Vietnam-Bound: The Last Four Days of Laos ... (Ryan)
The day following my 19th birthday, so whilst still fairly hungover, we got on a bus headed to Phonsavan. It wasn't too long a journey, as they go, and we got to see some beautiful scenery - as is just about always the case in Laos - during the moments when we weren't asleep. We arrived and found a tout who looked remarkably like a slightly older, paunchier Jackie Chan, whose name we never learned so will forever be Jackie to us, who brought us to a pretty nice guesthouse, coincidentally called NICE Guesthouse. Since he was such a charming chap and had a rather nifty homemade map of the area, which, thinking about it, would have allowed him to lie through his teeth about petrol money and how far it was to each place, we booked a trip with him for the following day. Since we'd been travelling, we didn't do a vast amount that night, but managed to have a brief wander and find ourselves fleeing into a Chinese restauraunt to avoid a massive rainstorm. From the comfort of the restauraunt, where they served dishes which, though they had different names, were all green, we gazed out into the street and laughed at Lao people flying around on mopeds futily trying to keep themselves dry. One man even went to the length of putting his hand over his forehead, which had me and Tim in stitches for a good few minutes.
Cut to the next day and the infamous Plain of Jars, and we had to begin wondering why on earth it's so infamous. There are three Jar sites and, I must say, if we would have done all three rather than just two, we would have been too utterly sick of stone jars to disembark the minibus for the third installment of, "Here is a jar. Behold the architectural wonder that is a rather large stone pot." It does become more interesting when you begin to contemplate how people four thousand years ago lugged these bloody great things up hills and all over the place, and also when you hear that the larger ones used to be used as punishment jars. Visually, though, it ain't exactly a treat and the overcast weather did not help. Our guide told us they were made of sand, blood, bones and something that sounded like "molasses", but we have no idea what those are. Honestly, they looked like stone to me.
Following the Jars, or should I say our second encounter with them, we went to see 'The Russian Tank'. Shaun was rather looking forward to donning his recently purchased T-shirt with the Lao Communist Party flag on it and posing militarily on the top of the metal mammoth, but what we found was in roughly lthe same condition as the mammoths we see these days - bones. It had been stripped of just about everything - wheels and tracks, insides, guns, including the massive turret - by local people. The body was resting on its side, looking as though it had lost its balance and rolled down the hill, being stopped only by a cluster of trees, and the top had fallen off. That was the end of that brush with war history.
Next came the Hmong village where they used shell cases to build things. That was quite interesting, as they had used them for pig troughs, in one case massive two and a half metre long, shell-shaped fence posts, and also stilts for perching their rice storage huts on top of, to keep them clear of the animals. Yet, as we wandered around, we had the same kind of feeling we get whenever we go to minority villages, namely the feeling of the distant tourist. We rarely ever take photos, as all they are doing is living their everyday lives and that is nothing to make a spectacle of, and it is impossible not to notice the vast linguistic and cultural gulf, so all you really end up doing is walking around as though wind0w-shopping or going through a gallery, gazing around and occasionally muttering about the odd quirks and conditions of these people's everyday lives. Then you go and climb back into your aircon bus. It's not that isn't a good experience, but it is an odd one, and one that is offered to tourists far too often.
After our brief flirt with ethnotourism, which was actually fairly quiet, as almost all of the people in the village had left to work in the faraway rice paddies, we were taken to a hotspring. Now, we were expecting something like the one we saw in Kanchanaburi, back in Thailand, something we could swim in. Once we'd disembarked our mobile fridge and wandered down a path, we found an area hemmed about on three sides by concrete pillars, the other side being the slippery mud bank, filled with incredibly hot water. The problem was that it was only two feet deep at the most, so our relaxing dip into the natural spring was reduced to sticking our fingers in the water and commenting with all the enthusiasm we could muster on how hot it was.
Next came the cave. This cave is reasonably famous, we think, in Laos, as during the war an American rocket managed to get inside the cave and cause a rockfall which, along with the initial blast, killed four hundred sheltering civilians and soldiers. Now all that is left, naturally is rubble. After climbing the nice, orderly steps we entered the cave with nothing but candles and one torch between four of us for light. If I had nightvision goggles, I would have loved to stand and watch us stumbling and tripping around in the dark, barely able to see our own feet, our only sources of light steadily burning away as we went deeper into the cavern. Sadly I left my nightvision goggles on the bus, so had to make do with a candle-lit fumble. I think it was in this cave that we most noticed the country's complete disregard for health and safety. Back home the genius who gave people a puny candle and sent them on an ankle-breaking, knee-popping walk through a pitch-dark, slippery-wet cave would not be out of court for long. It was a bit of an adventure, though, for all I seem to be bemoaning it, and is probably the most like explorers we've felt so far. Not a bad time, all in all, and if we would have had proper torches we no doubt would have stayed and ventured further. Shaun and the other guy on our trip did go a bit further and found a bunker of some sort that would have been constructed by the former inhabitants during the war, which was a bit of a find.
When it seemed as though our candles might not last the rest of the way back to the cave mouth, we turned and made once more for the airconditioned minibus, which ferried us back to Phonsavan. What ensued was the first of three nights spent pretty much bored out of our minds, because we had evidently exhausted all of the surrounding area's tourist potential in one fell swoop. We did, though, manage to find a splendid Indian restaurant, where we also ate on the third night, and spent more than average gorging ourselves on curry, rice and Naan bread. Probably the best meal we've had all trip. Aside from that silver lining, the next two days were pretty darn dull. We didn't do anything, in particular, aside from wait for our Vietnamese visa to start and book a bus to make sure we got to Vietnam on the first day it started, thus ending thr boring spell at the end of what was a fantastic month in Laos.
Our aim being a bus to Hanoi, and this was something we clearly communicated to the guesthouse manager on several occasions, several times on each occasion, it was only natural that we should end up getting a ticket to Vinh, a city five or six hours south of Hanoi, paying five dollars more than the ticket should have been worth because we went through our guesthouse. We only found out on the morning of our departure, at seven o'clock in the morning, that we weren't going to Hanoi, and had no comeback whatsoever. All we could do was get on the bus with supplies for the twelve hour journey and contemplate how we would get to where we were supposed to have been going once we reached the place we had no intention of ending up at. The only minor event on the journey was the bag search at Vietnamese immigration, where the old man asked me to open my rucksack lid, then my toilet bag, which was at the top of my rucksack, and then clearly had no cause to think I was smuggling anything illegal into the country. I could have had a snake, a whole farm of illegal animals, a massive stash of drugs - clearly, if it wasn't in my toilet bag, I was clean.
In Vinh we managed to get booked onto another bus to Hanoi that left fifty minutes later, along with three other English backpackers and a French couple who were pretty much in the same situation as us. So, we boarded said bus at eight thirty after a bite to eat and thought we'd leave straight away. Not so! We headed for the back row of seats, only to find that the legroom was taken up entirely by a massive box of what seemed to be flatpack furniture. Since there were only me and Shaun on the back, as Tim had taken a seat, we didn't mind too much as there was still enough room on the seats to lay down and get some rest. Sadly, Nurse Pain the bus woman had other ideas. She moved Tim out of his seat and onto the back and also put a random Vietnamese guy there, too, leaving two vacant seats on the bus and four of us in very uncomfortable positions at the back. On the sound advice of the Frenchman, Tim moved back into his seat, which was never filled and from the outset was never going to be. The Vietnamese guy stayed, but we all had just about enough room if we curled up really small, so it wasn't too bad. What happened next, though, now that we had been stuck in the uncomfortable positions we would be occupying for the next hour, did not involve leaving. Rather than get going on the road to Hanoi, we sat by the side of the main road for two hours whilst Nurse Pain and her stooges harassed every passerby, asking if they wanted to go to Hanoi. Needless to say, we, and especially the French couple, were pretty pissed at this turn of events. We kept thinking we'd leave soon, but the minutes became hours and the hours were two before the ridiculous charade was abandoned and we finally put foot to accelerator. The six hour jaunt was hot, cramped and uncomfortable, but we and our luggage made it to Hanoi by five the following morning and followed a tout to a hotel that he said would be big enough for all of us at nine dollars a night.
Boy were we surprised! Easily the largest room we've had, this baby had a fridge, TV, aircon, hot water, chairs (making it the first room we've seen with more to sit on than beds), a massive wardrobe, and a balcony! We were pretty darn impressed and would have been more so if it hadn't been for the hour and the awful journey.
Tired, hungry, thirsty, annoyed with the cost and lack of quality of our journey, but quietly impressed with our new digs and looking forward to getting up in a few hours and exploring Vietnam's northern capital - so we began the next leg of our journey and our third country in just over a month.
Cut to the next day and the infamous Plain of Jars, and we had to begin wondering why on earth it's so infamous. There are three Jar sites and, I must say, if we would have done all three rather than just two, we would have been too utterly sick of stone jars to disembark the minibus for the third installment of, "Here is a jar. Behold the architectural wonder that is a rather large stone pot." It does become more interesting when you begin to contemplate how people four thousand years ago lugged these bloody great things up hills and all over the place, and also when you hear that the larger ones used to be used as punishment jars. Visually, though, it ain't exactly a treat and the overcast weather did not help. Our guide told us they were made of sand, blood, bones and something that sounded like "molasses", but we have no idea what those are. Honestly, they looked like stone to me.
Following the Jars, or should I say our second encounter with them, we went to see 'The Russian Tank'. Shaun was rather looking forward to donning his recently purchased T-shirt with the Lao Communist Party flag on it and posing militarily on the top of the metal mammoth, but what we found was in roughly lthe same condition as the mammoths we see these days - bones. It had been stripped of just about everything - wheels and tracks, insides, guns, including the massive turret - by local people. The body was resting on its side, looking as though it had lost its balance and rolled down the hill, being stopped only by a cluster of trees, and the top had fallen off. That was the end of that brush with war history.
Next came the Hmong village where they used shell cases to build things. That was quite interesting, as they had used them for pig troughs, in one case massive two and a half metre long, shell-shaped fence posts, and also stilts for perching their rice storage huts on top of, to keep them clear of the animals. Yet, as we wandered around, we had the same kind of feeling we get whenever we go to minority villages, namely the feeling of the distant tourist. We rarely ever take photos, as all they are doing is living their everyday lives and that is nothing to make a spectacle of, and it is impossible not to notice the vast linguistic and cultural gulf, so all you really end up doing is walking around as though wind0w-shopping or going through a gallery, gazing around and occasionally muttering about the odd quirks and conditions of these people's everyday lives. Then you go and climb back into your aircon bus. It's not that isn't a good experience, but it is an odd one, and one that is offered to tourists far too often.
After our brief flirt with ethnotourism, which was actually fairly quiet, as almost all of the people in the village had left to work in the faraway rice paddies, we were taken to a hotspring. Now, we were expecting something like the one we saw in Kanchanaburi, back in Thailand, something we could swim in. Once we'd disembarked our mobile fridge and wandered down a path, we found an area hemmed about on three sides by concrete pillars, the other side being the slippery mud bank, filled with incredibly hot water. The problem was that it was only two feet deep at the most, so our relaxing dip into the natural spring was reduced to sticking our fingers in the water and commenting with all the enthusiasm we could muster on how hot it was.
Next came the cave. This cave is reasonably famous, we think, in Laos, as during the war an American rocket managed to get inside the cave and cause a rockfall which, along with the initial blast, killed four hundred sheltering civilians and soldiers. Now all that is left, naturally is rubble. After climbing the nice, orderly steps we entered the cave with nothing but candles and one torch between four of us for light. If I had nightvision goggles, I would have loved to stand and watch us stumbling and tripping around in the dark, barely able to see our own feet, our only sources of light steadily burning away as we went deeper into the cavern. Sadly I left my nightvision goggles on the bus, so had to make do with a candle-lit fumble. I think it was in this cave that we most noticed the country's complete disregard for health and safety. Back home the genius who gave people a puny candle and sent them on an ankle-breaking, knee-popping walk through a pitch-dark, slippery-wet cave would not be out of court for long. It was a bit of an adventure, though, for all I seem to be bemoaning it, and is probably the most like explorers we've felt so far. Not a bad time, all in all, and if we would have had proper torches we no doubt would have stayed and ventured further. Shaun and the other guy on our trip did go a bit further and found a bunker of some sort that would have been constructed by the former inhabitants during the war, which was a bit of a find.
When it seemed as though our candles might not last the rest of the way back to the cave mouth, we turned and made once more for the airconditioned minibus, which ferried us back to Phonsavan. What ensued was the first of three nights spent pretty much bored out of our minds, because we had evidently exhausted all of the surrounding area's tourist potential in one fell swoop. We did, though, manage to find a splendid Indian restaurant, where we also ate on the third night, and spent more than average gorging ourselves on curry, rice and Naan bread. Probably the best meal we've had all trip. Aside from that silver lining, the next two days were pretty darn dull. We didn't do anything, in particular, aside from wait for our Vietnamese visa to start and book a bus to make sure we got to Vietnam on the first day it started, thus ending thr boring spell at the end of what was a fantastic month in Laos.
Our aim being a bus to Hanoi, and this was something we clearly communicated to the guesthouse manager on several occasions, several times on each occasion, it was only natural that we should end up getting a ticket to Vinh, a city five or six hours south of Hanoi, paying five dollars more than the ticket should have been worth because we went through our guesthouse. We only found out on the morning of our departure, at seven o'clock in the morning, that we weren't going to Hanoi, and had no comeback whatsoever. All we could do was get on the bus with supplies for the twelve hour journey and contemplate how we would get to where we were supposed to have been going once we reached the place we had no intention of ending up at. The only minor event on the journey was the bag search at Vietnamese immigration, where the old man asked me to open my rucksack lid, then my toilet bag, which was at the top of my rucksack, and then clearly had no cause to think I was smuggling anything illegal into the country. I could have had a snake, a whole farm of illegal animals, a massive stash of drugs - clearly, if it wasn't in my toilet bag, I was clean.
In Vinh we managed to get booked onto another bus to Hanoi that left fifty minutes later, along with three other English backpackers and a French couple who were pretty much in the same situation as us. So, we boarded said bus at eight thirty after a bite to eat and thought we'd leave straight away. Not so! We headed for the back row of seats, only to find that the legroom was taken up entirely by a massive box of what seemed to be flatpack furniture. Since there were only me and Shaun on the back, as Tim had taken a seat, we didn't mind too much as there was still enough room on the seats to lay down and get some rest. Sadly, Nurse Pain the bus woman had other ideas. She moved Tim out of his seat and onto the back and also put a random Vietnamese guy there, too, leaving two vacant seats on the bus and four of us in very uncomfortable positions at the back. On the sound advice of the Frenchman, Tim moved back into his seat, which was never filled and from the outset was never going to be. The Vietnamese guy stayed, but we all had just about enough room if we curled up really small, so it wasn't too bad. What happened next, though, now that we had been stuck in the uncomfortable positions we would be occupying for the next hour, did not involve leaving. Rather than get going on the road to Hanoi, we sat by the side of the main road for two hours whilst Nurse Pain and her stooges harassed every passerby, asking if they wanted to go to Hanoi. Needless to say, we, and especially the French couple, were pretty pissed at this turn of events. We kept thinking we'd leave soon, but the minutes became hours and the hours were two before the ridiculous charade was abandoned and we finally put foot to accelerator. The six hour jaunt was hot, cramped and uncomfortable, but we and our luggage made it to Hanoi by five the following morning and followed a tout to a hotel that he said would be big enough for all of us at nine dollars a night.
Boy were we surprised! Easily the largest room we've had, this baby had a fridge, TV, aircon, hot water, chairs (making it the first room we've seen with more to sit on than beds), a massive wardrobe, and a balcony! We were pretty darn impressed and would have been more so if it hadn't been for the hour and the awful journey.
Tired, hungry, thirsty, annoyed with the cost and lack of quality of our journey, but quietly impressed with our new digs and looking forward to getting up in a few hours and exploring Vietnam's northern capital - so we began the next leg of our journey and our third country in just over a month.
posted by Ryan at Thursday, June 08, 2006
1 Comments:
Hi Guys,
What a joy to read of your continuing adventures. I have nothing but admiration for your escapades and the literary standard of your posts - move over Bill Bryson! Looking forward to next installment. Have fun, keep safe. Ciao.
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