April 22 , 2001 - Muang Sing, Laos
Sabaidee, all!

I'm currently deep in the middle of Laos and it is something else! Laos seems like the little orphan child of southeast Asia, disadvantaged as hell, but friendly and clean enough for passersby to feel sympathy for and pat on the head occasionally, especially as its rough parents are nowhere in sight. Most other countries here (with the obvious exception of Cambodia - which is ironically now the new wild-wild west) have more solid economies that, while they might not be so hot at the moment (but then neither is Japan), they're at least pretty stable. Laos, however, struggles to maintain basic utilities and other services, let alone ensure decent job prospects for its younger generation. Even Vietnam has better facilities and prospects than does Laos.

But there is much hope for this country. While it may not have a solid economy or decent GNP, it does have potential. There are natural resources and most other governments and aid agencies are willing to invest a little in the place (and I do mean a little!) to start building it up, and the communist government is willing to let them do it, albeit with a few restrictions. The tourist industry, if properly managed, could be a huge source of income. And it doesn't have the sheer lawlessness of Cambodia (a country where several travellers have reported to me that you can now 'rent' guns at shooting ranges to fire off, including AK 47's or a grenade, and even a cow and a rocket launcher to use against each other. Presumably the cow gets the worst end of the deal, though I've seen some buffalo out here that might prove a challenge!). And it doesn't have the abject corruption of Myanmar that inhibits even basic business by its own citizens within the country at times.

How do I like it so far? Lemme put it this way: travelling in Laos feels like having your own secret fishing spot where you can pull out the big ones regularly and that few other people know about. And you wonder if you should tell even your best friends about it for fear of eventually ruining the place. The people here are by far and away the most friendly I've ever encountered on any trip anywhere. Riding into a little village, you get spotted at least 100 yards away by the sharp-eyed little kids, and their yells bring the whole population of under-12's boiling from their houses like ecstatic little bees, hollering "goodbye! goodbye!" as they run helter-skelter towards you. (Since "hello" and "goodbye" are the same word in Laos, I guess the difference is irrelevant to them - hell, I've heard everything from "thankyou!" to "nice job!" as I pass them.) The goodbyes feel a bit weird at first, being essentially told to leave as soon as you arrive. Makes you wonder if they aren't realizing unconsciously that you WILL inevitably be leaving them behind, as they can never hope to follow you away and travel themselves. (Passports for Lao citizens cost $3000 - an unimaginable amount for 98% of the population.) Guess the government figures the little people who leave legally won't return once they see the opportunities available just about anywhere else.

According to the guidebook, in 1996 the country had 22,000 km of roads, 16% of which were paved. So far, my observations seem to back this up. Man, this country is dusty this time of year! And finding your way around here is no problem - I could do it blindfolded with a walking stick, tapping the way ahead of me. There are about 20 major highways criss-crossing the country, 3 of them are paved, and no other "real" roads (other than dirt walking paths) exist. Literally. On a 200 km dirt road I did between 2 major towns (ie towns with over 500 people), there were no (zero) other roads intersecting it. I lost my good map about a week ago and have been using the 5 inch picture out of my guidebook instead. I just don't need anything else. (Man, the list of lost stuff just keeps growing and growing! Nothing critical yet, but at the rate I'm going, I can't wait for the morning I get 30 km down the road before realizing I left my bike behind!) The rougher roads consist of an orange-red talc-fine mix of dirt and dust that penetrates every pore and orifice of your body by the end of the day. I sweat, sneeze, and spit orange, I swear. Only the low traffic volume (as little as 10-15 cars a day sometimes!) keeps it from being totally oppressive. I've developed the ability to ride with my eyes closed and breath held for up to 30 seconds at a time, waiting for the dust raised by a passing truck to settle down somewhat. (Makes the rocks interesting...) And the time in the saddle is lengthened, as it takes longer to make progress, yet guesthouses are further apart than in other more developed countries. That same 200 km stretch took me 3 days to ride, featured 50 or so villages scattered along the way, 5 of which had electricity (2 of which had electricity more than 4 hours a day) and 3 of which had a guesthouse. (And I do mean "A guesthouse".) And this was a main highway through several districts, not a side road. During the rainy season, these types of roads must be almost impassable. Even in these hot and dry times, I occasionally had to skirt mud holes that were 2 feet deep and stretched across the road.

The scenery ranges from merely interesting to simply stunning, with incredibly steep slopes covered with lush jungle (and coated with the inevitable red dust closer to the road), clear streams (where the villages aren't too close), huge barely explored caves in limestone cliffs - just amazing. These guys have heaven in their backyard, and I think they know it too, as happy as they all seem. The only dark spot on the horizon, ecologically speaking, is that many villages still practice slash-n-burn farming in the hills. I passed many many regions where the natural flora was completely gone, ala clear-cutting, and the air this time of year can get really smoky all over the north of the country. (Haven't seen the south yet, though I will.) Even the guidebooks warn against trying to get god landscape photographs this time of year. Many organizations, Lao and otherwise, are trying to get the villagers to change practices, but its a slow process, obviously. The people gotta eat.

The northeast of the country, the place of the 200km of dirt road and 50 darkened villages, was my first introduction to what travel here would be like. Besides the dust and heat (actually not so bad in the higher elevations of the north - terrible further south), accomodation was scarce. My first night in-country was rather rustic, to say the least. Before crossing the border I'd spoken at length with a Thai biker who'd travelled in Laos quite a bit, and provided me with good info about where to stop, what roads were good, etc. He'd told me the only place to stay the first night was this little village - more of a Lao truck stop than a tourist place. (In fact its as far from a tourist place as you can imagine.) Arriving in the dark, due to my late start that day (ok, so ALL my starts are late...) I was starting to seriously wonder whether I'd be in the woods with no food for the night when the lights of the town (both of them) appeared over the hill. Hallelujah! Talking to the owners, I realized that since many people around here can't even read their OWN language, let alone speak english, communication can be a problem even with a phrasebook. But we got it sorted out eventually (hands together beside your ear is the sign for sleep even in the sticks in Laos, I guess) and I was shown to my "room". I say "room" 'cause it wasn't. Expecting to get one of the 2 little enclosures in the corner, I was shown to a clean mattress and hot pink mosquito net off to one side of what was essentially a big barn. Concrete floor swept last month, chickens clucking contentedly, and a cat 15 ft from my dinner table proudly chewing on its latest capture - a fat rat. At least that's one less critter to bug me tonight! Outdoor toilet and shower, the water supply for both is a concrete tank with a dip bucket floating in it, complete with ducks pecking at the door during my shower - guess they want a swim! Hey, after a long dusty hungry day, I'll take anything. Especially when the price is 75 cents. Yep. 75 cents. And especially especially when the other option is the dusty woods and a hot hammock. Hell, I'd have paid $10 for that barn floor right then. Since it was the only building for 50 km to have electricity (and the usual VCD player with music videos - a more and more common sight everywhere later. In fact many folks here own one before they own a telephone!), it attracted a sit-down audience of 20 or so little village kids in the evening, all sitting raptly staring at either the tv or me, depending on how interesting what I was doing was to them. Picking my fingernails is considered prime-time fare to them, judging by the attention it got. The most hilarious part was when a truck next door cranked up, preparing to move out. Immediately the whole audience rose and scarpered outside! What the hell? I followed them, and watched them all troop off down the road in the headlights of the slowly departing truck. They were using it to find their way back to their village for the night! I'll never take streetlights for granted again - man, we westerners live in a well-lit world.

In Muang Sing, reputedly a really picturesque tribal village area, but actually a hippie hangout, I spent a couple of days soaking in the hottest herbal sauna ever (breathing was difficult and moving painful, as it stirred the hot air against your body - it was all I could do to stand 5 minutes at a time) and relaxing my body after the hard previous days. It's got to be the only place in the world where the drug pushers consist of 50 to 60 yr old tribal women, offering beads and bracelets initially, but soon getting down to the real business at hand and pulling out little baggies of weed and packets of opium resin. Its surreal. Try picturing your little white-haired grandma, as you visit the next time, offering you "Tea, dear? Coffee? How about some nice ganja? Or opium? I grew it specially in the garden for you!" Many of the hippies had been there for 2-3 weeks - It was all I could do to stand 2 days. There I met a European who frowned on modern medicine and advocated homeopathic malaria medications. After all, he said, he used it regularly and had only contracted malaria 3 times! Really! Sounds like a plan to me: pay for the privelege of catching the disease. However it was also there that, while coming back from an evening meal with an American and a Hungarian animation artist I'd met, we stuck our noses into a happy party, and immediately found ourselves literally dragged into the middle of a traditional Lao wedding festival! The daughter of the village chief's wife was getting hitched, a buffalo and 2 cows had been slaughtered for the event, and everyone was intent on getting as drunk and loud as possible. Oh, we had a ball! Laotians drink something called "lao-lao", a rice whiskey that looks like water and tastes like a cross between bleach and rocket fuel, and feels just like it going down. (In fact, I think NASA's missing out - the secret to space exploration is to be found here in Asia. You can either use the lao-lao to power the shuttle, or if you drink enough, you can travel to the stars WITHOUT a rocket and never leave the ground!) Lao-lao is make locally in all the provinces, and while knocking back the shots, I prayed to the god of moonshiners and drunks that they hadn't produced wood alcohol by mistake. Riding in Laos is tough enough without trying to do it blind, cross-roads or no. While the other guys danced the night away to the professional karaoke singer (no, really!), I ended up being bracketed at a table by a good-English-speaking Laotian on my left, and a really drunk and horny gay Laotian on my right. In between shots of lao-lao and fending off bouts of the one's wandering hands (homosexuality is really well tolerated here - more power to the open-minded Lao folk!), I spent a good bit of time chatting with the other guy about Laos, its future, the opium problem, etc. He was educated in Russia and was the head of a joint German-Lao project to educate the local villagers on health, agriculture, and drugs, trying to convince them that their future lay in a different direction. Seems that most young Laotians don't have many options when they graduate - they can either farm or move to the capital city. And this is exacerbated by the fact the westerners walking around stoned on opium set a really poor example for the impressionable youth, eager to adopt anything western. So the percentage of Laotians abusing opium, once strictly the domain of the old and infirm, has risen dramatically. A pretty striking example of how tourism can be a really negative thing, if improperly carried out.

In Louang Prabang I timed my arrival to coincide with the start of the Lao New Year (2545!), and I couldn't have chosen a better time. It lasts for 3 days and is also known as the water festival, since its a time for symbolically washing away the old year with cups of water. Given the heat and exuberance of these guys, it's quickly become an excuse for a 3 day long water fight! I hooked up with Juan from Chile and when we woke up that first morning, we immediately tossed back a couple of cups of Lao coffee (also known as black tar coffee - illegal in 13 states and Mexico 'cause of its excessive caffeine content) and hit the market to buy super-soakers. Oh, man, 3 days of walking around with cameras securely plastic-bagged, tagging tourists, locals, and little kids at random. What a blast we had, sneaking up from behind cars to ambush groups of screaming youngsters, who would immediately retaliate with a barrage of fearless blasting, even the 6 yr old girls. It is THE time of year to hit Laos. Another traveller I met later said during the same 3 days in Thailand, he'd doused an on-duty cop who'd turned around and thanked him! Oh, and when some of them get bored with water, they turn to little bags of corn-flour or sneak up behind you and smear your cheeks with lipstick! It was during one of these melees that I ran into the Seevan, the ultra-friendly owner of a guesthouse I'd stayed in earlier. For some reason she'd decided I was a "nice young man" (dunno why - guess I compared favorably to the drunken lager louts who comprised her other tenants that night) and before we parted ways in Louang Prabang, she presented me with a t-shirt - her New Year gift to me. What a fantastically wonderful surprise! I really love these people. Besides being absolutely beautiful people, they are without a doubt the most friendly I have ever experienced in this trip. I hope they never change, and that I get to visit them all again soon. Seevan is moving to Houston soon to be with her family - I extracted a promise from her that she would contact me when she arrived, so I can show her a little Texas hospitality.

Though I was sorely tempted to stay on longer, due in no small part to the presence of Victoria from LA, owner of the most beautiful eyes in the west (and now east), I sadly departed for the capital city (where I sit writing this and planning the next move). While on the road to here, we pulled another "stick-your-head-in-to-check-out-the-noise-and-get-dragged-into-a-party" move. At a lunchtime water stop, we hung around the village hut to listen to the karaoke and drumming long enough to get a) doused with water and b) invited in for the party. Since it was midday and hot as hell, why not! So there we were, sat in a circle of 6-7 men, singing and drumming, while all the women and kids sat in the background listening and watching. The drummer was beating on an empty plastic oil bottle and featured a tattoo on his forearm with one-inch high letters reading "i love you". In English! In the middle of the Lao jungle!! Passing around shots of the ever-present and still noxious lao-lao and bowls of dried banana chips and garlic-flavored snails, (complete with river grit) we had a great time whooping it up. Until they passed the mic to me! Oh, crap, my brain froze. Quick! Quick! Think of a song! And try as I might, the only thing that would come to mind was... yes, you guessed it: Jingle Bells. But it worked! It was a hit! Singing along, I decided after every line to insert a "hey!" with upraised arms, and within 3 lines they were "hey"ing right along with me and grinning away! To any foreigner passing by the hut, it would have been the most surreal thing to hear: Jingle Bells in April in Laos, but it really had 'em in stitches. And soon the women were moving in, shoving the guys aside to get to the lao-lao and grabbing for the mic. After an hour of this, we said our goodbyes and wobbled off uphill, sure we'd crash and burn on the first descent. (Later that night I realized I'd left my journal behind, and had to bribe a scooter driver to run me back down the 30 km mountain road we'd just climbed to retrieve it. He was too drunk to want to drive himself, so I captained while he hung on to my back, zooming downhill in the dark, scraping footpegs on the corners, and praying the cows were penned up for the night, until we reached the village. At which point they laughingly presented me with my stuff, probably relieved that they didn't have to deal with it. What a day...!)

Since this is turning out to be the country where you can't turn around without being invited to or absorbed in a local party, I'm feeling a little hung-over as I write this. Myself, a friend, and 2 beautiful and ultra-cool Danes spent last night partying down at the neighborhood Buddhist temple. Originally planning on hitting a disco, we were hailed by a loud but small sidewalk party, shared a single shot of lao-lao with them, and that was all she wrote. Next thing we new, we were being physically dragged down the street by Mama-san and her cohorts to the temple to take part in an annual festival to celebrate, well, I'm ashamed to say that I don't know anything other than the fact that it was something Buddha-related. But I can tell you that it was an absolute ball. Most of it was spent on the grounds in the front, either dancing to the ubiquitous karoake singer or sitting on mats chatting and passing around bottles of beer, whiskey, and fruit wine. Hint: don't ever sample the green papaya salad without a pitcher of ice-water handy. I boldly grabbed a big fingerfull out of the offered bowl, and holy smoking westerner, batman! I had cartoon steam coming out my ears, and spent 10 minutes sucking on ice cubes, with tears streaming down my face. If I'd been sober, it probably would have felt catastrophic - as it was, the alcohol reduced it to a side-splitting event, albeit quite a painful one. Man, they love laughing at us weak-ass westerners! We did spend some time, however, sitting in the temple watching all the monks gathered around a tv showing a kung-fu movie! Was allowed to take a couple of pics of all this, but unfortunately I was worried about camera security, so all I took was my little 35mm, not my digital. So no proof! Got a pic that I sincerely hope turns out well: 2 guys in plain clothes and carrying AK-47's on a scooter, watching the proceedings with pleasure, while in the background are a cluster of monks equally amused at the goings-on. Quite a contrast, which sort of sums up this place.

So tomorrow, I head off to the south in the heat. My schedule is a bit weird at the moment, as I'm flying to Osaka to join a couple of Missoula friends for a week of fun (guess I haven't had enough lately) and then Cambodia? Vietnam? Iceland? We'll see.

Ciao, Mark