planes, trains, n tuk tuks….

Vietnam immigration was a hassle as expected.  Seems our Lao Airlines buddies never made any call or got approval for our early entry.  (what on earth did they do with our passports for 2 hrs?)   After a lot more whispering and passing of passports we finally got ushered through.  a mutually beneficial decision since they didn’t really want us spending 3 days in passport control (Tom Hanks style in that movie) and we really didn’t want our longest stop to be the airport.  Boarded an airport shuttle minibus to the old quarter 45 minute journey away and costing 2$.  Not Vietnam dong, dollars.  ?   10 Vietnamese and me and b piled into a minivan then came all the luggage then came miscellaneous bags of rice piled on our laps!   It got to be so ridiculous that we burst out laughing hysterically which in turn made the rest of them join in at our amusement.

Peeking over our lap rice bags out thru the window you could see the most beautiful sunset EVER!  Greens/ pink/orange/yellow/purple all filtered through a fog that floated in a thin line low on the horizon like a level of clouds fallen.  This sky light bonanza framed by flat rice fields reaching the sky on the far horizon interrupted only by single swirling smoke lines from hundreds of individual fires.  Otherworldly.  Neither of us could stop watching long enough to get a picture, so you”ll just have to imagine.

the bus eventually dropped us off at the wrong guesthouse, a common scam here as they get kickbacks for doing so, but we were on to their routing and he eventually took us where we wanted.  Down a tiny lively alleyway we bumbled through to the lobby where the boys at the desk said they were full but had room in the guesthouse across the street, by the same owner.  We were too tired to question and offloaded our gear in B”s favorite room to date complete with balcony overlooking the alley and a TV!  our first bit of western culture since arriving.    Turns out it was most definitely a scam and a normal occurrence for a guesthouse to get written about in lonely planet (the backpackers bible) and then many others with the same name pop up all around it hoping to misdirect and profit.  Very cheeky, and i guess perfectly legal?  But the gall of them to stand in the real lobby is a little surprising!.

Hit the streets to explore.  Hanoi is yet another shock on this trip.  blowing all preconceptions out the window.  Firstly the architecture….each lot ranging from 8ft-15ft wide (actually some are even smaller) and 3-5 stories tall in what can only be described as Italian Revival style.  But think of Italian villas, smooshed together and elongated more like dutch proportions w/ balconies and open air roof decks with hovering roof above.  Shop fronts at ground level, flats above, very reminiscent of small Italian cities.  Bustling.  the first place we’ve been that seemed rather western, at least on the main streets through the city.  Take any alleyway though, and quickly you emerge into the  real behind the scenes life of Hanoi.  It all happens in the alleys.  Swapping, selling, eating on tiny (toy sized) plastic stools usually red or blue thrown about the narrow streets like an obstacle course.  People just set up food stalls from their living rooms and serve anyone who sits.  Raw meats on cardboard, god only knows how in this heat it doesn”t ruin.  Traditional Vietnamese life thrives in the side streets while modern consumerism has burst yrs ahead steps away.  I think you can tell a lot about a countries economic status by the (at least in the developing world) by the existence of a middle class.  Vietnam”s middle class is booming and the first city where people have shops and separate living space not just the multipurpose rooms.  In general VN is fast developing and the only Asian country that can keep the Chinese juggernaut in its sights.  It”s especially fascinating that although the people now are allowed to make their own money and pursue capitalism openly (and with fervor!) they still have no political say in how the country is run.   The gov. is throwing obscene amounts of money into public service projects mainly improving the roads, bridges, and ports trying to distract from this.  Probably increasingly bizarre to the younger generation that now has access to satellite TV and vast internet resources.

Grabbed my morning bag o” coffee and headed to the airport for our flight to Hanoi Vietnam.  (yes, you heard right, liquids in Laos are often served in plastic bags w/ straws.  coffee, smoothies, soup, sauces.  and miraculously they defy gravity and stand up straight when set on a table!)

Checked in for our flight on Lao Airlines and were greeted w/ a ”you can not board this flight..

”come back in 3 days.”

Apparently there had been some mix up w/ our vietnam visas and the date to enter the country wasn”t until the 13th.  We pleaded our case and I think at one point htreatened to chain ourselves to the desk.  After 2 hrs of whispering and disapearing w/ our visas (thank goodness we got there early) they said they had contacted Vietnam immigration and we ere ok to go.  A dubious claim but we didn”t care.  figure it was a step in the right direction.

But now we had to board the dreaded Lao Airlines flight.  Something neither of us were happy about being our only option out of LP, since they have the worst  crash record of any airline and has yrs past stopped even reporting its safety record.  Boarded our 2 prop plane ready to sputter down the lone runway and were pleasantly surprised!  Clean, bright, painted with appealing Asian scenes on the cockpit wall, a fantastic box meal w/ green swirly bread pudding and french roll pork sandwiches and fruit.  Not bad at all!  especially for a 1.5 hr flight?!

*side note:  Awoke w/ a rather worrisome looking bite/ infection on my forearm.  Looks like a red figure 8 or infinity symbol 1.5” long and really painful like a burn?!  Don”t know how i could have not felt a bite or burn that severe.  Will keep you posted.*

Met some friends from the boat ride out for a drink and someone suggested bowling.  Seriously.  In a country w/ spotty electricity and toilets that can”t handle any toilet paper, there is a 10 lane bowling alley open til 4am.  Amazing.  It was a hilarious scene full of Europeans who were giddy with the novelty of bowling in Laos throwing themselves and balls around barefoot.  it even had computerized scoring and electric ball return!  Although i swear the lane was slanted….:)  but it might just have been my skills.

Luang Prabaang is fascinating.  Its a french settlement  nestled on the banks between the Mekong and the Nam Khan Rivers.  Listed as a UNESCO world heritage city its a diverse mixture of wats, monks, hill tribe held markets, and french bistros and bakeries churning out baguettes and petit fours.  Smells of fried rice and croissant waft down enchanting leafy lanes lined in french colonial architecture.  Stucco lower levels w/ blue / green shutters and verandas and teak clad upper levels w/ outdoor hammock strung hallways.  Night market is put up on the main street nightly w/ single light bulbs hanging from pitched tent canopies.  This place is truly unique.  The word has gotten out though, at least in the city center, where the ratio of travelers to locals is 1:1.

Trying to escape the tourist B n I rented bicycles and headed out of town our second day.  Immediately not even 2km out of town centre and we were immersed in true Lao Village life.  children striping down to their undies to jump into the rice field irrigation run off on the side of the road.  Women in the stereotypical conical hats in picturesque poses.  We snuck up on a few for the perfect camera shot and they were kind if not a little bemused.  Children high fiving us as we rode by on bikes and yelling ”good morning.  what is your name” then hearing them scram ”bye towi” almost out of ear shot.  The children are the only English speakers and even they only know a few phrases.  On a bicycle you feel so close to the street scene and less intimidating to them.  Riding by at a pace that allows interaction.  One Lovely Day.  Even getting scammed by roadside 10yr old vendors for triple priced water was a laugh since they were so chuffed w/ their own gumption they burst out laughing the minute they got the money. (the thing about Laos is everyone is scamming you all the time.  Never except the price told it is usually 3x.  Women w/ babies renting out bikes, ticket salesmen, waiters giving wrong change.  It”s an off putting game, but good hearted, as the minute you call them out on it they quickly negotiate down.  My favorite little trick is the quote you a price in kip and tell you its only 5$, but then on conversion you realize it is actually 25$….guess they figure if you can”t do the math they win.  Not easy math though as 1$=8,538 kip!

Sleep was difficult since we had no fans due to no electricity, (really what”s the point of having them?) , but the beds were comfy and the night air got cooler.  Headed back down to the boat to scope out better seats, but the only tolerable ones, the cushions on the floor at the front had all but one been taken.  Not wanting to be an ass,  I reserved us both seats on the benches at the back.  B then gets on and grabs the last seat in the front, informing me that the seats are too uncomfortable back there.  oh really?  Perfect.  Every man for themselves on this trip! lol.  Sulked off to shore to smoke a cig.  Tobacco is expensive so I bought rolling tobacco back in Bangkok that has lasted this far.  A skill i picked up n London where fags are 11$ / pack.  Suddenly a group of locals who”d been perched on a wall watching the boat comings n going surrounded me w/ such concentrated attention on my rolling.  I told them it was jut tobacco nothing illicit, but nothing swayed their bemusement.  So i let them smell it, and pass it around, and that was all it took.  Cigarette frenzy!  I tried to school them in proper rolling technique but they just loosely rolled messes of cigs and lit them.  All making approving cheers and then almost simultaneously spitting.?!  They seemed to really enjoy such a novelty even falling apart in their hands and posed for a classic pic.  I said goodbye to board my boat for the next 9 hrs and left them puffing and spitting on the shore.

Not much I can say about day II of the boat journey.  9 hrs of the most remote untouched unfathomably beautiful scenery.  Except that it was seen from the most uncomfortable wooden bench imaginable.

Finally arriving in Pak Ben, a settlement sprung up in the middle of the jungle, do no doubt only to the boat service that needs an overnight spot, and the susequent influx of western riches.  Hordes of young boys selling places to stay, resteraunts etc screamed over each other from the bankside as we docked.  Anxious to keep an eye only stuff as rumors of these same boys grabbing your gear and running off into the jungle are prevelant.  Found a super clean and super cheap guest house for 100baht.  As no one had kip yet since there are no ATMs in the jungle, Pak Ben runs off $ and Baht instead of Kip.  Went and had a very good dinner w/ two new friends from our boat, an english guy named Paul and an American dude Josh.  Both with guitars and on much longer trips than ours.  Paul had already been just in Thailand for a year….   it”s funny the backpakcer culture and how you can tell a lot about people by their iteneraries and lenghts of stay.  Beelz n I are light weights compared to many on gap years or multi year treks, but even we turn our noses up at those who are on month trips! ha.  

After dinner we were all back at the guest house listening to music courtesy the boys instruments, when seddenly darkness.  Not just our guest house, the entire village.  Darkness is much darker in the jungle.  Not a single light on the horizon, just the moon, and lots of creepy jungle noises.  This turns out, is a daily routine, the whole town gets 3 hours of electricity a day, then the generators get tuned off.  Josh was flaberghasted that a village that spends so much time w/out electricity wouldn”t sell condles in the shops.  Children hocking all manor of unecessary items to travelers and no one had ever thought to offer candles? 

When I wrote the last entry we were just an hr into our journey and although very rural would still see little villages and cars sporatically.  As the day progressed and we moved further into the jungle it turned from ”wow this is remote”  to ”shockingly remote” to ”unbelievably remote”  Tiny toy sized isolated huts perched on tops of mts covered in dense vegetation.  Once an hr or so you”d see a few of them clustered together hardly enough to call a village.  Women washing in the river, men pulling in fishing poles stuck in rocks. naked babies peeking out of the jungle grass as curious of us as we were of them. 

Our rickety puttering barely boyant boat suddently seemed like a crusie ship in comparison to thir less than minimal existance.  Completly self contained agraian villages living off what they grow on the steep mt sides or what they can catch in the Mekong, mostly giant catfish.  Days away from any real civilation.  No cars, no motorbikes, no tv, no phones, no electricity….this is the remotest place I”ve ever been and something similar only to what i imagine the amazon tribes must look like.  Perhaps even less exposed.  I have more in my rucksac than they do in life.  One gude book i read said that the Lao gov. hopes to move out of the ”least developed country” bracket by 2012.  That might be a lofty goal.

”half the world doesn”t even know how the other half live.”  grandma beeler

Finally could pick up our India Visas and pay the exorbitant $90 fee.  The Consolute was so clean and austere it felt like waiting in the principles office for bad news.  No problems though, and it was such a relief we both did a little ”we”re going to india””dance that broke the thick air and put a smile on all the next in lines.   Off to Chiang Kong to get the slow boat to cross into Laos.  (Pronounced LAO by locals)  Happy and relieved there was a direct bus for on 211 B cause the package deal we skipped  on was 2000!   They warned us we wouldn”t be able to find any accomidation, but an obvious tourist scam, so we boarded the 5 hr bus ride, 2nd class, bench seats straight to Chiang Kong.  Not so straight it turns out it stopped in every tiny town along the way, picking up school kids gong home form boarding school for the weekend and droppin them off at driveways, feilds, markets, guess anywhere they wanted….8.5 hrs of rolling hills, rice feilds complete w/ farmers in the conical hats tilling wasya nd we arrived, jumped in yet another pick up truck and headed to guesthouse to crash before having to get to immigration, ferry across to Laos, immoiration Lao, then board the boat all by 11:30am.  Guet house was really charming with a resteraunt  communal chill out area overlooking the Meakong River.  An American gy, retired engineer lived had been living in the guesthouse for  a year and a few months so we asked his impressions of Lao.  He replied, “”haven”t quite made it that far””?!   5 minute ferry ride to Laos and he hadn”t gotten that far?  Guess it”s nice to leave things to look forward to in retirement?  What”s the rush….

Beelz n I said goodbyes to our new friend Catie, who now seemed like an old friend, and wlked into town to catch a mini van back to Chaing Mai.  Catie decided to stay yet another day and dropped her next stop Chiang Rai to have more time in ”utopai”.  We had to get back to collect our vietnam visas in time for me to get to the immigration office at the airport to get a new departure card so that we could collect our India visas tomorow morining.  If we didn”t make it in time we”d be stuck through the weekend and that would throw our schedule way off.

Expecting the same white knuckle ride, we boarded our locals only mini bus/van headed back thru the mt town, hilltribes, and I don”t know how but the trip that took 5 hrs to get there only took 2.5 getting back.  And we got free water.  score.  Bus was bombarded w/ taxi / songtheau / tuk tuk drivers as usual on arrival.  Now being seasoned professional hagglers, we did the gasp and refuse the suggested price walk away in disgust 3 ft, get called back for the ”real” price dance.  I jumped another tuk tuk to immigration which truned out to only handle visa extensions, and had to go to the airport.  CM airport is as nice as any us airport, clean, bright, well signed and it was a breeze to get my papers in order.

Dinner was a smorgasboard of street food at the night market.  Steaming soups, meats on sticks, corn on the cob, spring rolls, waffle baslls.  Anything you want they will make it right in front of you w/ a gas propaine fueled bbq that rolls away when the sun sets.  Followeed the locas lead and headed to the bustling carts.  Eating seems a very social sport here and thai”s constantly are nibbling on something.

*Food Highlight:  Spring rolls full of rice noodles and topped w/ tiny little deep fried crawfish? only 5mm long and super spicy!*