for a short while. I had ignored the larger forces at play in this chilled yet authoritarian state’s society. But an equal and opposite force had predictably arisen, as I had feared it might. And it was telling me to move along before things got out of hand. I was not pleased about the parental guidance here, but I suppose it was fair enough.
Hurried out of town the next morning. First returned the motorbike, inhaled a bowl of Vietnamese bo bun (beef with vermicelli and spring rolls), and then got on the bus – which in reality was a large minibus into which were crammed 20 people. The guy to my left sat and slowly sipped two large Beer Laos during the 4 hour ride to Vang Vieng. Fun fun fun. And his girlfriend opened her knapsack at one point – to reveal not the usual contents like books or electronics, but instead bags of chips and cookies. What the fuck is it about people who can’t travel 5 miles without bringing their own convenience store with them? Eat lunch first, people.
Vang Vieng is a town nestled amidst limestone mountains and the Nam Son River. It’s renowned for tubing on said river, as well as motorbiking in the valleys nearby and various other ‘eco-tourist’ adventures. I had come to VV to check out the tubing, and to partake in the highly liberal culture in town – apparently the police have been bribed to stay far away from the more notorious spots.
I quickly picked up on one other aspect of Vang Vieng, one that jibed with other observations, including the one about the annoying couple on the bus. The town is full of cafes showing reruns of American sitcoms – particularly Friends, a show that I watched once and thought retarded and unwatchable. Real life is about 10 times more interesting than any episode of Friends. I guess I’m at odds with about 200 million other Americans, but so be it. Go ahead and have fun looking up Lisa Kudrow’s nostrils for 100 hours – I won’t be joining you.
So walking around VV involved passing by cafes with fat white people (and a few strung-out skinny heroin addicts) sprawled out on pillows watching Friends. I thought it was funny for a few minutes – then I came to see it as a harbinger of the fall of the entire race of man. Travelers come thousands of miles from their homes to an obscure town in north-central Laos to do – what? Check out the culture? Have amazing adventures? Learn a language? Nope – they’re eating chocolate pancakes (huge in Vang Vieng – why bother with delicious local fare?) and watching Friends. Shoot me now.
It’s mostly our fault – the locals will give us anything we want. More on that in a minute. But they deserve some blame, too. Somehow, one local got the idea to show TV reruns; another, to offer sickly-sweet pancakes made on the spot. And dozens of other locals copied them straightaway, the end result being a town of pancake pushcarts, TV cafes, and bovine tourists grazing and vegetating. There just may be a good science fiction novel in there. Too bad Aldous Huxley’s dead.
I’m no purist, despite my constant pontificating. I’ll eat McDonald’s – particularly if the local cuisine stinks (Philippines) or is ludicrously expensive (UK). A little television is fine – and I do find it incredible that in the tiniest of towns there are satellite dishes that pick up HBO. But to come to Laos and watch Friends – sorry, that’s lame, unless you have kids in tow and need to hypnotize them for an hour. Then you get a free pass.
Got into VV as the sun set. Walked around a bit, doped the place out. Had some fried rice and laap (local chopped salad), then found Sakura bar nearby. Well, actually every place in VV is nearby – the town only has 3 or 4 streets. The hostess at Sakura looked a bit strung out – so she fit right in. Went up to the bar – it was happy hour, and you could roll a single die and get drink deals if you lucked out. I rolled a 6 – got a free mixed drink. Excellent. Bantered with the very tall, comely barwench – turns out she’s from southern China, near Dali and Lijiang, where the first Sakura branch is. Those Chinese – now they’re expanding into Laos. And nary a Pizza Hut to be found.
Rolled again – got a 5, half-price on my next drink. I was feeling almighty by now…finished my drink and rolled again. Two…full price. Oh well. Drank one more, noted my deteriorating trendline, and headed back to my guesthouse to snooze. Looked to be a busy day coming up.
Rented a bike the next morning. Rode all round the local valleys and villages for 4 or so hours – memorable setting and sights. I was really out there, in a way that only a motorbike can take you. The rains had raised the river levels and some of the very cool banboo bridges were a bit hairy to cross – but well worth the effort. Here’s what I mean:
Got back to town and headed to the ‘Tubing Center’ to try the famed tubing ride on the Nam Song river. This is a key bit of the ‘Southeast Asia’ tour and people pretty much come to VV to go tubing. That, and watch Friends. Got a tube and got on a tuk-tuk with two British girls – both with pierced noses. Felt my large nose – still no ring. Made a note to keep it that way. And we rode on to the river.
It’s a simple exercise. You put the tube – just a huge truck inner tire – into the river, get on, and you’re off. I decided not to hang around with the two British girls – they were already making high-pitched noises, as some girls so – and went off on a solo mission. The odd and enticing thing about this tube ride is that the locals have built rickety bars and rope swings on the riverbanks, so that you can pull over and have a drink – or pretty much whatever you fancy. That tends to lengthen the one-hour ride into two or three. As it should be.
I passed by the first few bars – I was enjoying the cool breeze and speed of the tube and didn’t feel like getting out too soon. But after 15 minutes I saw a couple Italians I recognized from town – we had chatted a bit the previous night and got along quite well. They waved madly to me…I was across the river and it didn’t look like I’d be able to get across in time…then someone tossed me an inner tube tied to the dock, and I towed myself in. Then the madness began.
The Italians poured some beer down my throat. Then tequila shots came out of nowhere. My wallet was buried deep in my scuba dry bag – it seemed unimportant, anyway. The Italian girl kept rubbing her leg against mine – perhaps accidental, but I enjoyed the kinetic joie of it all. We took turns swinging from the rope and falling into the river. The tow rope went out repeatedly to tow in drunken swimmers – it would not have been unimaginable to get caught in the current and swept downriver. I did hear that every year a few people die doing this. I made a few mental calculations and continued drinking.
A few cigarettes went around. They tasted and smelled a bit funny. I guess they were just stale, that’s all.
The Italians and I got back in our tubes 90 minutes later, unsteadily, and drifted off. We soon stopped at another bar and repeated the inanities for another hour. Then the sun was setting and the locals would be wanting their tubes back. We didn’t want to have to come up with US$7 so we headed in to return ’em. Good things there aren’t any photos extant of that afternoon. How random and decadent – I could spend a day a week doing this. And so should you.
The three of us walked to a café that advertised ‘special shakes.’ Didn’t take much horsepower to figure out what they were selling:
We were feeling special and ordered some. Mine was ‘happy mint lemon.’ Tasted like mint and lemon, as advertised. I had also ordered a chicken sandwich – which came out pretty dry and ordinary, but after sucking down the ‘happy shake’ I noticed that I had devoured the sandwich and was still starving. In the back of the café an Aussie couple were buying some opium, it seemed, from a waiter. I wondered how much the police were getting to stay away from this place…
And this, friends, is the essence of Vang Vieng, a town you’ve likely never heard of. Adventures – any flavor you like – followed by heavy chilling – any flavor you like as well. There’s tubing, trekking, motorbike riding, caving, hang-gliding, etc. And there’s weed, mushrooms, opium, and probably even heavier stuff on offer too. One well-known bar on the strip is a real laugh – you go in there, have a drink or two, and after they look you over and figure you’re not a cop, they slide a laminated sheet over to you with the following menu categories and items:
-Mushrooms: tea / shake / with peanut butter
-Opium: tea / shake / single joint
-Weed: tea / shake / single joint
At least that’s all I can remember. Truly decadent. And there goes my nascent political career – oh well.
The Italians were very friendly. I thought at one point I was going to engage in my first (mixed) threesome. But the menu items proved too much to overcome, and we parted ways round midnight, after a few final drinks at Sakura. The Chinese cutie bartender said I ‘looked different’ from the previous night. Mighty perceptive of her – I felt like a new man.
Slept like a tube. Dark, circular, with no true center. Woke up and ran to catch a bus to my next stop, the city of Phonsavan, near the nearly-famous Plain of Jars. While waiting at the bus station for my hell-bus – reputed to be packed with locals and an 8-hour journey – I had a brilliant cup of Lao coffee and a baguette stuffed with eggs and random vegetables. Probably the best breakfast I’ve ever had – seriously. I almost ordered a 2nd round but my bus came and I scrambled aboard to find a seat.
On the road out of town I noticed some monks walking around carrying umbrellas to ward off the sun. Good idea. Monks and females can pull that off – but if I tried, I’d be laughed out of town by the locals. They also laugh at you when you (try to) use a seat belt. Different cultures, different humor.
Sat next to a Dutch fellow on the Phonsavan bus. Nice enough guy – a bit dour. Was on a brutally tight budget, so decided not to join forces on hotels and tours. I didn’t feel like staying in US$2 a night joints and waking up itching like mad.
Was reading up on Vietnam during the ride. It’s a large country – larger than Italy, about the size of Japan – so I really needed to get my act together and do some planning. For some reason I took a look at my Vietnam visa, obtain in mid-July in Phnom Penh, the capital of quick and easy visas. Al-Qaeda will probably be using the PP route in the future – you read it here. Anyway, I looked at my visa and for the first time saw that the visit dates were July 24-August 23. I had requested the dates to be August 24-September 23 – and it was already August 26. Shit. I thought I had checked the visa in PP…I’m usually on top of these things. I had had this visa for over a month, and had never suspected any issue with it. Now I was a couple days away from entering Vietnam, and my visa had expired with use.
I mentally cursed my guesthouse in PP, which had arranged the visa. I considered the possibility that the Vietnamese Embassy in PP had blown off my request for a postdated visa and had decided to start it on July 24. In any event, no use in assigning blame. I would get revenge in the afterlife…in the meantime, I needed another visa, pronto. These are the sorts of things that prevent me from attaining nirvana and self-realization. Also, the Vang Vieng menu items and special shakes probably played a role.
When I got to Phonsavan, I made my way over to a guesthouse, Kong Keo, run by a young local fellow who’s done quite well for himself. His guesthouse is a great gathering spot and they’re noted for arranging tours and whatever else you need. Shakes included. I got there, sussed the place out, and talked to the owner’s wife, a cool woman named Noi, who got on the horn to Vientiane and got my passport, plus US$80, on the overnight bus to Vientiane, where a new visa would be issued. I’d not really be delayed in Phonsavan, the visa would come back in a day and a half, on the overnight bus coming the other way. Very cool. I was out $80, but learned a valuable lesson and made a note to kick myself – or at least get stupid drunk on cheap local lao-lao whisky sometime soon.
That came to pass surprisingly easily. Not ten minutes after reaching the guesthouse, I found myself seated at the courtyard having a Beer Lao next to a couple, Mark (Kiwi) and Carolyn (South African). Two of my favorite countries, so we had lots to share. We hit it off very well – and found ourselves heading out to dinner together. We had already polished off quite a few bottles of Beer Lao. Now, at the restaurant, we were offered a full bottle of lao-lao. At first I thought a glass or two would do…then the waitress told us the entire bottle was only 10,000 kip, or US$1. Sold. Mark and I drained a few cups…Carolyn a couple too. Mark has a certain drinking joie that I pride myself on having too. And it’s funny – the nights when I go out the hardest tend to be random, i.e. not Fridays and Saturdays. This was in fact a Sunday night, but here we were getting lit on juniper-flavored cheap local whiskey and having a grand time.
The night got more bizarre and dangerous after that. We looked into the local disco, which was empty. We sat down at another restaurant to have more drinks, at which point the Dutchman who sat next to me on the bus that very afternoon ambled over. I didn’t even recognize him. We wandered over to the pool hall and played so poorly we were unable to finish a game of billiards. The locals laughed at us, and we agreed with them. At one point I wandered off by myself, muttering something about ping gai (BBQ chicken on a skewer). Later I came back, and Mark and I went on a mission for more lao-lao as Carolyn went off to bed. We walked for a while, in the wrong direction, and somehow got back to the guesthouse well after everything in town was shut. Classic night.
Woke with a brutal hangover the next day, and decided not to do any heavy-duty sight-seeing. Didn’t get out of bed till 11:30…
Mark and Carolyn are the second super-cool couple I’ve met on this journey. The first were Alan and Janine, in the Philippines, of whom I’ve written at length. Our paths may cross again sometime soon. Mark and Carolyn are huge fun – they know a lot of random factoids, play off each other quite well, and like to have fun. I was happy to find them in Phonsavan, a place where I’d figured to see a few sights and wait for my visa to come back. Turned out to be far more interesting than that.
A bit of backstory – Phonsavan is known for two things. First, there are various sites known collectively as the ‘Plain of Jars’ where hundreds of large stone jars/bowls are scattered across the fields. No one is sure what their purpose was, but they were put there more than a thousand years ago, probably to serve either as liquor holders for a massive celebration or as ossuaries for bodies that have long since disappeared. Two very different theories. Anyway, that’s one attraction.
The second is far more dark. During the 1960s and 1970s, the US bombed the living shit out of Laos, and this area was the worst-hit. The US dropped more bombs on Laos than it did on Germany and Japan during WW2…and Laos is the most-bombed country in history on a per-capita basis. Intention: to root out the Vietnamese Communists and to ‘attrit’ the Pathet Lao Communists. Actual effect: thousands of innocent villagers were blown to smithereens, farms and animals were destroyed, and there are still so many unexploded bomblets lying about that hundreds/thousands are maimed or killed every year, 30+ years after the bombs were dropped. Unbelievable. Of course, civilized Americans wouldn’t have stood for this sort of crime, so the executive branch kept it secret – even from Congress, which only found out because thousands of refugees streamed into Vientiane and a young American aid worker asked questions and found out the truth. He then went to Congress and hearings were held.
Mr. Kong at the guesthouse has a DVD covering this period, put out by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It’s absolutely chilling stuff – I made a copy and am happy to share it. Young US Senator Ted Kennedy chastising the Nixon Administration upon learning of the bombings (which accelerated when the US stopped bombing North Vietnam in the early 70s)…a Lao villager talking about a cave that sheltered 500 villagers, until a single US bomb was fired into it, incinerating everyone inside, including his entire family…a mother showing her little son’s arm-stump. Hard not to cry when you watch the program.
Xieng Khuang province, of which Phonsavan is the capital, is littered with bombs and with debris. Everywhere you go, you see the metal from these bombs being used for practical purposes, like making spoons…or you simply see the bombs themselves, spent, standing against a fence or house. Surreal. Here’d what I mean:
We took a tour of the Plain with a local guide, Jivang, and he was a humorous Hmong fellow. He thanked me, an American, for dropping the bombs because now poor Laos has good US metal for making spoons for eating. He was joking…I think. Either way, I felt horrible about being an American in the face of so much destruction and idiocy.
Rented motorbikes with Mark and Carolyn and spent a day riding in the countryside. Intended to visit some of the Jars sites, but instead found ourselves in the old provincial capital, a town that was literally bombed to bits by the US in the 1960s. To be fair, the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) did their own bit too, destroying other towns that were held by the Royal Lao government. But with our air power, we took the cake.
Visited a cool old stupa up on a hill. I guess our bombers missed a few things in Laos…
Riding back to Phonsavan, we got caught in a rainstorm and pulled over to a little roadside eatery, where we were served semi-clean sticky rice and some meat that was innards of some sort. Very chewy. Then sucked it up and rode back to town, getting soaked and cold in the process.
That night a local fellow gave us the lowdown on the Lao government and some recent controversies in the area. Seems that in recent years there have been some ‘Hmong attacks’ on the Route 7 highway and some locals and tourists have been killed. The government favors the Lao people across the board – while Hmong are 30% of the population, many supported the US during the war, and hundreds of thousands now reside in such exciting places as St Paul and Wisconsin. I met one Hmong-American when we visited a waterfall near Phonsavan – he was back for only the 2nd time, couldn’t speak Hmong, and had the accent of an average USA teenager. We sure know how to assimilate immigrants. Anyway, the Hmong have been under the gun since 1975 and the government blames them for unrest. Well, our local friend told us that this is all bullshit – the ‘Hmong attacks’ have been on actual Hmong targets, mostly villagers going to/coming from market, and that doesn’t make sense. He feels that the government is behind these provocations and then uses them as an excuse to arm Lao youths and ramp up the police/army presence on the roads. And you do see quite a few guys carrying guns, not in uniform. I tend to believe him. Nobody is more devious or knows more about (subversive/misleading) marketing than a bunch of old Communists…
Jivang took us to see some fucking huge bomb craters, here are a couple:
Then we visited the aforementioned falls, and finally, to the Plain of Jars Site 1, the biggie. The jars are not that remarkable, but the collection viewed from afar is fairly impressive – feast your eyes:
Perhaps my Vang Vieng experience affected me more than I thought…but I came to believe that a third Jars theory was possible. The Jars might possible have served as a prehistoric type of waterpipe/bong. Prove me wrong…
That morning we had gone to the local market to stock up for lunch. Some of the offerings were mind-bending – little grubs, dead flying foxes and civet cats, embryonic bloody swallows (supposedly delicious), you name it. We stuck to pretty basic foodstuffs…
Had more fun with Mark and Carolyn whilst in Phonsavan. Didn’t quite manage to reach the same drinking depths, but we tried. On our final night in town together, we went to a place called, appropriately enough, ‘Craters,’ and sat there drinking until kicked out. Lots to discuss with these two. And Mark is a superb story-teller – turns out his grandfather was a longtime Prime Minister of New Zealand and hobnobbed with Churchill (thought highly of him, despite being forced to share a whiskey at 8 a.m.) and JFK (didn’t think much of him). I love history and sat there mesmerized by Mark’s tales.
My passport with visa had come back OK and on time. I asked Noi about it when back from sight-seeing – she said it hadn’t returned. I asked where it was. She said ‘No one knows.’ I was about to have a shit-fit, then caught the gleam in her eye and laughed. She took the passport out of her pocket and handed it over. Whew.
Walked back to the guesthouse with Mark and Carolyn. En route a woman on a pushbike rode by, said ‘Hello goodnight,’ and rode on. Things like that give me renewed faith in humanity…
Said bye to my new friends. They’d hang out in Phonsavan another day, then work their way south to Cambodia. As with Alan and Janine, I’d be more than pleased to cross paths with them again, and will see if we can make that work.
Got on a bus to the next provincial capital east, Sam Neua, the next morning. Another long-ass ride – 8 hours. But the rural scenes were classic: woman and son brushing their teeth next to a river…woman in beautiful Lao skirt chopping wood like a maniac…little girl BBQing meat on a tiny stove. And as with villages everywhere, when the bus goes by, life stops for a second and everyone susses each other out. My white (well, brown) face got lots of looks – probably my nose is the giveaway.
Reached Sam Neua…looked pretty enough from the bus station at the top of the hill, but I decided to press on to the next town, Vieng Xai, an hour closer to the Viet border. At Sam Neua I would have had to take a tuk-tuk down to the city anyway…so it made sense for me to just ride on to Vieng Xai and get closer to Vietnam. My visa had already started and I wanted to cross the border and not cut into my allowable time there.
Vieng Xai is a historical spot. During the US bombings the key Pathet Lao leaders hung out in huge caves in Vieng Xai (‘City of Victory’). These caves were little cities, with hospitals, schools, shops, etc. Now they’re tourist spots, albeit off the beaten path, a key attraction for me.
Got into town at sunset. Raining heavily – put on rain gear and slogged on to a guesthouse. Was filthy and exhausted. Showered, marched over to the market to eat some foe and vegetables, along with a Beer Lao. Then walked around town a bit. Vieng Xai’s caves are in limestone/karst mountains, see here:
The street life is interesting too – I walked by a house where an old woman was leading a group in a Buddhist prayer. Mysterious and soothing.
Slept like a corpse. Got up and took the caves tour with an English-speaking guide. A European couple were also on the tour – they were on the Phonsavan-Sam Neua bus with me the day before. To be honest, I was hoping to steer clear of them, for petty reasons. They’re nice enough folks, but hard on my ears. He’s Spanish and has a somewhat blockhead-like way of speaking English. But to be fair, it’s not his language. She, on the other hand, is French but has lived in London for many years and teaches English there. She’s completely fluent…but her accent combines the worst of French and English and she sounds like a space alien. I generally love when French (women) speak English, with ‘zis zat and zee ozer sing.’ But this woman’s English was too good…she had lost her French accent and instead spoke English in a bizarre and grating manner. Anyway, they were back with me and I dealt with it.
The tour was cool. The caves are massive, impressive, and as you walk through them you have no question in mind about why the Communists won the war. Americans aren’t going to live in caves for 9 years. Full stop.
Now it was time to head into Vietnam. My only problem was a key one – I had close to zero information on transport to the border, and from the border to Hanoi, my first stop. My guidebook, the Lonely Bible, wasn’t that helpful, despite being the latest edition. So I had to investigate my options in a place where English was not widely spoken. Sort of like large chunks of my adult life – no plan, just good intentions.
Managed to find out that there weren’t any more buses/tuk-tuks headed to the border that day…and it being rainy season, some days were bereft entirely. Decided to suck it up and pay for my own ride there, which turned out to be US$30. Not too bad. Got to the border…what an isolated place. Large modern-ish Lao border building, had to yell to get Immigration office to come over. I wondered if I’d be stuck at the border for a day or so, trying to get the hell out. There was supposedly a 12:30 p.m. bus heading somewhere towards Hanoi, but it was now precisely that time and there was no way I’d catch it. I put myself in the hands of Lord Buddha and tried to press on.
The Lao officer took his sweet time. He was confused by my two Viet visas, one clearly expired already without a stamp. After a few minutes, he handed the passport back to me, page opened to the new/valid visa – and he said there was a problem. I looked at it, then said that the dates were OK. He was pretty clearly angling for a bribe – I was in no mood to offer one, unless it got ugly. He eventually gave in and stamped my passport. I walked past the building – and saw nothing but a road. A moto driver came up and said “One dollar for a ride.” I had no idea how far the walk would be, and it was hot as hades. I got on and he drove me around the corner, about 300 meters, then we came to the Vietnamese Immigration building. I got off, paid the man, and saw the Viet official.
He told me, in barely intelligible English, that it was lunchtime and I’d need to wait. I was already resigned to pure torture and just shrugged. Then he went inside and motioned me in behind him. I took a seat at the desk. He looked at my passport, gave me a form to fill out, and we tried to converse a bit. Eventually he asked me if I had any Lao kip left – I said no, I’d spent it all on the tuk-tuk ride. It was quickly obvious that he wanted me to exchange money with him, directly, at a rate beneficial to him. I had Thai baht, and did want to get my hands on some Vietnamese dong…so I took his bait and exchanged 500 baht, giving him about a 7% deal on the rate. My Semitic pride was a bit wounded at that, but he quickly processed my passport, told me the annoying set of conveyances required to get to Hanoi, and let me go. I walked into the shitty little border town of Nameo, wondering what I would find.
This fellow had told me that I’d need to take a US$10 moto ride (not easy with a big backpack), then take 2 different buses. Sounded brutal. And it was already 1 p.m., perhaps too late in the day to make it all the way (300 km) to Hanoi. I walked into Nameo, ready to find a guesthouse with hopefully someone who spoke English and could help me find the way to Hanoi. All I could see were a few foe shops, some little shops, and the post office. Walked into the latter, hoping to find a helpful soul, but they were all at lunch (or sleeping). Walked on.
Went by yet another foe shop. Someone yelled to me – I looked in. Three guys were sitting there, eating lunch and drinking some sort of liquor. I figured they were mocking me – not the first time that would have happened – and started to trudge on. Then one fellow ran over and asked me if I needed to go to Hanoi. Hmmm. I nodded my head, and he motioned me inside.
Their English was awful – I had zero Vietnamese. But we got the point across – one of them was driving a Toyota SUV (parked outside) to Hanoi that very afternoon. I thought it was right away – turned out to be a couple hours later. Turned out the driver (who loved my Maui Jim shades and wanted to buy them off me for $10 – no way baby) was waiting for two Vietnamese businessmen from Hanoi, who, while working across the border in Laos, had their car break down. I had in fact seen the tow truck taking their car, a Mitsubishi Pajero, over the border ahead of me. So this car and driver were from the Vietnamese equivalent of AAA, sent down to fetch the two guys and bring them back to Hanoi. And the driver was offering me a seat for US$30 (originally US$50 – I got them down).
This was a huge stroke of luck. The alternative was probably to crash in a crappy border guesthouse and then have an entire day (or more) getting up to Hanoi. As it was, our ride took 7 hours, but one of the two businessmen spoke some English, had visited the US and Australia, and we had a good chat. We stopped for some good Viet food en route…had some fun adventures on the highways of Vietnam…and made excellent time. Got into Hanoi at 10:30 p.m. Never would have expected such a smooth trip. Lord Buddha, I owe you one.
Major learning: when seemingly annoying young foreign men are yelling at you and it seems they’re teasing you – check it out for a minute. It could save you some serious pain.
I’ve been in Vietnam for a few days now – and have much to relate. But I’ve been cranking on the laptop for 3 hours now and have had enough. Will try to get back on sked this Thursday and update you on my initial Vietnamese ramblings. A parting shot till next time:
Tags: Travel
mbsloney
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