Laos

Hello friends!

It's been long overdue, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Laos.  I am really busy these days with teaching and lesson planning that my time to write on my blog has shrunk quite a lot.  But without further ado...

I left Chiang Mai for Laos on October 11th and arrived October 12th. I was across the border by 10:30am.  Whoo!  The bus ride to Laos left something to be desired...it was really cheap, but looking back on it I could have splurged a couple hundred baht more for something more comfortable.  I will not longer take the cheapest bus possible.  The seats were really cramped, there wasn't a bathroom on the bus and the aircon was not the typical icicle blast like it usually is on thai buses...it felt like the air was trickly through the vent.  I was seated next to a young mother whose baby was about three.  He was slipping and sliding all over her lap all night and while at first I thought they were both very sweet and beautiful, at around 1am I didn't really appreciate the baby's head in my side.  Oh, and the mom was throwing up in a plastic bag periodically, and my seat wouldn't recline.  There were about  4 babies on board and at least one of them was crying at any given moment.  And I was scolded for having my headlamp on when the lights were off.  I couldn't sleep so I wanted to read!  It was a little miserable, but now I've got the story to tell!  The ride was about 11 hours long. 

So, after the initial bus ride, I arrived in Udon Thani, then took another bus to Nong Khai- the border town to Laos on the eastern side of Thailand.  I made some friends on that bus ride- Kiril from Israel and Phoebe and Gemma from England- who I spent my time in Laos with.  Throughout the bus ride from Udon Thani to Nong Khai, the bus stops to pick up locals, and as we neared the border, the bus was stopped several times.  Tuk tuk drivers hop on and just say 'Laos, Laos, border...Friendship Bridge' to try and get you to get off and ride with them to the border and cross to the Friendship Bridge (everyone crosses the friendship bridge to get into Laos).  They act really desparate and give off the feeling like this is your last chance to get to the border, when in actuality you'll just stay on the bus until the end of the line- or until it takes you to the bus stop, at which point you can find some kind of vehicle to take you to the Friendship Bridge.  Anyhow my new friends and I decided to get off the bus shortly after we passed the turn for the friendship bridge and hopped in a tuk tuk.  Only a short time into our tuk tuk ride the driver stops at a little tourist tout rip off type thing and we are told to get off here to get into a minivan that will take us to the border.  Sorry friend, but you're gonna take us all the way to the border.  Scam averted.  We get to the border and then we fill out the exit paper in our passports to leave Thailand and get our passports stamped out of Thailand.  We passed through the checkpoint and hopped onto the shuttle bus that carries you across the Friendship Bridge.  I guess at that point we were in no-man's land.  That bus ride was pretty quick- 10 minutes or so- and I on it I met two American guys who I happened to run into a handful of times through my short stay in Laos.  They were both teachers in Bangkok so it was cool hearing their stories.  We all hopped off the bus when we got to the Laos border and filled out our paperwork to receive a Laos visa.  35 USD and 15 minutes later...Visa acquisition accomplished and we 4 crossed into Laos! Hooray!  Of course we hopped into another tuk tuk which carried us to our guesthouse.  A crazy Canadian man who has been living in Thailand for 8 years was also packed into our tuk tuk and that ride will never be forgotten.  He's been living and working in Bangkok for a long time, and he was pretty obsessed with it.  He had to come to Laos for a visa run because he changed jobs and therefore needed a new work permit.  One must obtain the NON B visa to obtain the work permit.  Anyhow- this man said he did not like coming to Laos because they don't have Burger King or McDonalds.  I'm not joking.  He was quite friendly and talkative, but I was pretty stunned by the fast food chain comment, and the fact that he would not stop hitting on Phoebe!  Indeed she is really sweet and cute, but honestly we were all getting a little embarassed for her.  He has been around Thai women and thai people for too long that I think the etiquette for talking to/flirting with Western girls was somewhat fogotten...Needless to say it was hilarious ride.  We saw him later near our guesthouse and we sort of had to pretend not to hear him when he called after us. 

We headed to Vientiane, the capitol and checked into our guesthouse and got some lunch.  Over the course of the next few days we bounced around to various markets and tourist type things like the Victory monument which is neat but a little bit of an eyesore up close (the plaque on site actually degrades the structure a bit- the monument was not finished with all the original intended materials- instead it was completed with concreted given to Laos by the US earmarked for building roads or something else- and the structure has fallen a bit into disrepair.)  I also spent a lot of time at the Thai Embassy trying to apply for a NON B visa. 

After a few days in Vientiane we headed to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a beautiful town- luscious greenery all around, and the landscape becomes more mountainous as you head north from the flat capitol of Vientiane.  However, Vang Vieng is also a western town.  It's as if some strange universal force has scooped up the young white folks from the US and Europe and then dumped them- already in their bathing suits- into the town of Vang Vieng.  The town is famous for travelers for its drinking and tubing extravanga.  You get to float down a river in an intertube and stop at bars along the way.  American pop music is blaring from the speakers of every bar, and you can stop if you please and drink a bucket of some kind of rum concoction.  It's what you make of it I guess.  I did indulge in this crazy experience, but I came out alright in the end and I lived to tell the tale.  I have checked that off my Southeast Asia bucket list and I don't really think I need to do it again.  But I was with my friends so that was fun.

The next day I left to head back to Vientiane to retrieve my free! tourist visa from the Thai Embassy.  I was an expert at getting to and from that embassy at that point.  With that out of the way, I spent the rest of my time in Laos with my friend Sylvie who I met in Bangkok, then met up with again in Chiang Mai by coincidence and we had a good time catching up on the experiences we'd both had since we parted ways in Chiang Mai.  We rented bikes and rode around town which was fun.  I think the coolest thing I did in Laos was in those last two days with Sylvie.  We rode our bikes to a temple and got to practice meditation with monks.  We sat with some 15 other people- farang and asian- and listened to the monks talk to us about the practice of meditation and then we meditated.  Then we practiced walking meditation- which was cool.  There is a special way to walk when doing walking meditation, and I'd never heard of walking meditation so that was neat for me.  Then we did seated meditation again, and then there was a question and answer session.  Very cool.  I was inspired to meditate more on my own after that, and I try to meditate every night before bed now that I'm settled in my own place.

The next coolest thing occured just after the meditation.  At the same temple (the name escapes me now) there are Lao massages offered (not by the monks don't worry!) and a steam room.  Sylvie chose a massage and I chose the steam room.  The whole operation was set up in a traditional Lao style house- raised on stilts.  The steam room was heated with a fire below the house.  When I pulled back the curtain after stepping through the wooden door of the steam room I felt like I'd stepped back into Ancient China.  I was expecting to see a group of rotund Chinese men, but instead there sat a lanky German fellow in his 40s.  We had some nice conversation about travels and his time living in Thailand.  We sat on wooden benches and danced our feet along the wooden floorboards to keep them from getting too hot.  Although he was only sitting about 4 feet in front of me, I could not make out his face at all, it was so steamy.  It felt nice to end the day with a good steam.  I stepped out, took a deep breath and drank some tea.  After I'd stopped dripping sweat I changed out of my bathing suit and Sylvie and I exchanged stories about our experiences.  We were both quite satisfied.  We rode our bikes home and got some dinner.  We both slept very well that night.

The next day it was time to part ways again, and I said my goodbyes to Sylvie.  We weren't sure if we'd cross paths again in Asia.  But, we now, I'll have a friend to visit in France!

I boarded a night bus headed back to Bangkok for my seminar to start teaching.  The ride was pretty uneventful- american movies, lots of air conditioning, and generic oreo cookies.  I arrived on Khao San Road in Bangkok Monday morning and made my way to AYC office to set up a bank account.  The traveling and living out of a pack was soon coming to an end...in about a week I would be relocated and settling into some new, more permanent digs.

More to come on the seminar and location change!