Lah Khon Laos

Lah Khon Laos (Bye Bye Laos)

I have emerged from the sticks (aka Laos) and have many things to say. In general I found Laos to be a really great country, and perhaps this is true because I was in a groove travelling there - one that I was not able to obtain in my month in Cambodia, or Vietnam 2001, or Thailand in 1999. Usually this is the case, in that if you are in a good frame of mind than you can have a blast in any country - but if you are down in the dumps then even the best of places can be annoying or dissapointing. I will begin with a nice quote I read about Laos:

"It had been predicted that we should have to pass some months in Laos - a region of evil name,
protected by the rocks with which it's river bristles, and still more by the miasma exhaled by the
sun's heat, from the curiosity or ambition of it's neighbours"

Travels in Indo-China and the Chinese Empire, Louis De Carns, 1867

I finished Laos by a two week jaunt all over the north. In the last webpage I mentioned the slowboat and the Gibbon Experience. After that I went across Northern Laos visiting various towns and villages along the way. This is supposedly the "off the beaten track" part of Laos and it did seem it.

Sunset on a scenic rice paddy, Luang Nam Tha.
click to enlarge

Unfortunately, the second I got off the beaten track I soon realized that this meant that if there even was a bus (usually not) then it was going to be a horrible one on a terrible road. For instance, from Huay Xai (near the Gibbon Experience) to my next place (Luang Nam Tha) I was on a bus for five hours that was so dusty that everyone had to wear masks and we were still coughing incessently. However, worse than coughing, nearly everyone on the bus (except for the two white guys) were vomiting from motion sickness due to the serpentine nature of the road. The girl in the seat was ok until I started to show here photos and videos of me zipping around the forest - she was fascinated but was soon sick and vomiting also. I couldn't help but feel partly responsible.

Luang Nam Tha was really nothing to speak of, which was ok because I needed a down day. I was sick and after the Gibbon Experience, the boat trip, and Luang Prabang I had been doing activities for weeks. On my first night there I froze my ass off because I couldn't figure out how to close my window. On the second and third I figured this out but still froze - it was pretty cold. What I did do right was to goto the local sauna. For 10,000 kip = 1$US you go into a raging hot sauna as many times as you want. The place was great as it was a mixture of foreigners and locals and with my Lao I made some friends and laughs. I also met an interesting British guy who has been in Laos for upwards of a year taking photos, staying in villages for weeks at a time. He is just doing it as a hobby and not publishing anything. He makes his money, in contrast, by trading in silver coins that were used by the Chinese in this region at some point. He is an expert and told me that on that day he bought some coins worth around 600$ but paid fifteen dollars for them. In Luang Nam Tha I also ran into a really cool Swiss guy, named Jian, who I had met on the boat before. At ninteen years old he is the single most "together" teenager I have ever met, and we shared more then one beer and story. On my second day in LNT I rented a motorbike and got out to see some Hmong minorities and also some beautiful scenery (like top photo of rice paddy).

click to enlarge, then "back" to return

There were many Hmong in villages around Luang Nam Tha, which made for some photo opportunities. This woman, along with her friend (click for photo) were on their way to the market.

In Udomxai (a terrible place in my opinion) there was one scenic place, a stupa on top of a hill with some colorful monks milling about, practicing their English with the few tourists.

Much like the photo I showed you before (click for other photo), these monks were also "significantly interested" when I showed them the photo of me with the topless African woman.

All over Laos there were many great kids. They were quite shy but it only took a bit of prodding till they were smiling and playing. After handling and playing with them (and their runny noses) it is no wonder that I have caught many colds here.

After Luang Nam Tha I didn't really know where to go, so I went to the next town along the route, named Udomxai. This was a big mistake, as nearly everything was wrong about that place and it was definetly the one place in Laos that I did not like. This was partly my fault - I took a hotel that was a bad choice, one that was insecure. Usually when I am travelling I choose hotels (even very poor ones) that are atleast safe - where I can put all my things and not imagine that someone is trying to pick the lock on my door. But soon after I settled in I knew that this hotel was shit. Only after I had paid did the girl who worked at the hotel tell me to be careful with my stuff, that they had some breakins before. Also, several times when I was in the room people tried to open the doorknob. But, in addition to the crap hotel, Udomxia was basically this: a place where fat, ugly, rich Chinese guys come to get cheap Lao pussy. They go around drunk off their asses, stumbling about town, or howling incessently in karaoke bars. Overall, Udomxai was unpleasent. I spent only one night then the next day took a truck ride from hell to Nhong Kiaw, which was a fabulous place. In northern Laos there aren't many busses so usually you have to spend hours cramped in the back of trucks (sometimes with animals both alive and dead), and when it is freezing out this is rather nasty. (Click here for a video taken from the back of one of these trucks ). See photos below:

click to enlarge, then "back" to return

Nhong Kiaw was a beautiful village surrounded by mountains - where there were no mountians there were rivers or rice paddys.

This was a hard shot, as the rice paddy was in the shade but the cliff was in the sun. I needed to use a three-stop graduated neutral density filter to even out the exposure.

In a nice village called Muang Ngoi Neua I spent two nights. Here there was beautiful light and saw some kids pass by (click for other photo). So I had the one above pose for some photos, a fair trade in which he gets to see his picture and I get a foreground element.

I also cannot resist taking photos of women bathing. Actually here is the place where everyone from the village comes out and adds some soap to the beautiful Om River. So I followed suit, bathing in this most glorious bathtub.

I spent one night in Nhong Kiaw, spending 20,000 kip = 2 dollars for the room plus a hot bucket of water for washing, necessary because it was way too chilly for a cold shower. In the afternoon I visited some caves and walked all aound the area surrounding the town. The next day I took a boat up the Om River to a village named Muang Ngoi Neua, where there is no cars, only alot of roosters. It would be a tough debate to prove that roosters are actually better than car horns, and I am not about to try. I spent two nights (in a bungalow/shack for two dollars a night also) in Ngoi Neua, hiking to surrounding villages during the days. These villages were very basic, very beautiful, and were really "out there", which is what I came to Laos for. See some photos below:

This place, named Banna Village, was an hours hike from my bungalow and was a nice visit.

Life in the village - after I shot the photo this grumpy looking girl smiled brightly. This is common in Laos and SE Asia, that people don't smile when having their photos taken, but have to be coaxed.

Of the village kids, this duo was particularly striking to me, so I shot away. About twenty kids appeared in the course of a minute or so, and I showed them all their individual photos.

In order to leave Laos I passed (going southward) through Luang Prabaing again, and one morning caught another monk procession - again, can't resist photo'ing these orange robes.

In order to leave Laos I had to take a boat (click for video in boat) an hour downriver back to Nhong Kiaw passing under a nice bridge (click for video) over the Om river. There I linked up with another cramped truck (sometimes called a two-row) for four hours to Luang Prabang. I stayed there for two nights and one day, mostly doing chores. On one of the mornings I caught another procession of monks out getting alms (see photo above, and see video here). Also, I had one more night to mill about in the night market (click for video) but didn't buy anything.

So, how best to conclude about Laos - I will try to shed some light by listing thingns that are better in the US than in Laos, and vice versa.

Ways in which Laos could be more like the US

Punctuality: "Lao time" is no different than "African time" or "Bolivian time" and I see it as a significant cause of them being poor. When a bus takes six hours instead of two (if it were run by Europeons, say) then every single person on that bus needlessly loses four hours of productivity. This type of wastefullness happens all the time in Laos, and is easily correctable (but not by them apparently). In general, the idea of exactness is totally unknown in Laos.
Double pricing: Laos has one of the most shameless and organized systems of foreigner pricing I have yet seen and it really leaves you with a poor feeling. For clarity here I am not talking about biquering over souvenier prices - I am talking about prices that are exact: bus fares, a kilo of oranges, a certain meal in a certain restaurant, etc. I have had time to think of this from every single angle (trust me, I have thought of it more than you have) and can only come to the conculsion that this is unjust, immoral, racist, and xenophobic at best. I know I am inviting "but they are so poor" and "they are so hungry", etc. idiotic responses. Does that make it right? Not in my opinion. A study was once done showing that 60% of Thai families that had sold their daughters into prostitution didn't need to do so for food - they did it in order to get consumer goods like TV's and radios. I refuse to believe that being poor is fair grounds to do whatever you claim is justifiable. (click if you need further examples)
On a lighter note, I wish that in Laos there was more physical separation between roosters and hotels, as we have achieved in The States.
Diversification of food: Lao food is fine (as is Thai food), and much better than the national food of the USA (I suppose meat and potatos). However, I have now come to the conclusion that the single best place on earth for food is ... Los Angeles. There I can get Laos food just as they have it in Laos, or I can walk100 meters and get Thai food just as they have it in Thailand, or I can have real Greek, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Italian, French, Salvadorian, Brazillian, anything. Lao food is good, but painful repetition of even great food gets boring. Oh yeah, in Laos whenever they do try to make food that is not of Lao origin, the resulting substance "ought not to be fed to the dog of your most bitter enemy"
Motion sickness: Lao people seem to have a penchant for vomiting on windy bus rides. This is rather displeasurable to me, and I assume to them as well.

Ways in which I wish the US was more like Laos

Street food and night markets: Having cooked food only possible inside restaurants sucks. In all third world countries I have been to it is so wonderful to be able to get cooked food on every street corner. It is safe, cheap, delicious, and fast. Also, night markets, where there are dozens of food stalls in one place, is a good idea too.
I wish that "friendliness" for lack of a better term, was as common in the US as it is in Laos. For instance, in Laos I would show up at people's houses, unannounced, and they were so happy to have me inside. Try that in the USA. Also, being friends with anyone - chumming around with an eight year old kid or a twelve year old girl (as is completely common in most third world countries) will get you thrown in jail and labeled as a "sexual predator" in The States before you knew what happened. The USA could really take a "chill pill" in this regard as far as I am concerned.
Besides the money grubbing associated with foreigner pricing, Laos seems to be devoid of much of the materialism that has a stranglehold over the USA.
Crime: yes, I know that most of the USA is just as crime free as Laos (and I know I already mentioned those occasional terrorist and bandit attacks) but for the month I was in Laos I did not look over my shoulder once. It seems impossible for there to be a violent crime in Laos.
Street life: Much related to why the USA has no street food, is that The States has no street life. People are all locked up in their homes or in cars. In Laos (and various other third world countries) people are always out walking, or hanging out in the street or in front of their houses. It is very social. Sometimes I force myself to walk in Los Angeles, to aimlessly stroll, and it is nice. I recommend it.
Cockfighting: They are crazy about cockfighting in Laos - we even saw a magazine purely dedicated to cockfighting and had advertizements of camps you can send your rooster to in order to train??? Besides entertaining, it is guarenteed that every single cockfight atleast one rooster (and sometimes two) die a heinous, painful death ... never to wake me up at 1am, 1:10am, 1:20am .... again.

I thought to put the subject of actual prices in one, then the other, then both of the categories above, but it didn't work. Laos is very cheap for Western tourists (even if you factor in the often ridiculous foreigner prices). But, actually, for Lao people the prices there are quite bad. The prices in the USA are much better for Americans. The supposed average income, countrywide, is less than one US dollar per person, per day. You cannot buy nearly as much in Laos with one US dollar (and Laotian prices) as you can with the average days wage in The States (and with US prices).

So, as I have far overstepped probably anyones ability to finish reading this (I am on a ten hour bus in the Philippines, so I have alot of tiime on my hands), I will conclude by saying that Laos is beautiful, exotic, affordable, and of mainland SE Asia (Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam) I definetly would say it is the place to go.