(Don't worry, I didn't shoot an albatross.)
I've spent the past 10 days traveling with my friend Whitney. We spent the first five days in Laos, essentially making a loop across the northern part of the country, then spent 4 nights in Khon Kaen with our friend Lilly, who had roomed with Whitney when she studied abroad at UNC last year. Several of our friends had visited Laos the previous weekend, after exams, and had returned with a mirage of stories ranging from hilarious to horrifying. We planned our journey accordingly and set expectations very low, since we'd heard not-so-great things about Laotian public transportation.
We left last Friday for the northernmost Thai-Laos border crossing. Since the holiday was approaching and it was a weekend, the bus station was packed, and all that was left was a 2nd class bus (this is two classes down from the VIP busses that we typically take on overnight journeys). We feared the worst (Would there people seated on stools in the aisle? broken air-con? chickens on board?) but wound up being pleasantly surprised when the bus was normal. Still, the ride was a whopping 14 hours!
We arrived in the morning, crossed the Mekong and the border into Laos, then spent the day and night in the Laotian border town of Huay Xai. We bought tickets for a two day slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. My guidebook had said that these boats were hit or miss - some would be closed with no windows and packed to the brim with people, others would be open to the beautiful scenery. We asked to see the boat in advance and peered down the river to find an entirely blue boarded boat that looked about as safe as floating a trailer down a river.
Deforestation, Laos-style (also note the color of the water):
We spent the night trying to convince ourselves that we could survive the hellish two-day journey that awaited, a situation that was worsened by the news that the boat would stop for the night in a small village with no electricity. After hours of panic, we awoke to find that the boat's "walls" that we'd seen the day before were in fact just tarps, and the boat that awaited us was open and quaint-looking. We got the bench seats in the front, which made the ride a little more comfortable (everyone else was stuck for 10 hours with no legroom). The scenery was beautiful, and it was quite a pleasant ride. We stopped for the evening in Pak Beng, and the village with no electricity turned out to be perfectly fine, with normal bathrooms and lights and fans run by generators. So at that point, after three stages of panic and worry, we'd had no real difficulties.
The second day we woke up ridiculously early to regain our front row seats and discovered that our boat had changed. This new boat sported 4 or 5 rows of airplane-style reclining seats for the lucky few who arrived first. They looked tremendously out of place, as if they'd been recycled straight from a van or bus, but they were really comfortable! As a result, the second day's boat ride was very nice, and we got some nice scowls from the late arrivals who were forced back onto the hard benches.
Observe the difference between boat #1 and boat #2...
Luang Prabang is a very interesting colonial city, with remnants of French and Western influence without the typical evidence of globalization. There were nice restaurants and cafes lining the streets, which we flocked to for every meal, and inexpensive spas. There was also a handicraft market nearby, where we were able to buy a few gifts for people and some artwork. We had a little bit of drama when the guesthouse we'd reserved double-booked and wound up kicking us out of our room after they'd given it to us (it was quite weird), but other than that our 2-day stay was very smooth.
Our final transportation adventure in Laos was a bus ride back down to the capitol of Vientiane, which borders Northeast Thailand. I was most scared about this trip, but again it exceeded our expectations. Don't get me wrong, it was still miserable - 10 hours of topsy-turvy, winding mountain roads that would make even the calmest stomach churn. But unlike our friends (Adam, whose bus got caught in a rainstorm, leaked on him, then got stuck in the mud, forcing everyone to climb out and push, and who then later had a Laotian man throw up on him; and Judy, who was seated on a stool in the center aisle holding a Laotian child that vomited on her the entire ride), we had only one sick person on our bus and no major delays. We arrived in Vientiane at 4:30 in the morning and waited at the bus station until sunrise. We caught a morning bus to the border and crossed back into Thailand, where Lilly's parents were waiting to pick us up.
The dock in Luang Prabang:
Lilly and her sister didn't arrive in Khon Kaen until the next morning, so we spent the first evening with her family enjoying the mutual challenge of trying to communicate with a combination of simple English/Thai words and hand gestures. Her parents drove us back from the border, and her mom had loaded the car with pillows and also packed some "welcome food" for the 2-hour ride: slices of fruit, banana chips, and hot tea (in a teapot). Their house is on a rice farm, where they run the family business of milling and shipping rice. Her parents, sister, two aunts, uncle, and grandmother were all living there during our visit, which made for a lot of fun. One highlight was the discovery of Lilly's old drumset, which led to me eventually having to play a mini-concert for the entire family - quite an experience.
The second day we visited a fortune teller and were given extensive, fairly detailed descriptions of our "lives," as translated by Lilly and her sister. Mine included an international and statistics-based career path, marriage at the age of 29, and warnings against swimming and lower-back problems. Lilly and I were both told that we would gain weight, which we played up that evening at a buffet dessert table (why fight the forces of nature?).
While we were in Khon Kaen, we were able to see a lot of the traditional rituals of Songkran, the Thai New Year celebration and water festival. We visited a temple during our third day there and then woke up to give food to the monks the following morning at 6am - this is the Buddhist ritual of making merit. Another tradition during Songkran is to pour water and flower petals over Buddha statues to cleanse them, which we did at both their house and the temple. That afternoon, Lilly's uncle drove us all around town to see the first day of the water celebration. Basically, everyone in Thailand heads outside for three days and sprays water on each other. People line the streets with hoses and squirt guns and ride around in the back of pick-up trucks with buckets of water in the back. It is virtually impossible to go anywhere in Thailand without getting completely soaked during these few days. Of course, this isn't too bad considering the high in Khon Kaen yesterday was 41 degrees Celsius.
The temple in Khon Kaen:
I was sad to leave Khon Kaen this morning. We flew back to Bangkok and had a very lackluster day lounging around Salaya, doing some last-minute packing for Kanchanaburi, and trying to avoid getting drenched. Tomorrow morning we leave for the village, which should be great other than the heat. Now I really should get to bed... I've been up so early the past few days that I think I've forgotten what sleep is.
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