A story split in too many parts: Part Christmas: Laos

So it's been forever since i've updated this, and i've had enough people giving out to me about it that i figure it's time to get stuck back in. I'm in australia now, just finished work at an avacado packing shed in Queensland, heading off in about two days for a 6000K drive to ayers rock, then on to darwin. Is good.

So, we were in Luang Prabang, Laos, just before christmas, and i'd just got a strange phone call off mick...

Me: "Morning Mick, how're you?"
Mick: "Not too bad brian. Are you at your guesthouse?"
Me: "Yeah, just having breakfast. What's up".
Mick: "Hahaha, not too much. Um, we have to leave town. Today. Like right now".

Mick and joe come over to meet kev, jax, eliane and myself and tell us what happened the night before. On leaving the bowling alley (latest place open in luang prabang), they convinced a tuc tuc driver to bring them home for about $0.20 each. The driver picked up three or four more people who he dropped off together around half way to the guesthouse. He then told the lads he was upping the price to $0.40 each. Mick being a complete miser (and a little inebriated) told him where to go and jumped out of the tuc tuc, followed by a bemused/confused joe. The driver then jumped out, shouted at them a bit, picked up a rock, and went to throw it at them. Thinking better of smashing up some tourists, he said he was going to call the police and the other tuc tuc drivers instead. The police would be trouble enough, but luang prabang has a "tuc tuc mafia" in place that are scarier than any machine gun clad copper. The guy drives off, attempts to run over the people he's already dropped, misses, turns around, tries again, and disappears into the night. Laos has a 12am curfew and this is about 2am so the lads know they're in a tight spot. The decision is reached to make it back to the guesthouse via backstreets, which results in jumping fences, hiding from the cops under cars, falling in the mekong more than once, and eventually getting back to the guesthouse covered in mud where the owner is asleep in the foyer, necessitating knocking and yelling until he gets up to let them in.

So the lads are scared shitless (naturally enough) which means we have to leave town ASAP. We spend the day going through backalleys looking for a private bus company to take us to Vang Viang (public buses in laos are, we heard, shockingly bad) and booking accomodation for that night. Eventually, when everything's come out too expensive, we hop into a tuc tuc and head for the bus station. On the way, we spot the tuc tuc driver that scared the lads the night before, and simultaneously realise the bus driver is in no way headed towards the bus station. Someone suggests we're being taken off to a back alley for yer man to beat the shite out of us, and just as the fear grips us, the tuc tuc pulls over and the guy says his friend will take us to vang viang in his van for about $3 each (half the price of the decrepit public bus). Turns out his mate is the coach of the local table tennis team, and for some reason they have a spang new air conditioned bus. We pay our money and the guy seems to be waiting for more people to hang up so mick, ever the negotiator, plays some hardball (which involves us taking our bags back out of his bus) which results in our leaving immediately, just the six of us - luxury all the way!

It's dark when we leave and the driver is a maniac so it's a hairy drive, but once we get up into the mountains i immediately wish we'd gone during the day instead - we go insanely high up into the hills and the views, even by moonlight, are spectacular. It's definitely a drive i'll make by bike the next time i'm in laos. After about two hours the driver pulls over at a random roadside crapshack where we stand around looking at the "food" on offer. Mick and Joe, ever the adventurous/hungry types, buy something that's allegedly chicken, take about two bites, and go green. Eventually we pull away and about two hours later arrive to Vang Viang.

Having heard so much about the place, we're expecting a little more than we get - a street of about two flashing neon signs and even less people. We check into our hotel and head out to get food. We pick the only place that appears to be open, Falconi Pizza, and settle around a table. The owner buzzes down the back and brings us a food menu each and a "happy menu" between us. The happy menu is basically a drug menu - weed, magic mushrooms and opium in various guises such as "Mushroom Milkshake", "Happy pizza" or "a joint of opium"! Insano! I later find out the reason the owner is able to get away with it is he sits at the front door all the time and when the cops show up he refuses to let them in as it's private property. Unsurprisingly, the guy looked like a nervous wreck. After eating we head towards the hotel and run into no less than Matty the san franciscan from pai. I spend about an hour chatting it up with him, then head back to me and eliane's room where we spend about an hour playing cards, which in our short time sharing a room has become a welcome tradition.

The next morning, matty books us into his hostel and we spend the day meeing the gang we'd convinced to come to vang viang for christmas/new years - in full - myself, Mick from oz, Eliane from Canada, Matty and Zan from San Francisco, and Joe, Mike, Kev, Jax, Najma, Jim and joanne from the UK. The next week isn't really worth going into in depth, as it was more or less the same thing every day with a few minor alterations. Vang Viang is best known to backpackers as the town where you rent out a tractor tire's inner tube, get dropped about 5-10 kms up the river, and spend the day floating down, stopping off at swings and makeshift bars along the way. Seeing as i can't swim, i was reluctant enough, but when all the lads went tubing the second day we were there and ended up very sick as a result, i crossed it off my to do list. Instead, we rent bikes and spend most days off on bike rides in different directions - hills to the north, plains to the south, waterfalls and gigantic rock/mountain things every which way - there's always somewhere to while away the day. Eliane got sickest out of everyone and discovered a bar/restaraunt where they showed Family Guy DVDs all day, so we usually meet there for breakfast, watch a few episodes, then go on a bike ride or chill in hammocks by the river, meet up for dinner, usually head for falconi where the lads indulged a bit, then across the river to the bar/nightclub to have a few drinks and meet people. Good fun all in all, but if it wasn't christmas i'd have left after a day or two - the place was just a bit mind numbing. Having the tubing angle meant once the sun got a bit low, the town was teeming with drunken idiots coming home from tubing and heading out on the town, and the main strip was a bit of a tourist trap nightmare. Fair enough we watched a good share of Family Guy, but EVERY restaraunt in town was known by what TV show they had on (Simpsons, Friends, Seinfeld, Everyone Loves Malcolm etc) and so many people with just sit all day watching telly, then head out at night, which is fair enough but not really my scene. Sealing the deal, the only bar open past 11pm is covered in signs saying "live DJ from ireland", DJ roughly translating to "50 year old northern irish prick who sticks on mix cds on random (sample playlist, Chemical Brothers followed by Dolly Parton followed by Prodidgy followed by I'm having the time of my life) then goes around abusing people over the PA for things better handled with a quiet word". The bar itself is pretty cool, never a que for drinks, covered in huts with multiple hammocks, all set around a giant campfire, but being christmas it's full of drunken arseholes, with the music/DJ pushing it over the bearable edge.


Christmas day was much like any other, went up into the hills for a bike ride, zan's tire punctured in the middle of nowhere but luckily some random local fixed it for free using a lighter and a small bucket of water. We also saw some bandits rocking around with machine guns on their backs - no threat to us though! Myself, eliane, matt and zan went out for a christmas dinner of (kinda) roast (possibly) beef with some sort of potato things before meeting up with the rest of the gang for a quality night out.

About two days after christmas, joe, mike and i decide to take a proper bike ride. We pack up with enough water and sunscreen to cover the five hour ride down to Vientiane, Laos' capital city. As we're leaving, i meet Zan at the foot of the stairs. It's the day the cast on her leg is due to come off (she'd broken it a week before i met her, having attempted to jump off a waterfall into Matty's arms, only to hit the ground due to Mattys reflexes being less lightning fast and more Lada fast). Zan not being a fan of hospitals, she was cutting off the cast herself with a swiss army knife. I took some photos as a crowd of Laoations gathered to see the crazy lady cut off her cast. I later put the photos up on my flickr page, and after two days they'd had about 1500 views each. It later turned out some germans had happened across the photos and posted them on a cast fetish website. Germans... Weird.

Anyways, the drive to vientiane was a highlight of asia for me, winding through mountains, along rivers, through tiny towns, met with smiles and waves all the way. We stop a few times to get food or just to admire views, and by nightfall pull into Vientiane. We get a bite to eat before scouring the town for somewhere to stay. Compared to the $4 a night we were each paying for aircon'd double rooms in Vang Viang, Vientiane was a splurge. We eventually settle for a fairly central hotel for about $25 for a room with five beds.

Having heard the riverside is where all the locals eat, we head off in search of some Laoation goodies. The riverside is covered in food stalls selling everything from fresh fish to "pick 'em, kill 'em, eat 'em" chickens to bugs and rats, but also crafts stalls, miniature galleries... Just about anything you could need of an evening. We eventually pick a random stall, sit by the river with some beers and order food. What we get is... An experience. I won't get into it but i'm pretty sure the meat wasn't even a relative either chickens or pigs and i think joe's fish wasn't dead (not that it'd bother him). We head off in search of bars and get our first taste of Vientiane's bar culture. While any asian cities' bars usually feature an undercurrent of prostitution, Vientiane throws it right in your face. It was hard to find a bar where 85% of the women weren't on the game, and we eventually give up trying, settling into a corner of a rooftop bar where the lads watch football while i tell stupid jokes and generally insult them (as is the custom). The bar kicks out around ten so we go in search of somewhere to get a late drink. We ask a few tuc tuc drivers, and at about $0.50 a ride (for the three of us) we can afford to try a few options, but everywhere's either insanely expensive (selling no beers, only bottles of imported american whiskey (usually jim beam) for above american prices) or jammed full of dodgy looking women. Eventually we hear there's a hotel where the bar stays open until 3am, so we make the trek and run into some weird young american kid who's dad put him in the penthouse of the hotel and given him an allowance of $1000 a day. We head up to the nightclub and surprise surprise, it's 99% hookers, just joe, mike, me, and a small gang of american kids playing pool, versus around 200 asian women doing their best to look sexier than the lady next to them. We get a few beers and try having a bit of a dance, but any movement other than bringing a bottle to your mouth lands you with eight to ten women surrounding you, whispering prices in your ear. Eventually we give up and call it a night.

The next morning we head out to get a bite to eat across town. I forget my helmet and, of course, get nabbed by the cops for it. I'm driving along and all of a sudden there's a laoation police man standing in the middle of the road in front of me. I pull over and he asks for my registration. I tell him the bike is rented and he asks me to step over to the traffic cop booth on the side of the road, where about eight guys in police uniforms are mooching around. I give a quick "sabidee" as i walk up (hello in laoation) which sets them all off laughing sarcastically - i'm obviously in a lot of trouble. The main cop asks to see my licence, which i produce, before he points out i don't actually have a bike licence, only a car licence (why i have no idea). "So, you have no helmet, no registration, no evidence of insurance and no licence. This will cost you big fine. Maybe $200. I give you address of police station where you go pay fine". Innocently, i ask if there's any way i could pay the fine at his booth instead. He looks nervous/excited and says "five dollar", which i produce from my pocket and he conceals beneath his book. "Have good day!!". He looks happy as larry with his five dollars, and well he should - a laoation policeman's monthly salary is $25 so i gave him the bulk of a weeks pay.

After breakfast, we head off on a drive to a local sculpture park, which turns out to be directly across the river from Nong Khai where i'd spent a week relaxing a few weeks before - in fact i can actually see my guesthouse across the river! We get to the sculpture park which turns out to be a stripped down version of the famous park in Nong Khai - apparently the sculptor started his park in laos, got kicked out as it was all too weird, and finished off the whole operation across the river in thailand. There's a big gang of school kids at the park and mike, hearing them saying "falang" in hushed tones (it's the asian derogatory slang for white people), hisses "falang falang" at them mock menacingly, and before we know it, him and joe are chasing them around the park shouting "falang falang", a game that keeps everyone amused for a good hour. We walk around for another half an hour taking photos of the sculputres, at all times surrounded by about 50 giggling schoolkids before getting back on the bikes and heading back to Vientiane. That night we go out for dinner and a few drinks with some vang viang people we randomly ran into before heading back to the hotel.

In the morning we set off early for vang viang. I assume the early hour will mean we can take it a bit slower and see more scenery, whereas joe thinks "early to rise, early to vang viang" and sets off at bloody warp speed. After about two hours we stop off at a roadside bar for a breather. The bar itself is literally a shack with music pumping out of it and about 15-20 heavily inebriated but friendly laoations inside. We settle at a table, get a beer, and instantly feel we're about to be kidnapped or worse. One of the dodgiest looking people i've ever seen comes over and introduces himself creepily before introducing us to half the bar, who are all looking at us like we're edible. Our drinks quickly downed, we're back on the road, but after about 20 minutes of winding up hills, i tell the lads that i'm going to go at my own pace - driving at 150kph through beautiful scenery isn't my idea of a great bike ride, so if they want to get boy racer, they can do it without me. I wind my way through the hills for about an hour before i meet them again - at which point they'd been waiting for about 45 mins (allegedly). We get home in the evening and head out for a few beers, as usual.

At some point in the night, we get chatting to two australian girls, one of whom is being stalked by a very creepy looking laoation guy. Apparently they've been trying to lose him all day but to no avail. He's keen on the girl, so she asks me to put my arm around her, assuming he'll get the hint and bugger off. Unfortunately, it's has pretty much the opposite effect, and he decides i'm to be dealt with physically. He starts shouting at me, and having heard loads of stories of the "argue with one laoation and 50 show up out of nowhere" variety i keep repeating "i have no problem with you friend". For some reason, this makes him angrier and we find out he picks fights with westerners every few days and, being a wrestling champ, usually beats the shite out of them. His threats escilate to include one of the girls with us, naj, who he tells he's beaten up many women and has no problem punching her if she doesn't get out of his way. Naj, being tough as nails, bless her, gets in his face and we eventually make our way out of the bar as it's closing. Weirdo follows us so we ask the dj/owner guy if we can hang back a little until the guy leaves, but, being a prick, he refuses. We hang back as much as possible anyways, but the weirdo is about 75 meters ahead of us doing stretches. There's a bridge between the bar and the town that's made of sticks and ropes and sways when you cross it, and it took us a good while to get yer man across, but when we get to the other side of the river, we split into a few groups and lose him. The next night, i'm at the bar again with Kev and Jax and the guy walks up to me and says "i sorry i so angry last night". I clink bottles with him and tell him it's no problem, fearing a reprise (the guy still looking like he'd pull the heart out of my chest, temple of doom style), and, of course he continues with "normally i not get jealous woman, but why you make jealous woman, WHY YOU MAKE JEALOUS WOMAN?" I keep saying "is no problem" and he keeps shouting and shaking his fist in my face until after a minute he loses steam and heads away. He spends the rest of my time there trying to stare me down, and one night even does a few menacing drive by's at about 2am when we're hanging outside our hostel, but nothing more comes of it.

For new years, Jim and Joanne convince one of the bars that's staying open late (and has a bonfire and tonnes of sweet cabins with hammocks in them) to let us play our own music as long as we do some fliers. Result!! We get down there early and people mill in from time to time from the previously mentioned late bar next door, the bar gives us free food and a few shots a piece, at some stage we move from the campfire to one of the huts (along with some randoms we pick up) and around midnight we realise it's new years because everyone at the bar next door's cheering. Seeing as i hate new years because everywhere's packed and there's always some sort of drama, this was probably the best new years i've ever had, sitting in a hammock in the asian heat with a really great gang of people, no worries in the world, happy as larry.



So i'll leave it there, that's enough for one sitting. I'll get another part done in about a week. Until then...