More from luang namtha...
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
21
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Luang Prabang,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Sunday, October 12, 2008
saturday 04 october...
right we are now in luang namtha, in the blog, for anyone not keeping up! so anyway, somehow, despite the very few beers we drank the night before, we still manage to wake up this morning with hangovers, which was nice for us! with no-one around to soothe our heads! all the guesthouse staff seem to have gone AWOL or are acting like someone has died! for example, the girl, who'd seemed so cheery with us the day before, did not seem best pleased that we'd disturbed her quiet time to take our breakfast order! anyway, after breakfast, we ask one of the guesthouse gentlemen, once they'd finally arrived from wherever they'd been, to help us rent a moped for the next few days. our first stop, the waterfall. so we take the bike down a dirt track to where we are met by a make-shift price board and ticket booth, and a whole cluster of laos kids all beckoning us over, shouting sabadee (spelt right?!) - hello - and giving us the entrance fee. we park up the bike, pay our money, get laughed at by the kids, probably just for being falang - foreigners - and are on our way to the waterfall, just around the corner, following the locals to find the way. seconds later, it all seems ok, well better than the missions we'd had to endure to get to those earlier waterfalls in pai. however, once around the corner, we find to our horror that the laos folk can't build bridges or paths! and we are stuck. on the riverbank. i guess about ten teenagers walked passed us, while we just stood there, totally confused at how to get across the first hurdle. well, some stepped over slippery rocks, while others just dropped into the water. sean took the first option, while i, with my two left feet, just leapt into the water too after them. thankfully, it wasn't deep at all, knee high at most, so i don't think i caught any water-borne diseases?! we will see! anyway, once on the other side, we walked a little way, thinking maybe that had been the worst of it, until good old hurdle no. 2! no more broken concrete slabbed walkway, oh no! you now have four choices 'gamesta' - the slippery pipe up to the 'built' (that's novel!) bridge; walking along the edge of one of the tinier water drops downstream, then up the rock and dirt tracks to the bridge; through the water again, up that rock and dirt; or stepping over the slabs further downstream, up the rock and dirt! so, the first option seems like the quickest, but there was no way i was balancing along that pipe! so i decide to leap into the water again, as before, and up to the bridge. far better to get wet, than avoid this and end up with my half in two! right, just while i have a minute, i have to point out just how damn easy these kids make simply balancing! now, i know this seems an odd concept, but for people like me, balancing is a tricky one. i know, from being the pussy girl with my friends, that some people can find it easy to walk through nettle bushes, along tiny paths, down slopes, without even the slightest slip. i cannot however, but these kids CAN! and while our kids at home are being told not to go out and play and leap off the pipe outside totton, into the dirty river, or kick a football around in the road, all for fear of those dirty paedos (!) and traffic, these laos kids are being taught to laugh and jump and run along pipes and grip onto mud slides with their toes and swim at the mouth of the sewage outlet from the town! so no wonder they can run up a wet wipe without fear of slipping and ending up squashing their meat and two veg! anyway, while i'm wading through the murky depths, watching my step as i go, sean has taken the unstable rocks option and has slipped up, almost dropping our bag containing wallets and cameras and all that we possess into the water. thankfully, for selfish me, who couldn't stop worrying about the photos on my camera - the new love in my life - our stuff was ok. however, sean walked away with a huge gash in his leg - which to this day remains - and the possibility of a broken toe, as well as his confidence bruised. so me, bounding over to see that our stuff actually is still in working order, he's sat on a rock asking for water and savalon to aid the gash! last night (oct 11), sean asked me to emphasise the extent of his accident as before i edited this entry this morning (oct 12), the gash was more like just small cut and he didn't have any problems with his toe. so now you know the truth, and he will be happy! anyway, after a couple of minutes sat on that rock, watching ever more young whipper snappers walk up that pipe, we made our way up the rock and dirt tracks to find ourselves at the bridge, looking up at our final destination, the waterfall, and watching even more death-defying laos walk up to the very top of the waterfall to spend their day eating and drinking. it seemed like saturday was the day for the laos kids to binge! afterwards, after we'd braved the walk back, down the dirt, down the rock, through the water, along the concrete slabbed walkway, and through yet more water, we find ourselves safely back on dry land for lunch...
and i gotta go! it's 10pm and we're being kicked out of the internet cafe! - 11 october
writing on october 12... still about october 04
ok so last night, we were kicked out of the internet cafe because, i think, one of the owner's children, perhaps, was having a birthday. i guess this from the lights being turned out, and someone bringing out a birthday cake, with lit candles, and everyone singing?! can't remember if they were singing the standard happy birthday song or a laos version. don't ask me, i was too worried that my blog might get deleted again! anyway, so i go on and finish it today. by the way, if the entry above doesn't always make much sense, it is because before the cake was brought out, all the kids were throwing fire crackers into the street and making a hell of a racket! obviously i could never be a war correspondent if i need such peace and quiet to write!
ok, so after lunch at manychan restaurant, we ride through the chinese part of town - don't they always find a section in every town to make into their china town! - in the hope of finding this stupa our map has highlighted as an apparent tourist attraction. well, from riding around in pai, and getting lost many a time there, we already know that thais can't draw maps, but we aren't in thailand anymore, are we! neverless, maybe this is true for the laos folk too? or, in true female fashion, i just can't read maps? anyway, after riding through the chinese part of town several times over, sean decides to take the bull by the horns and take a different route, and finally after many many more kms than the map suggests, we find the bottom of the steps to the stupa. next, pulling up at the side of the road, and out of town, where falang are a common sight, we find ourselves to be the main attraction as hundreds of kids come crawling out of a stream beside us to say hello and point and laugh AGAIN. i think they'd been swimming from one end of the stream to the other, through a pipe under the road. anyway, obviously the excitement of this game was nothing compared to seeing two strange westerners in their part of town, and so they get out to take a look and can't take their eyes off us! we say hello and goodbye and make our way up to the stupa, where we are met by the ruins of an earlier stupa - i know the history for this one, but not well enough to tell you - and a newly built one beside it, along with a blackboard covered with all the names of the people who contributed money and bricks and their time to build this new stupa. after looking out at the amazing views below, of the local villages and rice fields and mountain backdrop, we return to the bike and ride back through the local villages on the edge of the main town, back to our guesthouse. our main observation, while riding through, is that there is a real community spirit here, which you just don't get back in selfish england, where everyone is out for themselves, getting an education, getting themselves a posh job in the city, shedding their old friends and family, working too hard, making too much money, and spending their free time down the gym perfecting themselves further or sat watching tv alone, in their posh apartment in canary wharf! anyway, we see men return from working the rice fields, the women all sat around making dinner, the kids all play in the streets, and the chickens and dogs still remain in the road, ready to get run over! there is a real buzz before tea. the other observation we make is that we are not particularly welcome by all. yes, the kids seemed thrilled to see strangers, but the older men and women shoot us looks almost like they're cursing us. i try not to look at them! all this makes it very hard for us to stop and taking photos to send home, but maybe that's ok. as sean kept saying to me, we wouldn't like it if people kept driving through our street, taking photos of our homes and kids. we'd think it was odd. and as much as we felt like we were looked at, these people can't get away from where they live, and so it's right to say that even they, not part of the tourist package that takes you up to the tribal villages in the jungle, could be seen as living in a 'human zoo'?! so i think, as much as i wanted shots of all these kids running around, playing, even if i did have to ask for their mother's permission, maybe some things - like privacy - are precious and not worth destroying by taking tons of novelty photos to show our friends. we know what and who we saw, and we have those memories forever, without having to take shots and stick them up on facebook for the whole world to see. not having hundreds of people looking into their world is what stops these people having to end up living in the crappy world that we all live in, and just like pai might have been, once upon a time, simply a small settlement, which has now been overloaded with guesthouses and bars for the farang to enjoy, these local villages remain as they were. and i don't think it's right that everyone should ride through them and take photos and ask for nearby conveniences like toilets, and bike sheds, and a 7/11 and a drive-thru macdonalds. these places should remain isolated and private and for the people who live in them alone. right, odd rant over! hope that made sense. anyway, after getting through to the main town, i go write some blog that, you may have read, gets deleted when the internet shuts down, and then we go for tea in the panda restaurant, where i mourn the loss of my blog! it was a sad evening! we end the evening back in manychan, where the waitress gets confused about our drinks order, while asking others for their drinks money, and some horrible falang ask if they can take control of the music system, which leaves me well unamused, when i realise we're being forced to listen to yet more bob marley - the soundtrack of every laid back thai, laos folk, and traveller type!!!
ok, must go again. apologies if this entry still doesn't make any sense, even after editing the earlier part. i just can't concentrate here. people are in and out and i think i've actually lost my powers! anyway, speak soon x.
