25 June,
Vientiane to Pakxan, 160 kilometers (a)Route 13 is
Laos main highway, running roughly parallel to the
Mekong and linking virtually all of the countrys
main towns. Built by the French (and originally called
"Route Coloniale 13"), it has been very
recently upgraded (i.e. paved) by a Swedish concern and
is considered by all to be by far and away the best road
in the land. And at nearly any given time you could
stretch out in the middle of this grand thoroughfare and
have a nice long nap, undisturbed save for the occasional
water buffalo mistaking you for a saltlick. The mere
thought that well be spending three more days on
this road as we make our way south to Savannakhet gives
me goosebumps of pure joy.
Our day and a half in the capital had passed pretty
much without incident. After arrival we hired a cab to
take us out to "Buddha Park," thirty kilometers
outside of town on the banks of the Mekong. A gift of
Vientianes Indian community, its huge concrete
sculptures owe more to Hindu mythology than to any
Buddhist teachings. Almost nightmarish in their
garishness and hyper-abundance, these sculptures
attracted our attention only long enough to snap off a
few shots before loading back into the decrepit Toyota
taxi. ("Thirty-eight years old! Older than me!"
enthused our slightly whacky driver as we gingerly placed
our feet on the vehicles decaying floorboards.)
Back in town we discovered the epicenter of the ex-pat
community during a walk with Caroline the Fountain
Square. Here we had iced coffee and Danish pastries in a
sanitized, air-conditioned environment, surrounded by NGO
workers of various stages of cynicism and crustiness.
They pull up in their sparkling new Land Cruisers, nearly
running the place down with them, have a cursory glance
around the place and distribute schmooze selectively. As
tourists, of course, we were completely invisible.
Walking along the river in the fading light of the
day, we came upon a raucous game of foot-volleyball (I
dont know the actual name of the sport) being
played on the premises of a particularly decrepit wat.
The set up is essentially volleyballesque, except with a
lower net and only three players to a team, each with a
clearly defined role. After a successful foot-service,
the wicker ball is carefully set up to the
"spiker", who hangs in the air upside-down as
he kicks violently into the other teams court. The
role of the third player (i.e. the non-serving,
non-spiking one) is to block this final kick, also while
upside-down. The quality of play here was high enough to
attract a sizable crowd (among which Caroline was the
only female not hawking snacks) and was nothing short of
mesmerizing. We rushed back to get Ly so she could watch
too.
After a delicious meal at an Indian restaurant, we
made our (temporary) farewells to the Phouthavy girls,
who had an early bus to catch the next morning. It would
feel odd negotiating Laos on our own after having our
hands held for so long
The next morning we successfully obtained our Chinese
visas, paying only $20 extra to have it processed on the
spot. I spent the afternoon at the pool of the Lao Plaza
hotel, listening to an employee practice his English. He
told me how tourists see much more of the country than
native Laotians ever do, mostly due to economic
restraints, and how he was going to Luang Prabang for the
first time in his life with an American
"friend" of his next month. "His name is
Simon Taylor; maybe you know him?" came the
inevitable question, which Ive learned to answer as
politely as possible.
I found Fred back at the Scandinavian bakery, and we
took another sunset walk, further up the Mekong this
time. We were surprised to discover a whole string of
very animated hostess-style bars built on bamboo
platforms. Dinner was at a popular Italian place, on the
Fountain Square of course, packed with members of the NGO
set loudly discussing available monies and possible
alliances.
Our bellies were still full of pasta the next morning,
allowing us to forgo breakfast and hit the road earlier
than ever. The light was still quite dim as we pedaled
out of the wakening town, past begging monks, slow-motion
cyclists on their way to work and countless roadside
baguette vendors. We eventually gave in to temptation and
tried this traditional Lao breakfast, a faithful replica
of a French baguette smeared with rather dubious luncheon
meat and hot spices. Not a bad BikeBrats breakfast, if
the truth be told, and one easily consumed while
straddling a bike.
The traffic grew increasingly sparse as we put
distance between ourselves and the town. Two friendly
agriculture students rode alongside me for nearly a
half-hour, practicing their English and providing me with
information on the road ahead. They turned off towards
their school at kilometer 24, plunging us into silence.
For the remainder of the long, long day, the deserted
road led through rolling scrub forest broken here and
there by irregularly shaped rice paddies. Most of the
peasants we saw were engaged in the various steps of
planting rice, and we were slightly shocked to see
children joining in. Shouldnt they be in school? We
looked for schools in every village we passed through and
saw none. "Village" is actually an
overstatement here, for what passes for a ban in
these parts is seldom more than a tiny concentration of
ramshackle bamboo huts, often spaced hundreds of meters
apart from one another. The evident poverty was a bit
alarming after the relative prosperity of Luang Prabang
and Vientiane, and we were impressed by how everything in
these peoples lives comes from the land. Aside from
the occasional mud-encrusted tee shirt, these people live
without any of the consumer goods that we take for
granted. The "seven-elevens" that are so
ubiquitous in Thailand are nearly absent in Laos; when we
did actually find a place selling bottled water it
usually sold little else, maybe some packets of washing
powder and a couple of odds and ends imported from across
the Mekong. The glaring exception to this general rule
are the highway rest stops (clearly designed for passing
buses) spaced at fifty or so kilometers apart, each
featuring a whole string of dirty little restaurants and
shops on both sides of the road. We stopped at the first
of these and ordered some truly nasty chicken fried rice
from the local queen, who added insult to injury by
overcharging us grossly. I knew we were in for it when I
asked him how much ("Thao Dai?" is one of the
few Lao phrases weve picked up) and four girls
hovered around a nearby table as the bill was prepared,
giggling wildly between consultations of our queeny
friend, now engaged in hacking up yet another rubbery
chicken. With a coy, expectant look, the bravest of the
girls deposited the ridiculously padded bill before me.
Rather than complain overtly (my Lao skills being too
deficient to do so), I paid the full sum, all the while
grumbling to Fred with just a touch of theatricality, and
wondering if wed have to ask prices in advance of
ordering from here on in.
At kilometer 100 we found something resembling an
actual village, and stopped to soak in the novelty of it
all. The café we had chosen had the usual band of
slackers hanging out in front of it, only these boys were
in their twenties or so and all were wearing luridly
colored polish on their long nails. They hung on each
other with more than the usual amount of
demonstrativeness, and we wondered if they considered
themselves queer. Its so difficult to tell in this
part of the world
I hypothesized that the nail
affectation was more a display of being somehow superior
to fieldwork than a gender statement, but the linguistic
barrier made an interview impossible. Even capturing a
photo was difficult; whenever Id pick up the camera
theyd retreat into the shadows or thrust their
hands into their pockets.
The terrain grew hillier here, and the villages looked
increasingly poorer. Whenever we passed through one of
these we caused enormous commotion, especially among the
younger set. "Sabai Diiii" they screamed
over and over. Fred reflected that he preferred being
greeted in the local lingo than with "Hello
Mister" and I agreed whole-heartedly.
Pakxan appeared with little fanfare. The huge dot
representing it on the map had made us expect an actual
town, but its little more than a dusty little
crossroads. Utterly exhausted, we limply examined our two
accommodation choices (neither very savory) and sought
out something to nibble on. Apparently food is not
something normally consumed in Pakxan at three in the
afternoon; the only thing we could find was a little
straw-roofed hovel selling pho, a noodley soup
Ive always associated with Vietnam (and
mispronounced, for that matter, before Ly set me straight
the other day). While hot food hardly sounded appealing
to us in our sweat-drenched state, the soup was
delicious, and the woman serving us was friendly,
gracious, and fair in her pricing.
We pedaled back to the outskirts of town, where the
first guesthouse we had looked at had a better feeling
than the filth-encrusted "hotel" near the
alleged towns alleged center. The family running
the place was incredibly friendly, and we had difficulty
averting our gaze from the amazingly buff son shoveling
dirt out in front, a sheen of sweat covering his compact
brown body. After a necessary splash in the shared mandi
(or whatever they call the in-house mosquito breeding
centers here), we collapsed onto our hard bed,
luxuriating in the oscillations of the electric fan. Just
as I was about to nod off, a knock was applied to our
door. Fred got up and answered it and I thought I heard a
womans voice speaking English. Was I hallucinating?
What could another falang possibly be doing in
Pakxan?
My curiosity got the best of me and I dragged myself
out of bed to look out the door and check out Sarah, a
thirtyish Scottish girl burdened by an enormous backpack.
After a cursory chat ("7000 kip for a room here
(thats two yankee dollars to you and me); I
cant believe how expensive it is down here in the
South. You guys must be saving lots of money using the
bikes, though
") we made plans to meet her
later for dinner.
Our hostess indicated that food could be had next
door, in a cavernous highway-side restaurant/convenience
store/multi-family home. Sarah proved to be agreeable
company. We learned that shed been living in Hong
Kong for the last few years and had been travelling on
her own for a few months already, and was now on her way
to Vietnam. We were especially interested in the fact
that she knew how to play backgammon. When I retreated to
our room to get our board, I found that our hotel had
been transformed into a bordello during our absence.
Several heavily made-up girls hung around outside, very
curious as to my relationship with Sarah.
"Madame?" they asked inquisitively, to which I
responded in the affirmative. Later that night on my way
to the toilet I noticed that the action outside had
heated up even more. Several army jeeps crowded the
mudpatch out front and more giggly girls had
materialized. Clad only in my underwear, I slunk
stealthily through the hallway, unnoticed by the
carousing brass and their consorts.