The Wild Goose Chase, or In Vientiane Without a Guidebook & Without a Clue
LAOS | Thursday, 27 August 2009 | Views [371] | Comments [6]
You got that right!
Sunday 09 August
Posting this story has been somewhat delayed, by a chain of events so crazy, I would never have believed it possible. I’ve stolen a few hours to try to gain back some sanity, but will have to wait for another time to write about what has happened since I returned to Chiang Rai from Laos. For now, here is the rest of my Laos update….
So here I am in Laos, on a journey (wild goose chase) that started a month ago by applying for a Thai work permit. But more on that later; first a bit about Laos, which as it turns out, has a very interesting story….
Because it seems like such a quiet and unassuming country, you could easily be mistaken for thinking that the laid-back pace & lack of development that typifies Vientiane, is a reflection of its history, but you would be wrong. Ravaged by various foreign powers throughout the past 1000 or so years, Vientiane is a master of reinvention and adaptation. The following is a heavily plagiarised account from the Lonely Planet guide to Laos.
In recent history, warring neighbours, Burma and Siam, have fought repeatedly like a pair of naughty school boys over various territories in the region, and Laos did not go unnoticed. In a grueling game of tit for tat, inspiring Siamese leadership resulted in fabulous victories over the Burmese who had previously staked a claim on large chunks of Siam, and the inflated ego of the leading military commander of the time sought new ground to conquer – Laos was an obvious target, and by 1779, the three kingdoms of Laos had fallen to Siam. The new king of Siam imposed a tight and bossy reign which didn’t go down well with the Lao. In 1826 the new Laos king of Viang Chan (It wasn’t to be known as Vientiane until much later), Chao Anou, decided it was time to show those Siam bullies what for. Sending three armies down the Mekong and across the Khorat plateau, the Siamese were taken by surprise, but they recovered quickly, driving the Lao armies back & claiming Viang Chan. The confident Chao Anou fled to regroup, and attempted to recapture the city a year later, but was captured and died a caged prisoner in Bangkok.
For the next 60 years the two small remaining kingdoms of Laos kept some independence, but increasingly became micro-managed by Bangkok, due to the presence of a new bully in the schoolyard – France. The French had declared a protectorate over most of Cambodia in 1863 and Siam felt the need to muscle-up. Four years later a French expedition sent to map the Mekong River arrived in Luang Prabang, and by the 1880’s all hell broke loose with Siamese, French and random Chinese (Haw) at each others’ throats trying to assert dominance. In 1887 Luang Prabang was razed by a mixed force of Upland Tai and Haw. The king escaped with a French explorer, who offered the king the protection of France. In 1893 a French warship forced its way up the Menam River to Bangkok, & trained its guns on the palace. Eventually the Siamese relented and agreed to return all territory east of the Mekong River to France. Heavily indebted, Laos became a French colony.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, France was continuing to claim more land for Laos and Cambodia, intending to strengthen its presence in what was now French Indochina. However, French attention was forced to shift from its colonizing activities in Asia, to Europe in the lead up to WW1.
Nevertheless, the French maintained colonial rule over Laos, keeping the peace, and allowing Chinese shopkeepers and Vietnamese artisans and interpreters, along with French merchants to set up shop, pushing many Lao villagers out. Over the coming years, Laos proved to be a poor earner for France, as well as a drain on its Indochina budget. The French began to demand taxes, which had traditionally been paid in the form of forest or agriculture products, to now be paid in cash, which caused resentment among the Lao, resulting in a series of anti-French rebellions which took years for the French to wrestle under control.
When war again broke out in Europe, Siam took the opportunity to seize Laos territory with Japan’s help while France’s back was turned. Siam renamed itself Thailand while France succumbed to pressure to permit a Japanese presence in Laos. In 1945 Japan began to suspect France of shifting its allegiance to the allies in Europe, and staged a coup de force, capturing all French officials and imposing its rule over Laos. Six short months into Japanese rule, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki called the end to WW2, and when Japan surrendered, a Laos nationalist movement formed an interim government and Laos independence was declared. The king, however felt that Laos still needed French protection, causing tension between royalist Luang Prabang & nationalist Vientiane. The king sacked the Prime Minister, and the National Assembly countered by deposing the King.
Meanwhile, France had designs on getting its foothold back on Indochina, and after China & Britain had moved the Japanese out, Britain handed back over to France, and they were back in business. Striking north to take back control of northern Indochina, the nationalist Laos government fled to Bangkok, the King was put back in charge and a unified Laos declared. Land was re-claimed back from Thailand.
Delicate relations between France & the Viet Minh in Vietnam put France on a mission to shore up friends in the region, so gave Laos greater independence. A promise of amnesty for the former nationalist leaders attracted most back to take part in the political process.
In 1964 the US began its air war over Laos, with strafing and bombing of communist positions on the Plain of Jars. As North Vietnamese infiltration picked up along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, bombing was extended the length of Laos. According to official figures, the US dropped 2,093,100 tons of bombs on 580,944 sorties. The total cost was US$7.2 billion, or US$2 million a day for nine years. No-one knows how many people died, but one-third of the population of 2.1 million became internal refugees.
During the 1960s both the North Vietnamese and the US presence increased exponentially. By 1968 an estimated 40,000 North Vietnamese regular army troops were based in Laos to keep the Ho Chi Minh Trail open and support some 35,000 Pathet Lao forces. The Royal Lao Army then numbered 60,000 (entirely paid for and equipped by the US), Vang Pao’s forces were half that number (under the direction of the CIA), and Kong Le’s neutralists numbered 10,000. Lao forces on both sides were entirely funded by their foreign backers. For five more years this proxy war dragged on, until the ceasefire of 1973.
The turning point for the war in Vietnam was the 1968 Tet Offensive, which brought home to the American people the realisation that the war was unwinnable by military means, and convinced them of the need for a political solution. The effect in Laos, however, was to intensify both the air war and fighting on the Plain of Jars. When bombing was suspended over North Vietnam, the US Air Force concentrated all its efforts on Laos. The Pathet Lao leadership was forced underground, in the caves of Vieng Xai. Though in much of Laos a ‘tacit agreement’ on spheres of control limited fighting between the two sides, on the Plain of Jars the ground war intensified. Instead of being used in guerrilla operations, units of the ‘secret army’ fought large-scale battles, in which they suffered heavy casualties.
But all the bombing was unable to staunch the flow of North Vietnamese forces down the Ho Chi Minh Trail (or trails). In January 1971 the one attempt by South Vietnamese forces to cut the Trail in southern Laos ended in defeat. The Pathet Lao claimed victory, but North Vietnamese forces did the fighting. Thereafter more of southern Laos fell to the Pathet Lao. By mid-1972, when serious peace moves got underway, some four-fifths of the country was under communist control.
In peace as in war, what happened in Laos depended on what happened in Vietnam. Not until a ceasefire came into effect in Vietnam in January 1973 could the fighting end in Laos. Then the political wrangling began.
Economic improvement was slow in coming, partly because relations with Thailand remained strained. In August 1987 the two countries fought a brief border war over disputed territory. The following year relations were patched up, and with China too. The first elections for a National Assembly were held, and a constitution at last promulgated. Slowly a legal framework was put into place, and by the early 1990s foreign direct investment was picking up and the economy was on the mend.
The economic prosperity of the mid-1990s rested on increased investment and foreign aid, on which Laos remained very dependent. The Lao PDR enjoyed friendly relations with all its neighbours. Relations with Vietnam remained particularly close, but were balanced by much improved relations with China. Relations with Bangkok were bumpy at times, but Thailand was a principal source of foreign direct investment. In 1997 Laos joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
The good times came to end with the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. The collapse of the Thai baht led to inflation of the Lao kip, to which it was largely tied through trading relations. The Lao regime took two lessons from this crisis: one was about the dangers of market capitalism; the other was that its real friends were China and Vietnam, both of which came to its aid with loans and advice.
Like the quiet kid in school who attracts the unwanted attention of bigger & stronger bullies, the Lao people must have been scratching their heads the whole time, wondering what it was all about & what they did to deserve all this….. Why couldn’t everyone just leave them alone & let them quietly get on with their business….?
And now, back to me….
The original Thai visa I got before leaving Australia was only issued for 90 days, but I was assured by the Thai consulate in Sydney that once I was in Thailand I could have it extended to 12 months. I found out a few weeks before my 90 days was up that in fact I could not get this visa extended, & so was advised by Kitt (after he had done much asking around at various government places) that I should apply for a work permit which would be for 12 months, & all would be well. I mentioned this in my last blog entry, but didn’t go into much detail about the ever-increasing amount of documents & many trips to the Labour Office to lodge this application.
At first Kitt told me that all I needed was 2 passport photos (these had to be done a couple of times, because of course there are about 10 different sizes of passport photos here – a different size for every embassy, office & consulate you can think of, & I kept being told to get the wrong size), & my passport. Easy! But, no. This whole work permit thing helped to tip me over the edge, along with the THB3000 cost, which was never part of my plan. But after many trips to the Labour Office (each time being told that we needed a few more documents – so Thai that the Labour Office doesn’t just have a website that lists all the documents you need, that would be too easy), I eventually received my work permit for 12 months. But what about my visa, which was due to expire on 1st August? Oh, no problem – is easy – just take the work permit & 2 passport photos (!) to the Immigration Office in Mae Sai at the Myanmar border (about 1 and a half hours from Chiang Rai) & they will give me a 12 month visa. WRONG! I went on Thursday 30th July (as you would if your visa is going to expire on the 1st of August) & was told (surprise, surprise) that I needed more documents. This is after Kitt has phoned them, as well as the Government Office, and the Labour Office before I went, to make sure I had everything I needed. They assured me that they wouldn’t fine me for overstaying if I go back on Monday 3rd of August with the extra documents, & can apply for the 12 month visa. Actually, that gave me the weekend to treat all of the girls at the house for head lice, which I discovered when one of the younger girls was lying in my lap on Saturday morning…
So Kitt & I went back there on Monday, had a long interview with the woman in charge of customs, ultimately to be told that we don’t have sufficient documents & that I cannot apply for the visa. So, now I have to pay THB1900 to get a 7 day extension, giving me until Saturday 8th August before I have to leave the country. Great. This really only gives me 4 days, because by now it’s already Monday afternoon, & all Immigration offices are closed on weekends. I had to leave Thailand to apply for the 12 month visa, & from Chiang Rai, the options are Vientiane in Laos, or Penang in Malaysia. I have to lodge my application before the weekend, so that my brand new 7-day extension on my original visa is still current, so I can submit my work permit along with the application, and all will be roses. So I spend all day Tuesday until 10 o’clock at night trying to find flights (there wasn’t enough time to get a bus anywhere), and at such late notice, it was going to cost a fortune. Finally I found a way to get to Vientiane & back to Chiang Rai that would cost AU$415 & that was going to have to do. But when I went to pay online, the website wouldn’t accept payment. Great.
Wednesday morning, still without a ticket to anywhere, I jump on the bus to Chiang Mai – a 3 hour journey, hoping to make it in time to check in for the flight to Luang Prabang & then the connecting flight to Vientiane. While I’m on the bus, Kitt calls me to say that the phone number I left him for the company with the flights I found doesn’t work, so the only option is to book with the airline directly, which was going to cost an extra AU$100. Great. So he books the flight while I’m en route to Chiang Mai, with the only bus driver in Thailand who likes to drive slowly. Now it’s a race against time – I have to get from the bus station in Chiang Mai to the airport, & I don’t even know how long before the flight they close check-in for international flights…. I tell the songthaw driver to step on it, & arrived at the airport just in time. Of course there’s a drama at check-in because the flight was only just booked & I don’t have a ticket, so I got Kitt on the phone & eventually they sorted it out. An hour later I’m on my way to Laos, with no idea of where I’ll stay or how to get anywhere. I have no kipps (Laos currency) & no idea of what a kipp is even worth. I thought that I’d get online at the airport in Luang Prabang while I was waiting for my flight to Vientiane, but they haven’t even heard of the internet there, let alone got an internet lounge…. So I just tried to wait calmly, & decided that I’d get online at the airport in Vientiane (after all, it is the capital city) to see if any of the hotels I emailed the day before had replied to let me know that they have a room & will pick me up from the airport. WRONG. No internet at Vientiane airport either, & by now it was 8:30 at night. Luckily I had met a very friendly woman from Vientiane on the plane, & while she waited to collect her bags at the luggage carousel, I told her the names of a couple of hotels I’d emailed. She knew one of them & said it was nice, & told a taxi driver where to take me. The currency exchange at the airport was already closed (or maybe it was never open), but praise the Laos – they accept Thai Baht almost everywhere. So I paid with my Baht, with no idea of whether or not I was being ripped off & checked in to the Dragon Lodge. God I needed a drink, so before I even went to my room I sat down at the bar, downed a large Beer Lao & smoked a few cigarettes. There was no one else in the bar, so I tried to strike up a conversation with the 2 guys looking after the place – tricky when they don’t speak English, I don’t speak Laos, & they are quietly getting smashed on Laos whiskey that they’re drinking out of a water bottle…. Next it was a late night trip to the internet café to print the visa support letter from IHF then back to the Dragon Lodge to collapse in my giant bed.
They say things look better in the daylight, but not so with the Dragon Lodge. Maybe it should be called the Dragon Dodge, but not to worry, it’s costing me AU$15/night, so I can’t really complain - accommodation is expensive in Vientiane, & there aren’t that many options to choose from. Anyway, I had to get up early & get to the Thai embassy to wait for it to open at 8:30, along with the hundreds of other people there to do the same thing. My ticket number is 180 – a good score for darts maybe, but not that great if you’re waiting in line to lodge a visa application. They run that machine like clockwork, though, so I got through in only an hour and a half, & spent the time working out kipp vs baht vs AUD, just so I know how much stuff costs here. Guess what? Only to be told that I cannot apply for a 12 month visa (even with my 3000B work permit), that you can only apply for this inside Thailand, & the best they could do was let me apply for another 90 day visa. Great. If I had have known this from the beginning, I never would have gone through all the headache & expense of applying for the work permit, would not have overstayed on my original visa & had to pay for my mini-extension, would not have gone to Chiang Mai, & just would have traveled somewhere cheaply outside of Thailand before my original visa expired & got a new 90 day visa in the first place!!! Of course with all this drama, I’m smoking like it’s my job….at least cigarettes are cheap here…even cheaper than Thailand at 4000k a pack (AU$0.60c). I guess the government hasn’t caught onto the idea of taxing people for the privilege…
Anyway, there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it, so I surrendered to the set lunch menu in the gorgeous leafy courtyard of a French restaurant on the big main boulevarde that I found my way onto. Now that I’d worked out how much kipp was worth, I decided that 34 000k (AU$5) was a good price to pay for pan-fried pork fillet in cumin sauce (which was possibly more than all the meat I’ve eaten in the last 3 months put together) and a mango clafoutis. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering towards what I think is the direction of the river, with only a mud map from the Dragon Lodge & my nose to guide me, & trying to get my bearings.
Late in the afternoon I ended up sitting on a deck overlooking the mighty Mekong as the sun went down, enjoying a few well-earned Beer Laos as the sky turned to night & a cool breeze swept away the day’s heat. Beer Lao – the perfect accessory. The GM of the restaurant tried in earnest to pick me up for the entire time I was there. At first I tried to tell myself that his intentions were honorable & a testament to the friendliness of the Laos people, but his undeterred offers to drop me at my hotel, to take me dancing at the nightclub, to take me to the Thai embassy in the morning to collect my passport, to show me the sights of Vientiane, or even organise a tour to Luang Prabang (his home town), lead me to believe otherwise. The decider though, was when he suggested that we could spend the night together as a souvenir for him & for me…
So, a few observations about Vientiane. They like rope lights here – they’re everywhere – at night the whole place is lit up like a low-budget Las Vegas. Very few people here are wearing face masks, in sharp contrast to Chiang Rai where they are de rigeur… I checked out today’s issue of the Vientiane Times & there have been 160 cases of confirmed H1N1 in all of Laos with 1 fatality, so it’s not really a big deal, I guess. They really do try to make the best of what they’ve got in South East Asia…there’s some kind of “landscaping” going on, on the town side of the Mekong, which means that the river bank is one long pile of dirt, flanked by the river on one side & the road on the other. Along this pile of dirt there is an almost never-ending stretch of tables & chairs set up in impromptu “bars & restaurants”, most of which are full from sunset onwards…. I guess people like to be able to see the water, no matter what the rest of the surroundings are like.
The next afternoon (Friday) I went back to the Thai embassy to pick up my passport, with my brand new 90 day visa, then spent some more time wandering around the town. It started to rain, so the best thing for it was to settle into a bar & have some rainy afternoon Beer Laos at the Khop Chai Deu. Of course I want to try as much food here as possible, & I see that they have banana flower salad (my favourite!) on the menu. This turns out to be quite different from the Thai banana flower salad, & is so spicy it nearly pushes me to the edge of my chili tolerance, but I ate it all & sat with my Beer Lao calmly waiting for my head-spinning, eye-watering chili high to subside.
After 3 months in Chiang Rai, I find myself measuring a destination by whether or not there is a McDonalds or Starbucks, & the amount of western tourists it has. A good indicator of how long you’ve been in Asia is when you start judging its bars, restaurants, cafes & internet cafes on the quality (or existence) of its bathroom… Is it worth paying more per hour for internet access if they have: A) a bathroom at all; B) if they do, is it clean? C) do they provide toilet paper? Soap? D) is it a western-style or squat toilet? E) if it’s a western-style toilet, does it flush or do you pour water into the bowl? And F) maybe the holy grail – can you drop your toilet paper (if you have any) into the bowl, or does it go in a bin along with everyone’s who has “gone” before you? OH! And whether or not you consider it acceptable to put ice in your beer!
Vientiane is full of the usual preponderance of western men with the Asian “girlfriends”. It’s got me to thinking: all these men who are either too unattractive, or socially inept, or intimidated by educated women, to have a relationship with a woman in their own country, come to Asia where by money alone they can secure the affections of a woman (or sometimes 2 – maybe for the price of 1, but they’re not the pretty ones…) – for a week or forever – who most likely has little education & will pander to his every whim (Oh! The ego trip!) – where do western women go for the same? Is there such a place?
Vientiane seems much more affluent than Chiang Rai, because of the tourist coin, I imagine. There are lots of fancy cars & four-wheel drives, some fancy shops & cafes, & it seems like the whole place is one giant construction site. The public transport system (tuk tuks) however, is in a state of disrepair & look as thought the last one rolled off the productions line around the same time that I did. Speaking of driving, they drive on the right here (a result of the colonisation by the French, I guess) & it’s quite disconcerting. In Thailand they drive on the left, so even though the traffic is hectic, it’s easy to adapt to because I automatically look to the right first before I cross the road. I have to consciously tell myself to look the other way first here so I don’t get mowed down by one of the many speeding bikes & cars.
It wouldn’t be Asia if there weren’t stray animals all over the place, & Vientiane is no exception. One morning while I was sitting outside enjoying my fabulous French breakfast (more on the food shortly), a pack of dogs started a fight on the footpath right in front of me, with a lone wolf (not really a wolf), which ended up pissing itself & really wrecked the ambience. Later that same day, in a completely different part of town (well ok, a few blocks away – Vientiane isn’t that big) the same loner tried to start something with a dog hanging out at the bar I was at, & didn’t give up until someone got up & gave it a kick & it skulked away.
There are some beautiful old French colonial buildings here, most crumbling but still appealing in that splendour-of-days-gone-by sort of way. And then there’s the Laos National Cultural Hall. Built as a “gift to the people of Laos” by the Chinese government in the late 1990’s, this ostentatious monstrosity hosts occasional cultural events as varied as French cinema, Laos classical dance, and even beauty pageants. The only other “sights” that I’ve seen are the Presidential Palace, & the Patuxai, Vientiane’s most prominent monument, and reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris (although VTE’s boasts 4, rather than 2, archways. Built in the 1960’s with US-purchased cement that was supposed to have been used for the construction of the new airport, apparently it’s sometimes called the “vertical runway”.
But the best part of the legacy of the French colonisation, is the food. It took a few days of struggle, but eventually I reminded myself that I’m only human & succumbed to the gluten…tentatively at first, to see what would happen, but when I seemed to have no side effects, I plunged in with complete abandon…. Pastries, sourdough baguettes, toasted ham & cheese sandwich, spectacular French toast for breakfast, a bacon cheeseburger for crying out loud, and it was all sooooooooooooo good. You’ve got to hand it to those French, they know baking. I did give the Asian Laos stuff a go, & had an amazing crispy Mekong fish with tamarind & fried basil for dinner one night at a place called the Full Moon Café. It’s a very cool place, in fact it would be the perfect place to spend a rainy afternoon with a book & a few aperitifs, but alas, the next day the rain cleared up & it was back to looking for a cool spot with shade for the afternoon.
The whole time I’ve been in Vientiane, I’ve kept speaking Thai everyone. Not that that’s a very big problem – the most spoken languages here seem to be Lao/French/Thai in almost equal measures, then English, so I get my point across better in Thai than English sometimes (and my restaurant French comes in handy, too), but the point is, I respond in Thai. I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that after 3 months I can speak Thai, but the responses that have become automatic over these past months has become my reflex, & that is weird.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that after a few days of gorging myself on all the French baked goods, my gluten intolerance kicked in with a vengeance, reminding me of who’s boss in this department….I’ll leave you alone, if you leave me alone, or something like that…. Anyway, I was leaving the next day, so figured it was worth it.
For my last night, I moved out of the Dragon Dodge, & checked into a place touting itself as the New Lao Paris Hotel. It cost twice as much as the DD, but breakfast was included & it had free wifi, so just those things alone balanced it out. In the lobby there is a relatively new French restaurant, owned by a French woman from Toulouse (& I think her husband, the chef), who came to Vientiane to open this restaurant. I had been sitting in the lobby for several hours using my laptop (& the included wifi) when I asked to look at the wine list, just out of interest, of course. That was it – they had a chardonnay from Languedoc for about 43,000k (AU$6) - & I was more ready for a glass of wine than I can remember being before. By then she had me hooked & I couldn’t resist the cheese platter (of all imported French cheeses) & another glass of wine. It was magnifique! And all for less than AU$25. By the time I’d finished with my feast & my laptop, it was after midnight & had been a long day, so I climbed the 64 stairs to my room (seriously), looking forward to a shower & a bit of a catch up on BBC World News before bed. Then I discovered that the antenna cable for the TV had been messed with so much that it wouldn’t stay in the TV by itself, so I spent the next 20 minutes trying to fix it. The cable coming out of the wall was so short that if I pulled the TV away from the wall or even turn it slightly to see where the inlet on the TV was to try to insert the cable, the cable wouldn’t reach, & of course there was no light nearby, so I couldn’t see with the TV in its position pushed up against the wall. So there I am flipping open my mobile phone to try to use the light to see the inlet, and at the same time with one hand trying to wrap a bandaid around the cable to attach it to the TV so it wouldn’t fall out. Eventually I had some success; enough to get a fuzzy picture & ok audio, & ventured into the bathroom to take a shower. This was when I discovered that there was no, I mean zero, water pressure coming out of the shower head. Great. So I got dressed & phoned reception. The night manager came up (I bet he doesn’t like getting calls to the rooms 64 stairs up…) & checked it out. “Oh” he said. “I turned machine off already”. Fantastic. “tomorrow ok?” No, tomorrow would not be ok. “oh. Will take 30 minute for machine to work”. Fine, turn on the machine & I’ll watch my fuzzy BBC World until the shower works. Twenty minutes later the phone rings. It’s the night manager, of course, wanting to know if “shower working yet?” No, shower not working yet. Bless him he says to meet him a few floors down & he’ll give me the key to another room to use the shower there, which seemed like my best option, so off I went. At least by the time I eventually got to lie down on my bed, it had great sheets – for the first time since I left Sydney at the end of March, I had 100% cotton sheets to sleep on. At least 1000 thread count, maybe Egyptian cotton, maybe not, but it was heaven. Of course the shower in my room still wasn’t working in the morning, & after several calls to reception (manager not here yet) & an eventual visit from the lady from Housekeeping, an hour later I decided I’d better go down & have breakfast before it finished, & get the shower sorted afterwards.
So then it was back to the airport for my flight to Bangkok & on to Chiang Rai. Arriving in Bangkok my new 90 day visa was stamped & here I am, back in Thailand until 07 November. And then back to the centre, to face all the dramas that had taken place while I was away, & have not yet written about here…. Stay tuned for In The Deep End.
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