Well entering Laos is like entering a dream and you find yourself wanting to move slower and slower. Still trying to relax after Vietnam, I coincidently took the same bus to Vang Viene as Damon and Tanya. This trip was uneventful and very comfortable given that the air con gave out shortly after leaving. Just open those windows and let the air breeze through. Often I find it moer comfrortable than air con. But that;s just me. One thing that does suprise in Laos is the leg room on buses - that are all second hand from China and Japan. There is heaps of it, more than I have had anywhere else in Asia.
The bus takes you straight north out of Vientiane and eventually out of the Mekong Valley back into the mountains, where the roads twist and turn endlessly and speeds are slow. Most of northern Laos is mountainous, that stem from the Tibetan plateau and seperate China from South East Asia. Much of Laos is very remote and hardly accesible to tourists. However, due to foreign investment all the main road through Laos are actually pretty good, making the main travel route quite comfortable but still long. After a slow 4 hours on the road you descend into the Vang Vieng valley, past the only concrete factory in Lao (a reminder that industrialisation has reached Laos) and onwards to the local airstrip which acts as a market and bus station, despite two specially built bus stations, north and south of the city lying dormant. Our VIP bus specifically designed for tourists drives through this and stop at a local hotel, which you can stay at if you want. But I had my mind set on something on the river.
Damon and Tanya and I wandered ( I would spend much of the folowing weeks with them) to the river and after scouting out a few places, that left Tanya a little flustered and indecisive about what to do, I settled for a nice room with double bed, bathroom and a balcony out front over looking the river and the limestone karsts on the far side of the valley. Settled in we went for a drink, little diod I expect to get stuck!
Now I can't exactly remember how the following week proceeded, but it is a fact that I got somewhat stuck and lost track of time, and probably drank to much alcohol - though admittedly less than evryine else. Vang Vien is a tourist city - at least the central part is - but it has plenty of opportunities to meet people, while watching Friends, in what I termed Friends lane. A street where every second restaurant is playing friends, all day everyday. It makes you wonder why people will travel all the way across the world and then sit and watch firends for a day. But I can take the moral high ground cuase I did it as well. But after a few days we had settled into a routine of meeting at a particular restaurant at 10am from which we would decide what to do for the day. Going to the restaurant would almost garauntee meeting someone you knew. A bit of routine after months of movement and change was surprisingly comforting.
In the days that followed much time was spent doing the local must do - tubing. Described as hiring the inner tube of a tractor and floating down the river is the most inaccurate representation of what tubing really is. A more appropriate description is that it is a pub crawl during which you move from pub to pub by floating down the river in a rubber tube. To some this may sound harmless enough. Others may be concerned about the mixture of alcohol and water. But it is actually far worse. Most of the bars include as part of their attractions, ping pong tables, volleyball courts, pool tables, flying foxes and swings to jump into the river with and loud PA systems playing Rolling stones, Dance or Thai music depending on where you stop. So combining a not so deep river (dry season) with alcohol, flying foxes and swings, and a general party atmosphere, the invetible result is injuries. During the time that I was there, one person was airlifted out with a suspected broken back and the another when home with 47 stiches in his back, along with a host of minor injuries. And Yes, people have died doing this.
Despite all this it is without a doubt some of the best fun you can have in a day. And for only $10 plus drinks you can understand why we did it 4 times over the course of a week. Luckily, none of us (after day two we had a group of 8 commerades) become seriously injuried, bar a few insect bites and scratches, and a poisonous spider bite, but the adventures we had during this time is enough to write a novel about. Something I seriously started working on!
(For a different perspective on this and moer information see http://bigplace.org.uk/blog/?p=158 , parts 4.14, 4.15 and 4.16)
Each night inevitably ends with a story going around the town of someone going missing. Generelly they don't make it back to town before night, panicking, jumping out of the river - despite the fact that the river takes you right back to where you started -, meet some angry locals who chase you off their property (highly unusual in Asia for this happen) and then have to hitchhike or walk or pay to get back to town. As it happened to two of our comerades had this exact expperience. Soem in our group had been before and knew we would be to late so we jumped out of the river and took the Tuk-tuk service from the aptly named 'the last bar'. However as it was dark two, of our group didn't didn't see us getting out and floated down the river towards town. At this point one of the others in the group, who was overly intoxicated decided to try looking for them back on the other side of the river. He jumped in, tried to swim across the river and promptly started getting swept away by the current. I was still reasonably sober - the most sober of anybody - so I jumped in with my tube and brought him safely to the far side of the river. Before negotiating with the locals to get a boat to take him back to the near side and settle him down. Despite our efforts to look for them, they could not be found so we went back to town and had and enjoyable dinner with much laughter. there was after all nothing we could do. Eventually they turned up the next day after all kinds of adventures, drinking with the locals, falling of motorbikes having an argument between the two and ending up somewhat lost. You hate it when it happens but it is funny afterwards. As the days wore on we heard similar stories from other people.
I ended up doing the tubing thing fours times, first time I went pretty crazy and survived with many bruises and scratches, after that I took it a little easier and enjoyed every moment. Meeting new people, getting soaked by the locals (more on thsi below) and enjoying the sunshine water and party atmosphere.
At the same time a certain "Sa-bai-dii pi mai", celebration was occurring across Laos and Thailand. This is the lao new year or 'Happy New Year Lao!', and is based on Kmher tradition (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_New_Year). This party has one of the most ingenious ways of celebrating a new year - a water fight. So for three to four days (it is much crazier than the wiki article suggests) Laos and Thailand are involved in one giant water fight - i don't think this will catch on in Australia. Us tourists are left to fend for ourselves with a miserly collection of water pistols, while the locals hammer you with buckets of water and hoses. So much so that the Laos government is concerned that the water fight is getting out of control and causing accident and damage to property. The locals don't seem to worried at the moment as they crank up the sound systems - which were already pretty loud and party all day (but go to bed like good citizens at night). Unfortunately I have no photos of the event as walking around with anything bar a waterproof camera is impossible. I ended up buying and breaking or losing to a local kid three different water pistols, including a big one with backpack water supply that proved fairly useless. No matter what you do you will get completely WET!
Combining a three day long water fight, tubing, and the occasional evening thunderstorm and light show with little more than a bamboo hut to shelter in. The whole experience is rather surreal. I could have stayed there three weeks but as time wore on all the people I had met moved on and a certain issues was occupying my mind.
I had decided to go Cambodia and then to Vietnam was too much of a rush, so I decided to cancel Cambodia, stay in Laos for Longer and head directly into China form Laos. Easy enough you would think all that was required was a Visa. So I decided to travel back to Vientiane to get my China visa. I got there on the 16th of April. I had previously gone to the China embassy in Hanoi to see what was required and it didn't seems all that onourous. However afeter arriving at the Chinese embassy that all changed. An unannounced declaration was made by the Chinese government on the 14th of April (those two days cost me 2 weeks of my life). Now all applications required a return ticket to China and accomodation booked for everyday that you are in China. i.e. the government wants to know where you are the whole time you are in China throughout this olympic period. I haven't checked the timing but I think it was an additional measure taken after the government saw the reaction to the Torch relay around the world and wanting to have more control over peoples movements during the Olympics. Rather pissed off with this turn of events I went to the internet cafe to do some research.
The research only made things worse, yes the new requirement the embassy told me were correct. So I though I just buy my transiberian train ticket and so on. No problem. Well no, the Chinese government have for some reason handed over all International train tickets to the Olympic commitee from June to Septmeber who reportedly will not put the tickets on sale until three days before. So a different plan. I sent my researchers on a mission to find alternatives. Like taking a ferry to seoul and then onto Vladivostok and catch the train from there. Okay, we found one company who would accept a booking more than one month in advanced and luck me, payment only required on boarding.
That's tah sorted now for accomodation. In hindsight I should have booked one months accomodation in a hotel somewhere and used that, but I tried to do it honestly. In the end I decided to join a 22 day tour through China, which I will do. Okay that's accommodation, plus a few hotel booking either side to cover some additional travelling. That's accomodation sorted. Now I need a ticket into China. Well it turns out that I could not buy an advanced bus ticket into China. And after speaking to 4 travel agents not one was willing to provide me witha dummy ticket just to show. By this stage we are four to five days further on and I am starting to get really pissed of.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that I would have to travel back to Vientiane and handle it personally, as no travel agancy was willing to provide me with the assitance I needed. So back on the bus to Vientiane - only 11hrs - to see the embassy. On arrival with all my paperwork prepared I was jsut about to head of to the embassy when I realised - fuck (excuse the language), it saturday, the embassy is closed. So I sat around, ate drank, played guitar for two days waiting for the next week to start. SO on monday mornign bright I chirpy I headed off to the embassy, where I was promptly hit back into the street with a sledgehammer so to speak. The embassy would not accept any tickets unless they were plane tickets. Implying that land borders are closed to tourists which is not true, and no information from the government supports this not to mention all teh bus train and ferry services in and out of China. But this is the rule in Lao and no amount of shouting and hand waving and gentle prodding couold sway them. This is also why so many people are submitting false information, because it is just easier.
SO I head back into to town, pay the 50,000 kip to the Tuk-tuk driver for a waste of time trip. So I purchased a plane ticket into China and because I can only handle so much fraud I have decided to abandon my quest to reach europe by land and purchased a ticket flying to amsterdam on the 24th of June. 2008 is just not the year to do China and the trans-siberian railway. So my grand holiday wil now be over in 7 weeks.
I went to the embassy today with my plane tickets and accomodation papers, half of which were not even viewed and submitted them form. I expect to have the visa in my passport tomorrow. I could publish all the emails and conversations I ahve ahd on this matter but it would probably bore you to much. Suffice to say, it has been without a doubt the most frustrating and demoralising experience on my travels. And the one lesson I take from it is that sometimes, probably not often, and maybe only in relation to governments, it is better for everybody if you just lie! IT seems that is what the Chinese government wants you to do!
Anyway that is my - I will leave it unedited - rant. I my next blog I will contrast it with one of the most amazing experiences of my trip.
Till next time, thanks for reading
P.S By the way, did you know that there is a Beer Lao Song! Unfortunately, I can't find, nor does anyone I meet know of a recording.
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