Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Visiting Vientiane

Hi everyone. I wanted to post my latest installments from my travel journal. I've just completed the entire section on Laos, so I'll break it down into several separate postings, just so none of the messages is too huge. The first post covers our long commute from Siem Reap to Vientiane by way of Nong Khai, and the day we spent in the Lao capital. Next, I'll post journal entries for our visit to Luang Prabang. Hope you enjoy it. -ac

Tuesday, November 11

A Travel Day

There's not too much to report today. The next stop on our itinerary is Vientiane, the capital of Laos, but there are no flights directly from Phnom Penh until Friday. So, we must take a circuitous route - from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, to Bangkok and Udon Thani, all by air; then, a minibus to the Thai-Lao border town of Nong Khai. We'd spend the night there before crossing into Laos and making the short drive to Vientiane.

The flights all went smoothly, though the four-hour layovers got old rather quickly. But the day got a bit more interesting when we drove into Nong Khai at 8pm. We were heading to The Meeting Place, a bar and guesthouse run by an Aussie expat named Alan. Alan arranges visas for Laos, so I had emailed him ahead of time in order to have our paperwork ready when we got there. The Meeting Place was a dusty old teak house with a large bar downstairs and bedrooms upstairs. Near the bar we found Alan and his Thai wife, an Aussie couple who had stopped by for dinner, and a toothless, very drunk Brit named Joe. Joe was hitting on the Aussie woman, but her husband ignored it almost as well as she did. A huge boxer sat on the floor next to a much smaller chestnut poodle.

Alan's wife offered us accommodations upstairs in a large, cobwebbed room with two hard beds, a rusty fan and screened windows that barely kept out the mosquitoes. At 150 baht - about four dollars - it was better than wandering around Nong Khai in search of a better place. I returned downstairs as the Aussie couple was heading out. That meant Joe, the cockney drunk, would have only us to talk to. He immediately began to teach Susanne some Thai by demonstrating how he would hit on a Thai woman. I was a bit concerned about this guy at first, but it was pretty obvious that old Joe was totally harmless. "Is shee ya woife?" he asked me. "Yes," I lied, hoping this would have some implications. "I'm just goin' ta show her 'ow I'd 'it on a Pretty Thai Lady," he said, his head swaying around while he tried to sustain eye contact with me. "I jus' don't wannta get punched in me noze by you forrit." "I won't punch you," I responded, "but maybe she will." Joe then took Susanne by the hand and said in an innocent voice, "Khun cheu arai? Khun cheu arai?" Susanne looked at me for translation. "What's your name, he asked." "Oh... Susanne."

This went back and forth as Joe asked Susanne about where she was from and if she liked Thailand. Despite our attempts to convince him we were ready to go to bed, Joe insisted on telling his life story, which went something like this. He was 61 years old and hated living in Britain. A long time ago, his wife died, so he and a friend left the UK to wander South America for many years. One day back in England, his friend suggested they move to Thailand and open a bar. Joe wanted to go back to Peru instead. So they decided to settle it with a game of cards. Joe lost, so he suggested they try a coin toss instead. He lost again. Darts. Lost. Snooker. Lost. So they moved to Thailand, bought a bar and married two local girls.

Joe was doing well and was happy with his young wife, but his friend drank constantly and fooled around with prostitutes, so they ran out of money and the bar went bust. Joe and his wife moved on and made several attempts at starting a sod business. "I tried English grass, Kentucky blue grass, you name it," he said. "But none of the grass would grow. You know why? 'Cause is doesn't fuckin' grow in Thailand, that's why!" Once he realized his strategic error, Joe started a rubber tree farm. He's kept at it, and now he has around 3000 trees. I couldn't exactly picture this guy growing rubber for a living, but at least his story was colorful enough for 15 minutes.

Just as we got ready to head up for bed, a middle aged man with a crewcut, tatooed arms and fatigues began to bang on the locked gate. "Where's Alan, that Aussie bastard," he hissed at us. "Wake him up. Tell him it's Bob from Canada. He owes me a thousand baht." Joe started hollering "Alan! Alan!" prompting Alan to eventually get out of bed and holler back through his bedroom door. Joe then turned to Bob and said, "Bob from Canada, were you in the military?" Bob scowled back, "Fuck no!," as if it should be obvious by his fatigues and tats that he's a dyed-in-the-wool civilian. We took this as our cue to go to bed, so we headed upstairs and crashed in our house of cobwebs. After the dogs barked and howled for awhile, we managed to fall asleep.

Wednesday, November 12 Vientiane

I awoke around 7am with the calls of roosters from across the road. Downstairs, no one was up except Joey, the black boxer, and his little poodle friend. The two of them pounced on me as soon as I sat down. Alan came out of his bedroom half an hour later, wearing only a sarong around his waste. I saw several Thais walking down the road wearing a similar sarong get-up, but in Alan's case, to me he was just a guy in a towel. He pulled out the visa paperwork for us to fill out. We paid him the fee for the visa and caught a tuk-tuk to take us to the Nong Khai bus terminal at 8am. Once there, we caught a minibus to take us over the Friendship Bridge, which spans the Mekong River separating Thailand and Laos. After stopping at a Thai border checkpoint to get our passports stamped, we crossed the bridge into the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The road's pavement shifted from flat and smooth to cracked asphalt as we reached the Lao side of the bridge. At the Lao immigration checkpoint an agent who worked for Alan took our papers and passports through the various steps required for entering this small, isolated communist country. Susanne and I leaned against a railing and waited. Once our passports received the proper stamps and papers, we climbed into a jumbo - a Lao version of a tuk-tuk - and began the 30 minute ride to the capital city of Vientiane.

As we approached Vientiane, I expected the light flow of traffic to increase, but even inside the city limits there weren't that many vehicles about. Vientiane has a population of less than 150,000 people, so it manages to retain a sleepy, colonial feel. The roads were terribly dusty, but besides that, it seemed like we were coming to a fairly pleasant place. People smiled at us as they rode by on motorcycles and jumbos. I could see the Mekong through some trees on my left as we approached our day's residence, the Lao Paris Hotel. From the outside, the Lao Paris looked like any other poorly whitewashed guesthouse. Inside, though, we found a sparkling wooden lodge covered in freshly polished teak paneling. It felt like a Swiss mountain resort. The man at the check-in desk gave us a nice room with a/c, a refrigerator, and the hottest shower in Laos for $20, though I could pay in Thai baht or Lao kip if I preferred. We dropped off our bags, changed some money into kip (at 1704 kip per dollar, about 700 kip better than the last exchange rate I had heard in the US) and headed out for a walk through the city.

Our first stop was Wat Si Saket, a rustic old monastery across from the presidential palace, about 10 minutes from the hotel. Wat Si Saket has stood since 1818, making it the oldest wat in the entire city. Most of Vientiane's buildings and temples were razed by the Thais during their 1828 sacking of the capital, but they spared Si Saket because it was built in a Bangkok style, which they apparently appreciated. There were a couple of German tourists inside the wat, but apart from them, we had the entire monastery to ourselves. Its inner courtyard contained scores of sitting Buddha statues as well as several thousand thumb-sized Buddha amulets set in niches along the wall. A Chinese tour group, all sporting light blue pajamas, entered the monastery and walked the length of the courtyard, stopping for pictures and lighting incense along the way. A small cat dozed below a wooden table with an open guest book on top. I thought it was ironic that the cat had chosen to sleep under the one place where each visitor was expected to sign in. I guess they don't get many visitors overall, then. Didn't look like anyone minded, either. This was Laos - you're welcome to visit, just don't mind us while we nap.

Across the street, just to the left of the presidential palace, we entered Wat Pha Kaew, formerly Vientiane's royal monastery. The wat was built in the mid 16th century and for some time it held the ever-wandering Emerald Buddha statue that has resided in Thailand since 1779. In 1828 the temple was destroyed by the Thais and it wasn't rebuilt until the late 1930s. Particular attention was paid to the carving of its rococo walls, which were still in excellent condition. Like Wat Si Saket, you could argue that Wat Pha Kaew was in need of a dusting and a paint job, but in all honesty, I enjoyed its antique character. While the wats of Bangkok were exquisite, they also maintained a Disneyesque quality - every stupa, every garden, every roof was immaculate, bright and polished. Here in Vientiane, I could sense an aged presence in these wats. They weren't the fresh young temples they once were, but yet they still possessed a wise, reserved dignity that seemed to be lacking elsewhere. Like the Lao people, the wats didn't feel a need to be flamboyant or over-the-top. Simplicity was the key here.

Two monks with instant cameras posed for each other in front of the main sim. We took off our shoes and mounted the temple platform. Several dozen bronze sitting Buddhas dating back as far as the 15th century stood guard around the platform, facing away from the inner sim. Sun reflected off of the eyes of the Buddhas, many of which were fashioned with semiprecious stones. The Chinese tourists we had seen at Wat Si Saket then arrived, and they made their way clockwise along the platform. As they reached each sitting Buddha, they performed a wai - the traditional greeting of respect, their hands in a prayer position and their torso leaning forward modestly.

It was now around lunchtime and all the wats would be closed until 2pm, so we walked down Thanon Fa Ngum, the boulevard along the Mekong. We stopped for an hour at the Mixay Cafe, a popular outdoor restaurant with nice shady trees, a good view, and an even better cool breeze from the river. We split a couple of rice plates, one fried and the other a basket of sticky rice, the translucent gelatinous rice popular among the Lao. Susanne looked a bit tired and worn from the hectic pace of Cambodia and our travel day, so we returned to the hotel so she could nap and I could shower. The bathroom looked recently tiled and the water was scalding hot - very refreshing.

Around 2pm we walked to Talaat Sao, the morning market, which actually remains open until 6pm each day. Susanne was suffering from chronic indigestion so we found a pharmacy on the far eastern side of the market and bought some plastic pouches of Maalox. We then caught a five minute jumbo ride to Pha That Luang, Laos' greatest monumental treasure. First built in 1565, That Luang is a 150- foot golden stupa surrounded by several dozen gilded spires, and for centuries has served as a major pilgrimage site for Lao Buddhists. More recently, since the time of independence from France That Luang has represented Lao nationalism and unity, as can be seen on much of the currency today.

This particular week also happened to be the That Luang festival, when Buddhist monks from all over southeast Asia gather at the stupa to celebrate the November full moon and the completion of the annual monsoon rains. On the evening of the full moon, about two nights from now, there will be a sacred procession by all of the monks, followed by an evening of fireworks and all-out revelry. Until then, the stupa plays host to a convention of sorts, where hundreds of monks of all ages camp out in the surrounding courtyard. It reminded me of the annual convergence of Boy Scouts on Washington DC, except in Laos the boys wore saffron robes instead of khaki uniforms and socks pulled up to their knees. There's a carnival-like atmosphere outside, where vendors have set up an entire market of goods and amusements.

That Luang gives off a blinding reflection as the sun bounces off its golden surface, regilded in 1995 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Pathet Lao's proclamation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. We paid our 200 kip entrance fee (about 12 cents) and entered the main courtyard. Loudspeakers beamed the voice of a Lao gentleman speaking in a continuous drone. At first I thought it was a monk's chant or perhaps communist propaganda, but then I heared him pause and give out a hearty belly laugh, as if he had just told us a joke or something. The more I listened, the more the man sounded like he was a radio DJ giving an on-location broadcast, though I still have no idea what on earth he was talking about.

The four stairwells that led up to the higher platforms of the stupa were obstructed by shrines of flowers and candles which grew steadily as more visitors arrived with offerings. But because the platforms were closed off, our only view of the stupa had to be from ground level. We walked clockwise around the stupa in the hot afternoon sun. As we proceeded, hundreds of monks camped out in the shade of the inner courtyard, trying to catch some zzz's, play cards, brush their teeth, read a book. Some stared out at us - I began to feel rather obtrusive. "So you wanted to take pictures of monks," I said to Susanne. " Here's your lucky chance." Actually, it wasn't the finest opportunity since the monks were all preoccupied with the festival. A few of the adolescent novices paused and let us take their pictures, but most of them had a "can't you see I'm busy?" look on their faces. Perhaps it was best to leave them alone instead.

I sat in a shady corner of the courtyard, enjoying the breeze and the grand view of stupa as monks and novices walked about. Susanne vanished around the other side of the stupa. We soaked up the atmosphere for a while and eventually headed outside to visit the market. Loudspeakers played Lao pop music while vendors fried Chinese donuts and invited young novices to play a game of ring toss. Get the ring around a bottle of Pepsi, get the bottle of Pepsi. We caught a jumbo back to the hotel, where we tried to write in our journals downstairs, but the hotel TV was blasting MTV at full volume, making it impossible to concentrate. The room didn't have a proper desk for writing, so we walked down the street to a brand new four star hotel. We sat in its cafe drinking coffee and Sprite as we wrote for at least two hours. The cafe's PA system quietly played the greatest hits of Zamfir on the pan flute, on which he covers hits by the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and showtune standards. Somehow we managed to focus on our journals despite breaking out into fits of laughter at the beginning of almost every song.

Back at the hotel we had a late dinner of lemongrass soup, rice and "Lao Baked Chicken," a plate of cut up chicken bones, each holding a gram or two of meat. I stopped trying to pick at it when I realized I was holding a complete chicken foot in my hand. At least the soup was tasty.