We’re almost done with Laos. Our journey started in the North then we slowly travelled down via Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Tadlo and now Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands). This country has a lot of potential and I hope to see a huge difference when I come back one day. The road conditions are pretty tough around here, most roads are on red dirt and not all sections are fully paved when they are supposed to be paved... Bus trips are measured in time rather than kilometres. A 300km bus ride can take up to 10 hours, you can figure out what the average speed is.
I had a very memorable bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vientiane: I was feeling under the weather, my stomach was trying to evacuate “stuff” from both the top and bottom end. I played it safe so I took two Imodiums and ate next to nothing during the entire ride only water and some bread was on the menu for me. Shortly after the bus left the terminal one of the crew handed out puke-bags! This is not encouraging for me at all. It was a rocky ride swaying up and down the very beautiful and lush mountains. Just like it was in New Zealand actually. My stomach was not enjoying it. Suddenly the guy in front of me curled down to his knees and his buddy was padding him on the back. Shortly after, the first guy sat up straight, opens the window and out goes his puke-bag filled with stomach juice! Poor guy. Poor me! I had to convince myself that was not going to trigger my gag reflex. As the ride went on more bags were tossed out the window from different people with all kinds of flavoured stomach juice :) I had never been more happy to have my iPod with me. When the vomiting sound got loud, my music got louder! I kept my eyes closed for most of the 10 hour ride and I am happy to say my bag remained empty when we arrived.
Luang Prabang is a beautiful place. One would definitely guess who once colonized Laos when setting foot in town: Old French signs announces important buildings, French baguette is on the menu everywhere as if the Laos folks invented it, the architecture is definitely French. There is a very strong French influence in this town of the Indochina. The French seem to particularly have a big interest in visiting Laos, we see tons of them roaming the streets. Although there are French immersion schools all over Laos, English is still the second language of choice. More locals understand English over French.
There is a volunteering program in town called Big Brother Mouse. This is a wonderful program that helps local students develop their English. While we were in town we went to the head office everyday to lend a hand with the students’ conversational English. And oh boy are these guys ever diligent students; they go to their normal school, then have a short break before starting their English class in the afternoon. After class most of them would spend an extra two hours at the library on more English work. Their day is over at 9:30 pm. At the Big Brother Mouse, we met some friendly locals from the Hmong ethnic group – there are many ethnic groups in Laos and they live in villages in the highlands, midland and in the south of the country. Primarily the Hmong’s live in the mountainous region of the north, the Lao live in the south and I forgot what important ethnic group live in the midlands...
Our new Hmong friends were impressive. They are fast learners and some of them are so advanced for the number of months/years they have been studying English. One of them told me his story: he is currently sharing a room in town with two room mates but he is originally from a small village in the deep woods of the North. when he was younger he used to trek in the bushe for three hours to get to school and another three to get back from school. He mentioned his family is very proud of his accomplishments so far. I asked what are the young Hmong’s or young locals main career aspirations and without hesitation he replied: “to be an English teacher or a tour guide.” Many are learning English so one day they’d be able to show their beautiful country to the visitors.
I wish these guys the best of luck, they would be great guides and teachers. I wished I had a good guide when Gen & I did a tour of the villages and waterfalls in Tadlo. The guide spoke limited English and was not helpful most of the time. But we managed to learn and understand a few things: there is a strong coffee culture in Laos. Some villages grow, sundry and sell coffee beans as their main source of income. Their coffee is quite strong. They like to serve it with condensed milk hot or over ice. I quite like it. It reminds me of the Vietnamese coffee... And they don’t exactly roast the beans, the beans are sundried. We also found out that Laos is known for their multiple waterfalls. They get many Thai visitors annualy at the falls snapping photos. We also visited a tea garden on this tour. It was a beautiful garden with mint tea, black tea, oolong tea and green tea trees. It was like a visit at the vineyard where the host or owner would show you how the wine is made followed by a tasting session. We got the same treatment with tea. The owners were an old Vietnamese couple who immigrated here 70 years ago. This was my first chance at practicing my Vietnamese, so we exchanged a short conversation while the rest of the group tried to listen in without understanding anything :) Of course, I became the translator at that point :)
One thing that bothers me in Laos is the slash and burn agricultural technique. They burn the fields to improve the soil so they can start a new crop more quickly (I’m not a biologist so don’t quote me on this). While this technique may be very advantageous for them, it sure causes a whole other problem. Everywhere we go, whether it’s in the mountains or in town, we smell and see the smoke hovering over us. The sky is never a bright blue it’s always hazy. The air is never fresh and this really ruins it for people having an interest for beautiful landscapes. My personal opinion is that this may affect the psyche of the locals, the same way the rain or clouds affect the people living in Vancouver or London during the winter months.
The only place I got less of that depressed feeling was in Vientiane, the country’s capital. Vientiane’s town centre is completely different from what the rest of the country. It is a small metropolitan city with 200 000 people. French style cafés are everywhere, during the day the men and women are dressed in business attire, the pace is faster and the French flair is even more present here. It is a very pretty town with interesting sights such as the country’s oldest temple (Wat Si Saket), the Patuxai (is almost like the Arch de Triomphe of Paris) and the Presidential Palace that no one is allowed to visit.
Currently we are in Si Phat Don aka Four Thousand Islands for the westerners. We’re down to our last few days in Laos. We plan to visit around and mostly plan our crossing the border to Cambodia. We heard a lot of nice and funny things about Cambodia, so we are nervously looking forward to it. We already have our visa in hand but I think this will not make anything easier, just a gut feeling... I’ll let you know soon.
