How to make friends and influence Laos

Trip Start Dec 09, 2006
1
27
90
Trip End Ongoing


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Monday, March 26, 2007

Despite being much friendlier that Thais, the Laos are, as far as I have experienced, essentially a reserved people more known for being quiet and lazy than throwing a damn good party. You can say hello to them all you want and some will smile and say hello - sabadi - and many will have a blanker expression than you thought was possible... if they don't feel like saying hello back then they won't and there is really nothing you can do to get any reaction out of them at all... or is there?

The two things that I have done that always seem to get a shockingly good reaction are swimming and washing where Laos swim and wash, and cycling with no hands. They love it! The first time when I swam in the irrigation ditch, half the kids came running out to play and join in and the other half were sent out by their mums who stood smiling and laughing. The second time when I just desperately needed a wash and the "guest house" I was staying in had no shower, the usually stony faced woman standing by having a wash herself just stood chuckling away for ages and everyone would greet me warmly like they had just remembered I was their cousin 01. head crop
01. head crop
 .

As for the no hands cycling... that really was the deal to them. At first I thought that they were so impressed that I could do it in the first place and I realised that it is not something that I particularly something I saw there despite ten million bicycles and miles of open road, but later I got the impression that it meant I was really like one of them and a damn cool at that. Kids on bikes, which thousands of them are, would be shouting their delight, signing their delight and screaming saa-baa-deeeee!!!... You know, if I hadn't been cycling by I thing they would've been asking for my autograph. Maybe it was the National Laos No Hands Cycling Day... I hadn't thought of that.
Slideshow Print this entry Vientiane hotels