Laos: monks, wats and a lost wallet

Even from the Bangkok airport, Laos was already making an impression and not the best of ones as all of the Laos Airlines employees were waving once we were inside the plane. And this from a tiny, propeller plane and some of us had to move to the other side of the plane to distribute the weight. Wow! Where was I going? No man's land? Soon to find out a very laid back, country, one of my favorites so far. And it kept impressing as upon arrival, it was so very easy to get a visa and even negotiating for a taxi into town wasn't necessary. Was so used to Thailand's touts just expected more of the same here. Pleasantly surprised to find quite the opposite!

First hostel was full but no worries second one took me in and even took Thai baht and it was all I needed: a $9 room with a bed and desk, breakfast included, shared bathrooms. Met Ricardo immediately and I know I go on but he was just what I needed: a grounded, spiritual fellow American by citizenship but not in the annoying category. He found me scattered to say the least. He's the sort of traveler who really digs in to a place, I'm the sort who explores everything to the point of exhaustion so I blame him for making me stay in Vientiane so long :-) Anyway, made immediate plans for a Korean dinner with Beer Lao after a disco nap and settling in. And the beer was good!! And this coming from a cocktail girl says a lot! 

Might as well start with the food....surprising to say the least! The French influence is in full force: good bread and coffee but also a wide variety of restaurants including western ones: indian, korean, vietnamese, belgian, even swedish bakeries. A foodie's dream, there are even gourmet stores selling good peanut butter and honey. Street food was delish, by day it's a riverbank, by night vendors have set up restaurants and what a view of the Mekong at sunset! Ate spring rolls and pineapple shakes giving myself my very own Buddha belly :-)

And the nightlife was even good. If you don't mind hanging with ladyboys on the 4th floor of Mekong riverfront bars that is. So I found my new go to bar every night with Ricardo and others from the hostel, an Aussie joined us most nights mostly teasing me for exciting the Laos boys. One took a liking to me and approached me multiple times telling me I was beautiful, how difficult to do in a foreign language! Seattle boys, get a clue. :-D And a tatted Laos boy wanted pictures and to sit on his lap, whoa, boy! And be careful in the bathrooms: ladyboys attacked me (sort of!) loving my hair, so blonde! I'm not even that blonde, can you imagine Gwen Stefani like hair in there?! Sex workers were obviously there too and, like Thailand, warnings of only registered guests in the hostels were everywhere. So when the Aussie invites me to his room should I be offended? Yes, I think so, no thank you, off the Aussies fo shiz ;-)

Giving up on the motorbike, I rented a bicycle to explore and got lost going to the Thai consulate, instead found the most important Laos monument by accident, I rock! And that it was Vientiane's 450th anniversary only added to the fun party atmosphere. Only visited Wat Sisaket on purpose, knowing I'd get my full of wats touring southeast Asia, it's home of my now favorite Buddha, with the largest belly to date I've seen. But I must move on, there is much more to see!  

LUANG PRABANG

Worst night bus ever! And this is not just because on the tail end of it I lost my wallet to which I'm still dealing with no credit cards, only living off of cash for the past month! No, this bus was meant for Laos people and I have long legs but my Belgian seat mate had even more trouble, our legs were painfully against the seat in front of us and when the tiny Laos men tried to recline, nope, that didn't happen! No way to recline, crappy, windy roads had us practically in the air half the time any way, can you imagine trying to sleep in conditions like these?

But finally....the good stuff! The town is super cute, a UNESCO World Heritage site for good reason with it's many wats, riverside setting and laid back feel. Made friends with the Belgian girl and she was a blessing loaning me money until I sorted out the financial mess but also splitting costs and of course, laughs! 

Food again...amazing! Scored pomme frites with amazing curry and garlic sauces, homemade mayonnaise and imported chocolate to go with our Dame Blanche at the Belgian restaurant. Apparently they didn't do this well enough so we ate it again the very next night on their dime! Awww, the benefit of traveling with a Belgian, they sure do appreciate food! A typical day's assortment of foods went something like this: $2 Lao sandwich (tofu, pork floss, cucumbers, lettuce and tomato on a fab baguette), fruit shake (mango, dragon fruit, banana, pineapple); snack: crepe, fruit shake; dinner Lao bbq which consisted of buffalo and water soup with vegetables, loved it so much we ate here 3 nights in a row and so cheap even with Beer Lao, $2 per person! 

So a word on my new travel partner: she's young, fearless and loves to travel having lived in India and plans to work in China next year. This is important to know as I describe our adventures. She has that attitude I've mentioned of not particularly liking Americans, she swears to this day I'm not American as she's never had fun with one before. But I must mention how she learned English, it's quite common to learn from music but this girl, she learned from Move, bitch, get out the way, get out the way, bitch, get out the way! You know and love that song, right?;-) And oh no, we did not just go in a tuk tuk to the Kuong Si waterfalls and the bear park. No, we explored the village around it first seeing our own gorgeous waterfall without tourists, just the locals going about their daily life. And no, we did not just ride in a tuk tuk, we were hanging from the back of it. This is what I've termed Aurelie style traveling, it kept even me on my toes! 

So next day we decide to rent a motorcycle, I'm stoked that I can be a passenger as I failed miserably at driving one. Motorcycle adventures Day 1: off to the Pak Ou caves to see Buddhas along the Mekong and Nam Ou river. Buddhas not all that impressive but the journey there taking the boat across resulting in the dirtiest face imaginable from all the dust from the bike, oh yeah, this is my kind of traveling! Never mind that I got a Laos tattoo along the way, you know the motorbike burn kind, arrghhh! On the way back to Luang Prabang about an hour away, maybe 30 km, we go to a lesser known waterfall and a man tries to charge us for admission when there's only 5 minutes of daylight left. I started arguing, Aurelie takes off running exploring his property, quite funny in hindsight but I was left to deal with his get off my property 'tude. By the time she gets back to the bike, he's ready to fight, she's bigger, taller and stronger so didn't really worry but when he went to grab something, I'm so American in my thinking imagining he's getting a gun, instead it's a huge stick, seriously?! She revs the engine, I hop on and we're off narrowly escaping what could have been a disaster. Phew!

Next day we weren't taking chances in having to pay for waterfalls so explored where no other tourists went. We found a back street leading to a village but first had to cross what would be considered a rickety bridge in the US, made of bamboo and really quite sturdy, the villagers even rode bikes across it. Once across the bridge, the villagers were working drying coffee beans, weaving and well, not really much else. The kids all wanted to play and chased us as we explored the jungle. I couldn't stop staring at one of the kids' feet: 6 toes on each! I took a picture, I hope, surreptitiously. So friendly and dirty, these villagers! What a simple life with their thatched hut roof homes yet all had satellite tv and cell phones.

Back in town, we hiked up Wat Phou Si for sunset with the masses, not the most impressive of sunsets but what a view of Luang Prabang! Ran into a scorpion along the way....glad they are so slow! On the way down, visited the night market and tasted scorpion whisky and the local rice whisky, called Lao Lao. Ummmm, I'll save that for the other tourists. And of course, had to get another massage, this one just $5, I am seriously spoiled! The only other wat I made it a point to visit was Xien Thong with its' gorgeous jewel tones and gold, truly impressive and I've seen quite a few wats by now! And the town itself is really beautiful along the river. But what made it that much more interesting than any other town were the monks just going about their daily business in their saffron robes. I even got my lazy butt up at 5:30 one morning to observe them in their daily routine of receiving their alms in the form of rice. What sacrifices they make!

Well, time to bid adieu to my new friend and Luang Prabang, what memories!

PAKSE

It's easy to forget Laos is a communist country at times but reminded when traveling around the country, seeing the red hammer and sickel flag next to the Laos PDR one. I liked the people immediately, so happy yet not a rich country and didn't act like victims nor did they beg, as I have found the Cambodians do. After my second worst night bus, at least this time it was a horizontal sleeping bed and now that I'm on my own again I got my very own bed in the middle back of the bus. Score, right? Not exactly. My seat mates are a Laos couple with a 3 year old kid who always managed to squeeze onto my bed and kick me. And I'm just imagining if the bus driver stops suddenly, there's nothing to stop me from flying through the air into the windshield! Oh and the bumpy roads and constant honking meant another night of virtually no sleep. Once in Pakse, I found a bed in a dorm for ultra cheap ($3) and managed to disco nap before going off to explore the riverside town and its' wat, of course! Met Monk Boud who wanted to discuss the basics of Buddhism, bowed out gracefully of that one. Back to the hostel and it was indian food for thanksgiving---so very non-traditional and so Cara!!

A tour of the Bolaven Plateau was a very memorable day! Started out with the coffee and tea plantations which I could have done without but did find the health claims amusing. Apparently green tea is a good cure for hangovers and oolong tea is good for cholesterol, ok, not aware of that but whatever it takes to sell a product. Laos has decent coffee, arabica and robust are the most popular but I don't get why they don't use milk in it. The white coffee is condensed milk, soy was everywhere but no dairy products, not even the yogurt drinks I grew so accustomed to in Thailand. If I never have to smell the fermented coffee beans I'll be happy....rancid vinegar.....ewww! So the plateau is also known for beautiful waterfalls and we saw a plethora of them....maybe 4?! I was more amazed by the villages though. The Alak tribe's belief system is in animism and they sacrifice a water buffalo every year! This tribe is the unfortunate site of many bombs though, there are many UXO workers blocking off bomb sites, this area was heavily bombed by the US government, a fact for which I had to apologize being the only American on the tour, never mind that I wasn't even born when my government did this horrendous action. The tour guide asked me why Laos was bombed! Can you imagine? I felt the hatred, so ashamed of my government! And ignorant as to how many people die each year still clearing land to farm---200! And it will take 100 years to clear all these bombs as this area was the most heavily bombed in the second Indochina war. Sad! The Katu tribe was just as fascinating, they are known for building their own coffins. This is sounding like a rather morbid tour now! Visiting the combined primary and secondary school was so fun but our group disrupted the whole school taking pictures and visiting. Actually, I felt like I was in a zoo and the kids were staring at us as we looked so different! Next we visited the village where these kids live and this is where the poverty and dirtiness struck me......a child with kwashiorkor! Oh my heart was breaking! Even if these kids go to school and get an education, where do they go from here? Tour ended on a more positive note with yet another waterfall and a scenic ride back to Pakse.

The next morning, eating breakfast in a cafe, I spoke with an Aussie girl, albeit too briefly, who works in Vientiane and travels around Laos and I mentioned I'd like to work for a non-profit eventually. She was reading the Laos paper and showed me a job opening with the UN's World Food Programme and after the previous days' tour to the Bolaven Plateau, I was seriously thinking I'd like to do just that and am still thinking on it! She is a vet and when I asked for what, small animals? She says, rather sheepishly, no large ones, ELEPHANTS! Wicked! How does one specialize in that in Australia? Wow! Timing of meeting her, again, I'm so believing in synchronicity at this point.

Change of pace and country: now it's off to Cambodia! 14 hours later, 5 minibuses, 1 awful border crossing literally walking across with all my bags only to find the bus is full and even the conversation with a fellow American and gorgeous Cambodian countryside wasn't enough to distract me from my thoughts. By the time I finally arrived in Phnom Penh, practically in tears as I couldn't find my hostel nor anyone who knew it for close to an hour, already late and Jai is expecting me plus Cambodian men were warning me it's late, you're in Cambodia and you have all your luggage, be careful! Yikes, what did I get myself in, yet again? I have never been happier to see a familiar face!!