Laos: Where are we?

After hearing that the bus was an excruciating ride, we decided to fly from Hanoi to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, a strange-feeling and sleepy city on the banks of the Mekong. Leaving the airport, we saw the locals unloading from their version of public transport: people packed tightly into the back of a large flat bed truck. We found another American couple (James and Ewa) to share a minibus ride into town, and found out that they were from Stamford, CT, and that Ewa had immigrated with her family from Poland to New Britain, CT! Our most local connection (in terms of people we've met) in one of the places that seems farthest from anywhere. Vietnam and now Laos also have had by far the largest number of American travelers of any countries we've visited on the trip.

Laos is a place that we've heard people describe as "what Thailand used to be like." Since the Communist takeover in 1973?, it has been a very closed society, which apparently has loosened/opened somewhat during the last decade, especially in terms of tourism and marginally in terms of economic development. That the country's primary economic goal is to crawl out of the U.N. category of "Least Developed Country" by 2020 gives a good indication of its current state. In contrast to the noisiness and crowded conditions of Vietnam, Laos seems quiet, sleep, and empty (granted we were there on a weekend, but the central area of Vientiane seemed depopulated aside from tourists). If I squinted my eyes, I could almost picture an American cityscape: mostly cars instead of scooters on wide roads with wide, empty sidewalks.

After a bit of a search (several accomodations were full, and there seemed to be a good number of tourists around), we found a nice guesthouse, thankfully air conditioned given the heat and humidity, and joined James and Ewa for a riverfront meal after we'd withdrawn from one of the only international ATMs in Laos. The next day, after breakfast at one of the French bakeries, we went to the Laos National Museum. There were some interesting history exhibits, but we thought about something that has struck us at many of the museums we've visited on the trip: how poorly presented and preserved the contents are. It seems like there should be clear opportunities for international collaboration especially in the realm of preservation/physical space maintanence (we imagine foreigners having a role in the content to be a more complicated issue than preservation). Security was also an issue for this museum, as they currently displayed a collection of small gold Buddhas that had been stolen and then recovered several years ago inside of a hulking cage of iron bars that obscured most of the statues.

In the museum's section on the U.S. "secret war" in Laos (during the Vietnam War), it was funny to see the word "imperialist" always follow a mention of the U.S. in photo captions, as in "the U.S imperialist weapon supply." One of the best presented exhibits of the museum was in fact a collaboration between Laos and the Netherlands, detailing a representative of the Dutch East India Company and his travels in Laos in the 1600s. Those Dutch were everywhere during that time period! From home in Hartford to so many other places we've visited: Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius, Indonesia.

Later that day I got a haircut, and then went to a meditation sitting and herbal sauna/massage at a nearby temple, while Rachel went to a spa in town. We met up with James and Ewa that night to drink some green beer for St. Patrick's Day at a local rooftop bar; the waiter brought the bottle of food coloring and squeezed a few drops into our glass before pouring the bottle of beer. We went home after the bar, declining a local's invitation to join him at a club at the recently constructed (by the Chinese) 14-story luxury hotel on the river.

The next day we took the day-long bus to Luang Prabang, a former capital of Laos. Dubbed the "VIP Bus," some buses were double-decker and painted with scenes from the Little Mermaid and said "King of Bus" on the front windshield. We had to settle for a brightly colored bus with purple floral print curtains, but it did come with an unadvertized guard carrying a machine gun, the first time we've had that anywhere. We drove through very primitive looking villages, the houses either wooden or thatched roofs and reed mat sides. We saw huge water buffalos, goats, and small black pigs along the road, as well as a motorized cart vehicle that had a small engine on the front axle and a steering mechanism that made the driver look like someone using a push lawnmower.

The air quality has been really bad in the region due to many fires (mostly from slash and burn agriculture--we saw from the bus a lot of banana trees planted in burned off areas--but also forest fires); some parts of northern Thailand have been designated disaster areas. At one point on the bus ride we were so close to a fire that we felt intense heat for a few seconds passing through. Sadly, as we were already anxious for the bus ride to be over as we neared Laung Prabang (LP), the bus was involved in an accident (not the driver's fault) where one scooter hit another scooter and one of the scooter drivers was knocked into the bus. He was still alive and taken to a hospital.

At our guesthouse in LP, we met another American couple, Zach and Gemma from the Bay area. The next day we visited the Royal Palace, which in addition to stunning glass mosaics, featured state gifts from other countries to Laos (moon rocks from the U.S.). There was also a great contemporary art exhibit with Western artists collaborating with Lao artists in many different media.

The following day, after breakfast at a western coffeehouse that could have been anywhere, the 6 of us Americans took a tuk-tuk (3-wheeled vehicle made from a motorcycle front and two benches with a roof on back) to a nearby waterfall. This is supposed to by the hottest time of the year as well as the driest (the rainy season starts in May), so we figured the waterfall would be a great way to cool off. As we approached however, the sky kept getting darker and darker, and when we finally hiked up to the waterfall the rain poured down in a terrific storm, leaving us drenched and shivering but laughing as we rode back and the rain stopped. The 6 of us had a nice dinner that night, and the next day Rachel and I set off on the slow boat to the Thai border.