The Dude Abides
Everyone told me that there wasn’t much going on in Vientiane. I knew that there had to be something happening. A few nights ago I located a pub that was showing a Manchester – Arsenal game, so I popped in for a few drinks. I got talking to a local Lao guy named Kern, who quickly introduced me to his friends. They were all fairly well-off Laotions – Kern worked for the Ministry of Justice, his friend Ton was a medical student. I had a great time with them, so I met them again the next night for drinks.
Guidebooks on Vientiane will tell you that the town pretty much shuts down at midnight. After the bars close, all the locals (and a few expats) head to a local bowling alley which stays open quite late. So the next night, I hopped on the back of Kern’s moto and we headed off to the bowling alley. I was very surprised to find extremely legit bowling facilities – as good as you will find in the US. The one difference I saw was that above all of the pins hung various communist insignia; though if you got a good score, you could win some items. If you rolled a 280, you won a TV; a 290, a refridgerator; a 300, a motorbike…unfourtunatly my score rarely exceeded 120.
The next morning I came out of the guesthouse to find a car being towed away that had obviously been in a serious accident. I watched the scene for a minute, but didn’t think too much of it until later in the day. I was talking with a German guy in the guesthouse, and appearntly at around 1 or 2 in the morning, a car with two people inside rammed into the building next to our guesthouse. The German was a paramedic, so he rushed out with his medical kit to help. I had heard that if you have a serious accident in Laos, you want to be evacuated to Bangkok as soon as possible. Upon hearing the German’s story of the previous evening, I did not doubt it.
For one, there is no ambulance service in the capital, except for a private Austrialian group. Since the two guys who crashed the car were locals, there was no one to pay for an ambulance. The German, after getting the two guys out of the car, hailed two passing tuk tuks to take the injured to the hospital. The German said that he was horrified at the state of the hospital. One of the guys was so badly injured that they just set him on a table and left him. The other one was in serious condition, but the local “doctors” did not know what to do. They did not possess even some basic medical equipment, and the hospital was in poor sanitary condition. I am pretty sure the one guy died, and I’m not too sure if the other guy made it.
The next night, we were riding in a Tuk Tuk heading towards the night market. In the middle of an intersection was a Tuk Tuk which was tipped over (it had obviously been hit by something) and the driver was laying on the concrete. The rest of traffic drove by like nothing had happened. I guess that is what medical care is like in this part of the world. If you cannot pay for treatment, you have little chance of survival.
Those two incidents were a bit of a wake-up call for me. Before leaving home, I purchased a international medical insurance policy that will pay for an evacuation to the nearest adequate medical facility (in this part of the world, you want to go to Bangkok). I now make sure to carry the card with the phone and account numbers on my body, just in case something bad happens.
Aside from horrific traffic accidents, the rest of my stay in Vientiane was great. The next few nights, I hung out with Kern and friends, bowling until the wee hours of the morning. I had a great time with them, and will be sure to look them up the next time I am in town.
Tags: Laos
Neil
August 14th, 2004 at 2:01 pm
All I needed was a couple of white russians and I was right there with you…great post!
August 18th, 2004 at 1:08 am
aw, man, i watched the big lebowski 2.5 times in laos/thailand. that movie is soo good!
*v