Mr Beem's Asian Journal
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Laos |
A green country
Laos is green in the same way that Ireland is green, vivid and in forty shades.
I left the Vietnamese border check point on its bleak mountain top, and descended down the valley to the Laos crossing. Straight away, the road surface started to deteroriate, and the Customs and Immigration building had that ‘Nobody loves me’ look about it. It was a concrete building with tiled floors and I doubt if it was any more than five years old. There had been some effort made to give it some Lao character but that wasn’t quite working either, the first impression was ‘Grubby’. I parked the bike out the front and joined the queue, which I thought was a little strange as I had not seen anyone cross over the boarder from the Vietnamese side and I had been sitting there for over three hours, – another great Asian mystery.
I gave the official my Australian Passport as it was the one which had the Lao visa in. It was all going well until he decided to look for the Vietnam exit visa. He gave me a strange look and asked where it was, I pointed to the British Passport on the counter. He picked it up, saw that it was all in order and was about to stamp the visa and then had second thoughts. He took both Passports and disappeared behind a screen. He came back a minute later and said that I would have to get a new visa, as all the Visas had to be in the same Passport. I explained that I had applied for several Visas at the same instant and to save time I had used the two Passports, 'all quite legal and above board'. This didn’t impress him, mostly because he couldn’t understand a word I was saying. He took me to see his boss. His boss sat in a big chair in a little office. He assured me that there was no problem. All he would have to do was put the visa in my British passport ... however that would mean an additional Thirty dollars, but there was no problem, I said 'is there any discount on the other visa' ... he said 'Ha ha ha...' I paid up, looked happy, and left. Worse things happen. There were absolutely no customs formalities at all, so I drove straight into Laos.
Even with such an ordinary introduction to the country, I liked the place right away, it was warm and green, really green. I passed a couple of trucks loaded with dogs, they were waiting to go over to Vietnam, they had a dinner engagement over there.
I took a photo and drove on, trying not to think too much about what awaited the poor pooches at the end of their journey. I drove on down the valley, and the place started to remind me of Papua New Guinea. The roads were shocking, but the scenery was beautiful.
I stopped for a cup of tea at a roadside stall, and was pleasantly surprised to find the lady running it could speak English and so could her friends - 'oh it just keeps getting better I thought'. I drove on for an hour or two, and stopped for the night at the first reasonable sized town – the name escapes me. They had a couple of small guesthouse and a good hotel for five dollars. I picked the hotel. I had dinner alone – I have become used to having dinner alone. It is one of the down-sides to life on the road. Sometimes it doesn’t worry me in the slightest and other times it makes me feel very alone.
Value in Vientiane
Next morning was an early start for Vientiane. Once I hit the main roads the surface improved and I arrived there in mid-afternoon. Trying to find a decent hotel at a good price was more of a challenge than I had anticipated. I went from one to the other but could find no value anywhere. Notice I use the word value as opposed to cheap, with hotels there is a big difference between cheap and good value. It’s like going to a nice café and spending two dollars on a cup of coffee, which for me is quite expensive, but you also get to sit in a nice chair and read an English newspaper that costs four dollars, that’s what I mean by value. There was very little value in Vientiane, but I did the best I could. I know I sound like a cheap bastard but accommodation is by far and away my biggest expense for this trip and something that can easily run away with your money. So value is important. I had breakfast at the Scandinavian Bakery, which came highly recommended; they must have been having an off day ‘cause I thought it was crap.
The Plain of Jars
My next destination was the ‘Plain of Jars’, which again came highly recommended, it must've been having an off day too. I followed the main highway north. Once you get out of Vientiane it is quite a nice ride, the road is good and there is a constant change to the scenery, Hills, Plains, Valleys all that good stuff. There are spots along this route that are truly beautiful, the sort of views that make you wish you had someone to share them with. I have been thinking about becoming schizophrenic, that way I will always have someone to share views like that with, but I doubt if there would be room on the bike for both of us, one of us would have to lose some weight – I vote him.
Basically you take the road north to Luang Prabang and about half way along, at a mountain village junction, you turn right, This road has just been recently resurfaced and has all kinds of riding conditions and some unexpected road works so caution is the order of the day. I stopped before the junction because of the rain and it was a good opportunity to get something to eat. There was a little roadside hotel café which was a refreshment stop for buses travelling between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. It was about four in the afternoon and there was little sign of the rain letting up, so I decided to stop for the night. It was here that I met a little girl of about five years of age who had a very unusual condition. She had one hand that was covered in hair as if she were wearing a fur glove ; in all other respects she was a perfectly ordinary little girl except for the hand. Some how this little anomaly made staying there a little spooky, in a werewolf sort of a way. It was a dark rainy night with the odd lighting flash and the hairy hand just sparked thoughts of horror movies. Next morning I left at sunrise, without being attacked in my sleep – I should be ashamed of myself I know.
Morning riding
Morning riding in mountain country is its own reward, cool fresh air, mist on the valley floor and that special early morning light – it makes me wonder why I don’t do more off it. As the sun got higher in the sky I stopped to take some photos. I don’t make written notes, so I use the camera as a memory jogger. I find it works better when you look back. There is a tendency to come to conclusions that in retrospect are usually false if you force yourself to take notes as you go. To break up the journey I will often stop to ask directions, not because I am lost, just to have some interaction with the locals, and asking directions is a good way to start a conversation. I often get the feeling that it brightens up their day and gives them something to talk about around the table in the evening. If you spend all day bent over in a rice paddy, I am sure that any excuse to stand up and have a chat is a welcome interruption.
I normally ride at between ninety and one hundred kilometres an hour, road conditions permitting. I find that at that speed I still have time to take in the scenery and I don’t have to hang on too tight, the fuel consumption is around thirty kilometres to the litre plus the bike is not working hard and just hums alone. If the scenery is dull, I will have a little blatt, just for a change of pace and to let the bike sing. I find that Mr Beem likes a bit of a workout every now-and-again. Once you leave the mountains and come down onto the plain the scenery goes get a little bland, so I was doing a little road racing just to keep myself from getting bored. Consequently I arrived in mid afternoon in the town of Seophon, which is the base from which to explore the Plain of Jars.
The Jars
There are actually three different locations for the Jars; all are only a short bike ride from town, so it is easy to cover all three in a single afternoon. The Jars themselves are not ancient pottery which is what I was expecting, but carved out of solid rock, some over six feet hight, and would have taken a serious bit of chiselling, they also have lids, but they are hard to find.
It is believed that the Jars were used to inter the remains of the original occupants of the plains area, sort of early day crypts. There are no signs of any dwellings from this time, either around the Jars or in the immediate vicinity, so how these people live, or where they came from is still cause for speculation. I thought they were interesting enough but did not really deserve all the hype that goes with them.
Great people
Now the people on the other hand do deserve the hype, they were exceptional, in my running around looking for the Jars I would stop off and ask direction whenever I saw something or someone interesting. I pulled up beside a little roadside bar where several families were gathered having lunch and a couple of drinks. I had not even got off the bike when an old guy came over with a glass and a bottle of the famous Beer Lao – which is made with rice instead of barley and tastes great. He invited me in and sat me down at a table with his extended family and made me feel extremely at home. When I got up to leave – I had to, because I had promised to visit his son a few miles down the road, I was a little the worse for beer and the Lau-lau rice whisky that they had MADE me drink.
One thing I noticed about the women of Laos, apart from being seriously cute, is that they actually seem to like having a drink and they encourage their men to do the same. Laos are a lovely light milky coffee colour naturally but when they drink they go an apricot pink and get the rosiest checks and the silliest smiles you ever saw. I like the Lao people. Anyway I was wobbling up the road looking for my new mates son’s house. When I had to stop and ask for directions – guess what it happened again ... more welcomes, more beer, more Lau-lau. When I did finally arrive at the son’s house they were all sitting around in a circle in the middle of the floor, passing a small shot glass around and eating sticky rice with their fingers…and of course laughing their heads off. They made a space for me and offered me the next shot, and a grasshopper, crunchy little snacks without much taste. An hour later I was back on the bike wobbling even worse than before down the deserted back roads of Laos, feeling very pleased with myself for my mastery of International relations.
I spent the next day without a hangover - surprisingly - riding around town and checking out the markets. The day after I was heading back down the road to Luang Prabang, to see that World Heritage town. It was a fairly uneventful trip, more nice scenery and ever changing road conditions, it meant about eight hours in the saddle.
The Alms-giving
I found a nice little Guesthouse in an alley off the main road that runs along side the Mekong river. It was cheap and clean and the family that ran it were like all Laos – very friendly. The first thing I did was check out the eight or nine major Buddhist Temples that are scattered through the centre of town.
Some of the temple interiors were amazing.
It was starting to get dark and the monks were having their last prayer session for the day, so the town was immersed in a blanket of holy chants, magical. Next morning I got up at five thirty to watch the alms-giving (donations of food to the monks) this was a special sight.
There would have been two or three hundred monks dressed in their orange, yellow and burgundy robes all walking down the main street in a slow single file line. On the side of the footpath people were kneeling and put donations of sticky rice in leaf packets, sweets, fans, and all sorts of other little things. What I thought was really nice is that in between the kneeling givers were also beggars, and the monks would give back some of the alms to the beggars. All of this was happening in the first light of dawn, and mist was still on the streets. It was all very surreal.
Boat-races and Lau-lau
The son of the hotel manager invited me to a Boat-race on the river the next day. I went out to visit a waterfall in the morning.
When I got back to the guesthouse he had already gone, but had left directions. I followed the directions about forty kilometres outside of town, but when I arrived, the place was packed. So rather than hunt around for him, I found a place to watch the canoe races. Before long I was being invited to join a group and have a drink of Lau-lau.
It had been drizzling rain for an hour or so, and the track that I had ridden down was turning into a mud pool. So I thought I should get out of there before the Lau-lau took affect and the road became impassable for the bike, I went to the other side of the river, and who should be there but Chan, the manager's son. He was with a bunch of friends. One of the nice things about Laos is that they hang out in mixed groups usually just friends, with the odd boyfriend-girlfriend in the group. I think that this shows a very healthy relationship between the sexes that you seldom see in the rest of S.E. Asia, where boys seem to keep to themselves and girls do likewise. You would not believe what they were doing. They were sitting in a circle by the river back and…drinking Lau-lau. You wouldn’t believe what I did. I sat down and drank the rice whisky with them. If you drink Lau-lau socially them it is usually accompanied by beer and a few nibbles. We had run out of beer so off I went to find more, I came back with a couple of bottles and said to the gang that I had found an outside disco in full swing and we had been invited. So off we went. Man was that different.
It was a series of tents erected in the middle of a field with a mud dance floor, there was a live band, and they would have the revellers up and down to their seats at will. It seemed that some songs everyone danced too, and others were only for the die-hards, when the more raunchy songs came on everyone would get right into it and start stamping their feet in the mud, splashing the shit everywhere, and that lead to its own sort of fun. A fantastic afternoon at the races, Lao-style.
Tough going on the way to Thailand on
A couple of days later I was on my way again up through the middle of the country on track for a border crossing into Northern Thailand.
The first day was a full day's ride with fairly good roads by Lao standards. I was pleased with my progress and I found a guesthouse for a dollar so that felt pretty good. Next morning I left town by the only road and watched with that sinking feeling as the road changed from four lanes to two lanes then to single lane then to goat track, it was all becoming a too familiar tale. I kept checking with the very few locals that I passed that I was on the right road. I was having flash-backs to Vietnam and the border crossing. Well One hundred and eighty-two kilometre later I was back on a graded road. It was some of the toughest riding that I have ever done. It had all the good stuff, Washouts, Busted Bridges, rivers running down the middle of the road, two foot deep fords through raging rivers with boulders for a river bed, log bridges with gaps that a water buffalo could fall through…like I said “All sorts of good stuff”.
That day I only did two hundred odd kilometres but by the end of it I was rooted. That night I booked into a fleabag hotel and couldn’t sleep because the mattress was alive, so I left the hotel early, in the hope of finding some good coffee to wake me up. It was only five thirty and the bike was parked in the hotel reception area I did not feel like ruining anyone else’s sleep by starting the bike inside the building and riding out, so I pushed the bike out to the street, it was slightly uphill over a little step I was tired and I lost control, and the bike fell through the Hotel's front door breaking the glass and costing me twenty five U.S. Dollars…that wasn’t a good start to the day, was it? So I headed for Thailand.
