PROLOGUE – Bridge over troubled waters
Saturday 19th September 2009 - 7.00am
Should I wake them or let them keep sleeping? Tough choice given the last 10 hours on the bus from hell.
“Girls, girls? We have to make a decision. Either we leave now or we will miss our flight.”
“Huh, what?” Andrea replied as she removed herself from sleep.
“Well I just got back from a walk to the bridge and it’s collapsed. 2 metres off the end has fallen due to a landslide. They are saying we can walk across and get a taxi to Vientiane or wait here with the bus?”
“No Today, No today!” muttered a Vietnamese man in broken English as he unloaded his luggage from the bus.
Our decision was made and off we trudged past cars, trucks and buses which lined the road for as far as we could see. We made it to the bridge and cautiously stepped across the wooden planks which had been laid down.
“Taxi lady, Taxi man?” came the call.
“Yes, we need to be at Vientiane airport ASAP, our flight leaves at 10am! Quick, quick!”
“Yes, yes plenty of time.” He said.
I got the feeling we still had no hope of making it.
On the journey we saw an overturned truck, our driver had to bribe a policeman to pass a roadblock, and we each payed an extortionate amount of money for what turned out to be a relatively short journey.
We arrived to the airport and checked in just in time and as I sat on the plane, about to take off, I wondered to myself how the hell a week in sleepy Laos could be so eventful!
PART ONE – Tubes
8 days earlier Olivia, Andrea and I had made a mad dash from school, at 3pm in the pouring rain, to make our 4.20pm flight to Kuala Lumpur and then onto Vientiane.
The clean, tree lined streets were deserted at 7am on a Saturday morning a we set out to find a guesthouse, passing rustic French colonial architecture all along the way.
After settling into our guesthouse we set out to explore the city.
Having no real landmarks or sites of interest this was a fairly fruitless adventure. We did however encounter the most orderly market you are likely to find anywhere in Asia, as well as eating some fantastic food. Vientiane is supposedly the best value for money culinary city in the world, and after a day of eating I can’t say I disagree.
Our day ended in the local bowling alley, as this was the only vaguely entertaining thing left to do in this oh so dull city.
The next day we set off on a bus to Vang Vieng, some 3 and a bit hours away and home to the legendary TUBING, a SE Asian backpacker rite of passage.
Sleeping most of the way I didn’t get to see much from the window of our rickety old bus. Upon arrival into this backpacker haven I expected to be mugged with offers of accommodation from all angles. But as I stepped from the bus not a single hawker trying to enlighten us with reasons as to why their guesthouse was better than the next. As we walked along the main road of this 2 street town I was shocked at how such a backpacker laden town, with such a reputation could still be so laidback and not overrun with opportunistic money grabbers. Most bars were fairly empty around lunch but all had TV’s with either Friends or Family Guy blazing from them. We sat in one of these bars to have some lunch and about 7 or 8 episodes of Friends and an afternoon nap, the first of the days tubing participants began to return around 6pm. They staggered up a dirt road covered in mud, bruised and battered but surprisingly sober. As time wore one, so did the drunkenness of the people. At around 8pm in the pitch black of night one particular red headed, pale skinned individual came staggering up the road, taking 2 steps forward and 4 steps back. An interesting preview to what lie ahead.
“If you bring it back before 6pm you get your deposit back,” explained the tube hire guy as he loaded us into a tuk tuk and sent us upriver.
Conversations of the previous days tubing escapades filled our ride, from new friends who were at it for a 2nd or 3rd day in a row.
“Welcome dudes, free shots on your way in!” shouted Trent, a moustached Canadian whose claim to fame was that it was his 267th consecutive day tubing.
As we settled down on the deck of the bar overlooking the river I heard “WHOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!” and as my neck shot upward I saw a local guy launch himself from the highest branch of a tree on a trapeze swing. As he reached the apex of his swing, he back flipped off and opened and umbrella, aiming to gently float back to the inviting water of the river below. The crowd went wild as my eyes begun to focus along the river, lined with makeshift platform bars with rope swings, flying foxes, greasy poles or giant slides. This is going the awesome!
3 rope swings, 1 flying fox and 2 buckets of Lao Lao whisky, M150 (a red bull like drink banned in most western countrys) and Pepsi later and we had reached the Mud Bar. Its main feature was a mud volleyball court which instantly attracted the new crowd which arrived at the bar around the same time as us. The battle to stay on your feet was almost as much as fun as the desire to rugby tackle people you didn’t know into the muddy quagmire. After losing 2 balls into the river, the focus of the fun turned to throwing handfuls of mud at each other. It was in this moment that diaster struck. Olly had worn a mudpie in the face and was struggling to open her left eye. Initial attempts to flush her eye with bottled water were unsuccessful. Then came the hose, and finally a toothpick wrapped in cotton wool. Each attempt made by a different drunk individual. Surely not wise.
After about half an hour still no luck and Olly’s eye had swollen up and was closed tight. She urged us that she would be fine and that we should continue before it got dark. We floated further down the river stopping at the Big Slide Bar.
This would prove to be an impassable barrier, not only today but the next day as well, for one Miss Olivia Newnham. It was here that under the orders of a Dutch medicine student, who was to become known as the Love-Doctor, that she be taken back to town to get it looked at. In stepped Mama Lao, a overweight local woman dressed in a mud stained, Mekong brown nightdress. She bundled Olly on to the back of her moto and drove her back to town.
Andrea, the Love Doctor and I hit the river under the cover of darkness and headed down river, with no idea how much further we had to travel. After half an hour or so of floating in the pitch black of night we were stopped by local children who dragged us from the river and pointed us in the direction of town. Still at 10 minute walk through reeds and rivulets. If not for these kids, then we could still be floating today making our way towards the Mekong Delta.
We found Olly sat having dinner watching Friends her eye looking like she had gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. She said she had some eye drops and would be fine, and that she was keen to go upriver again the next day and try again.
The second attempt started in much the same was as the previous day, however somewhere between bar 2 and 3 i got separated from the girls for around an hour, and they were in possession of the money. This was a problem as I had sobered up by the time they arrived, another bucket under their belts. After watching them dance drunkenly for a while we headed for the Big Slide Bar. I was here that Olly again came unstuck.
“We are heading to the toilet” said Andrea as they stumbled off arm in arm to the rickety shack housing the toilet up on the hill.
After around half an hour, they still hadn’t returned and with darkness quickly approaching I headed up to see if they were alright. I found Andrea sitting in the mud, Olly draper across her looking rather worse for wear. Sparing too many details I ended up with Olly’s stomach bile all over my foot, in what she claims is only the second time she has ever thrown up due to alcohol.
She was determined to get back on the river and finish the job. I suggested getting a tuk tuk back to town, but she was determined not to let the river conquer her for another day.
I volunteered to share my tube with her and upon hitting the cold mountain water she decided that the tuk tuk was the wise choice.
After a dodgy dinner and 2 days of consuming Lao Lao whisky I too ended up bowing to the porcelain gods. A 3rd day of tubing was simply not an option and we decided to head to onwards to Luang Prabang.
PART TWO – Sleeping with a Ginger
180 degree left turn, 180 degree right turn, 180 degree left turn, 180 degree right turn. This is the pattern that our minivan followed up and down mountains for almost 7 hours. The van was packed to the hilt and like so many other vehicles in this part of the world, built for a smaller stature of human being. It was a mish-mash of identities, a typical Aussie accountant backpacker from Melbourne, who took advantage of the close proximity to make a move on both Andrea and Olly with the old “I’m pretending to yawn” arm around trick; 2 young Brits who swigged from a bottle of whisky the whole time; an old seedy looking guy who didn’t need to work anymore because he’d made his fortune; and Glenn, another ginger who would soon prove to become the bane of my existence, and his 2 travelling partners. The only 2 people on the van who were of sound mind were Adam and Sarah, a cool couple from the UK who were dive instructors in Borneo.
The scenery on the drive was amazing. Mountainous, lush and every different shade of green you could imagine. We passed roadside villages, filled with sparrows and rabbits for sale and smiling faces staring curiously through the glass at a wheeled tin can of white people.
When we arrived to Luang Prabang at around 8pm, we headed to find a guesthouse. For some reason Glenn, the ginger, had ditched his two female travelling partners and had tagged along with us. After checking one guesthouse which only had dorm rooms at extortionate prices, we settled on a more local guesthouse which had 3 rooms. Andrea and Olly paired off, Adam and Sarah in another room and Glenn decided he was to be sharing a room with me. Bit weird, but money saving I thought. As we walked up the stair and opened the door to our rooms it became quickly apparent that there weren’t two single beds in each room, but just one double. I was to be sharing a bed with a male that I had only met hours earlier, and he was a ginger.
With no other options I was resigned to a fate that I was not overly comfortable with.
We ventured out to the night market and had some food and few beers before heading back to the guesthouse around midnight. I cautiously entered the room, hoping to find Glenn has packed his things and left. No such luck. The only saving grace was that he had not yet arrived home. I slept fully clothed in the stifling humidity to prevent attack in my sleep from a ginger predator. Glenn arrived back at around 1.30am and I pretended to be asleep, laying as close as possible to the edge of the bed.
No attack during the night, but also no sleep as he snored his heart out and even managed to kick me a number of times. I left the room at around 6.30am and sat on the balcony and watched the sun rise. I was joined by Adam at around 7.30 and we watched 10 men try to uproot a tree. Thrilling stuff!
The next night I opted to pay double the price to upgrade to a deluxe room with ensuite to guarantee I had some sleep and didn’t have to live in fear of the daywalker.
Luang Prabang is an amazingly beautiful town set on the banks of the Mekong in the foothills of the mountains. The whole area is UNESCO World Heritage listed and tourism is just beginning to take off. We spent the next 2 days exploring waterfalls, caves, whisky villages, bear sanctuaries and riding a very temperamental elephant.
Being a communist country, Laos has a government imposed 12 midnight curfew. All businesses must be shut and locals should be in their homes.
After the bar which we were drinking at shut, we were told in whispers of the local bowling alley, which seemed to disregard to curfew and was the only place in town where you could get a drink. Being the last night of our trip we decided to kick on. We somehow squeezed 18 people from the bar into a tuk tuk. When I say 18 in, I really mean 15 inside and Adam, Myself and another guy on the roof of the converted flatbed truck, trying desperately to hang on, whilst dodging oncoming tree branches which were appearing rapidly out of the darkness in front of us.
“DISCOTEQUE, DISCOTEQUE” screamed the drunk princess in the front of the tuk tuk, and before we knew it we were at a seedy discoteque on the outskirts of town, filled with ladyboys.
“This wasn’t where we wanted to go?” murmured everyone apart from little miss oh so cool.
After paying the driver an inflated rate for the first trip, he agreed to take us back to the bowling alley. Our second game of 10 pin in the space of week; entertainment provided by the local ladies of the night, who whilst wearing next to nothing, giggled their way through their games.
Being short-changed twice by a cheeky tuk tuk driver on the way home topped off a brilliant night and we went to bed with Sarah’s voice ringing in our ears.
“I cant believe the fucker did it twice! Bastard!”
PART 3 – Machine Guns at Midnight
We left Luang Prabang on a night bus aiming to arrive in Vientiane with enough time for breakfast at the Scandinavian bakery before making our way to the airport.
Olly thought she had left her phone at the guesthouse so rushed back, only to find it was in her bag the entire time, in the process somehow misplacing her iPod. Not a great start. The VIP bus was not living up to its billing when the aisle was filled with plastic stools and locals were ushered on to sit on them.
The seats were so close together that I was unable to get my legs down and under the seat in front. They were also made of a ridiculously hard and uncomfortable plastic, covered only with a thin layer of very itchy fabric.
Our journey was to be back down the same ridiculously windy road from whence we had come in the darkness of a wet season Laos night. Before leaving a adolescent man with a huge bulge under his jacket had jumped on the bus and was standing at the very front, peering out the windscreen, scanning the roadside jungle.
Under his denim jacket he had an AK47 machine gun, ready to protect us from any would be highway bandits. Brilliant. I am guaranteed to sleep now!
At one point on the arduous journey amid the numerous sighs coming from all around the bus stopped and or protector stepped off playing his hands above his head. Surely not a good sign. Obviously we were given permission to pass, as he jumped back on and we were on our way again.
It is at this point that i should mention the continuous Laotian pop music which was blaring from the speakers all night, mainly to keep the driver awake, but i assume also to drive us westerners insane.
At around 3am we came to a stop, for what i thought might be a chance for the driver to stretch his legs.
As an hour passed and then another the rumours started to circulate the bus.
"The engine has overheated, we are waiting on parts from Vientaine."
"The city has a curfew, we wont be allowed in till 7am."
"There is a problem with the bridge."
Who knew what to believe?
As the hours passed and our flight time crept up the chances of us making it back to Cambodia for school on Monday were diminishing. The sun came up and i went for walk and discovered that infact the bridge had collapsed and around 2 metres was missing from the end. Shit!
I quickly jogged back to the bus where the girls were asleep.
Should I wake them or let them keep sleeping? Tough choice given the last 10 hours on the bus from hell.
“Girls, girls? We have to make a decision. Either we leave now or we will miss our flight.”
EPILOGUE
Laos is a ruggedly beautiful and charmingly innocent place, with friendly people and a relaxed way of life. It is about as untouched by western consumerism as you will get in this part of the world these days and this is what makes it such a special place. It's not for everybody, as we found out, but if you crave waterfalls as tall as buildings, rivers that twist and bend their way through mountains which jut up from the rice fields, caves filled with Buddha statues or Elephant rides through dense jungles then this is the place for you. If you want to swing from high wires, drink copious amounts of alcohol or laze around all day watching Friends with a cocktail in hand then your needs are also catered for.
Its a sleepy country which is just starting to realise its potential as a major SE Asian tourist destination. Get there quickly before everyone else does. And be prepared for a few surprises along the way. Because in Laos nothing is ever a simple as it seems.
