Just to let everyone know, Grover is recovering from his ear infection. Hooray! On the down side, my cat-stter/subletter Ahsha’s Grandfather is ill and she wants to go to Oregon to visit him 1-2 weeks a month….so if anyone has any ideas that would be great. I’d hate to have to use my NUCLEAR OPTION of having to fly back home early to take care of my kitty. Anyone know how much it costs to have a cat sitter come in and hang with your cat for a week?
All posts by gregwhiteshark
Muong Ngoi
I am back in a place that has electricity/internet. Laos has been fantastic. The people, the scenery, the simplicity of life here, it’s all been such a great experience. I have spent the last several days up in a village on the Nam Ou river in Northern Laos that had indoor lighting for only 3 hours a night. From there, I met two guys, Tim, 50, from England but has been living in Australia for the last 5 years, and Paul, 54, from Wales who is nearing the end of his 1 year trip. They are great guys, and we immediately got along great. We decided to go on a trek without a guide through the villages in the area. It was definitely a highlight of my trip. I fashioned a rather spartan map of the route from hand-drawn maps hanging at little restaurants in the villages, and although we got lost a few times, got our legs riddled with leeches, and made, we are certain, several nearly unforgivable faux pas in every village we walked into, we can say we did it ourselves! Some of the highlights of the trek include getting lost for almost half the day on the first day, stumbling though leech-infested trails that led only to fish traps down at a river, and finally giving up and heading back to our first village for dinner and trying to figure out where we took a wrong turn. We NEVER did figure out how, exactly, we got so turned around, so we decided to skip that route at take a shorter route that would give us one more night in a remote mountain village and then drop down to a village on the main river and get a boat back to our main village where we started. Along the way, without fail, we would walk into the village just in time to see the women bathing at the town spring. We stopped for lunch and had some rather bland food with the ubiquitous sticky rice that is served with nearly every meal here in Laos. We couldn’t eat even half of the mound of sticky rice they gave us, so we put it in a bag and took it with us. Hours later, we arrive at this fantastic little mountain village and are lead to the village chief who has the only place for us to stay. We greet the chief and his wife and, not knowing what else to do with it, we offer them our sticky rice. The look at us like we have just farted, but politely take it and we walk off to see the village before it gets dark. As we are walking away, I turn back to see the wife feeding the sticky rice to the mangiest dog in town. If there was anything worse to offer these remote villagers than day-old sticky rice, the ONE THING they absolutely do not need, I can’t think of it. Can you imagine? Oh look, foreigners with big expensive cameras have come to our village! I’m sure they have something new and wondrous to offer us! And here it is…..dog food. Once we realized our mistake we had a big laugh about it and started calling ourselves the Sticky Rice Stooges. I’m sure the villagers thought we were complete idiots. I joined the kids in a game I’ve seen all around Laos. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s basically volleyball, but with a woven rattan ball that you kick or header over the net. No hands allowed. I figured my hacky sack days would finally pay off now…but once I started playing, I realized I hadn’t played hacky sack in over 10 years. Still, I got the ball over more than once and had a good time with them. The crowd of smiling villagers watching us seemed to confirm that perhaps we were forgiven for the extremely disappointing gift of sticky rice. There were so many fantastic photos to take in this village, but we all found ourselves quite unable to take very many because it just seemed invasive and maybe a little disrespectful. Even asking to take their pictures seemed embarrassing. So I ended up taking only a few photos of this village. But let me describe it: it’s like a farm. There are pigs and chickens and dogs and children roaming around everywhere. The men hunt the forest with these long-barreled muskets, which must be quite accurate because they are bringing home the smallest of birds, which seemed to be the only thing left in the forest that hasn’t been eaten by them. We did see the tails and skins of some furry four-legged creatures, perhaps civets or some kind of other small mammal. We had seen, sadly, a few baby monkeys tied to trees as pets at villages along the way, but here, thankfully, there weren’t any. Perhaps they had already been eaten. We had also seen a few birds stuffed in the smallest of wooden cages, looking miserable and hardly able to move. Nearly all the cats we have seen have had their tails chopped off, leaving only a few inches of stumpy tail. Why? Cat tail soup? Superstition? No idea. In this village, at least the chickens and pigs and cows all looked healthy and reasonably happy. The people also seemed content and happy despite the dusty shacks they called home. So, given that there were so many animals wandering around the village, we expected our dinner to be chunks of bland meat and sticky rice. What we got, however, was completely unexpected. His wife prepared our meal in the kitchen: a small fire on the dirt floor, a single knife and a piece of wood on the ground. All preparing and cooking is done in candlelight while squatting on the ground. In this remote, dusty village, in the Chief’s house, his wife came out with a large platter of the most wonderful, fragrant, flavorful vegetarian food we have ever eaten. It was impossible to explain. On our trek into town, Tim had found a strange fuzzy orange plant laying in the path that looked like a small pitcher plant. When we arrived, we asked the chief what it was, and he got excited, grabbed a large bag from inside his house, and showed us a bag full of beautiful red and white flowers. What we had found was the outer shell that these flowers grow out of. At dinner, we found a plate full of these flowers, now cooked and blackened and seasoned. They were absolutely delicious, with a peppery flowery taste, and great texture. There was some kind of gingery, pulpy chili condiment that was spicy/hot but very flavorful as well. The other dish had a variety of greens and veggies and fruits in it that were completely foreign to us, some of it may have been tender bamboo shoots, but much larger than I’ve ever seen, all cooked in a delicious curry sauce that had hints of coriander and coconut milk. It was all so so good you can’t imagine our surprise and delight. Breakfast was equally surprising and wonderful. We were completely taken aback, especially considering the village has NO WATER in it. To wash and get water, you have to haul it from the stream about a quarter mile out of town. So as you can imagine, these people are all in great shape and the women are all beautiful. Since there is no electricity, it seems the only thing to do at night to keep warm and be entertained is sit around the fire, drink lao lao, and have sex. Not a bad life I suppose. The next morning, we head out and immediately take a wrong turn because our village chief tell us to take a left turn 4 KM out of town, so the first left turn out of town, about 300 meters from the last structure in the village, we completely ignore thinking it can’t possibly be THIS left turn, so soon after the village….after a good 40 minutes of hiking up a hill along a ridge, we meet some Laos people who indicate that we have taken a wrong turn and that the trail to Hasaphuay, our destination, is back the way we came, actually way back at that first left turn out of the village. So we lost about 70 minutes or so from that wrong turn. But the VIEWS from that wrong turn were amazing, we were actually looking down into two valleys, east and west, while we hiked along a high ridge. A very nice wrong turn. So down we go into the valley, now certain we are on the right track because the locals have once again gotten us going the right way. We are becoming convinced that they must, by now, believe we are complete idiots. The trail down into the valley is astouding, a beautiful, steep mountain is in front of us, teeming with giant forest trees and hanging vines. Below us are rice terraces and banana plants along the rivver. Once at the base of the valley, near the river, we find ourselves hiking through a beautiful bananna forest, then giant bamboo, then the trail goes right into the river. It seems strange to hike in the river at first, and for a time, we stop and try to suss out whether or not we have taken a wrong turn. Looking around, the river is gorgeous with hanging vines, and gouged stone, it’s actually very easy walking and so lovely, we vote to continue forward and hope it’s a trail. After about 20 minutes of hiking down the river, just when we are all starting to worry that this can’t be the trail…we find a trail that looks fairly used coming out of the river for a spell before dropping back in once again. So we continue down more and finally see are very wide, steep, slippery trail heading up out of the river. It looks steep but is clearly in heavy use, so we head up, very steeply. It’s not 100 meters up when we start to realize that this just can’t be right. It’s incredibly steep and there are no foot steps carved into the clay-like earth, like almost the entire rest of the trail. That’s when it dawns on me that this isn’t a trail, but a log shoot. Just then, from above, comes this splintering banging racket…. Just kidding. Actually, from below, a villager spots us and explains in laos that we are going the wrong way. When we get back down to the river, he’s disappeared. So we walk not 5 steps further down the river and see the actually trail winding up out of the river bank just 5 meters from the log slid. We are once again feeling like absolute fools. After another hour of hiking, we finally drop down to the river and our final village, Hasaphuay, where we hope to hire a boat back down the river to muoang ngoi, the adventure complete. Arriving in Hasaphuay, the first person we meet is a man who appears to have a boat and wants to take us to Muong Ngoi. Ok, that was easy. We gesture that first, we would like to eat. So we are lead to the middle of the village where we sit under a house while children and older men gather around to stare at us. The children are carrying smaller children on their backs, and the men are all carrying children on their backs. The women are all beautiful and many of them are pregnant with even more children. Soon a crowd of children is watching us. We don’t even realize how many children are gathering around us, because we are too busy trying to soak in this extraordinary setting. There are beautiful women walking through the village, there are beautiful women bathing at the local outdoor spring across the street, there’s a beautiful young woman pounding rice with a see-saw contraption that has a big stone on one side pounding into a larger stone mortar filled with un-hulled rice, and in a see-saw action, see steps on the far side of the board to lift the stone up and down into the mortar. In front of her is a baby sitting in a rice basket. The entire scene is surreal in it’s simplicity and beauty. And I, a “professional” photographer, found that I just couldn’t raise my camera for fear of ruining the moment. It would have been rude to take a photo without asking, and if I ask, it ruins the magic, whether they refuse or not. So I didn’t take a photo of any of these things. It was for the best, I think. However, I then snap out of my vaguely leacharous Laos beauties daydream that had something to do with impregnating several of them, I realize that we have a sizable audience of children in front of us. A table seems to appear out of nowhere in the middle of the village “square” and a delicious rice noodle soup is prepared for us right there in the middle of town. We sit and eat our delicous soup while all around us, curious eyes stare at us. Children and adult men alike. Hardly any women stop to stare, except a few older women a bit further away than the rest. The pretty younger women are probably smart to keep away from us. I feel compelled to entertain the gathering crowd, so I go and drum up three objects off the ground of approximatley the same size and weight: an orange, and two rocks. I juggle them for a while and then try to show Paul how to do it. He tries in front of the kids and can’t do it, and they laugh. Then I do it again and I am actually doing pretty good with it. Then I stop and try to hand them to a child, who becomes surprised and nervous, and the crowd giggles. They are very shy and polite. Then I pick up my camera and take several photos of the kids and show them the pictures. They love it. All is good. I felt fine about photographing the kids, because I was interacting with them, entertaining them, and showing them the photos. I don’t feel nearly so comfortable photographing the adults and especially the beautiful women, who are very camera shy anyway. After eating, the man we met on the trail takes us to his boat and we head downstream on some of the most beautiful river scenery I have ever seen. Just stunning karst mountians with gorgeous jungle dripping from them, villagers fishing and rowing and bathing on the shores. Incredible. After about a 20 minute boat ride, we arrive in Muong Ngoi with an incredible high from the entire experience. Tim and Paul were an absolute joy to hike with. They were both so easy-going and humorous and fun to be around. We voted on every questionable turn, and it all turned out extremely well. Just a great time. I have now redrawn the map with new details on the hike and I might have one of the better maps of the area at this point, since mine indicates times and elevation gains, and water sources and trail markers. We actaully felt a bit smug and a bit like experts advising other travellers in Moung Ngoi to head out into the villages and spend the night…it’s so magical. I’ll never forget it.
Now my Laos visa is coming to an end. I am heading back down towards Thailand now. I will stay in Luang Prabang until after Christmas, and then into Thailand by boat along the Mekong River from Luang Prabang to Chang Mai; a two or three day journey I think. I will celebrate New Year’s in Chiang Mai and then head down to Bangkok to get my Burma visa and flight, ship some things home, and prepare for the next part of my adventure. After a month in Burma, I will be heading to India and Nepal for the following 3-4 months, then over to Cyprus and Egypt, and finally Italy, Prague, & Barcelona before heading back to the USA in September. What a trip this is! I can hardly believe how great this has been. Merry Christmas and happy new year!!
Vang Vien Caves
12/7
I’m still here. I really should be gone by now, but after a slow start, and then getting sick, and now today the weather was kind of cold for tubing, so I rented a scooter and went to a few caves. While at breakfast, I met an American woman named Sue . She was pretty from a distance, but after she came up to me and started talking, I was immediately unattracted to her. She’s young, maybe 24, but she seems even younger. Everything’s fucking rad, and so fucking cool, and every nice place was a good place to “party”. Ugh. It was mildly amusing at first, but then it wasn’t anymore. She sounded much dumber than she was. Anyway, she was nice enough, and despite her bothersome “partier from the states” dialect, she was still fun to explore caves with, namely because she had NEVER been in a cave before. This made it fun to listen to her go on about the “fawking awesome” stalactites and “gnarly” rock formations. Besides, it REALLY WAS “fawking awesome”. We had a guide take us into the caves and we were able to hike deep inside about 3 KM through one of them, leading us back back back to where there was an underground river. We took off most of our clothes and swam there! It was very fun! After swimming and a smoke, we turned around and headed out. The caving was actually pretty easy for the most part due to the fact that water runs through it during the wet season, so it was mostly flat and even. However, it was still very tiring from having to walk so carefully on slippery surfaces and at the same time, watch my head. There were a few parts where I had to nearly crawl, but then it would open up again after only a few meters, so it wasn’t too bad. After over 2 hours of hiking that cave, we hit another very wide and beautiful cave with a lot of great formations. After that, we were tired, hungry and had seen enough. We ended up paying the guide 10 bucks each and buying lunch from him. It was well worth it. He had two nice torches for us, and we NEVER would have gone where we did without him. Very cool. Tomorrow, come rain or shine, I AM GOING TUBING DOWN THE RIVER! I have put it off for several days now and all I hear is how fun it is. So Tomorrow, I am going for sure.
Greg
Vang Vien
Finally feeling up to moving again, I took the afternoon bus from Vientiane to Vang Vien. By the time the bus arrived it was pitch dark. We are dumped out of the bus out into the noisy street. Everyone on the bus is completely disoriented as to where to go. First impression: There are restaurants everywhere and they are all filled with young stoned westerners who are all pointed towards the big screen TVs that every restaurant has. At least 4 of them are playing reruns of Friends, all next to each other. It’s the Friends block. Then there are the bar/restaurants that are showing movies like Star Wars, The Longest Yard, Chicken Run, Big Fish, Action flicks, etc. It’s really sort of sick, but mesmerizing too. I found my way to the river where I wanted to stay, but all the riverside rooms were taken… Oh yeah, I guess it’s now the busy season here in SE Asia. I have been used to easily finding great, cheap places to stay, but now I am here Vang Vien and I swear it’s like SPRING BREAK. I sat down to eat dinner at one of the few restaurants WITHOUT a TV, and across from me was this bar playing obnoxiously loud music, LOADED with drunk, tanned tourists, and I saw in the middle of the crowd…a beer bong being raised. Hoots and hollors. Obnoxious young college guys and scantily clad women, which seemed so offensive to the locals, if a pleasant view for me. I found a cheap box of a room to sleep in for the night, only three bucks but ice cold showers and the ceiling fan was broken. I got up the next day with the hopes of moving into an opening room in Saysong Guesthouse, right on the river. I was wondering what the big deal was here. Unless you we here to get drunk or stoned off your ass and watch Friends reruns, it seemed like a rather boring, dumpy little town… Then I took a look outside my guesthouse from the balcony. Wow. Beautiful mountains. Gorgeous river. Too bad it’s a bit ruined with beach umbrellas, loud speakers pumping out Bob Marley, and “chill out” bars right along the riverbank. Anyway, there’s kayaking/tubing to be done, caves to explore, and “happy” pizzas to be eaten… …who am I to judge before partaking of this particularly westernized kool-aid? I’ll find out…tomorrow. Today, I’m just going to chill in my new place, swinging on the hammock on the balcony overlooking the river valley and mountains beyond, while reading Anna Karinina, an 800+ page Russian classic by Tolstoy. Life has just gotten a whole lot better. However, I am still awaiting news about Grover, so I am still uneasy about things. I pray he’s ok, and I don’t pray often.
Tuk Tuk Mafia
12.3
Good morning.
Ok, I think I need to move today. I am so tired of being stuck here, but there are certainly worse places to be stuck. Vientiane was very good and very easy. The people are friendly, the food is great, internet cafes are everywhere, it’s quiet, and apparently the tuk-tuk drivers not only serve as your personal taxi drivers, but also as your pimp and drug dealer as well. At certain times of the day, the tuk-tuk drivers all gather around a few tables just around the corner from my guesthouse, like some kind of union meeting. Actually, I think it’s a bit more Godfather than Norma Ray. I’ve noticed that there are NO OTHER forms of public transport available in Vientiane other than the tuk-tuk drivers. No motor scooter drivers. No cyclos. Just the tuk-tuks. Tuk-tuks are like motorcycles on steroids. They have 3 wheels and a covered bed in the back with a small bench on each side to sit on. I’ve seen 8 people with bags in one. But only about 4 farangs with backpacks could possibly fit in one. So I imagine these little tuk-tuk driver meetings deal with fixing prices, settling turf disputes, eliminating the competition (a motor scooter driver seems much more economical and useful for tourists.), etc. They clearly have some power here in Vientiane, because there are way too many of them, and they openly offer you prostitutes and all kinds of drugs on the streets.
I need to get breakfast, a bus ticket, go to the post office, the bank, pack up my considerable amount of gear and check out, all in just a few hours. No more time to write!
Hanoi Hijinks, Hemmorhoids, and the Onion Bus
There’s a place in Hanoi you should avoid. The hotel is called Camellia Star hotel. Their address is 37 Yen Thai St. The email address is t&ttravel@hotmail.com. Be sure to email them a nasty letter, and if you happen to be in Hanoi, please give them the finger for me. They seemed nice when I was checking in, as they all do when you are perhaps going to spend money at their business. They were actually pretty nice all the way until I was checking out, then things really went downhill.
I’ve heard a LOT of similar stories while traveling in Vietnam about being lied to, ripped of, misinformed, and just getting serious attitude from the people if you don’t want to buy something, so it may be something to do with the culture, but I don’t want to sound prejudiced. I DID meet many wonderful Vietnamese people. Anyway, on with the story…
In order to stay a month in Laos, you have to get your visa ahead of time at a Laos Embassy. Two days before I wanted to leave Vietnam for Laos, We all rented bicycles from my hotel to do our visa business. We waited around for nearly a half hour, and when they finally arrived, two of them were the usual upright one-speeders, and then there was the shitty little mountain bike. I immediately went for the tallest bike, and Marc went for the other. Nada got on the mountain bike for about 10 seconds and then flat out refused to ride it. I did the chivalrous thing (and I didn’t want to wait around for another half hour) and took the little bike. It was to be a key element in my future horror. After spending too much time getting fruit shakes and coffee, I left Marc and Nada to go to the Laos embassy to get my visa. It was only about 3 kilometers away at most, but it took a few stops to refer to the Hanoi map to be sure I was on the right track. Although my guidebook said otherwise, the Laos embassy closes at 4 pm. I got there at 4:06. 6 minutes too late! As I was riding home through the Hanoi traffic, I started to notice my ass was getting mighty irritated by the skinny, tiny, rock hard seat on this little bike that had my knees nearly hitting the handlebars when I peddled. Hotels, agencies, and guesthouses all over town advertise that they offer visa services, and for a few extra bucks, I thought it would be worth it to use my guesthouse’s services to get my visa just to be sure I got it in time. I made it very clear I needed the one month visa, and that I needed it by the following day. “sure sure, one month, 40 dollars plus 3 dollar commission.” They were certain they could do for me, and I would even “get it cheaper through them” than if I bought it myself since they “knew someone at the embassy”…so they said. The next morning I ask about my visa, and they show it to me, and it says Laos Visa type TR-B63. Nowhere does it show how long the visa is for, so I ask them,” is this a one month visa?” ” yeah yeah, one month, don’t worry. ” Ok, fine. (Cue the ominous music…)
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That morning, I feel my hemorrhoid swelling up painfully. Fabulous. I take baths all day, visit a pharmacist to get prep H and constipation pills (don’t ask how I explained it), and start popping the codeine I brought from home, but nothing is working. It just keeps getting sorer and sorer. By late morning, it’s a trial to just sit down on one of the tiny chairs that seem to exist everywhere in Vietnam. Getting up from them is even worse. I move in slow motion. If any of you have ever experienced the joys of a swollen hemorrhoid, you know what I’m going through. If you haven’t, let me suggest that you get your thumbnails removed with a pair of rusty pliers rather than the constant discomfort and embar-ass-ment of this. Traveling with a swollen hemorrhoid comes recommended only if you love pain.
So, I’ve been at this Camilla Star hotel for several days. I bought my visa and bus ticket to Laos from them, and I brought them more business by having Nada stay here too. The night before, I sat down with them and had rice wine and food along with their friends, and felt like I was really starting to develop a little friendship with them. So that morning, since my 22 hour bus to Laos didn’t leave until 6:30 that night, I explained to them that my ass was killing me from the bike they rented to me, and could I check out of my room a little later, say, 2 pm instead of the usual 12? Oh no, if I want to stay longer, I have to pay for another night. “But, my ass is killing me, I gave you a lot of business…how about a discount for just a few more hours..” No no. Nothing doing. I stay longer, I pay for another night. End of story. I could have paid the 6 bucks and stayed in my room, but it was the principle of the thing. So, I pack up, check out and hang out at cafes all day, trying to give my poor bum a little rest before embarking on what is sizing up to be a wonderful little voyage into the depths of hell.
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The bus is supposed to leave at 7 pm. The motor scooter driver picks me up at 6:30 sharp to take me to the bus. I sit very slowly on the back and we take off. Every little bump feels like hot needles. The 5 minute ride to the bus…no wait, to ANOTHER hotel is mercifully short. I sit at the hotel along with about 20 others, waiting for the bus to Laos, but the others aren’t going to Laos. One by one they all are whisked off to other places by taxis and scooters. By 7:20, a new moto driver arrives to take me to the bus. My backpack is stacked in front of the driver, nearly blocking his view and giving him little ability to turn, while I sit ever so carefully on the back with my camera and daypack hanging from me, and praying for a short ride or a quick death…
…25 minutes later, we arrive at a dark parking lot well outside of town. I tried to just leave my body during the ride, so I can’t tell you what I saw or where we were exactly. In the middle of this dark lot is a big shitty bus. I am asked to take all my bags on board, which I thought was unusual, since normally the bags go in the side of the bus. Getting on board I’m nearly knocked back from the stench and am simultaneously greeted by the 4 other fellow riders; A young Scottish guy, two women from San Francisco, and a Japanese woman who is traveling with them. I then see the piles of onions in the back third of the bus, and the backpacks stacked on top of them. It reeks of onions, and the floor is wet with red liquid that looks frighteningly like blood a la “The Shining”. This should be an interesting trip. We all introduce ourselves and I just can’t resist telling them my current health problem in order to receive some sympathy and perhaps break the ice. We start taking bets on how many times the bus will break down. We all settle on three as the magic number. After about a 1 hour delay, the bus rumbles to a start with about 7 people on board, thankfully, and we start out of the parking lot….only to stop and back up again. Trouble with the transmission. Breakdown #1 is underway. Two hours later, we head out again. It’s after 10 pm at this point, and after reading with our headlamps for a short while, everyone tries to settling in for a sleep. We were naively hoping to awake at the boarder at 6 am, as we were told. At around 4 am, the bus stops and the drivers get out to start loading the inside of the bus with…more onions! I mean about 50+ more very large bags of onions…not only filling the back half of the bus, but overflowing into the empty seats and stacked high into the aisles around us and all the way to the driver up front. Getting out of the bus would now require climbing up on the bags, and nearly crawling our way to the front. The good thing is that now we have a place to put our legs – on the onion bags, and the other good thing is that onions keep the mosquitoes away. At several points in the early morning, the bus picked up a few more passengers, and let some people out for peeing, and at one point, the bus stopped on the side of the road for about an hour or so so the drivers could sleep. By 8 am, everyone was up and hungry…but there would be no stops for breakfast, no stops for water…we were obviously quite late for the boarder. The boarder didn’t come until around 11 am. We all climb out and walk about a half mile to the Vietnam customs building in this dusty ghost town of large empty government office buildings. The mountains around the “town” were beautiful towering misty mountains which I only barely noticed because I was sore, hungry, and had a burning ass which demanded most of my attention as I slowly walked to the customs building.
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The customs office was like something out of a movie. The very stern, frowning customs officials came in behind us and then proceeded to dust off the counters so they could get down to business…leaving a cloud of dust in the air. Three officials each took long looks at each of our passports in turn, using a magnifying glass on some of them, and a special scanner on others, and murmured things to each other about each of our passports. After a considerable amount of examining and discussing, we eventually each got our Vietnam visas stamped USED with a tiny red rubber stamp. So, off the four of us go to Laos… but first, we have to hike there. The bus sat back beyond the boarder, so we were told to walk to the Laos customs up the road, actually quit a ways up the road, and over the summit, and back down the hill around the corner, about a 30 minute hike in fact. We were all hungry, thirsty, grumpy, wondering if we would ever see our bus and belongings again, and I was certain that soon blood was going to start seeping down my leg.
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We turn another corner and finally arrive at the Laos customs “office” which is little more than a roof over a concrete table and 4 chairs. The officials are very friendly compared to the Vietnamese freaks, and we all feel relieved about finally getting out of Vietnam…but there are problems. many problems. The Scottish guy and the two Californians were told by their travel agents back in Hanoi that they could get their Laos visas at the boarder. Well, apparently not at this boarder. The customs officials didn’t know a lot of English, and not surprisingly, there was no phone here either. It seemed there was nothing that could be done for my three new friends but for them to turn around and head back to Vietnam, hopefully get their visa cancellations cancelled (that could take some time), and then somehow get a ride to a different boarder that WOULD give them a visa upon entry. What a nightmare! The Japanese woman and I had gotten our visas in Hanoi so we weren’t about to turn around and head back, so we handed our passports over to get stamped. Surprise surprise, my visa also had problems. The one month visa I was assured I got…turned out to be a 5 day transit visa. A transit visa is the most ridiculous visa imaginable. It allow for only 5 days of travel, assuming that you are only going through the country on your way to some other country. It’s clearly not what I asked for, and after checking my Laos guidebook about it, it costs 15 dollars. Those bastards at my hotel ripped me off and got me a 5 day visa for 15 dollars, pocketing the other 27 dollars I paid them. Well, at least I am going across the boarder, right? I figured I’d just explain my situation at the immigration office in Vientiane and all would be ok…
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The Japanese girl, Chieko, said a sad goodbye to her two American travel companions and the Scottish guy who all had to go back. After an additional 90 minute mystery delay at the Laos boarder, the onion bus and it’s remaining 2 foreigners, along with 4 other Vietnamese/Laos people, started down the mountain into Laos. There was a little trouble in the bus, because a woman on the bus took Cheiko’s 2 liter bottle of water, opened it, drank about half of it, then put it back where she found it while we were out of the bus at the customs office. Cheiko was so sweet about it it made me immediately like her. She was angry, but she has such a good nature, she couldn’t even show her anger on her face even though she tried. She didn’t know what to do. She handed the bottle back to the woman trying to frown and explain that this was not cool. The woman just shrugged her shoulders and said that her little girl drank it. She didn’t even apologize! She just pretended it wasn’t their fault. She tried the give the half-consumed bottle back to Chieko like that would settle everything. So I gestured that she should keep the bottle she stole, and buy Chieko a new bottle at the next stop. That seemed to be understood.
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I don’t remember much of the rest of the afternoon. I tried to stay on my back as much as possible, trying to keep my butt from contact on the dirty vinyl seats and ignoring my hunger pangs. I realized that I hadn’t taken a poop in about 3 days, mostly out of fear, but I knew that I would have to soon, and this made me very nervous considering the smallest fart was bringing tears of pain to my eyes. Mercifully, at around 4 pm, our bus blew a tire. I say mercifully because the timing of the blowout was perfect. The bus came to a stop directly across from a Laos restaurant, and about 100 meters from a tire repair shop. So, while the tire got repaired, we got to finally stop and eat something. Getting out of the bus was a struggle. There were so many bags of onions to crawl over, my back was stiff, and my brain was only functioning at about 10%. The restaurant had no menus, and nobody could speak English. Walking into the kitchen and pointing also proved to be useless, as there seemed to by only a bowl of weeds on the floor. Fortunately, Chieko had a Japanese guidebook for Laos that has photos of all kinds of Laos food. She just pointed and they made it. I pointed at the same thing and finally we had fried rice and my first Beer Lao in Laos. That cold beer tasted like nectar from the gods. The woman who stole her water bought two small bottles and gave us each one.
Back on the bus an hour later, we heading through some beautiful limestone karst mountain/jungle scenery, but I couldn’t be bothered to sit up and take a single photo, I was just trying to get though this journey with as little movement and pain as was absolutely necessary. It was a struggle to get on and off the bus, so at a certain point, after that beer has passed through me, I really really really had to pee. So, I cut a hole into one of the empty 1.5 liter water bottles laying on the muddy floor and nearly filled it up, Then, at an opportune moment as I saw a big garbage pile on the side of the road, I chucked the bottle out the window into the garbage.
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After another several rounds of reading, sleeping, waking, gazing out the window, reading, sleeping…we finally arrived in Vientiane at midnight. the total duration of the bus trip from the moment we first started up the engines in Hanoi to stopping in Vientiane was 27 and a half hours. My clothes were filthy and reeked of sweat and onions. Climbing off the bus only half awake in yet again a dark parking lot well outside of town, we were left with the option of either paying 2 dollars each for a single tuk tuk driver who waited there for us, or walk. Since we had no idea where we were, it was very late, and there were no other options, we settled on the tuk tuk driver, after talking him down to 3 dollars for the two of us. I picked out a hotel from the guidebook that sounded promising, but arriving, we found it full except for one room with a large bed for 9 bucks. Chieko said she would look elsewhere if I watched our bags. She’s very clever. She came running back after about 5 minutes and said there was a dorm available up the street. We wearily checked in and after begging, were made some fried rice for dinner for a dollar each. The dorm bed cost $1.50. After showering, we both climbed into bed at around 2 am. Today I got up, found a better, though much more expensive place to stay, where I have been typing this story, and after leaving Shieko a note about where I am staying, headed to the immigrations office to try to straighten out my visa problem. Naturally, it was closed when I got there, so I went to the market across the street to kill some time. Who do I meet but my Japanese friend! We walk around a while and agree to meet for beers later. I head over to immigrations and am given the bad news. I can’t buy a one month visa here. I can only extend my visa 15 days max at an additional cost of 2 dollars a day. If I overstay my visa, it’s a $10/day fee. So, my current rip-off $42 transfer visa ends in 4 more days. I guess I will buy the 15 day extension and try to get though Laos quickly.
It’s sad, I really wanted to spend a whole month here, but fate has forced other things. In order get a one month visa, I would have to go back to Bangkok, get a 1 month visa there, and come all the way back. Why does that sound completely retarded? Because it is. Those fuckers in Hanoi have forced me to cut my trip to Laos short. I’ll be sure to post complaints online at the lonely planet thorn tree, and boots ‘n all, and as many other traveler’s web sites as I can to warn them about this hotel scam. So, now I’ll just stay here for a few days in Vientiane, letting my poor ass recover, prepare for my journey, and get my emails/website/finances in order before traveling on.
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12/3 Many things have happened to me while I’ve been recovering here in Vientiane. I have writing many stories about it, but I will spare you the details for now. But here’s the lowdown:
1.) Got my visa worked out. I now have a MONTH in Laos. It took crossing the boarder into Thailand and coming back (about 3 hours), then a few more visits to the immigrations office for an extension.
2.) Catherine emailed me to tell me that we couldn’t be boyfriend/girlfriend right now. This wasn’t a surprise since we’ve hardly spoken in the last two months. It was inevitable, and we both knew it. Back to being good friends.
3.) Grover has an ear infection or polyp or broken eardrum and is getting an operation today, Friday. Please send good thoughts to the little guy. I miss him very much. I just had a dream about him the day before I found out about him.
4. Now I must go because I’m going to Vang Vein now!!!!
Hoi An
Hoi An is awesome. It’s beautiful, it’s full of great restaurants, illuminated by beautiful lanterns, and along every street, tailors who will custom make you any clothes you want. You really can’t escape Hoi An without spending money on clothes. It’s well worth it, and besides, it’s fun! But the real attraction is the town itself. Wandering the streets at night is fantastic…but I get ahead of myself. After the long overnight bus ride from Nha Trang, I ended up at a hotel in a nice little neighborhood. The 16 dollar room was a little steep, but it included a nice view of the swimming pool(!), free breakfast, free internet (didn’t work so well), and best of all: free bikes! I reached Nada with my handy cell phone and convinced her to move to my hotel. We ended up spending every day together cruising around on our bikes, buying clothes, visiting temples, and going to the beaches in the day, and then going out to nice dinners and bars at night. We spent 4 or 5 days there, and it really was one of the highlights of my trip so far. The best experience was the night of the full moon. Nada and I took our bikes down to the water where there were all kinds of things going on. Traditional music, dancing, and most beautiful of all, hundreds of floating candles on the river. We hired a boat from a nice old woman and floated among them, the warm air was filled with music, incense and and the energy of hundreds of happy people, the full moon up above and the candles and lanterns of the old town reflecting in the water…It was magical. I made the mistake of not bringing my camera with me, so don’t even ask about photos. It’s makes me ill thinking about it. I do, however, have some video from my little camera. On our last night in Hoi An, we discovered Cao Lao at an outdoor food stall. It’s a local specialty of veggies, fresh herbs, a little broth, and the delicious rice noodles that are specific to Hoi An cao lau, because they MUST be cooked only in this natural spring water that flows near town. They say that these noodles do not taste right if you cook them with anything but this water, so Cao Lao is specific to Hoi An. It’s SOOO GOOD! Nada and I ate two big bowls of it, and could have eaten a third. After that, we had a beer on a nice old french-era balcony, and I saw down below: Marc from Nha Trang! , He was staying in a very cool old house near the market. Marc and Nada ended up traveling together the next day to Hue in the same bus, where they had fantastic horror stories of vomiting locals and flat tires. Nada, Marc and I stayed in Hue only one night and Nada and I took a boat tour together during the day to some overpriced tombs, but it was fun anyway. I hired a moto driver to a great old palace, where he told me a story I was getting familiar with: his father was in the South Vietnamese army, and died in prison. He and his brothers and sisters were not allowed to attend school. As soon as I tell someone who had family or was in the South Vietnamese army that I am an American, I have heard very similar stories of this type. One day when he was younger he tried to escape Vietnam by taking his boat to Taiwan – which at the time allowed you to be deported to the United States if you were family from anyone from the South Vietnamese Army. He had 10 other family members and neighbors on the boat with him, and just a mile before the river met the sea, where their escape would have been almost guaranteed, they were discovered by the new government. Half of the people on the boat were killed, including one of his brothers. He has learned English on his own because he wants his children to speak it, which goes a long way towards having a better life in Vietnam. Speaking English well can open a lot of doors. Anyway, he’s a farmer and motorbike driver and has 2 kids and barely gets by. I gave him a sizable “tip” to help him buy books for his kids. Otherwise, the town of Hue was sort of dull, but the local food was good. The bus to Hanoi from Hue is a long overnight affair that I’d rather forget, so I am going to skip to Hanoi in my next entry, which is where Marc enters the picture to join our gang.
Nha Trang
I took my open tour bus to Nha Trang for a little beach time. After Dalat, it seems like a dumpy little town. I sat down at the beach and found myself pestered by dozens of women wanting me to buy pinapple, postcards, peanuts, candy, chips, cigarettes, bla bla bla. They don’t leave after you say no. So just hanging out alone and reading my book turned out to be a challenge. After a few minutes on the beach I noticed that I was sitting near a big bloated rat that had washed ashore. Ick. In Cambodia, I discovered how nice it is to run barefoot on the beach to get exercise. So I found a nice looking couple and asked them to watch my stuff while I went for a run, being careful to not step on the rat. After the run, I felt better about being there. I sat down again in the sand and soon two Vietnamese women sat near me and struck up a conversation. One of them spoke enough English for us to actually have a decent talk and I was in a good mood and was being funnier than usual, so we were all having a good time. We made plans to meet for dinner and had a good time feasting on fresh seafood at a nearby restaurant. After that night, I went on a one-day snorkle tour and met some fellow tourists with whom I’ve been traveling with ever since. It’s been great traveling with Nada and Marc, and I wouldn’t change anything, but I do realize what I’ve missed by not hanging with locals for these last two weeks. I stopped trying to learn Vietnamese, because it wasn’t necessary anymore. I also stopped learning about the culture from the local’s perspectives and really just started being a tourist with Nada and Marc. They are really fun & adventurous people, and are now good friends, so I really am not complaining. I just need to remember to keep a balance between hanging out with fellow travelers, and connecting with locals – so I can have the best of both worlds. Vietnam was a good balance, because I spent the first two weeks meeting locals, and then, as I grew weary of the difficulties of having this language barrier with everyone I met, I found two great Europeans with whom to go on adventures for the last two weeks. So I should mention the snorkle tour. If you go to Nha Trang, you MUST do the snorkle tour. Yes, there is snorkling, but the tour is really just about partying. Our boat was packed with people, over half of whom were Vietnamese. The westerners all went up to the top to get in the sun, while the Vietnamese all sat downstairs and got rowdy. After the first couple rounds of beers went around, the tour guide and his sidekick set up this rusty drum set and taped-up guitar and rocked the boat. Several Vietnamese guys in underwear and towels danced around in the middle. It was hysterical. After the first snorkle swim, we had lunch and then the best part… We all jumped in the water and a little styrofoam “bar” is set up and free (sickly sweet) dalat mulberry wine is served until everyone gets hammered. The French girl on the boat, who was rather unfriendly before, got so drunk, she had to be watched after for fear that she would drown. At one point, she jumped off the boat, climbed up onto a dock and stole a local woman’s pointy hat. Another guy named Jacob and I had to jump in after her and get her back on the boat before real trouble erupted. Getting her back on board turned out to be a little challenging, because she didn’t want to go. But she took a liking to Jacob, so she finally started allowing us to help her back up onto the boat. I ended up cutting my foot and legs on the side of the boat, which turned out to be pretty sharp on the edge just below the surface of the water. Not such a good design for a tour boat. Back on board, I met Nada (pronouced Nadia) from Slovokia. We were both headed to Hoi An so we exchanged cell phone numbers. That night, the westerners on the boat all met for drinks. There were three people from Canada – one couple from Vancouver, a nice German couple, Jacob from Denmark, Patricia the drunk French woman was now completely sober, and Marc from Holland. Nada left for Hoi An that night so she didn’t join us. Marc seemed pretty cool and Nada had his email address, so we hoped to all re-connect in Hoi An. I got to bed by around 2 am that night after a lot of drinking and a little dancing, and left the next day for the overnight bus to Hoi An.
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mail2web – Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .
Pickers
Many SE Asians use toothpicks after every single meal. There are always toothpicks on the tables, and someone is always picking away somewhere nearby. However, it’s apparently offensive to show your teeth when you using your toothpick because people hide their mouths with one hand while they pick their teeth with the other. However, nobody seems to mind when someone is picking their nose. Walking through the streets and markets in Vietnam I saw people digging for nose potatoes all the time. In Hanoi the waitress standing across from my table was picking away deeply into her nose and rolling away the bugers to the floor while I ate. While behind her, someone was carefully picking their teeth with one hand over their mouth. So picking your nose in public is ok, but showing your teeth when you use a toothpick is offensive. Get it? Neither do I.
Saigon and More
11-23-05
Hi all. Sorry It’s been so long since I’ve written. I’ve been to Nha Trang, Hoi An, Halong Bay and am now I Hanoi, trying to sit still for a few days and REGROUP before my Vietnam visa expires and I am forced to fly off to Laos. Let’s see, where do I start? So in my last posting from Dalat I whined about finances a lot and promised to write about Saigon. I’ll avoid whining about money this time. Saigon is a big city – over 8 million people call it home, but somehow it feels small. Perhaps this is due to the fact that compared to any city in America, it feels squashed together. I’m not sure how to explain how densely populated this city is. There are motor scooters and people everywhere. Walking across the street required a strong will and a deep faith that every motor scooter driver careening directly at you will, at the last moment, swerve around you. It’s almost best to just close your eyes and slowly…steadily..walk…across the street. Riding on a motorbike is nearly as frightening. This was the first place since I left Bangkok that I was too chicken to rent a scooter. It looks like suicide to me. However, somehow all but a few people do it every day without accident. I was befriended by several local college students who took me out to the local hangouts, cheap dinners, and bowling. It was a great time. Only one of them could speak English in sentences that I could, with effort, comprehend. But the difficulty in having deep conversations was easily compensated with the feeling that I was really experiencing Saigon the way the Saigonese do. At least, the way the college-aged Saigonese do. They had almost no money, but they insisted on paying for everything. On our last night together (I went out with different combinations of them for 3 nights), I was giving a chime as a gift from one of them. It was so sweet. They were really great kids. Well, they certainly looked like kids. Vietnamese people look about 10 years younger than they are. And as you can imagine, I tower over everyone. Cau. That means tall in Vietnamese. I hear that word a lot when I am walking down the street or through markets. I am now conditioned to hear it as if my name was just spoken, so I always turn my head when I hear it…because I know who they are talking about. This always makes them smile, because they suddenly realize they’ve been caught talking about me. Then they say something else in Vietnamese to me, expecting me to understand…and of coarse I don’t. My Vietnamese is limited to about 10 words, unfortunately. Saigon really comes to life at night. There are little plastic chairs and tables that come out and cover the sidewalks, make-shift kitchens consisting of a burner and a big pot of something yummy, along with a big bowl of cooked rice are set up everywhere as soon as it starts getting dark. The tables are sized to be perfect for a very small child. The “chairs” a laughable little boxes of plastic not much larger than a shoebox. Sitting in one for long periods of time is guaranteed to make you sore. However, the food you get from these little street stalls is great. Strange meats wrapped in banana leaf. Cow? Pig? Dog? Pig I think. Dried squid. Pho…delicious noodle soup with fresh sprouts and basil and thin slices of meat. Bia hoi. This means “fresh beer”. It’s brewed locally, every day, and is meant to be consumed that night. Anything not sold is dumped. A big glass is 1000-2000 dong… about 7 cents. It’s cold and very light, lemony, and delicious. Cheaper than bottled water. Vietnamese, the language, has 6 tones, and if you use the wrong tone, even if you pronounce the word perfectly, you will be stared at as if you were speaking gibberish. It’s frustrating. I’ve really given up trying at this point. I have better luck just pointing, gesturing, and often…being completely misunderstood. To hear them speak, you would think that they are all yelling at each other. The all sound like they are pissed off, even if they are just talking about the weather. I think it’s partially because the tones that are required to be understood make them have to emphasize words by saying them harder or louder than other words…so they sound so serious and angry even when they are just chatting. It’s so strange. Anyway, I only got to hang out with a few other local people who spoke limited English, a couple of women from Nha Trang. We met one afternoon on the beach and ended up going out to dinner and walking around the town. They were a lot of fun, but the next day I met a bunch of fellow tourists on a snorkeling tour boat which turned out to be a big party boat. Everyone got smashed on free Dalat wine and danced to the crappy live band on the tiny boat. There were about 10 westerners – I was, as usual, the only American, and about 30 Vietnamese. They made us look like timid pussies. They were jumping around in their undies on the “dance floor”, having a great time while we just stood back and laughed. I met Nada and Marc on the boat. We were all heading to Hoi An so we ended up meeting again there. Nada moved to my hotel and we ended up spending several days together in Hoi An. That’s another story. What happened when I met Marc and Nada was this: I stopped mingling with the Vietnamese and started mingling with people with whom I could speak to easily. So my immersion in the culture sort of shifted to outsider again…but the trade off has been to have two new friends that I’ve shared really great times with as we traveled together. We are all actually sharing a big room tonight. Marc is leaving for India tomorrow, and I will be heading to Laos in a few days. Nada is heading to Bangkok and then to Australia. So we are all parting ways for what may be a very long time – perhaps never meeting again…but I know I should never say never. So, tonight we are going to go out and get drunk in Hanoi. This means I need to stop writing. I still have so many more stories to tell! So next time I need to talk about my adventures in Hoi An and Hue with Nada and then our rendezvous with Marc in Hanoi, and the adventures we shared in Hanoi and Halong Bay! It’s so hard to keep up! Tonight more adventures will pile up on the old ones!