New years eve this year was pretty uneventfull. In the shadow of the tsunami, I can't tell if there's just not a lot going on in vintien. We visited a couple of local Laos celebrations then popped into a western bar I'm convinced was a pickup bar, but you never really know. New years passed with little excitement then we left. We got dragged into a local family's party, and had barbecue and Beer Lao shoved in our face non stop. We had to leave pretty quick. We walked some more and ended up at a cheesy western club playing bad music. I wasn't upset when it finished soon after we got there. We decided to walk the 3km home. We probably turned that walk into 4 or 5km cause we had no clue where home was.

Waiting around the next day for the bus, I walk over to the temple across the street and a monk in the hall tied an orange braided bracelet on my wrist for good luck in the new year. The ride to Vanvieng was uneventfull and beautifull through the mountains. We pulled up across a gravel parking lot and realized it was the airfield for Van Vieng. There's a very chill party atmosphere in Van Vieng and backpacker tourism has overrun it a little bit cause you can be guarenteed that friends will be playing at more than 4 restaurants and the same 8 movies at the rest. I quickly move to take advantage of the beautiful scenery around and plann a 2 day trekking camping adventure tour for the next day. While planning it I rent an intertube and a tuk tuk takes us up the river about 4 km and drops us off to float back. Floating down the river you can watch all the local tribes fishing in the river with spear guns, nets, and there hands. Most of them kids. The locals have a new way of fishing buy standing on the shore and yelling "cmon, beer lao, beer lao, free lao laos, beer lao" at all the westerners littering the river in tubes. They haven't gotten rid of pole's though, they still need one to pull us in with though.

The next morning were off on our 2 day adventure. At this point I'm expecting it to be this big led group with little hiking, and lots of drinking, but it turned out to just be me, my friend, and our two guides. Perfect. We hike over the first hill to a little farm in the middle of a bunch of mountains. Our attempts to get our guide to take us up top one of the hills around us proves pointless, so when we are waiting for lunch we tell them we will be back and take off up the hill. We bushwack and fight our way to the top of one hill, which one I don't know...we couldn't figure it out when we got down. About two hours later when we finally got back to camp, the guides had been out looking for us for a little while. Knowing how lazy they were, we knew they wouldn't go far and they didn't. We eat then off to a waterfall. This hike is a little more intense than the first one and we jump off some rocks to go swimming when we arrive. One of the guides climbs up the side of the waterfall and we follow. We climb farther up river on the rocks, dirt, trees and swinging on vines to get up. We fuck off for a while before going back for dinner. After we eat we sit around the fire with the two guides and an old farmer. Even though he speaks no english we find out he's 65 and fought in the war. His exact role is unclear, something about Thailand, training, Laos, teaching. I don't know, our guides/translators didn't really speak good english either.. The farmer brings out a bowl of rat soup and explains, again through the guides, that the rats eat their rice, so they get mad and eat the rats. Rat tastes a lot like rabbit(good suprisingly) and the broth was excelent. He shows us the bamboo rat trap he made and brings out another dead rat to demonstrate. In the background Laos radio is blaring. First Laos news, then music, and closing off our night with an english lesson teaching a whole conversation that went something like:
Girl"Hello"
Guy "Hi, how are you?"
Girl "Good, and you?"
Guy Fine, whats new?"
Girl "I'm pregnant!"
Guy "Congradulations, hows your husband?"
Girl "Good, and your wife?"
Guy "Good, okay, see you later"
Girl "Ok, Bye"

What a great Laos/English lesson, by the end of it me and my friend were laughing. It sounded like the conversation was taken out of an early 80's american film. The next morning we eat then hike back through the mountain, this time through a cave rather than over the valley. We have candles protected buy the tops of water bottles to light our way. We wait around for the tuk tuk in a local village that houses 3 local tribes. They pick us up and we head to the river. They are trying to shove all 3 of us in a tri yak, and I arrange to get three kyaks. We stop about 50 ft down river to eat and see some caves. The first cave has a huge buddha statue, and looks like it has been converted to a temple. They call it the elephant cave cause the north wall has what looks like the head of an elephant formed into it from the water dripping down from the cieling. Theres a bell hangin out side made from an old bombshell. We walk down to the next cave, hop on some intertubes and pull ourselves down the river, under a rock overhang with about 2" clearence and down into the cave. It's pitch black, but we have lights and there is a rope strung inside for us to pull ourselves down with. After lunch I play with the chained up monkey outside the restaraunt who tried to get into my pockets and bitch slapped me when I tried to stop her. She could also open the water bottles. She would take a new water bottle, take off the safety ring, open the top, tip it over and spill enough water so she could pick it, the drink it. Kyaking down the river the rest of the day was a quiet and peacefull 12-15km, the river surrounded by mountains and jungle on all sides. Except of course the one time I dumped the kyak in a rapid. Well, you can't really call it a rapid, in the dry season, now, its more like a shallow area where the water flows faster, but you had to make a turn, and I tryed to have the current turn me. It didn't, I kept going straight, sideways right into the tree sticking out and...plop...there I went. My friend followed right in suite. A quick stop at the organic farm, a happy pizza, and I'm asleep.

I spent the next two days exploring caves and floating down the river. The first cave I went to, called luci cave was huge, the closest to the town and the most popular. They made you pay for a guide, and wouldn't let you go in without a local to point at the stelagmites and tell you there beautifull. Some of the stalagmites you can play like a zylophone, and they have a really cool sound. I hope my recordings of this came out. It's hard to record the reverb of a cave with a bunch of people around talking and making noise, so when the group turned around, I covered my light, and dropped back. I think the group noticed I was gone when I started clapping to make the reverb impulse. They started yelling. I should've waited longer. I soon decide to head to luang prabang with a group of Canadians from Quebec, mostly Montreal. For some reason, it seems like 90% of the tourists in northern Laos come from Quebec.

Since I don't know french, two girls take it upon themselves to teach me a few words. Never learn french from Quebec women. They are teaching me things like "i'm hungry" and "I'm full", but there teaching me the feminine versions of the words, and the later is somewhat dirty and translates more into "I'm pregnant" than "I'm full" So if I ever go to Quebec I know how to be a pregnant lady boy, but couldn't use the bathroom to save my life. I quit my french lessons, I think I'll stick to thai where the teach me usefull phrases like "the rat climbs up the tree" The next morning the bus was full, so me and two guys decide to grab a mini-bus(mini-van) We pay fifty cents more, and arrive about 4 hours earlier.

So here I am sitting in Luang Prabang drinking my beer writing my next story. I'll stay for a couple of days, then take the slow boat to the Thai border. This trip is a 2 day adventure. The fast boat that takes 7 hours, this time of year, is deadly, literaly. My intertube was getting stuck on the rocks in the river, imagine a rickety wooden boat flying at 40 knotts. Sure they give you a helmet, but that won't help anybody. I should be back in Bangkok in time to meet my friends from Seattle on the 16th.
Peace
3D

Back