Laotian Infatuation

The mountains outside Vang Vieng.

I’m sitting still on a stone bench on the edge of a courtyard in the middle of Luang Prabang. I’m still because it seems like the thing to do in such a place. Behind me young Buddhist monks between the ages of 8 and 17 are bathing in the cold water from a well they are draining with a bucket. It’s warm out, as always, and humid. The papaya tree has only one ripe fruit and the coconut trees near by have already been stripped of everything edible. I’m angry about the tourists. 

I see more tourists in 15 minutes on the street on the other side of the courtyard than I have seen in all the three months I spent in China combined. You’re most likely to hear people speaking French around here because at one time, like many parts of Southeast Asia, this was a French colony, and so a lot of the locals still speak the language. The reason I’m annoyed at the other foreigners is not just because there are so many of them, though that was an unpleasant surprise when we first arrived here. It has much more do to the fact that a lot of the tourists are either very old, or very young. It seems to be half a retirement home and half a spring break destination, which seems to negate all the trouble it took to come here. You see I was pretty proud of the journey, up until I arrived in Luang Prabang and found more white faces than locals.

We left the Jade Roo, our home for the past month and a half and the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at, the afternoon of January 27. The bus we took first, from Dali to Jing Hong in southern Yunnan, was filled with deaf Chinese people. The whole 12 hours or so was almost completely silent, something nearly unheard of in most parts of China. The people, speaking in sign language, were all young, probably either teenagers or in their early twenties. (After all this time it’s still hard to tell how old Chinese people are, but I feel okay about it ’cause Chinese people seem to have the same trouble guessing my age.) The only sounds I heard for the most part came from when someone somewhere on the bus would succumb to motion sickness, yak into a plastic bag, and then toss the bag out the window. We woke up at 1 am when we arrived in Jing Hong. With no place to go, I asked the driver if we could just sleep on in the beds of the sleeper bus and he agreed. 

When morning finally came, it revealed a tropical environment green and vivid. A papaya tree grew just feet from out bus. Palm trees where everywhere. It seemed that every open patch of earth was completely covered in life. Plants grew on top of plants so the trees were dripping with orchids, vines, and ferns. 

A tree full of epiphytes. Ah, the tropics.

Though I would have loved to have stayed a few days in Jing Hong, our expiring visas pushed us onto the next bus, and we took off for the southern edge of China. It’s strange walking across a country border. One minute you’re defined as a traveler in China, and the next your designation changes and you’re something different—but because there is a ten-minute walk down a jungle-y dirt road after leaving China and before arriving at the Laos visa shack, there is a good chunk of limbo-like time where one doesn’t know quite what they are. The most adventurous I ever feel is in these fuzzy periods where everything I know is behind me, and everything in front of me is an unknown. Nothing has ever been as much of a mystery to me as it is at this particular moment.

To say I knew little about Laos would have been some record-setting understatement. Not only did I know nothing about the culture, food, or geography; before I crossed the boarder I would have been hard-pressed to point out Laos on a map. I didn’t know how to say hello or thank you in the local language. I had no guess whatsoever what might be considered rude, what the local religions where, what the exchange rate was, or even what the money was called. I’ve never walked so blind into any situation in my life, and I’m proud to say I was only mildly panicked. 

The little border town just inside Laos was the kind of place that would be wiped from the face of the earth without a trace in less than a year if it weren’t for the people there carrying out the bare minimum upkeep. Walking past huts made of mud with metal sheets for roofs, we found ourselves remarkably without a plan. There were a group of van drivers offering rides to the nearest town but they were charging incredible sums of money even by American standards, and there was no kind of bus station anywhere in sight. We reached the edge of the town without any Lao money (called Kip) and still no idea of what we were going to do. Finally we were able to change money with some guy we met who was running a little soda stand, and with nothing else to do we started walking down the road.

In retrospect, I guess we assumed we’d eventually find a town or a village, but this only shows how little we knew about the place. Looking back on it now, we were probably a good 30 miles from the nearest village, let alone a city with hotels or guest houses. The sun was pounding us and the jungle was dense on all sides with banana trees and flowers the colors of panic buttons glowing all around. 

Finally, a covered flatbed pickup truck broke the silence, and we stuck out our hands to wave it down. In the cab were the driver and a largish Chinese lady who just happen to be going to the city we’d heard was a viable destination, Luang Prabang. The driver said he could take us to an intersection where the bus to Luang Prabang would drive by. We’d have to chase it down, but then we’d be set. So we jumped in the back of the truck and took off.

The intersection truly was in the middle of nowhere. There was a Chinese restaurant and a couple of huts. The Chinese woman that had become our travel partner was proving to be a little more grouchy than we’d initially guessed, and I found myself not completely trusting her when she gave us advice. Nonetheless, we bought some food and began doing nothing. 

Local fruit.

It was about two hours before the bus arrived, then left without us in it. The driver shouted that the bus was full as we chased after it. The sun was setting as Tryg was calling dibs on the wooden bench in the Chinese restaurant for the night. Neither of us were in particularly bad spirits though. In fact, generally we don’t get too stressed about anything while traveling unless there is something we have to figure out. In this situation, since there seemed to be nothing we could do, there was no reason to panic, so we didn’t. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before a van drove by, which the Chinese woman waved down. We put our trust in her because we had no other choice, and we climbed aboard and took off through the jungle. 

The drive was beautiful through winding dirt roads that rose and fell through the mountains. We snaked along a small enchanting river most of the way. Tryg and I started talking about the possibility of buying a canoe and floating on a paddling trip for a few days through the denser parts of the jungle. 

Coming around one bend we came across a broken-down bus full of people waiting in what remained of the day’s broiling sun. The same bus, in fact, that had passed us by just hours before as we stood on the side of the road. Everyone there seemed to be contemplating a night on the side of the road as we continued on our way.

To this day, we still don’t know what town we arrived four hours later after the sun had gone down. We checked into the worst accommodations we have yet experienced in Asia, just across the street from the bus station, and started walking through the small town looking for a place to eat. We noticed quickly how many foreigners there were. Not tons, nothing compared to what was coming, but enough that we felt out of place. We’d gotten used to being unique over the past months, and so it was strange to see so many travelers in such a random tiny town. 

The next morning we woke up early and caught the first bus heading towards Luang Prabang. The ride was as beautiful as ever, with mountains that would shoot as straight as pillars out of the forest, reaching four of five thousand feet into the sky. Lush green plants covered every peak, while we were surrounded on all sides by stark sheer cliffs.

The colors of the morning market in Luang Prabang.

Here in the courtyard a few moments ago, a monk set to beating a low muffled bell. At the same time birds have been stealing bits of stale bread as hard as pebbles from the offering plates in front of the golden Buddha statues. A cat makes a last-ditch effort from behind the Buddhas, scattering the birds in a single pounce as the young monks in the shower house respond to the bell, dressing in their bright orange robes and walking towards the center of the complex where a temple colored in black, gold, red, and silver dominates all the other structures. The birds are carrying the bits of food they’ve stolen up to the roof of the temple and dropping them so that it bounces down the tiles, sounding like a muted xylophone before falling to the ground amidst a flurry of chasing finches. I hear the monks beginning to chant inside, which gathers the nearby tourists like months to peer inside the temple. I haven’t seen inside yet, but I am more interested in watching the masses collect, and I think it would be a pity to become one of them too quickly. 

When we arrived in Luang Prabang we couldn’t quite fathom the crowds. It seemed more like southern California than a city in SE Asia. White faces and bright blond hair flowed everywhere. Everyone wore expensive clothes and designer sunglasses; the locals sold posters, statues, and other tourist bait, which filled streets as far as we could see. Somehow in the middle of SE Asia, in a country I’d barely ever heard of, we’d found a thriving resort town on the banks of the Mekong River.

A celebratory swim in the river after a long trip to Luang Prabang.

We arrived in Luang Prabang at noon, and within two hours we were checked into a room whose windowless walls, ceiling, and floor were all covered in the same dark stained hardwood paneling. We left to walk around this odd Caucasian bubble and soon found ourselves swimming in the fast currents of one of the two rivers that flank Luang Prabang, turning it into a tropical peninsula. 

The monks are still chanting. It’s been close to an hour, and most of the tourists have gotten bored and left to peruse the night market as the sun dissipates leaving the courtyard empty. I’m sitting very still just listening to the harmonies vibrating in and around me. After a few days I’ve gotten better at finding these quiet pockets. It’s a very small city, maybe a mile and a half across, but there are at least five different temples within it, each hidden away so that you might not notice them as you walk by. 

It took very little time to discover the city and head out on excursions to other local villages. We were looking for a boat that we could buy, and had so far we had only heard incredible prices of three million kip (approximately 375 dollars) for a motor-less canoe. 

Choosing dirt roads over paved ones, we found ourselves in a minuscule collection of huts, where we played a game of Padonk with some local men. This, as we learned, was a French game that has become popular amongst the Lao people in the last few years. I’ve mostly heard it called bocce ball in the U.S. The game consists of throwing heavy metal balls at a small red ball at the other end of the court. You are trying to get your team’s balls to land as close to the red ball as possible. It’s similar to curling, though the people of the other team will try and knock your balls out of the way. Whoever is closest to the red ball after all the metal balls have been thrown wins the round.

I’m not exactly sure why, but drinking is an integral part of Padonk. You must finish your drink before taking your turn, and your cup will be filled with beer again the second you put it down.  This means that after a few hours both Tryg and I were drunk, along with the other men we were playing with, and we had all become the best of friends. One of the men could speak English, while another turned out to be the chief of a local village. 

We mentioned our plan to boat down the Mekong River and the village head quickly advised us against it. “It is not the right time of year,” the English-speaking man translated. “The water is too low, so there are many dangerous rapids.” For the sake of our livers, we left soon after that, giving everyone big hugs and promising to come back the next day. 

Assessing boat options with the idea of a long-term trip down the Mekong.

The monks have finished chanting so I’ve stood to leave the courtyard. I’ve been sitting for hours on that stone bench, so my tailbone is sore, and the monks exiting the temple look at me as if one of their statues were running away. I’m hungry and tired, and since Tryg has the only key to our room and I have no idea where he is, I start walking. 

It’s warm tonight, as it is every night. It feels like nighttime after a long hot summer day. I look at a few of the things being sold in the market, listen to the foreigners around me complaining about this and that, or marveling at this or that, or proselytizing about this or that. I walk to the river, saying no to each man who offers me a boat ride down the Mekong. Geckos swarm around the streetlights, toads hop down the road and get killed by little girls on motorbikes. Coconut trees sway in the warm wind, and the sound of the river rapids roll up from down below. I walk for hours in the dark; it’s a nice night for it.

Playing an impromptu game of sepak takraw in the cool of the night. Vientiane, Laos.