WELCOME TO LAOS
(KHMER TALES PART 2)
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There's nothing like a hot shower in the morning . You might wonder why I start with this seemingly strange thought? The story begins with leaving the US at 9:20am Sunday morning (12/16). We were a little tired because some friends threw a great party Saturday night and while we did leave early, it wasn't really early (2:00am). Plus, Lois still had some packing to do.
We flew from DC to Chicago to Tokyo to Bangkok and arrived 27 hours later at 12:20 am Monday night in a hotel near the Bangkok airport. The next morning, we took a short flight to Northern Thailand. Then a 3 hour bus ride to the Mekong river and the border at Huay Xai/Chiang Khong. A motor boat across the Mekong and we're in Laos! We stay at Arimid guesthouse, highly recommended and the most expensive place in town at $4.75/night! We have our own bungalow with a porch, a couple of chairs and small table. The walls are made of split bamboo that is woven together. A style we will see all over Laos. The next order of business is dinner. Walking down the main (and only paved) street of Huay Xai, we see a nice looking place and sit down. They don't speak English, we don't speak Lao (yet) but we're hungry and they have food. A couple hand signals, a little pointing and we're eating a delicious meal. It's similar to something we've had at Bangkok Blue in Falls Church. We get a platter covered with greens - Cilantro, Lettuce, spinach, mint and others we have never seen before. Another dish has fried rice with vegetables and peanuts mixed in. The woman sees we are unsure what to do and gives a little demonstration. Take a leaf of lettuce, put a little bit of each of the greens on top, spoon on some rice, roll it all up and stuff it in your mouth. SAEP! (Delicious) The bill for the meal plus beer is 20,000 Kip. Oh my god, that's a lot of kip! But, there's 10,000 kip to the dollar. So, 2 bucks sounds pretty good to me. The Kip has devalued a lot over the years. The largest bill is 5,000 kip. That's 50 cents. I change $100 and get a 2 inch thick stack of 5,000 kip notes. It takes 15 minutes just to count it all. Walking around Huay Xai, there's not much to the town. It's just a crossing point into Laos. We check out the local temple (Wat) and arrange for transportation to our next destination - Muang Sing. We're going a bit of an untravelled route, so it costs a lot ($55) for the following: a two hour ride in the back of a pick up through the back hills and some small villages followed by a 3 hour speed boat ride on the Mekong to get to an INTERMEDIATE point of Xieng Kok. From there we will take local transport (the back of a truck) for 3 1/2 hours to Muang Sing. A little about this trip: the ride in the back of the pick-up is pretty interesting. Our first real view of South-East Asia and Laos. All along the way, the houses are built on stilts about 8 feet high. The stilts tend to be 6x6 wood. The area underneath is used for storage, working and sheltering livestock. The houses have either plank or else bamboo floors and the walls are all made of split bamboo woven. In Ton Pheung (don't bother looking on the map, it can't be found), we get a speed boat. It's shaped like a large canoe, about 20-25 feet long and about 4 feet wide with a flat bottom. We sit on top of two inch foam rubber cushions that lay on the bottom of the boat and lean against a plank of wood with a two inch foam cushion for our backs.The boatman tells us we are going about 60-70 kph or 40-45 mph. The set up is reasonably comfortable, except that you feel every ripple and rapid in the water. It's not particularly bad at any one time, but it is 3 unrelenting hours. The river is beautiful. A couple hundred feet wide with large rock formations sticking up through the water and mountains in the distance. We see Burma, China, Thailand and Laos. Then, I begin to think about the mandatory life-jackets we are wearing, all the whirlpools, eddies, ripples in the water and ALL THE ROCKS THAT I SEE. Hmm, what causes all that rough water? Rocks just below the surface of the water?? I hope we don't hit any... Whew, we didn't! We made it to Xieng Kok and got a truck going to Muang Sing. It's sort of a normal flat bed truck with sides about 1 foot high. There is a row of slightly padded benches on each side of the bed. Up from the walls of the bed extend a frame that has back supports for the benches and a covered roof. Sort of like a western covered wagon except the sides are open to the view and the warm breeze. The ride is through georgeous scenery and we get our first glimpse of some of the various ethnic minorities. We see some great traditional outfits. In one area, the guys have caps with sort of antenna sticking up with 1" brightly colored pom-poms at the end of the antenna. They have solid metal bands hanging loosely around their necks and some have necklaces of medallions and chain. We attract lots of stares and attention along the way, as well as getting a chance to start learning Lao. Left Huay Xai at 8:00 and arrived Muang Sing at 5:30PM on 12/19 (Wed). A bit of a long haul, but interesting and fun all the way. On the subject of communication, the Lao people are extremely friendly and helpful. Many of the ones dealing with tourists speak at least some English and are teaching us Lao. At this point, we can ask, "how much", "Do you have a room", "What time", "Where is the bathroom", we can count and we know the names of various types of food. It helps to have so many teachers! Muang Sing is a small town in the mountains surrounded by a number of different ethnic groups. There is electricity every night from 6:00-9:00PM. There is running water, but the only hot water comes in a large thermos. To "shower" in the morning, you get a thermos of boiling water, pour some in the sink, mix with cold water to a reasonable temperature and pour over your body using a cup. It feels fine when the warm water first hits you, but 10 seconds later, it's all cold water on your body! 12/20 breakfast in the market in Muang Sing. All sorts of strange things on display, including the head of a freshly slaughtered water buffalo just outside the butcher shop. The head let's you know they have meat today and it is fresh! We rent bicycles to explore the countryside. 50 cents for a Chinese one-speed bicycle that weighs about 40 lbs. But, it gets you where you want to go (at least on the flats). We will spend 3 days in Muang Sing, relaxing, reading, catching up on sleep and seeing a little bit of Laos. My only complaint is that if you stop for a moment in the street you are surrounded by women who want to sell you various cross-stitched items. Beautiful, but there is a limit as to how much you can buy (Lois is, of course, doing her best). Next stop is Luang Nam Tha. Only 58 kilometers away, how bad can that be? It can be 2 ½ bone jarring, freezing hours in the back of a truck! You might wonder, does Paul really consider this vacation? All in all, definitely. But, every once in a while, I wonder... The Luang Nam Tha market has buckets of live fish for sale and parakeets (dead) are apparently a delicacy. We see and have eaten fresh oregano, cilantro, scallions, lettuce, watercress, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, mushrooms, ginger, garlic, cabbage, bok choi and others we don't know. Definitely not a shortage of veggies here! We have already changed our itinerary. We leave Luang Nam Tha after one day and go to Udomxai/Odomxai/Muang Xai where we will end up spending two days. The ride is a very comfortable 4 hours through lush mountain scenery. We are clearly going up in altitude with steep drop offs to rivers and streams far below. From a distance, the mountains are similar to the Catskills or Shenandoahs. However, up close, you see the differences. Here, there are many types of vines growing over everything and a wider variety of trees. Udomxai has hot water, 24 hour electricity and internet! Just as we get settled in our room, the electricity goes out. Wonderful! There go the hot water showers we were looking forward to. So, we get out the candles and life goes on. But, wait! at 1:00 am, the light in our room goes on. The electricity is back! Hurray! We decide to skip Muang Khua, spend today in Udomxai and tomorrow, Christmas day, head for Muang Ngoi. We'll spend Christmas eve and morning with hot water and electricity. There's nothing like a hot shower in the morning.