A Millionaire in Laos

That's what I am! I never thought I would be a millionaire, but finally the day has come! Unfortunately, the only reason I'm a millionaire is because there are 9,000 Lao Kip to every dollar. So, when you change $150 you receive a huge stack of bills (over a million kip). There are so many bills, it's hard to fit them all into your wallet. Psychologically, it gave me the sense I was rich, which is a good feeling for once.... until I realized I spent my million in only a few days.

I want to tell you some of our stories from Laos and to sum up our trip there. But first I have to admit that I did something very dumb a few days ago...
I've been having trouble with our camera in internet cafes, where the computer doesn't register the file where our pictures are. This has been a problem since we began our trip, and while trying to figure it out, I erased our complete memory card and lost all of our pictures from Thailand and Laos! I know... I feel like a complete idiot and I've lost sleep over this accident. Luckily, we at least have a few pictures on our blog from Thailand, but now we have none from Laos. What's most upsetting is that I deleted all the pictures for an ebook I was writing for a village in Laos, and so that project is down the drain. Such a bummer!

So to see the story of Laos, you will have to use your imaginations, and a few pictures from fellow travelers that I put in here. Leaving off from Drew's last posting, we did have an amazing time making the ebook with the teacher from Ban Nam Chang. It's a great community to study because it is self-sustained, everything that is needed is produced and created right there. After a meal of strange foods and many shots of rice whiskey, we took a tour of the village with Somsey, the local teacher who spoke great english. We saw how the people made their own clothing, by first growing cotton, then picking it, turning it into yarn, weaving it, dying it with indigo plants, and making into clothes. Their clothes are distinctive of their culture, and the women are adorned with silver coins in their hair. The custom is also for the women to remove their eyebrows after age 15, so they have an interesting and unique appearence. We also learned about their spirituality which is mostly animism, where they pray to the earth and the spirits of thier ancestors. They also make their own paper, build their homes, and grow all their own food. The experience of writing an ebook with them, allowed us an inside view of their culture, which was quite fascinating. Although we lost the pictures, we will always have the experiences in our memories.

Next, we took a slow boat down the Mekong River. This boat is loaded to capacity with tourists, who are happy to pay too much and sit on uncomfortable seats for 6 hours, so they can have the experience of the Mighty Mekong.

It is worth it, and we enjoyed watching the landscape slowly slip by and we were amazed at how little development there is in Laos. Sometimes we'd see a small village on the banks, a few fishing boats here and there, but mostly we saw hills and jungle along the shore.

Along our trip down the Mekong, we decided to get off the "beaten track" by venturing into another village. We had the boat drop us off at one of the villages along the shore, and took an hour long sangthaew ride over a dirt road pocketed by huge pot-holes to a village called Hongsa. The trip was a bruising, bumpy ride, and one Italian lady in her 60's kept saying "mama mia!" at each curve in the road. Hongsa is a nice town, known for it's working elephants who help with the logging industry there. The local people have been using elephants for centuries to carry huge logs from the jungle into the villages, and now they also use them in the tourism industry to give rides to people. We never took a ride, but we enjoyed watching them stroll along the dirt roads of Hongsa. There, we found the quiet atmosphere, away from tourist trail, a perfect setting for us.

From Hongsa, we decided to rent bikes for a day and ride through the countryside. This was one of the best days I've had on our entire trip, simply because it was so refreshing to be in the "real" Laos. We rode to a nearby village, and while admiring a small wat, we were greeted by a group of women. They asked us to join them (all in hand gestures, of course) and we watched them make rice cakes by steaming rice flour over a fire pit dug in the ground, covered by a pot of water and wet cloth. They then dry these "rice tortillas" in the sun and finally cook them over coals to make them crispy. They fed us about 5 each, and while we couldn't speak to eachother, we could smile and laugh and had one of those conversations that happen without words. It was a simple exchange, but we loved it. The ride through the countryside, took us through villages where people stopped and stared at us, having seen very few "falangs" in their lives. I even made one young girl cry, because she hadn't seen someone like me before. But most people stared until we said "Sabaidee!", and then they would grin and wave. Some of the children would run along the road saying "hello!" while laughing, as we rode along beside them. I found at the end of the day, my cheeks hurt from smiling all day.

We next made our way to Luang Prabang, which is the former royal capital of Laos. It's a great city, full of lively night markets, picturesque wats, and interesting history. We spent our time there wandering the streets, and exploring the beautiful temples scattered around the city. It was a place we both enjoyed. After this we went to Vang Vieng, although beautiful in many ways, was somewhere we didn't like. The Lonely Planet says it's a place that has "sold it's soul to tourism", which we found to be true. The town is filled with "t.v. bars" where you can watch "Friends" epiodes and drink beer at the same time. It wasn't our idea of fun, and so instead of staying two days, we got out of there as quickly as possible. This meant taking a public bus to Vientiane, which was an experience in itself. The bus was full when we left the station, but public buses stop for anyone and everyone, and soon we found ourselves with three people on a two-seater, with a girl falling asleep on Drew's arms, and a man falling on top of him as he dozed off standing in the aisle. It was a sticky, hot, uncomfortable ride and Drew felt sick on top of all that. It was kind of a nightmare, but we made it.

Vientiane is Laos' capitol city. After a long bus ride, all we wanted was to get to a guest house and relax. But we found that the whole city was practically full, and it took us several hours of walking from place to place, until we found a place to sleep for the night. These are the times when traveling is NOT fun, when you're tired, hungry, sick, and you can't find a single place to rent you a room. We finally found a sketchy place above a karaoke bar, but we were just happy to have anything. On our last day in Laos, we toured around, and again went to temples. By this time, we were ready to move on from Laos. We had a great time in many ways, but also found ourselves exhausted from moving around so much.

We now find ourselves in the country of Cambodia, but that is a story that is yet to come...