Vang Vieng Vientiane...Va Va Voom

Alternate Title: Miserable Bus Rides and Disappointing Cities

If that doesn't make you want to jump right in I don't know what will. But honestly, there's still a tale to be told and I intend to tell it.

We left Luang Prabang, jewel of Laos, all abuzz with excitement about the idyllic city we were about to encounter: Vang Vieng (VV). Everyone we met said it was the best thing since sliced bread. "It's like Luang Prabang, only so much better!"  And Luang Prabang had captivated our hearts so majestically, we eagerly went to get our bus tickets and be on our merry way. When we reached the travel agency we found what we knew was an amazing deal-- for only a dollar more each we could cut our drive time down from nine hours to five...and..AND we would have air conditioning and ample space in the roomy minivan (also notable: we would have less chance of breaking down on the road). 

So, we took the minivan.

HUGE mistake. MASSIVE. 

It did go faster, it's true, but it was the most terrible five or six hours any of the nine passengers had endured so far by means of bus travel. The trip was an endless succession of snaking paths along the edges of the mountains, the excitement of which was heightened by passing of the larger buses in what could only be inches of space from the rim of the cliff's we were skirting, the dodging of pedestrians and moterbikes alike, and of course the livestock. Goats in the street. Roosters everywhere. It was like a bad videogame. It's the same route by bus or minivan, to be sure. But the bus is so big it has to go much slower through all those hairpin turns. The minivan just blazes his own trail, completely impervious to the nausea and fright of his passengers. We finally made it to VV and not a moment to soon. We found a nice little guesthouse and tried very hard to forget all about the day's trip.

Vang Vieng:

Now strictly speaking, I think VV is in my top five most beautiful places I've ever been to. 

And yet I never want to go back.

It's just a travesty, that's why. The whole city is one sad heap of natural beauty and culture that Westerners just threw up all over (in many cases, literally). VV is a river town in Laos whose main attraction is a simple one. You rent an innertube for one day and spend what should be a very pleasant three or four hours floating down the river, staring up into the magnificent glory of the mountains all around you.

But no. It's anything but peaceful. The town has become the eternal city of Spring Break, but it's not fun, it's pathetic. Everyone but us was drunk and high and walking around in their underwear at all hours of the day. In Laos, where women cover their shoulders to the elbow and legs to the ankle regardless of the weather, it's just plain blasphemous to see them bending over backwards to get them another beer and give the best prices on Whiskey buckets to make ends meet. Praying people will come in their bar (which is really just a bamboo stool outside a mudhut where they keep a pale of ice, some of the nicest establishments are pictured above) and cursing their existence in the same breath. 

The whole river is lined with these makeshift bars that blare music so loudly you can't even think. People start drinking at breakfast.  You couldn't find anywhere to go that wasn't geared towards the sketchy tourist outfit. Consequently, the food was absolutely terrible.  They didn't serve Lao cuisine, just "Western" dishes made with whatever they had on hand. Oh it was gross. We couldn't get out of there fast enough. So we fled to the capital...Vientiane.

Although we opted for the full-sized bus for this trip we didn't think to try out our driver before hand. I think it was his first time using pedals. Have you ever ridden with someone who doesn't know how to accelerate smoothly, so instead they just surge the gas every three seconds? That was our drive for five hours into Vientiane.  I am proud to say that I did not get sick on the bus. I willed myself not to get sick the whole way there, but I couldn't help getting a little whiplash.

So Vientiane- the capital city.  It has some good points. The people seemed to be friendly there and less disgusted by travelers (with good reason). We saw some things. The city was very walkable. We saw the Royal Palace, but only from the outside, no tours allowed and whatnot.  There were temples galore, of course. My personal favorite thing was a concrete structure that served as a roundabout stationed just a few meters from the American Embassy. Apparently it's created soley out of concrete that had been donated to Laos by the US for the purpose of making or improving an airplane runway. That...structure was their symbol of defiance.  Well done Laos, very impressive. And how are those runways, hmm? Pity.

In front of the Royal Palace

"I should have been a runway."

 We ate dinner at this street cafe on our last night in Vientiane.  Overall we were underwhelmed by the "V" cities of Laos. When the time came we were ready to go to Thailand.

To the left, dinner. To the right, "weary."

Crossing the border was a much easier process leaving Laos than entering had been.  Although I've yet to forgive the man, I think he was Danish, anyway, who accosted us in line and tried to convince Joel to leave me- yes, right in front of me- explaining that he could find him five Lao girls in a snap to choose from to replace me. Joel isn't very good at understanding accents, so he had no idea what the man was saying, I, on the other hand, was outraged.  Yet, there we were, stuck in line together at the border to cross customs. 

This marks the end of our days in Laos and the beginning of our adventures in Thailand, that's right, home of the elephants and tigers.

Charmed, I'm Sure.

The night we spent in Luang Namtha, Laos wasn't particularly special. They have a lovely little night market there where everyone sets up a food kiosk and you eat at picnicesque tables in the middle and try all the diffferent varieties of skewered meats and the omnipresent "Lao sandwich" (which is just a baguette, one triangle of Laughing Cow cheese and various fillings covered with sweet chili sauce). We met a fun American couple.  Since we never exchanged names with them we called her Jane and him Mr. Jane, because I promise you she was the spitting image of Jane Lynch. She acted and moved just like her. It was borderline creepy.

We left the next morning for Luang Prabang, Laos.  It took almost nine hours by bus, but the scenery was so beautiful I didn't even mind. I was enrapt with the green vistas out my window.

 

Luang Prabang was everything we had hoped it would be. It was the quintessential charming mountainside town. Totally walkable. Street vendors selling mango fruitshakes and banana and nutella crepes at every turn. A constant parade of brightly colored monks. A night market that made me go weak at the knees for all its splendor. You really should visit if you get a chance.

 

We went to the Royal Ballet one night. It was a fun experience, but I'm pretty sure I could have performed in the next show after watching it once. They don't dance, that is to say... they don't move around. If you can turn very slowly in a circle, and you can move your wrists around while you point your fingers... you're a shew-in for the lead. But they did have fun costumes.

We stayed in Luang Prabang for four or five days, I lose track. Near the end of our stay we made an afternoon excursion to one of the most beautiful things I've beheld, the Tad Sae Waterfall. The water looked like cascading pools of glimmering aquamarines. It really had that ethereal blue lagoon quality to it. Joel and I had come in our swim suits fully prepared to dive in to this liquid perfection but one toe's dip into the pools assured me I would be just as happy observing the waters as I would be swimming in them. It was icey cold. I waded out to just above my knees before water-skating spiders corralled me back to the shore.

Joel, however, insisted on going in the waterfall, declaring that the experience wasn't fulfilled without swimming. He then spent the next several hours condescending to me (though chattering teeth) about how much more fun he'd had than me, and how worried he (with the blue lips) was that I would regret not swimming in the waterfall for the rest of my life. (And yes, I did take care of him when he caught a fever and had to stay in bed for two days.)

And for the record, I'm still perfectly content with my decision not to swim.  Water and I have never really been the best of friends. I like to hear the ocean, not swim in it. If I can't touch the bottom of a swimming pool on my tip toes I assume that the depths harbor sharks, so I avoid them (you can laugh, but I know you've thought about it before too). Lakes with murky water should be seen and never swum in. Ferries are a mode of transport I wouldn't wish on my enemies. Speed boats are the only form of nautical travel that I can endorse, so there you go.

If I knew how to make a blogging label for this series I would entitle it "Why We Came." This stop in Luang Prabang landed us just past the one week mark on a 21 day trek through Laos and Thailand, with time to spare for cities we'd never ever heard of before we moved to Shanghai.  This is it. These travel opportunities, these experiences are, in the end, what made us say, "let's do it." Let's give this life a shot. Was it worth giving up central heat, an oven and good Mexican food for a year?  At this point I have to say, definitely.

As Good as it Gets

Not quite a full two weeks after returning to Shanghai from my trip to Memphis we were leaving our apartment again with backpacks loaded for a three week trip through SE Asia. Even on the day of our flight out we weren't quite sure how or where we would spend all of that time. The only thing we knew for certain was that we couldn't meet up with Cliff, Craig and Ashley in Vietnam because they had chosen to vacation on the only country we were considering visiting that no longer issues land visas (meaning, we would have to trade the $12 bus tickets for $300 flights. one way. each. plus the visas). So we shook our fists at Vietnam and made plans to exit Laos to the west instead of the east.

If you've read this far you deserve a pretty picture. 

Our first stop was in Kuming, China. The plan was to fly there, then take a series of buses until we ended up in Laos several days later. Kuming was nothing more than a dot on a map to us when we were making our plans, but during our 24 hours there we really enjoyed ourselves. Reason number one: we were celebrities.

This picture was taken at lunch. We'd been wandering around for hours trying to find a place to eat and stumbled on this place. They had the best fried rice I've ever had- it wasn't actually fried, so maybe that's what was so great about it. Just big steaming bowls full of rice with vegetables stirred in. Also- my state of near starvation was probably a factor in the high marks. Anyway, after we sat down at our table, a parade of people came up to approach us. They looked very sheepish and just stood there for a long time before saying, "May we chat with you?" Soon they were all pulling up chairs around us and trying their best to use every ounce of English they'd learned (which wasn't much- and two of the three were getting college degrees in English. Couldn't string together a sentence to save your life) but we had a great visit. We talked as slowly as we could. They giggled their way through every attempt at a sentence. People kept coming up to get their pictures taken. They really wanted to be our friends- they tried to teach us as much Chinese as they could in the twenty minutes they were at our table. I have a notebook full of random vocabulary words that consisted of any object that could be seen from our room. Chop sticks. Framed picture of vegetables. Desk. They were very sad when we announced we had to go. They wanted to show us around Kuming. It was very sweet. People never take a bit of interest in us in Shanghai. Well, except kids....

I have a mystical dominion over all the children of Shanghai. It's true. Just a few weeks ago when I was running errands for this trip I heard a little boy screaming and crying with all his might a few aisles over in Carrefour. I peeked my head around the corner at him and smiled and sure enough, he stopped crying. Not only that, but he wrestled himself free of his parents and came running at me as fast as he could, arms outstretched the entire time as he waddled his way over awkwardly encumbered by the marshmellow layers of clothes they strap around children here in the winter. And when he finally made it he just stared up at me with teary brown eyes arms as far above his head as would reach pleading in universal child language "Hold me! Hold me!" His parents were as dumbstruck as I was. I don't know what the rules are about picking up someone else's child here so I just smiled at him while his parents scurried over to retrieve him saying, "Ohhhhh he liiiikes yuuuh!" A child would never do that to me in the states, but here. It happens all the time. Maybe I should adopt one.

So about Kuming. We made our way over to a park we heard would be a nice place to sit and people watch and boy were we surprised by the sights.  I'm not sure what we were expecting but it wasn't a huge lake full of white birds that swirled above your heads in perfect synchronized dances and thousands of people all clustering about to learn dances together or perform their latest lipsynch routine or dress up in whatever traditional garb they had in their house and make up a dance to show off in the park. There was ice cream, and people were making cotton candy on the backs of their bikes (which of course I had to try- who doesn't love cotton candy!) It was crazy! And ever so much fun.

We finally had to pack up and head to the bus station where we boarded our first overnight bus in China. There were three narrow rows of little beds that you lay down in to sleep until you arrived. Man of man was that ever an experience.

I think the road from Kuming to Jinghong must be the curviest most death defying drive on the face of the planet. I couldn't sleep from being tossed from one side of the bus to the other. But we made it! From Jinghong we took a few more buses into Luang Namtha, Laos, which is where I will pick up next time. Thanks for stopping by!