Into Laos
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Muang Khua,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Saturday, March 8, 2008
As I said the kind woman from the Cat Cat guesthouse gave me a lift at 6am to the 'bus stop' - basically a junction where buses will stop if you flag them down as they pass. While waiting alone for an hour in the freezing cold I tried to buy an orange for the journey but as usual they tried to rip me off - where at home would you pay $1 for a bloody tangerine!! Anyway, it was just as well as they also wouldn't let me buy a bus ticket for the local price either so every penny I had eventually got spent on my bus to Dien Bien Phu. The bus was an awful local affair with bags everywhere and the seat in front only 6 inches from mine so my knees were pressed against it in the fetal position. There were no westerns on the bus and it was one of those occasions where there were so many boring times and beautiful views but I dared not pull out my camera and embarrass the local scoats with my wealth. The bus ride was largely on dirt roads at 20 mph for 8 hours but the scenery through rice paddies etc was simply amazing. As I didn't have a Dong to my name I couldn't even buy some noodle soup at lunch time (or rather get ripped off for some noodle soup at lunch time). This was all coupled with a lack of water and a pounding head as a result of Ally buying the snake whiskey shots the night before...not my best journey ever.
I arrived in Dien Bien in the evening, walking straight through the throng of moto drivers I found a little guest house near the bus station, obviously normally frequented by local people as he gave me a sincere price right away and then brought me some hot water and green tea to my room - after 1 month I found the Vietnam I like...once again I hope the nice old man got the key back that I walked off with in the morning...
Dien Bien Phu is an interesting place. It is where the French decided to make their last stand against the Vietminh in the 1950's...probably one of the worst decisions in military history the battle is said to rank with Waterloo and Stalingrad in terms of how it changed the world order. Basically the French decided go fight the Vietminh in a valley surrounded on all four sides my hills determining that the Vietnamese would never be able to move equipment onto the hills and assuming that they could airlift everything in. Well they got totally battered and what eventually resulted was the American involvement and escalation of the cold war. Anyway, you just have to look at the countryside to realize how damned stupid they were and boy the Vietnamese play on this, they even have 3D models in the museum with little lights lighting up to show how they won the battle. As Dien Bien is way off the standard tourist trail and the Lonely Planet says the border into Laos is closed it actually felt like the real Vietnam. For the 1st time in a month kids wanted to play football with me etc I actually liked the place...I mean don't get me wrong when I went to the market to get some noodle soup the woman at 1st tried to charge me double...its funny once the price is established I was able to go back again and again at the same price (30p). It was a shame I had to leave so quickly but my visa was expiring and I really didn't fancy the challenge of turning up at some remote Vietnamese border crossing with an expired visa.
I later found out that there was a bus every 2 days across the border to Muang Khua in Laos but no one told me that at the time so I had to get a motor bike taxi to the border...50km away...with the next Valentino Rossi. It was one of the scariest journeys of my life, he seemed to be relying on the fact that any of the big trucks coming down the mountain would have a loud enough horn and would beep before any of the hairpins as we rattled around them the other way at 50km and hour. Crossing out of Vietnam was surprisingly easy, no extra fees etc just a stamp on my passport and off I went. I tried to get a lift on a truck at that point but the border guards were interfering and telling the driver to charge me $50 for the journey so in the end I walked through 1km of no mans land to the Laos border. At the Laos border there were quite a few people hanging out and they did charge me an 'overtime' fee as it was Saturday, I did start to argue this but then realized that it really wasn't worth pissing off everyone at the border for the sake of $1. It is strange how in Europe we can trust the army and police while in Asia these are the people you can trust least.
And then the adventure began....
After watching my little Laos friend disinfecting the truck wheels (well one side of the trucks wheels...pointless exercise) for bird flu and the soldiers playing French bowls (breaking only at one point to have a bit of a party with a Vietnamese soldier who appeared with a Land Cruiser full of computer gear that was transferred to a Laos military Land Cruiser) it was time to try and hitch a lift on one of the trucks that rolled through every hour or so. After getting some silly prices from their Vietnamese divers I decided I may as well start walking...down the dirt road through the jungle into Laos...plenty of (Vietnamese) motorbike drivers came and offered me a lift the 80km to Muang Khua for $100 but I wasn't having that and then I started to get really pissed off when they started telling the truck drivers not to take me either. In the end I walked 10km to a tiny village where the snot dribbling manky kids had never seen ginger hair in their life before. I sat there for about an hour with the locals peering at me from behind trees and doors of their bamboo shacks before a lorry turned up. Straight away the driver said a price of $10 and I said fine. Then when I got into the cab his little mate said $20 and I said $10 or I was getting out and he said $25 and the usual Vietnamese animosity started to rise but the driver just started driving and I settled into the bed behind the drivers' seat for the journey. Within half an hour the little bloke who didn't like me was out in the shop buying their supplies of red bull and brought me back some food and the just changed personality totally. Again the journey was gorgeous but again I didn't want to get my camera out. A lot of Laos is deforested but this isn't actually from logging but a result of traditional slash and burn farming where they get rid of all the primary jungle and replace it with crops such as bananas but then move on when the soil is depleted after a few years. The 80km took 5 or 6 hours going through rivers etc. I have no idea what the boys had in their truck but you could see they were nervous at one point when a group of soldiers (well guys with no uniforms and tooled up with Ak47's) had a rope stretched across the road but we were waved through and there were lots of sighs of relief and cigarettes. The lorry was well cool, made by Samsung (thought they made mobile phones but never mind), with low ratio gears and even a switch which spayed water on the brakes to cool them as we descended the mountain.
In Laos, just like Cambodia you see the signs of inbred corruption. I met a French guy who has been working for the WWF in Vientiane for the last 2 years awaiting approval to go do fieldwork on deforestation but the government refuse to grant him a permit until they by the Minister in charge a Land Cruiser which obviously the WWF refuse to do.
Muang Khua where I ended up was a nice little village; a bit like the real Laos as not many tourists make it this far. As usual the Lonely Planet guesthouse had a few people but also loots of rates so I avoided that and stayed in another one which seemed to be where the locals brought either their birds or their prostitutes for some time alone - I am not sure how you can tell the difference based on squealing noises really...at first I thought it was a baby in distress to be honest. The major un-anticipated issue I had on arriving was that I had only $2 in Laos Kip to spend but fortunately I met a Swiss/Dutch couple who exchanged me $30 worth of money which was to see me through the next few days (how I was to know that there was no ATM's or mobile reception in the North of Laos - the latter was particularly worrying as the last message I had sent had been to my sister saying I was on a dirt track in the jungle hitching a lift with a lorry). I was happy to spend a couple of days enjoying village life but after that realized I would soon get bored but really wanted to get the boat downstream (not sure where this fascination with boats I currently have has been the rest of my life...). But to get a boat outta town I was told by the very Vietnamese looking boat man I would have to get at least 5 tourists to split the 1.2 million Kip fare with....however once I had found 14 tourists this story distinctly changed to there being a set fare of 120,000 Kip per person...you can imagine how one of the Israeli guys reacted to this one...I have to say transport is the one area that Laotians consistently piss you off and try to rip you off; all buses and boats and ever tuk tuk seem to be run by some kind of local (or national) mafia out to extract as much money from tourists as possible.
oh how this place will be like Vietnam within a few years...
However, in the end we ended up with a nice cool group on our boat. One guy in particular, Mathew, was pretty cool as he lived in Bangkok and was married to a Lao woman so spoke fluent Thai and a bit of Lao. How peoples faces light up when they realize a ferang (literally means foreigner in French but is commonly used to describe all foreign people in SE Asia) can speak their language. Mathew introduced me to traditional Lao food - the Laap. The Laap is basically meat that is chopped up very fine, normally when a ferang orders Laap it gets fried but when Mathew ordered we got it the traditional way which is raw meat with loads of chili and coriander mixed in..Apparently it is stewed in stomach bile as an alternative to cooking. None the less it tasted great but I dare say I should get myself checked out when I get back to the UK after eating raw beef and pork....
The boat ride south to Nang Kio was gorgeous (see pics), we stopped a few times down stream for impromptu toilet stops at little sandy beaches. When you are on a river boat in Laos you know when you are passing a village on land as you see these little clusters of homemade hydroelectric generators in the rapids to give them enough lecky for a couple of lights and their satellite dish.
