Enjoy it while you can.
It’s been awhile since my last post, as you can probably imagine a lot has happened. I’ll explain the post title further on, but first I’ll start with a rather large progression update.
About 4 days ago I packed up camp in Nong Khai and made a break for the Laos border. The experience was a lot like branding cattle. I started traveling from my guest house to the Thai immigration building – about $1. At that place I received my outgoing stamp, which shows I left the country. After that you are ushered to another stop where you can buy an array of transportation across the bridge, for this leg I went with the public bus, about 75 cents. Every bus ride experience is different so rather than go into the details I’ll just say this one was full. After that came the fun part.
Before leaving for the border I was asked by the guest house if I had two pictures. I was asked once again at Thai immigration. Well I was thinking I have more than two pictures if you count my gym card, driver’s license, and passport so I should be golden. Well it turns out there was a small amount of detail missing. The second picture was supposed to be a photo they can put on your immigration paperwork. Well lucky for me they waived me through without it; otherwise I would have probably had to go back to Thailand just to get a picture.
So once I got through immigration is when the real adventure started. I had good reconnaissance information from a long bar chat I had with a couple of ex-pats in Nong Khai. It was helpful to have because the second you cross over it’s a barrage.
Vientiane, the capital of Laos is 22 kilometers from the bridge. This little gem of a detail creates and interesting scenario where you are basically stuck in the middle of nowhere at the mercy of the people that can ferry you back to civilization. It is like a transportation hawking gauntlet – and every option, if you don’t know what you are doing, is a complete rip off.
With my recon info I was able to navigate over to the public bus station. I obviously still can’t read so there was about 15 minutes of confusion while this guy was jerking me around on what was a bus and what was actually his minibus. He kept giving me ludicrous price quotes for the minibuses going out “bus Vientiane yada yada price.” I’m not sure if it would be considered a scam, but I realized they were filling up the bus station with minibuses so the real bus couldn’t stop there. The only reason I didn’t notice sooner is because the bus that was the actual public bus looked like a private tour with its large Japan flag and label down the side. Anyways, all details aside we are probably talking about $1 vs $10. I’ve realized though that the big numbers on the currency make you feel like you are spending a lot of money. I’ll discuss this later on.
At this point in the journey I have boarded the bus, an experience in itself, and started b-bopping my way to Vientiane. I’m not going to go into the details other than to say I saw one of the most gruesome double fatalities I have ever seen. Long story short, wear a helmet at all times, and don’t try to fight a freight truck with your motorcycle – especially at high speeds. The most surreal part of that experience was probably all the ladies hanging their heads out the windows painting the road. It’s funny as some people might assume… oh it’s a third world country, this and that, but in reality the same thing happens everywhere and I could go without ever seeing it again.
For the rest of the trip… about 10 kilos I was in a haze. Luckily I had a hotel in mind to relax and get some R&R for the next leg.
Vientiane, if you do your reading, is a place that is heavily influenced by France. There are long narratives online if you’re interested in it. I’m really only mentioning it because it creates a microcosm of culture that has both good and bad aspects. The best part of it is that they brought along their food and tastes in food. Ironically that is also one of the bad parts because they also brought along their inflated European prices. For whatever reason Laos is a European Mecca, this is the most white people I have seen during the entire trip. There must be some sort of Underground Railroad link between Bangkok’s Khao San road and Vientiane that pipes the “Beach” kids back and forth.
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3X
Shutter Speed: 1/25 second
Aperture: F/6.3
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Taken: Sep 19, 2009, 12:18:13 PM
If you haven’t watched the movie “The Beach,” I’d recommend it. This is a stab at capturing the naivety and overall “blindness” I see in a lot of the European travelers. It might not completely transcribe in the capture but I got the pleasure of watching them as I waited for my bus, I can confirm.
The place I had in Vientiane was nice as I mentioned before but at $30 a night I wasn’t in the mood to stay long (yeah in reality that isn’t much, it is 255000 Kip, Lao dollars, and that feels like a lot). Between the Laos border crossing and all the chaos associated with it then transitioning into the craziness that is Vientiane I decided I would cut and run to Vang Vieng.
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3X
Shutter Speed: 1/80 second
Aperture: F/2.8
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Taken: Sep 20, 2009, 3:59:25 PM
The money situation takes a little patience to say the least. The numbers are so out of hand at first it seems like monopoly money – in the photo is close to 1 million Kip. The more you use it the easier it is to get what you need and of course, barter. I think the bartering is kick. I’ve found that anything with an elastic price is always negotiable – which is very different from the US. About the only thing I don’t barter on is food, even then I could see some negotiation if you planned on running up a good bill though… maybe $15+ dollars. In some ways the prices are set high just to compensate for an intended barter, IE Tuk-tuks. If you don’t barter you basically get screwed. I’ve recently found that Hotels can occasionally be elastic, at least for this time of the season (there aren’t that many tourists right now). My personal trick is to see what they offer, gravel a little, ho hum, and then say “well I’ll be here for 4 days what can we do?” whamo, price drop. Again, this in reality isn’t much by US standards – like $1-$5 in most cases, but here it can be half the price or more sometimes. I negotiated a free day at the hotel I first stayed at here in Vang Vieng. I switched to this new place where I got a 20000 kip discount ($2) and a better room. The first place I stayed at offered me a free room for obvious reasons – there are a lot better locations and deals, and they knew it, but I was in a unique situation – being lost and finding a place at 10:30pm.
I found real adventure in Laos.
My trip to Vang Vieng was cover page National Geographic both in good and bad. I’ll start with the bad.
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Sep 19, 2009, 6:02:46 PM
There was a lot lost in translation, but the image tells the story. The bridge was FUBAR. I’m not sure how it happened – I tried to piece together a scenario by looking at the damage but it was very odd. In the background you can see what looks to be a new bridge in progress. We waited for a few hours and after looking at it, it became painfully obvious that there was no way in hell our bus would be able to get across. They were letting small cars go by and every time they crossed you could see the span sag. It was only a matter of time before a vehicle to heavy broke through and went into the drink – which was a near vertical drop about 30-40 meters.
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Sep 19, 2009, 4:52:12 PM
The line of vehicles went for miles. The bus I took is the one to the immediate left, not bad really.
The next bit of complete craziness came from trying to get a ride to Vang Vieng and beyond for some of the others. The bus I was on had a mix of Europeans and Laotians on it, all looking to continue on. A group of us banded together and found a guy with a bus on the other side of the bridge. After some botched negotiations we got a price – it was a mess. The communication was horrible especially when you are working with so many different languages among 10 people; French, German, Korean, Egyptian (I don’t even know their language – Arabic, I think there are several?) Thai, and one other guy that I couldn’t place.
Once the price was set the bus driver took off on foot, we later found out it was to find more people. In the mean time we stood there oblivious in the dark. Then we found ourselves surrounded by about 8 Laos people with assault rifles, that didn’t look government. I’m not sure what the deal was but the Germans were shitting themselves. The gun guys eventually left with no problems – I still don’t know what they were doing but to me it looked harmless. I know this is probably dangerous thinking but if the Laos realize the political ramifications of killing, kidnapping, robbing 10 tourists I’d imagine it wasn’t a consideration – just look at what it has done for tourism in some parts of Mexico and Columbia. Judging by the way the Germans were acting, I’d imagine they thought they were done for.
The bus driver shows up with more people from our other bus that apparently involved them getting on for free. It looked like our other bus driver had made some deal with the new driver to ferry them on, it didn’t become obvious until later but the bus was the same provider as our original. Well we hadn’t paid yet and the bus started rolling before anything was clarified. Long story short the free people were showing their tickets when the time came. So we showed our tickets and things got heated. Legally it is my understanding that as long as you have a receipt that shows you paid already then you are golden. This bus being the same provider as our previous one then the ticket was valid. The bus driver knew it but he was so excited to get the “under the table” cash that he wasn’t having it. It was dicey and involved one heated stop and a second stop in Viang Vieng with a guy that spoke enough English to say “You pay now.” Well I was getting off at Vang Vieng anyway so I managed to get it dropped to 20000 Kip a whopping $2.
Then the same English speaking guy tried to get me to stay at one of his overpriced $5 a night guest house rooms. Between the frogs, cockroaches, and various other “unappealing” factors I decided it was best to find a different place. That and this same guy that was speaking English on the bus suddenly didn’t know any English when I asked him for a map or directions to the place I already had in mind, so by the time I left I was plenty motivated to find my way through the darkness via my Ipod flashlight.
It wasn’t far, maybe 1 kilometer of stumbling around (through some sketchy country and across what turned out to be an airstrip) before I found a hospitable place – either way I think I received the “survivability merit badge” by the day’s end.
And this is what I was after:
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Sep 20, 2009, 6:07:47 PM
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Sep 20, 2009, 6:08:25 PM
So about the post title (the following is a little zen/emo’d out so I’ll warn you in advance), the lesson of the last 4 days is that (religious beliefs aside) you only get one life, it’s best you take the risks because the rewards can be more then you imagined. Laos has been everything I thought would be and much more. There is a certain aspect of life here where you feel like you are one step away from death – in Laos that step is close enough for some, it could be peculiarly uncomfortable for others. For me I’d relate it to my last season of firefighting where I went into it with the one goal of “getting myself in the shit” the balance where one wrong move could be the end but you know enough to navigate the dangers and enjoy the fruits. You can find it all over; in cycling, rock climbing, skiing, kayaking, traveling, you name it – good stuff.
On another note I have a couple of odd ball pictures that are outside of the story line but worth posting.
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Sep 18, 2009, 4:00:04 PM
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Sep 18, 2009, 4:00:46 PM
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Sep 16, 2009, 2:44:57 PM
This guy gets 3 photos.
The Vang Vieng context shot. This is shot outside the town looking towards my guest house which is just beyond the tree cover.
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3X
Shutter Speed: 1/320 second
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Taken: Sep 21, 2009, 3:58:42 PM
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3X
Shutter Speed: 1/80 second
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Taken: Sep 21, 2009, 2:26:48 PM
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Sep 21, 2009, 2:01:33 PM
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Sep 21, 2009, 1:56:09 PM
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3X
Shutter Speed: 1/15 second
Aperture: F/16.0
Focal Length: 175 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Taken: Sep 21, 2009, 1:59:36 PM
That’s the end of this post. My new plan on posting is to distill the images one extra pass so there will probably be fewer posts in the future. I’d like to keep the quality in the same stream as this one. I’ll be in Vang Vieng for a couple more days then moving camp to Luang Prabang, Laos. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site – they just keep getting better.
Enjoy.
