Mountains

Vang Vieng is a little town in the Northern Laos mountains up a three hour windy highway trip from Vientienne, the capitol. Towering over the town are enormous, breathtaking, limestone mountains - jutting straight out of the flat farmland and layered behind one other in what creates a misty greyscale of depth perception as the perpetually hazy skies make each mountain disappear to varying degrees behind one another.

The town is a jumping off point for a variety of activities like hiking, biking, kayaking, river tubing, and cave exploring. It is also a spot where many western youth plop down and get lazy for days or weeks at a time. The town is infamous for its TV bars. Salons of laziness where you can sit around on pillows, eat Western and Asian food, and watch episode after episode of some popular programs, most commonly Friends. But with some Family Guy and Simpsons scattered around as well. It's something the guide books love to take jabs at, but certainly a popular past time in town.

I landed here mid day after a marathon journey, and walked down toward the Nam Song river to see if I could find some nice waterfront digs on which to hang my hammock. I came to the Riverside Bungalows, a green and peaceful grounds right along the river.. and they had a very nice cabin waiting for me.

As I was checking in, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was Inigo, a very pleasant Spaniard I had met in Pai, Thailand. When I saw him there, he had just been recovering from being quite sick and so was moving kind of slow. But now he was well rested and in much better shape. He'd been relaxing here already for a few days. He and I are the same age, so share the experience of being with mostly much younger folks on the backpacker circuit - which can make things quite fun... but sometimes the younger folks over do it a bit with their fun. We had a nice dinner that evening after the younger folks he was travelling with turned out to be too drunk to get themselves together to make the plans he had with them. Dinner at the Japanese-owned pizza restaurant was good, but I was sorry to hear they were all leaving the next day.

Before dinner, I was feeling weak and my body ached - I thought from all the travelling and lack of food... After dinner I felt a little better, but also felt like I had better head to bed or else I might come down with something.

No luck. I got sick anyway.... Really sick. I spent about the next four days doing little more than trying to get better. I suffered a sequence of symptoms each night, from horrid bathroom trips (luckily I had my own bathroom), to freezing chills while wearing layer upon layer of clothes, to sweating all the way through multiple sets of clothes in one night, to, one night, barfing up what little I was able to choke down the entire day. I was starving (but not hungry), lonely, and sad. But still having a pleasant enough time riding it out in my hammock and making some substantial progress with the book I brought along.

It occured to me more than once that I could have some kind of jungle plague like Malaria or Dengue Fever or Cholera. But the symptoms for these are the same as the symptoms for more innocuous, and far more common problems like Traveller's D and other simple bacterial infections that affect most Westerners out here in the sticks. I put myself on some antibiotics that my travel clinic recommended.

One thing I hadn't realized when I moved into The Riverside was that it was directly across the river from the Smile Bar - party central for the town. Thump Thump, Oonch Oonch.. every night. I am a city boy, and so I am accustomed to hearing noise and music while at home. But what added insult to injury for me was hearing the music and hoots and laughter... precisely what I had come to the town to enjoy after the too-quiet-for-me Don Det stay. And I couldn't. I had to lay in bed listening to ecstatic hoots and kick ass DJ sessions while trying desperately not to barf up the pills that might get me better.

After four days of that, I was finally able to eat again and venture out. Also, my friend Chrisi got to town so I had a travel partner again. Things are looking up.

We rented a motorbike to take a trip up the highway out of town to do some exploring. I haven't ridden a motorbike since Monica and I were in Tahiti last year. I was a little bit nervous to ride the thing myself, much less put someone else on the back with me and ride on the highway. I could tell that "Mom" from the mom and pop place I rented the bike from winced a bit as I asked her how to operate the bike and then wobbled away from her store, trying to figure out where to put my feet and how to shift. But after a few minutes of riding around town, I felt ready for the highway. Maybe ready is a strong word. But I don't have a better one.

Chrisi and I rode up Highway 13 about thirty minutes north to a bumpy little dirt road that the guide books promised would take us to the Tham Sang Triangle, a group of limestone caves that sounded interesting. The countryside along the way was truly beautiful and only made more enjoyable on the bike with the wind our hair. As soon as you leave town, you start to feel what Laos is really like. The homes on the side of the road, mostly very modest hand built bungalows. People going about their daily chores, whether domestic, agricultural, or marketing goods (not much else) in their characteristically Laotian leisurely way. It occurred to me that this is it. This is the most major highway in Laos and this is the extent of hustle and bustle throughout most of the country. It really underscored for me what normal life is like here. Not just in the deep South. Not just in the far rural areas.. but in most of the country. I began to really feel what it was like to be Lao. Their lives are so easy to watch. So much of it is played out in public spaces. Some homes don't even have walls, just a roof.

As I rode down the bumpy rocky path, quite a feat I must say, considering my lack of experience, we exited Real Laos and re-entered Tourist Laos. I heard someone say once that, while in Southeast Asia, he felt like he wore a suit with wads of money hanging off, and people would come by and pick bills off one by one.. plink! plink! plink! As we rode up, we saw a sign indicating that motorbike parking was 5000 Kip ($.50) .. plink! Then we walked over the bamboo bridge to a little desk at the end with a woman collecting the bridge crossing fee, 5000 Kip each.... plink! plink! We walked up to the first cave and were met by a little old man from the town wearing an old khaki army shirt. He led us around several caves, rented us some head lamps (plink!) and led us deep into the caves, into spaces I would never have ventured without him. I couldn't help imagining what it must have been like thirty years ago when people that looked like me were creating havoc in this area.. and that he was surely around for that. I wondered if these caves were used strategically during that time. His English wasn't really good enough to ask him that. But his singing voice was lovely. After some encouragement from us, he sang Lao songs while we sat as his audience. Quite beautiful and haunting in such a dark place with such great acoustics.

After the tour, as we expected, he asked for a less than modest tour fee. He should have told us the fee beforehand, and we should have asked. PLINK! On the ride home, our bike suffered a flat tire on the highway just as it was getting dark and we were still ten minutes or so from town. Uh oh. We plip-plopped on the bike for a few minutes down the highway until I found a home that doubled as a motorbike fix it shop. They were closed, however. Knowing that there is little division between home and business life, we sheepishly knocked and asked if they could help, which they did without even blinking. It was Lao friendliness that got us home that night.

This plink is on me... I tipped them 50%.