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May 06, 2005
From rural jungle to urban jungle
So here's a great big back-dated update which takes us from April 15th to May 6th, concluding my time in Laos:
From Vang Vieng I made my way to Luang Prabang, a beautiful city in the north of Laos – in fact, I'd say it's easily the most beautiful city in all of south-east Asia. Like everywhere in Laos, its peaceful, friendly, relaxed atmosphere is pleasantly infectious. A candle-lit night market offers all sorts of interesting handicrafts, and the food market is to die for. There I met up with my friend Guy, an Israeli I had first encountered in Don Det and then again in Vang Vieng, and discovered he'd suffered a terrible burn to his leg from a motorbike accident during Pi Mai. Nicknamed the "Thailand tattoo", this is a pretty common injury for travelers to this part of the world; unfortunately, his had become infected, and a local doctor had prescribed him a course of 6 tablets of antibiotic per day, for a whopping total of 3000mg. I'm no doctor, but clearly that's an insane amount.
I spent a few days exploring the city, peddling a bicycle around town, touring the palace and a temple or two, and making a trip to the nearby waterfall. Then Guy and I set off north with a boatload of other travelers up the Nam Ou river to Muang Ngoi, a small village with one dirt road, no vehicles, and a collection of guesthouses offering hammock-equipped bamboo bungalows overlooking the river. After a day or two of strict relaxation, it was time to tackle the journey I'd come here to undertake: a 3-day trek in to the surrounding mountains. Spearheaded by the fearless Fiona, a Brit who'd come by a photocopy of a sketchy map drawn up by a previous traveler, our motley crew consisted also of Simon & Nick, brothers from the land down under; Lee, a tiny but tough Belgian lass; and Paddy, a Brit from the dry-wit region of England. Bidding farewell to Guy, whose leg prohibited him from accompanying us, we set off in to the jungle, guideless and witless.
On the first day we hiked to Banna, a dusty village about an hour from Muang Ngoi, surrounded by burned-out rice paddies and grazing water buffalo. As we were setting off for the next point on the map, I realized I had dropped my camera somewhere along the 200m path through the village, and backtracked to discover that some intrepid local had already capitalized on my clumsiness. Crestfallen, I spoke to the owner of a small guesthouse on the edge of the village, the only guy in town with any grasp of english. I asked him to spread the news of a reward for any information leading to the return of my missing camera, and we decided to spend the night in Banna to see if anything materialized. I ordered a bottle of Lao Lao, the home-brewed rice alcohol indigenous to the country which smells and tastes like an industrial solvent, and proceeded to try and make the best of things. After attempting and failing to order any of the items on the guesthouse menu, we were informed the only available grub was riverweed curry, a delectable dish that had Paddy spewing over the side of the balcony within an hour. Thus, an hour from our point of origin, my camera missing, and one group member violently ill, we were off to an inauspicious start.
That night, I was woken abruptly to a terrific boom of thunder which shook my hut. Venturing out in to the night, I walked to the open fields to witness a magnificent lightning display arcing over the mountains in all directions around me. Soon, warm rain came crashing down in giant-sized drops, battering the bamboo roofs and parched earth. The rainy season had begun, and the skies would open to unleash their tropical downpours for an hour or two at a time nearly every day thereafter.
The next morning found Paddy recovered but no sign of my camera, which I gave up for dead. Stalled by a slowly-prepared breakfast, we hit the trail by 10:30, which placed us smack on the side of an exposed mountain just in time for the sweltering heat of the mid-day sun. The hiking was absolutely grueling, but the scenery was spectacular, and the trip was punctuated by the occasional tribal village where old women would stare at us furtively from the doors of their stilted one-room abodes, children would gather around and giggle amongst themselves when we glanced at them, and pigs, chickens, dogs, and cattle squacked and lowed and squeeled at each other from all corners. An ancient gentleman who sported a smoking cheroot in his puckered, wrinkled mouth mumbled to us in a mysterious tongue as he invited us on to his balcony, presenting us with a lunch of sticky rice and chillie paste. Verbal communication was impossible, but we made due with smiles and nods.
I've neglected to mention the seventh member of our team, our morale officer Peter Darman, whose excellent publication "The Survival Handbook" was an invaluable source of inspiration on our journey when spirits fell low. I'd been carrying the book in my backpack for months without glancing at it, but figured it may come in handy if anything were to go awry on our trek. Peter is full of useful tips on what to do in case of shipwreck in shark-infested waters ("Urinate in short, sharp bursts, and throw vomit and feces as far away as possible"), how to fashion weapons in the wild ("A wooden club is worth its weight in gold"), appropriate actions to take if bitten by a snake ("If you are the one bitten, kill the snake; it won't help the wound, but it will make you feel better"), and is a self-professed expert in the psychology of survival ("Do not lay down and die! Get active and survive!"). Without his words of encouragement, we would all have surely perished in that inhospitable jungle.
It was 5 o'clock by the time we arrived at our destination for the evening, a Hmong village perched on the side of a mountain. With the help of a young Laos man who is teacher to the village children, we arranged to stay with a family in their home for the night. The matron of the family, an able-bodied middle aged woman whose eyes sparkled with vitality, ran the household with smart, tender efficiency. Clucking directives softly, she orchastrated the multitude of various domestic activities as the sun went down and lanterns were lit to illuminate the high-ceilinged, earth-floored wooden residence. Even as two chickens were slaughtered and cleaned, rice prepared, and vegetables peeled and sliced for our evening meal, there was also the fire to tend to, the baby to keep fed and unfussed, chickens and dogs to be shoed out, and everything to be kept clean and tidy. Like a well-rehearsed performance, various members of the family would take up whatever task was required of them, and a relaxed bustle permeated the home. It was enthralling to observe. The sumptuous meal was served to us on low tables and stools, and we gobbled it up hungrily and appreciatively before retiring to beds laid out for us on a raised platform against one wall.
The activity in the house resumed with the sunrise next morning; I opened one sleepy eye to observe mother preparing a squash breakfast stew, while a half-naked 5 year old girl prodded the fire back to life. A couple of hours later, we were all up and fed and ready to hit the trail for our third day. This final leg was the longest and most challenging, the sun relentless, the heat oppressive, the mountainous terrain unforgiving. At some point in the afternoon, we found ourselves forty minutes in to a slog down a quick-moving stream which wound its way through a dense jungle valley, here and there multi-coloured groups of butterflies dancing playfully in the beams of light which shone through the canopy above. The magic of our surroundings was somewhat dampened by the fact that the map indicated that we should have reached the final village in our trip hours ago, and made no mention of a stream whatsoever. Pushing fears that we were lost to the back of our minds, there was nothing to do but continue on our course.
By late afternoon, the trek had become a death march. Each time we thought we'd conquered the last hill, another would rise up in front of us mockingly. We were out of water. The only nourishment we'd eaten since breakfast were a couple of packets of dried noodles. I couldn't feel my legs anymore, and marveled as I watched them continue to propel me forward. But we soldiered on, in spite of the bloody blisters suffered by Lee (who had a knack for stepping in to every stream we had to cross since day one) and our collective physical exhaustion, driven onward by the unflappable Fiona and roused on occasion by some words of wisdom from Mr. Darman. At long last, we conquered what was to be the last crest, and spotted the waters of the Nam Ou through the trees before us. I raced down to the village below, nearly delirious with joy, and promptly purchased and guzzled a litre of water before leaping in to the river. Never has water felt so good on my body - it was frankly orgasmic.
A short boat ride returned us to Muang Ngoi; the following night, we celebrated our accomplishment with a pig roast, courtesy of the beautiful old couple whose guesthouse I stayed at. Then it was back down river to Nong Khiaw for a night before we headed our separate ways; Paddy east to Vietnam, Nick, Simon, Lee & Fiona west to Luang Nam Tha, I back south to Luang Prabang. There I spent a couple of days throwing up from some bad Korean barbeque before climbing on a boat for a two-day trip to the Thai border, winding my way for the third and final time up the coursing currents of the mighty Mekong River.
And so my adventures in Laos ended. I left the most amazing country I've yet visited, emerging from its simple, slow-moving way of life, its smiling friendly people, its mountains and jungles and villages, and landed in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand – a dirty metropolis featuring noisy, stinking traffic, blaring lights, tall buildings and shopping malls, and a proliferation of seedy bars where young Thai women and old western men congregate to conduct their sordid business. I was in shock. I was overwhelmed; here I was buying a Slurpee at 7-11, going to a cinema to watch a movie, ordering a burger in the middle of the night at a western-style diner. It was too much to handle all at once, and after a couple of days I jumped on a local bus to escape to the northern town of Pai, where I am now. A chill-out spot which was colonized by hippies several decades ago, Pai strikes a balance between the conveniences available in Thailand and an easy-going, bamboo-bungalow-and-hammock lifestyle. In other words, a haven for backpackers. Pirated movies play nightly at restaurants around town, most of which are festooned with mats on the floor for lounging by low tables. Tourists and Thais mingle at bars, where the atmosphere is friendly and warm instead of predatory and lascivious. I plan to stay here until the 10th, shoring up my strength for a trip down to big-bad-Bangkok, there to meet my sister who is flying out to travel around Thailand with me for 3 weeks.
So yeah, that's what the rest of Laos looked like. I miss it already, but I'm really getting excited about seeing Leslie soon. I've been missing her a lot lately, and I think we'll have a blast.
Next back-dated updated will be all about the blast that Les and I had in Thailand. Stay tuned.
Cheers,
Greg
Posted by Greg at 05:38 PM | Comments (3)