Laos II: Highlights

Sa-bai-dee, again! A few highlights from our Laos trip:

On the Road again: Yes, road. The infrastructure doesn't give you many choices on which path to take to get anywhere. But there are choices of what to travel in on that one road. Our first bus trip, from the capital Vientiane to Pakse in the south was on the overnight Sleeper Bus. Think: Harry Potter's Knight Bus without the squawking shrivelled head. Each bed fits two (small Asians) comfortably and there is a squat toilet on board for passenger convenience. The VIP is modern, air-conditioned transportation. Pinching pennies? Take the Local or 'chicken' bus. You can bring your small livestock, market goods and timber for building on this bus. And it stops everywhere and anywhere you'd like, it seems. It makes a long trip ( the Road is neither straight nor well-paved) even longer--10.5 hours for a 320 mile trip. Every trip a test of endurance.

Wheeee, on/in the water: Just like on the bus, one can see life unfold while travelling by boat. The Mekong River is not particularly wide so you can watch people going about daily living on both shores: people farming, young monks teaching younger monklets how to bathe, delivery of supplies, moving of tourists and young kids cooling down by jumping off of felled trees. It is also cooler and less bumpy a ride than on a bus. I loved it. And sunset on the Mekong is worth experiencing every chance you get.

Loved the many waterfalls also. This is the Huang Si Falls, a series of falls actually, with a magical pool at the bottom of each one. Locals and travellers alike enjoy this place. I'm the one waving in the back, not in the bikini up front. Tiny swimsuits prove problematic for conservative Lao and cartooned cultural posters try to educate visitors on this and other issues. But here a measure of tolerance is shown by local picnickers to scantily clad young backpackers.

Seeing the sights: Having lived in Asia, I suffer from Buddhist temple fatigue although they give joy to Kev. He also took in a few more of the ubiquitous caves than I did (oh,my feet!) including being guided through one by a local dog and "tubing" for free on a stream through another [personal highlights for him.] The cave I managed to get to was entirely more ...modest... than those. More of a hole in the wall with thousands of little Buddha statues in it. The place has high New Year significance for locals, every day interest for steep hill climbing tourists.

Climb a few more steep hills (and neither of us lost any weight?!) to see the Plain of Jars. Thought to be burial vessels, these stone jars are none too small. Most of the lids are missing. The views from their plateau beautiful. The nearby cave (a refuge during the Vietnam War bombing), cool.

The capital, Vientiane, is much like any other city although now getting a spruce-up. The 29th SEA Games (South East Asia games. A regional, multi-sport competition much like the Pan Am or Commonwealth Games) starts on December 9. Laos is getting its first real chance to show off (hey, the border didn't re-open until 1989) and is busy preparing. We watched the opening ceremony flag-and-drum corp practice at a local university. Locals tell us the government has been shutting down the city (e.g., schools) since October. Yoikes, that's early! This should be a huge economic boost to a country that needs it.

Commerce: Running out of space on this postcard... Pleased to report that Laos is not overrun with large corporate chain stores & restaurants. Rather surprised to find that a sophisticated till in shops was a desk drawer. Many small shops and restaurants just used a plastic pail-with or without a lid! And some shops are very small indeed as people convert small parts of their home or bits of furniture into sales areas. The United Nations and Laotian government encourage private industry with any number of business development schemes. I like the silk production from mulberry plant to worm to loom weaving to dyeing to finished product farms. Laotians are encouraged to improve their craft skills and tourists are encouraged to buy handicrafts (as opposed to national antiquities) as souvenirs. I can support this and don't mind when local village stops sometimes look like a maze of retail alleys. I draw the line at one tiny village of "Community-based, Development Initiative" had a specially laid walk path that wended its way past everyone's stand. The villagers themselves were very low key with a soft approach to getting attention and sales but we still felt like a Parade of Walking Wallets. Who does this benefit? The most interesting part of the walk was watching people bathe at the public water pump.

Also noted that villages tend to have specialized production. Thirty road stands in one village all selling watermelon, followed by 30 stands all selling woven baskets, followed by another village selling only papaya and another selling roast chicken-on-a-stick (a regional specialty). Fear not, your chicken bus will stop at all for your shopping convenience.