Luang Prabang: waterfalls and black bears

Sunset on the Mekong

The trip down the Mekong was pleasant enough, hangover aside. We passed a lot of small villages, their bamboo houses clustered together and looking over the river. People were engaged in familiar river activities, like fishing and swimming and washing clothes, as well as one or two unfamiliar ones. For example, I saw a number of villagers squatting half in the water, sifting objects through a kind of conical basket. I still don’t know what they were doing.

The only animals I saw were domesticated. Most of them were water buffalo, long-horned with ribs poking out through their sides. Other than these, the occasional village dog would come bounding out to the river’s edge to bark at us and wag its tail. Not a single wild animal made itself visible: no birds, no fish, nothing. My Canadian friend and I wondered why this would be. Hunting on the part of the villagers? Slash and burn agriculture destroying the forest habitat? The latter seemed a likely explanation, considering the dark haze that hung over everything and which we took to be smoke.

Snake whiskey, a Laotian specialty.

This haze grew thicker the closer we got to Luang Prabang. My hangover dissipated in inverse proportion to it. The Canadian and I shared a tuk-tuk to a guesthouse on the edge of the tourist district and settled in for the night. We went out for duck noodle soup and strolled down to the night market. Neither of us being big shoppers, and every other stall offering the same merchandise, we wound up sitting at a table outside of a store, drinking Beerlao and talking about everything from politics to conspiracy theories to religion. Often the boundaries between these topics got blurred.

The next day I moved out of the guesthouse and down the road to a backpacker hostel. I had needed that one more night of a private room, but it was refreshing to get back into a social atmosphere. It’s a big hostel with travelers from all over the world: lots of Brits and Australians and Canadians, as well as people from Argentina, Brazil, France, Holland, Hungary, and the States, even. The other major advantage of this place, called SpicyLaos Backpacker, is that it’s only 30,000 kip a night. If that sounds extravagant, bear in mind that this comes out to just under $4.

I am slowly getting used to the Laotian currency, and the more I do, the more I realize that Luang Prabang is actually quite expensive compared to Chiang Mai. This has been an unpleasant surprise, since I was led to believe that Laos would be cheaper than Thailand. I am told that most of the country is in fact cheaper, but that prices are higher in Luang Prabang and especially in the tourist sector. Food, for example, averages twice as much as it cost in Chiang Mai, and it’s not nearly as good. Still, at $2 a meal, I can’t complain too much.

My first night in SpicyLaos, I met another American from the Bay Area and made plans to meet up for drinks at a bar called Utopia. At dinner that night, I ran into an Irishman and an Englishman who were looking for the same bar, so we all trouped over together. Fortunately, the path was marked with sign after sign; otherwise, we would never have found the place through all the twisting alleyways and private residences. We suspected we were being had, and that the signs were some kind of tourist trap. I suspected we were being led to a godforsaken alley by the river where Laotians waited with knives and ice chests to carve out our organs and sell them on the black market. Okay, an Australian girl we met at the bar had suspected that. I wasn’t as imaginative, envisioning a plain old mugging and making lame jokes about naïve Westerners who believe in utopia.

In any case, we reached the bar without incident, and it turned out to be worth it. Bamboo decks extended toward the river, and the low tables were ringed by reclining cushions and lit by candles. I felt like a Roman general, leaning back like that in the candlelight. There was a sand volleyball court that I could appreciate, even if I wasn’t remotely tempted to set foot on it. Its boundaries consisted of well-made brick walls so that the whole thing was enclosed, although it was easily viewable from seats at the bar. Hookahs were available and I desperately wanted one. I failed, however, to incite the same passion in my drinking buddies — that is, until after we left, when everyone started complaining that we hadn’t gotten one.

I got a lesson in Australian geography from the Australian girl, and even had a map scrawled down in my notepad for future reference. I was put to the test the next night, and I am sad to say that I failed, thinking Melbourne was north of Sydney. It turns out it is south. I did know that it was on the east coast, and that Perth is in the west. I also have it from a good source that the interior of the country is home to more serial killers than aborigines. I suspect these demographics have been slightly exaggerated, however.

Which brings us up to yesterday (Feb 28?), when the American, Australian, and I set out to Kouangsi waterfall, along with the Australian’s traveling companion, who was from England. It was a beautiful swimming hole and had a decent number of trails. I walked along them barefoot, enjoying the coolness of the ground on my feet. There was jungle all around. Pictures to follow once the internet will cooperate.

Houangsi swimming hole

Don't know what the purpose is, but it's a nice touch.

The main waterfall.

Needless to say, we had a great time. As we were leaving, we passed a refuge for rescued black bears. A big, balding Aussie who worked there made an announcement, spreading his muddy hands wide and informing us that there was a separate enclosure with 12-month-old cubs, usually off-limits to tourists, which we could go have a look at. There were four cubs, each of them nearly as tall as me when they stood up on their hind legs and swatted at each other. Two of them wrestled incessantly, and another rolled on the ground and chomped loudly on a huge length of bamboo. The fourth one stood atop a log and gazed down imperiously at the rest.

Black bear cagefighting.

When we got back to Luang Prabang, we climbed the stone stairs up the hill to the city’s most prominent temple and watched the sun set over the Mekong. It was a great view, even if the sun disappeared behind the smoke before it actually reached the horizon.

Sunset from the hilltop temple.

Last night we returned to Utopia, and the Aussie, Brit, and I spent a fair amount of time playing “Would You Rather,” a game my step-sister remains unrivaled at. I held my own, trained as I was by the best. The question I was most proud of, posed to the two straight women, was, “Would you rather sleep with a ladyboy, or a 75-year-old man with an enormous, hairy gut?” I can’t remember the final answer. They vacillated several times, which, to me, is the sign of a good “Would You Rather” question.

As for today, I am going to take it easy and idly formulate some travel plans. North? South? I don’t know. I don’t much care, at this point. Many people are traveling on to Viang Vieng, south of here, which is a place notorious for its hard-partying foreigners. You can float the river there and have ropes thrown out to you from bars on the river’s edge. You meander down it and drink yourself into oblivion and hopefully don’t drown. This is a novel concept to every other traveler I have talked to, but as I point out, the only innovation there are the bars. Back home, we float the river, but we bring our own booze — Douglas County style.

Anyway, we’ll see. I’ll go somewhere within the next couple days and that’s as far as I care to think about it. There are more legitimate trekking operations up north than can be found in Chiang Mai. That sounds appealing. Then again, so does floating the river. I swear the heat is more oppressive up here. Maybe I’ll flip a coin.

(I wrote this on Leap Day, but have been unable to post it until now. The internet only works when I am screwing around and refuses to cooperate as soon as I need to do anything constructive.)

Laos, or, French lessons with Quentin Tarantino

I crossed the Thailand/Laos border on a motor canoe just before it closed. The sun was setting over the Thai side of the river and shone red off the surface of the water. The Laotian official on the other shore rewarded me for my troubles by charging $15 extra for my visa, and verified the price with a shit-eating grin.

Welcome to Laos.

In a later conversation with another traveler, in which we tried to identify the “evils of Communism” as they could be observed in Laos, this sort of border corruption was the only thing we could come up with. And that, it must be said, is not a phenomenon limited to Communist countries. The outward signs of Communism, such as it is here, have been limited to the odd red flag emblazoned with the hammer and sickle.

I was struck, that first night in Huay Xai, by how quiet the streets were. I sat outside a restaurant on the main drag and listened: aside from the occasional passing motorbike, I heard only the hushed conversation of a tourist couple to my left and some kids playing soccer a couple hundred meters away. Even the owner of the restaurant spoke quietly as she took my order in casual English. Every once in a while a dog would bark. I sipped my Beerlao, which goes down smooth and at least doesn’t bring the immediate headache peculiar to Chang in Thailand, and read my tattered copy of Roughing It, by Mark Twain, turning the pages as silently as possible.

I had almost stayed in Chiang Khong that night, on the Thai side, mostly because I didn’t want to deal with the border crossing until morning. The room I looked at over there was considerably nicer than the one I wound up with in Huay Xai. I saved myself 50 baht, but in exchange I gave up a view of the river, or more accurately, a view of anything, since my room had no windows. The ceiling fan was positioned underneath a bare light bulb and gave the room an unsettling strobe effect as it whirred and rattled around. I looked at the naked walls of cheap plastic panels, held up by a haphazard allotment of nails, and at a half-painted beam standing exposed from floor to ceiling, and berated myself for not spending one more night in Thailand. I rejoiced, at least, at the flush toilet — until I discovered that its flushing capacity was, alas, mostly theoretical.

One advantage of crossing the border that evening was that I was able to buy a ticket for the “slow boat” from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, which left the following morning at nine. Or so I was told — as it was, the boat left at noon, providing me with several hours to familiarize myself with it and to practice sitting patiently for the actual journey. The enterprising comrades of Huay Xai are full of such white lies. For example, our gaggle of tourists was informed that we would be spending the day on hard wooden benches, and therefore needed to purchase some cushions. These were readily at hand, in that very store, and cost a mere 8,000 kip. If you can’t appreciate the bargain we were so kindly being offered, that comes out to $1. As it was, our seats had been ripped out of minivans (dozens of them, it would have taken), and after having that irritating headrest removed, had been arranged carefully into rows. I say carefully because the things weren’t bolted down. Why waste time and money on such trifles when you have a boat load of fat tourist asses to keep the things in place? Occasionally, the passengers in front of you would go to the back of the boat to smoke or use the toilet, and if you tried to stand up with the aid of their vacated seat, you would nearly bring the whole seat down on yourself, and so would gain new appreciation for the ingenuity of the arrangement. In any case, the cushions were a nice bonus, but weren’t exactly necessary, accustomed as my tourist ass is to minivan seats.

The slow boat is aptly named. The journey to Luang Prabang consists of two full days on the Mekong River. The first day took about seven hours and the second one took nine. During the night, we stayed in Pak Beng, which was probably a sleepy little village a couple decades ago. It is still small, but far less sleepy now that its economic diet has been fortified with tourists from the river. The restaurant across from my guesthouse offered free Laos whiskey, made right there in the village. The boy making this pitch informed me that it was good and would make me grow big and strong. I asked if he had been drinking it. He looked skinny to me. He laughed and said no, so I decided to trust his endorsement. I did, however, catch him in at least one lie: he told me it was only 10% alcohol. I don’t know what sort of methods the villagers of Pak Beng use to measure alcohol content, but I would guess that either they don’t have any, or this kid’s English was (innocently, I’m sure) flawed. In any case, I’m not complaining. I enjoyed the Laos whiskey, and the Beerlao, too. In fact, I enjoyed a fair amount of both.

I made some friends that night, three of whom were from France and, I have to say, were the first Frenchmen I have really hit it off with. This may have been for two reasons: one, I was lamenting the state of my home country when they came upon me, a conversation they eagerly joined; and two, they had discovered the Laos whiskey, as well. Regardless, we had a good time staggering down the one street of Pak Beng, irritating tourist and local alike. I learned how to say, “I don’t speak French,” in French, and I am proud to say, I still remember it. They made me repeat it no fewer than 16 times before it was pronounced “good French,” and then they turned to the grave matter of how terrible the French is spoken in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. I apologized on behalf of my countryman for this injustice, and explained that considering the thematic importance of language in that film, and bad accents, in particular, that this was probably intentional. They had me, though, saying the character who most incited their outrage was supposed to be native French. Now that I think about it, however, I believe that character was in fact an Austrian Jew posing as a Frenchwoman.

In any case, I carried those memories with me the rest of the way down the Mekong in the form of a lingering hangover. I was lucky to make the boat at all, actually, since my alarm failed to go off and I happened to wake up with a half hour to spare. I sat next to another friend I made the night before, a Canadian, and we had an enjoyable time together, my hangover and frequent naps notwithstanding. Really, a boat or a ferry is one of the better ways to ride out a hangover, so to speak. You get a steady breeze in your hair and you don’t have to berate yourself for wasting a day of your journey.

I suppose I’ll split this post awkwardly in two rather than wait another day to finish it and post it as a unified whole. So, stay tuned for more on the trip up the Mekong, plus a sprinkling of text about Luang Prabang. Oh, right, I’ll add some pictures, too.

Back on the trail: Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai

I have changed my location by one letter.

This morning I bade Chiang Mai farewell with more than a little wistfulness. My feet have just finished healing up. I was just getting to know some great people there. And onward I go…

Chiang Mai really is a distinctive city. I love the laidback college town atmosphere, the plethora of temples, and the old town walls, complete with moat. Every time I saw those walls I would envision some impending Mongol invasion and feel like I needed a spear in my hand. I know, at heart, I’m still a ten year old wishing he could live in Middle Earth. You have to admit, though: any place that can feed that sort of romanticism is doing something right.

Anyway, I am now in Chiang Rai. It took about three hours on the bus to get here. My plan, such as it is, is to stay here tomorrow and catch a bus for Laos the following morning. My first impression of Chiang Rai has been favorable. The bus station is right next to a thriving night market, and there were plenty of tourists there to welcome me back to the traveling circuit. It’s a big enough town to have stuff going on and yet it’s small enough to feel peaceful, too. I keep telling myself I’m going to get back out there and explore the market further, but I’m starting to feel sleepy lying here on this hotel bed. We’ll see.

More yokel-ness ensued at the Chiang Mai bus station. With the public bus system down south, I learned that one bought a ticket on the bus itself. So this afternoon, I waited confidently until people had started boarding. Look at me, I thought. I’m so travel-savvy.

Turns out you buy a ticket at the ticket counter. The bus staff rolled their eyes and sent someone to get a ticket for me while I stood outside feeling like that dumbass tourist.

These things happen.

As for longish term plans, I have decided to stay in SE Asia and trade in my airfare to Turkey for a voucher. Once I looked at the cost of living in Istanbul and the surrounding region, it became clear to me that it’s going to be a lot more of a financial stretch to travel over there. You simply can’t beat the exchange rates here. My money goes much further.

Another factor was the weather. When I checked, it was in the neighborhood of 55 degrees F in Istanbul. That’s certainly not cold, but compared to 75 degrees here, it’s a tough trade to make. Couple this with the fact that I only packed for SE Asia and would have to buy warmer clothes upon arrival.

There is also the vague reasoning that taking off for Istanbul goes against the current of travel in these parts. The backpacker circuit has a way of pulling you along with it — it’s the path of least resistance. It feels abrupt and awkward to go straight from Thailand to Turkey. Or at least, that is my justification for the herd mentality behind this reason.

So on the one hand, it’s great to have more of a plan and to have the time/money to roam around Asia. On the other, I was excited about Eastern Europe and particularly about visiting my friend Val in Ukraine, where she is saving the world as a Peace Corps volunteer. However, I will have the voucher, and I can only use it with the one Eastern European airline, so let’s say maybe in the summertime, Val-Tron.

Overall, it feels good to be moving again. My mindset is shifting back into wanderlust mode, which is, after all, what this blog is supposed to deal with. I’m considering starting a separate blog for all the crap that isn’t related to travel. I was thinking about calling it “The ManBoy Chronicles.” (Yes, I do insist on being self-deprecating. It makes me feel better about how very, very seriously I take myself.) I don’t want to stretch myself thin, though, so we’ll see.

That’s always the last word: we’ll see. I’m seeing a coat of arms for the Ministry of Indecision in my mind’s eye… what is “we’ll see” in Latin?

Expect fewer updates for a while. Being on the move, combined with being in Laos, is going to cut down on my internet time. I am perfectly okay with that. I do not remember when I decided that daily posts were required. I continue to write every day, but I will no longer subject you all to the shit not worth sharing.

Then again… we’ll see.

Further Updates from the Ministry of Indecision

I might need to start a whole category of MoI posts. It’s one of the larger departments of my anxious, polyphonic mind. Here’s a glimpse into the murk.

I am leaving Chiang Mai on Wednesday morning. I will be going to Laos and then Vietnam. This much is certain. As for the rest… I need to make some decisions pretty soon about staying in Asia and teaching or sticking with my original plan to fly (recklessly) on to Istanbul and from there, tour Eastern Europe. If I’m going to the Balkans, I’m leaving 4 March, which leaves me only ten days to zip through Laos and the northern part of Vietnam, then get back to Bangkok and go halfway around the world again. That’s sounding a bit crazy right now, even to me.

I’m nearly ready to start applying for teaching jobs in Korea, once I get a copy of my diploma from home (still waiting on the university, but it’s in the mail). The thing is, most teaching jobs in Korea will pay your airfare into and out of the country. It’s one of the major draws of working there, in addition to high salaries and loads of other benefits like free housing. So really, I can fly to Korea from anywhere in the world, once I get a job. But, since I’m aiming for ASAP positions (like, starting within a few weeks), it would be sort of crazy to fly to Turkey, range up into Bulgaria and Romania, then turn around and fly back to Korea.

Then again, if I don’t, I’m SOL on the cost of that plane ticket.

I could try to find teaching work in Eastern Europe, which was my original plan — but then again, my original plan involved a TEFL certification that I bailed out on.

Anyway, this matter will remain under MoI jurisdiction until tomorrow. Then it passes on to the Ministry of Certainty, and from there will progress either to the Ministry of Good Decisions or the Ministry of Bad Decisions. I don’t need to tell you which one of those is the larger department.

USA! USA!

Quote of the day:

[Concerning the U.S. conquering the world (Iran, specifically)]

Aussie: You’re retarded.

Me: Yes, we are. Retarded with guns. That’s our foreign policy, in a nutshell.