LAOS: Vientiane

LAOS:
Vientiane:
I arrived at the tiny airport and exchanged some dollars for Thai baht (about 40/$1) and Lao kip (about 10,000/$1), as all three are used (!). I took a seriously OLD cab, of which I sadly have no photo, to the aging Hotel Sasayana, where I secured a room with bath and excellent views from the 4th floor for $5. I left for a walk in what was left of the daylight past a few wats and along the Mekong to a beer garden (or so it was called…more of a shoreside restaurant with bottled beer), where I enjoyed the sun setting over the water. The whole town was so relaxed, even I slowed down! Drivers hang out in hammocks in the back of their tuk-tuks, and half-heartedly ask you, when you’re most of the way past them, if you want a ride (vs. frantic screaming and gesticulating from down the block until well after you’ve passed). Quite a difference from the Cambodian tourist spots!

Yes, Laos is chill. I could say “chillin’,” but adding the extra syllable would require countercultural effort. I hung out and flipped through my Laos guidebook, enjoyed a BeerLao and naem khao (fried rice and sausage broken up and eaten with fresh leaves and herbs—yum!) and eavesdropped on a German and Brit discussing the t-shirt industry. I later joined a conversation about cycling and the Tour de France between the German and a Frenchman at the next table. There are certainly plenty of expats in the area! I strolled home back along the river and went to bed early.

I was out by 7 on Saturday to rent a bike and quickly check my email, then rode by That Dam (Black Stupa) on the way to Talat Khua Din (market) for food and browsing and shopping. I had khao jii paa-te, a French baguette with Lao pate, veggies and dressings, and a sticky rice concoction. I wandered through the rows and rows of produce, meats, and animals that would soon be no more than meats. The vendors (mostly women) use plastic bags on sticks that billow when moved through the air to ward off flies. They amusedly watched the crazy western lady take photos of vegetables she’d never seen before.

I rode out away from the center of town to Patuxai, which resembles the Arc de Triomphe. I climbed up to the top and got some photos of the area, and bought one or two more t-shirts. On the way to the next site, Pha That Luang, the skies opened up for the daily dose of rainy-season wetness. I dismounted and got out my poncho before I was totally drenched, and continued on. As I arrived, the rain eased up and soon stopped altogether.

Pha That Luang is the big and bright gold national monument that is on the national seal, and, incidentally, on the cover of my guidebook. It is a symbol of the Buddhist religion and of Lao sovereignty, and is considered important and holy. It is visible from a distance, and is surrounded by high cloister walls. It’s the thing to see in Vientiane.

On the way back into town, I got some information on hiking trips, but decided to wait to hike at my next destination. I also stopped at the rental store where I was told there was info on Hash House Harrier runs. I got the scoop on that night’s run and said I’d be there. Hungry, I biked out to a restaurant that LP recommended as the best place to go, but it was closed! Boohoo! So I went for the plan B restaurant, stopping off at Wat Si Muang, home of the guardian spirit of Vientiane, on the way.

Lunch was tasty chicken laap (minced with lime juice, garlic, rice, onions, mint, chilli and served with lettuce and mint), a traditional and refreshing Lao dish. Refueled, I went to Wat Si Saket, with its gazillion niches for little Buddhas. Next and nearby was Haw Pha Kaew, an unexciting museum on pretty grounds.

In my cruising around town, I saw the same type of French-influenced architecture I’d noticed in Hanoi and Phnom Penh, but on a smaller and less frequent scale. Corrugated rooftops were the norm, many buildings were empty, roads were 50-50 paved-dirt. There was a lot of construction, which held true for the other two towns, which flies in the face of Lao’s slogan of “The Last Quiet Place on Earth.” I saw very few other tourists, but always got a friendly “hello” (“Saabadii!”) from locals. “Thank you” is “kawp jai,” and adding “very much” makes it “kawp jai lai lai,” which I ended up getting stuck in my head to the tune of “The Boxer.” I’ll not be forgetting that any time soon, which I’m sure will come in handy…

I returned my bike and scrambled for about a half hour retracing my steps for my missing guidebook, which it turned out was just strangely buried in my bag, and did a superfast change at the hotel into running gear. I ran to the meeting site, signed up and hopped into a pickup with a bunch of Laos and a 60-something Aussie expat. We followed a van full of other harriers (Aussie, US, British male expats, a few Lao women, a few Lao girls, and a few Lao young men) to a remote site 30 minutes out of town. This was Vientiane’s 499th hash—I missed the huge next one, alas!

Everyone began unloading the vehicles—lights, a small generator, stools, things I didn’t recognize, coolers, and I don’t know what. A guy from Ohio and a Lao woman had set the hash in the bush, using shredded paper piles as markers, and after some initial rituals, of bugling and such, off we ran. We went through rice paddies, mud, fields, mud, bushes and mud, past beasts of burden, small homes, and many, many perplexed people. Well, not so many, but the few people we did see were very, very perplexed. I mostly ran with the young guys, and even led for part of the course. I was filthy and scratched up from head to toe (the bushes whacked me more than I them), but it was great fun, and all the mud got washed off in the torrential downpour we correctly suspected was heading our way towards the end of the run, given the spectacular thunder and lightening (far apart) show we were getting. When it hit, it joined the whipping winds so that we could barely see where we were going, and finding the shredded paper piles became somewhat more complicated. The guy I was running with at the time collected two leafy branches, passed one to me, and demonstrated that I should use it as a rain-and-wind breaker for my face. Thusly armed, we made it to the finish, where we huddled under the one umbrella and whatever bits of plastic we could find while we drank beer and waited for the old and whooping expats to finish, which took another half an hour.

At several points during the hash, I found myself giggling at the improbability of running through the bush in Laos, of all places, with a bunch of people I don’t know. And it’s always fun when you find yourself doing fun things that most tourists don’t get to do, in places they don’t get to see, with people they don’t get to meet. Teehee!

One of the women who’d not gone on the run, got out a big plate of something involving little shrimps with the shells on and seaweedy stuff, which I tried and didn’t care for, but I had my beer, which is all the post-run nourishment ya need, right? Just be sure you keep drinking it! Right?

So, the last of the hashers came in, got their beers, set up the lights, and proceeded with the business of the post-hash circle. For those unfamiliar with H3, this involves lots of lewd songs, insults, and drinking. In this club, they erect a small bed of ice, on which those accused of whatever the ringleader so chooses, must sit bare-assed while hearing the full extent of the charge and then drinking to atone for the crime. It goes on for a long time. Which is why there’s lots of beer. Yes.

So, Lao folks, and especially women, being a tad more conservative than we westerners, the rules were somewhat modified for the ladies, as in a sip of beer and shorts on the ice. You can imagine whose rules I played by—no girly girl, I! Yes, I think I can say that the Lao guys were psyched for a woman to keep running and drinking pace with them (when the expats kept fining me drinks: “It’s okay—she LIKES to drink beer!”) and even bare her ass with them. Hey, I aim to impress.

For the hashers: The only snippet from the songs that I sortof remembered by the time I got to writing it down: “For he’s a hasher through and through or so he says…no good to anyone, and a pain in the asshole to me!” Hmmm. Not so complete. Well, anyway, the rest was crude and filthy, as were all the other songs, including “drink it down, down, down, down, etc.”

After we’d taken care of all the ceremonial hoopla, we drove back into town for a pre-arranged buffet dinner of all kinds of fabulous stuff that tasted great with beer. I got to hear the interesting stories of how people come to relocate to remote places in the world. Some of these guys had been there forever (they had fascinating stories of the major changes that had occurred since they’d been there) and were fluent in Lao, most had at least a great working knowledge. Two of the Lao guys wanted me to come with them to a nearby town the next day to watch some traditional boats practice for upcoming races, but I had already planned to leave the next day.

We all drove back to the initial meeting place after dinner (it must have been about 11 or 11:30) and I went back to my hotel, sweaty, in running clothes, and drunk, and took a much-needed shower. It wasn’t until I got out that I realized that the far half of the room was flooded, and that all of my stuff (papers, clothes, my bag), which I’d left on the bed, was on the floor. In the water. I think that was the only hotel I stayed in that actually had a cleaning staff come during my stay, and it was definitely the only room I stayed in that flooded (it was from the heavy rain, not faulty plumbing).

So I went down to the front desk, still drunk and now upset, and we got me into another, dry, room. I spent a good long time washing stuff, wringing it out, spreading things around the room in hopes of their drying sometime soon. By the time I got to bed it was quite late.

Upon waking Sunday morning, of course, I was plenty hungover. I readjusted the stuff that was still damp and arranged for a bus ticket to Vang Vieng that afternoon, and a late checkout so that my stuff could stay spread out. I ran around slowly for about an hour to sweat it out and check out some new territory, then showered and went to Wat Ong Teu Mahawihan, got a baguette/pate lunch, and browsed around Talat Sao, the big market of all kinds of goods (I got a camera bag and some little desserty things). Disappointingly, I’ve seen the exact same souvenirs in all the Asian countries I’ve been traveling in, which makes none of them seem unique to the place (except the shadow puppet!). It’s a challenge to find something really special, but at least it reduces the temptation to buy everything.

Back at the hotel, I was picked up by what I thought was another shuttle bus to a larger bus, but the shuttle WAS the bus. It was…snug. There were 24 of us crammed in, and there was no transfer. We made about three unnecessary long stops for food and smoking, and arrived much later than we expected. Unfortunately, there is no option to travel by night, as the roads aren’t lit and you would NOT want to be on those roads in the dark—you’d surely not be on them for long, and the alternative is usually a steep drop. The view was pretty, though--gorgeously green scenery, with mountaintops peeking through rolling fog and rice paddies glistening with moisture--and once we’d given ourselves over to the talents of our driver, we were able to enjoy the ride. We also realized that a larger bus would have been scary on the curvy, loopy, narrow roads that carved through the mountains. I wrote a lot, read and planned a lot, and chatted some, mostly with Brian and Alice, two Irish travelers sitting next to me, all the while taking in the views.