Nouvelle Vague - Waves

Just catching a wave, before going sailing with the light of my eyes; Ninon... over the weekend on the good clipper "Stad Amsterdam".....

Enjoy.... Enjoy... Enjoy...

Sabadiiiiiii..... Cop chai lalay!!! Revised version!

Which means "Hellooooo" and "Thank you very much" in Lao..... Something you hear absolutly continuously! Especially the kids love to call it out...

Here's my very old draft, I've been soaking it up in beach hut on Koh Tao, Thailand for the last 10 days.............. And paradise do NOT have Internet, well they do, but it's outrageously expensive!

                                                       
Ahr, now... Luang Prabang... The town made for tourists and ...... Monks....???
But it's a difficult place to get away from.... And a difficult place to describe as well.. Everyday, I 'd be saying, to everyone who'd listen : "Tomorrow I'm leaving!" .... But it still took me about 4 days t get my act together and buy a ticket for a minivan upriver to Nong Khiaw. The master plan being, that I would go the long way ( by the ' Plain of Jars"' Phonosavan) around back to Vientianne and take the night train to Bangkok... It was not to be....

                                                 

I have a really hard time of telling you, what I think of this place called Luang Prabang.... As some must have noticed.....!

It's a lot of temples; 39 or so and therefor a whole lot of monks and a "Royal Palace" magnificent and well preserved... ( It was most graciously "given" to the communist government, who are still very much in power! - by the Royal family, who then "decided" to move into one of the more remote and forgotten caves of the multiple caves, scattered all over Laos... There they most graciously starved to death!)

What else? A lot of french styled cafe shops in old well preserved colonial houses and villas, where a breakfast will cost you 5 USD - this in a country, where an average wage is 600 usd pr year! And that's for two coffees and a baguette with danish butter! So the only place to eat fresh and well is at the street food stalls! They are at the end of the "night market" This Market will bleed you bank account dry, if you're not careful! This market is famous - At least among travellers- you can buy silk scarfs, silk bed covers, duvet covers and so, so, so much more... Every evening people from the countryside drive in , in packed like sardines in flatbed trucks with all their beautiful handiwork.... And everything is for sale, what the Laotians think "might" be of interest for the "Falang" - "Antique " Buddha statues, old shrapnel from the US/Vietnam war,  "Original" army issue Zippo lighters..... etc.. Even french 27 gr silver coins engraved with "The Republique Francaise" year; 1500 (????) ( I spotted one, which said yr;1467...!! ) And it does NOT weigh 27gr either! I suppose maybe a blind American would fall for that scam? - These are the same coins, the hill tribe of Akha women have sewn into their headgear... But those are original!!

I stayed at this really nice Guesthouse in an old wooden Laos house, with the balcony running at the length of first floor and a very kind, nosy and cross eyed " Mamma" taking care of business! - Lovely to stay near the river, without being ripped of.... But the best about it was the BEDSIDE lamp!!!! Oh, man Thank the lord for small mercy's...



Luang Prabang struck me as too touristy, I couldn't find a decent Laos coffee anywhere, ( Hmm, Not true, at the market stalls, they had nothing but!) Everywhere else only Nescafe... And the famed "Morning Alms Ceremony of the monks" were in some parts turned into a "Tour" for tourist.... It's the monks coming out of the Wats at daybreak for their alms and to teach humility--- Hard to do so in a barrage of flashlights right in your face, making you something of a superstar... But if you find some of the smaller Wats, you do find the "real thing", Women with baskets of "sticky rice", flowers and fruits offered with the utmost respect towards the monks....  All males in Laos will at some point in their lives have been a novice, it used to be for at least three months, but as western habits invade, many just "pay their dues" for three weeks....

I finally got my stuff together, Gee, that did take some time- See that's the weird part about Luang Prabang, it seems to hold you and enchant you, so you end up staying much longer than first intended..... 

I found a "VIP Minivan" ( NOT!!! It was old and battered ... The smiling and nice driver stopping very often, trying to pick up more passengers....) to take me up the rive Nam Ou to this place Nag Khiaw, from where I would try to find a "Longtail ferry" further up to Mong Noigh, a small village in the middle of the most monumental mountains and no electricity.. I shared the ride with 3 french doctors, one of them an "Eye doc" , which came in very handy, when I, during one of the stops on the river, had branch whipped into my eyes...  He expertly administered antibiotics and the works - What are the odds for having a doc, when you need one ? On some remote river village and and with an infected eye?.....! Thank you to Antoine, who I must admit, was a bit over anxious about fungal infections and tales of woe in "NO HOSPITALS IN LAOS" - first flight to Bangkok, if it get worse.. sort of French Doc.

The "Riverferry" took us to Mong Noigh..... What a magical place, nested in between the majestic green mountains..... The village have one main "street", when it rains it's perfect for mud sliding! And here life is lived a the most peaceful, if not for the amount of roosters, which were going nonstop from predawn to long after sunrise.... They used their vocal cords to the got hoarse... And the sound of a hoarse rooster is quite pathetic, but also incredible irritating and unnerving...

When I say;

 ---- Nothin' at all...... It's not really true; It means, that apart from the Wat, the school, a outdoor soup kitchen, a few guesthouses,  some fishermen who also doubled as a local doc, teachers for the kids and trekking guides up the lush, green mountains...  The village boasted of two or three eateries and they were superb! Best Pumpkin Curry, I've had in a long time and the fresh spinach spring rolls  were to die for

I found a Guesthouse with a view of the river and where the hammock was situated as with the very best view of the hills...

 There's nothing to do here, but unwind and let your mind wander.... I'll say it again... There's nothing in Mong Noigh ( And that's the charm and beauty of the place!!!)

Nothing; apart from 3 old hippies, they where here on a 20 yrs reunion fest....Having travelled the world together, off and on since the late '60s...(!) They were loaded and very generous with ancient, and I mean ancient dope stories -( Howard Marks, eat your heart out !) They are a gang of brothers in smoke; The German "Old Joe"; married to a Nepalese woman, and living in Phuket - was the inventor/driver of the infamous "Magic Bus" trips to India overland from Germany. The Kiwi; A country boy who was a champion in shearing sheep, back in the day. He Looked like a very healthy version of Keith Richards, with chunks of turquoise hanging around his neck and a piece of jade in his ear, big enough to pay of my mortgage - twice-! And last, but not least; The American "dude"; Dean, who was proud of his "Folkebåd" ( Danish designed, all purpose yacht) in Sta. Crux, Ca. now a professor at the UCLA.... Old Joe and Dean had somehow managed to get a degree in architecture along the way!  In the case of Joe, it took him 15 yrs, but he did it! Their last "Get together" was in Brisbane '88; dreaming up/making/building the Nepalese Pagoda at the world fair in Brisbane in 1988........ What a wonderful piece of art, it's still there.....:

                                             

  After listening to endless, very funny stories for a couple of days.... I was sort of adopted and was invited along for the boat ride all the way back to Luang Prabang..... ... It' was sort of going backwards ... But.......And my original plan of going to "The Plain of Jars" ? And I would have liked to see Vientiane again....... 

 While in my hammock that evening, in between fighting mosquitos and watching the bats, the lizards and counting the " Uh oh"s of the Geckos ( 7 is the lucky number, they usually only go for 3 or 4 though!)  I suddenly felt spend and travel weary, I'm saturated with sights, sounds and smells... And I can truly say I've done the Mekong up and down... And I longed for sea.... A Holiday within the holiday ( Travelling can be tiresome and hard......)  So after long, very long time - It seems that long when you're under attack from; what looks and feels like B-52's of the insect world (about 10min) mulling the idea over in my head, I decided that I would like to see some ocean and beach for my last days before going home... In short; I felt like a vacation after all this hard and strenuous work of travelling - So I jumped at the chance to split the cost of the boat trip down river...Which was lucky, as it's as usually way too expensive for only one person, but being the the four of us + a overwhelming Australian couple, we "Shanghaied" into coming .. It would be feasible... We made the trip down and with the current helping us along... It took only 4-5 hours...... And back to my troubled love affair with the town of Luang Prabang...

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Heart of darkness.... part 2

After carefully avoiding threading through the"Spirit Gate" A "gate"( Made of bamboo and some offerings in the shape of feathers and the hide of an animal - sometimes a weaved bamboo "sign" will tell visitors, they are not welcome either as not to offend a spirit or because of a village meeting taking place) of the Akha village, we heard loud laughter and the tinned noise of music, comming through the "loudspeaker" of a cheap rip-off mobile phone.. The village seemed otherwise desserted.. Only a few women, a lot of smaller kids.. and the household animals were around to greet us... A man yawning and stretching ducked out of his hut, right next to the cookinghut and invited us in....

Inside we found a few guys drunk senseless by LaoLao ( Homemade spirits made all over Lao) and having a grand old time playing cards... A Akha woman was cooking up some chickenfeet and the young boys were listning to this really cheap mobile, they all wore their homemade slingshots around their necks.... and nothing much more... After some good "Gesture and waving about with arms and legs" conversation, we as politely as possible declined the dinner invitation...

I have always rather liked myself, save for my legs, which I have always found rather big/thick/fat
so when the husband of this really nice, traditionally blacktoothed and paperthin wife, made a comment about my fat legs and comparing them to hers and then his own..and still come out a bit short... well, then I thought it was time to go... But was not alowed to do so, before the boys had fetched some lollys and they had taken about 30 photos of US with their mobile, this while we were still negotiating amongst us, if it were too rude and disrespectfull to take a photo of THEM........

Mobiles and telephones where a bit of joke around here, as there was no cover... In in the village of Xian Kok, you'd see this quite surrealistic image of people running around in the street with their wireless phones in their outstreched hands, zigzagging up and down, trying to find the exact spot, where to recieve cover.....
                                                                          
Well, after much negotiating and hasselin', we finally found someone to take us down river to the next "bigger" town, where we could catch a bus on to Huay Xia.... By sheer luck, (Otherwise it would have been impossible to pay the trip) there were the three of us there; The Kiwi girl - A selfprofessed ignorant of the world, The Sweedish girl; A dreamy Spacecadet of 21 yrs, Who constantly forgot the weres and whys and then me: The one with very fat legs! The Speedboat pilot wanted us to leave next morning a 5, which we all opposed to - And after much dicussing with the three other occupants of the boat - They later turned out to be burmese snakesmugglers, we arrived at a depature time around 6-7... Not quite sure which, as it differed, as whom you asked...

Mr.Tim strolled in at 7 pm, and got some of the lucky leftovers from a meal, we'd had to beg for....! He later got drunk with "immegration Officer of Xian Kok" the "once a bustling riverport" on LaoLao and was not altogether there next morning, to see us off.. But he did put in an effort- And feeably lift a hand to wave... Or that what was it looked like to me without glasses!

Next morning the mountain mist was so thick and so low, that you couldn't see the jungle and the lonely stupa on the Burmese side. Only the mighty Mekong with the rapids, whirlpools and logs floating about - all quite vissible, all of a sudden, now that I was gettin into the smallest/narrowest speedboat I've seen! I'm very happy to say that the five sacks full of rolled-up live snakes had all been evacuated from the boat and converted into good money for the Burmese couple and their son... Otherwise there would be no chance in hell, that I would have got on that thing!

The clock now said 6am and the pilot was yelling to make it snappy, The Burmese woman and I, told him to pipe down while we were finishing our coffee and comparing not legs this time, but noses... She pointed mine out as being one of the biggest she ever had seen... So now I was good and ready to get out of the place before my whole big body would come under more scrutiny and start some more complexes then the ones I have already.... (",)

We went down that river like a bat out of hell... And man, did that guy know what he was doing! In and out of rapids, wearing to left and right of the whirlpools and floating debris, using the currents on both sides of the river to make a terrific speed.... After an hour, we docked in Burma and a man in the "uniform" of the Burmese Insurgents came down to greet us and to give a hand with some of the "shopping" the Burmese had with them... After much laughing and waving goodbye we headed off again down to ? ( I'll find the name later) 

Down and out in Xian Kok or ; The Heart of Darknes ....Part 1

It's 5:30 in the morning and the roosters have been driving me mental since the first light of dawn.... The mist covers the green, lush and virgin monsoon forest of the mountains surrounding us and the principal character of this landscape; The Mekong... The Burmese snake smugglers and the speedboat pilot is trying to hurry us up... We have to go, NOW! Chop, chop!!

Coming down/up here took me a couple of days in "jumbos" and a bus... Red dirt roads winding through the mountains... Very close to China and Burma.. The only traffic passing us is the Chinese trucks carrying loads of lumber, part of the illegal timber trade that robs Laos of it's treasures. The Laos generals being in on the deal and filling their pockets.... From the air, the deforestation looks like open wounds on the hillsides... Recently 41% of Laos was dense woods of precious timber....

As soon as I arrive in Luang Nam Tha airport, I take a "jumbo" into 'town' and to the bus station.. I want to go to Muang Seng further up in the mountains... 5 hrs later and in the last rays of sunlight, we drive into the dusty, forgotten village of Muang Seng... I know the road up here, is supposed to be breathtaking, but I was wedged in between a cage of fowl and a old Hmong ( one of the Laos hill tribes - mainly wearing indigo and black) gentleman travelling with his teapot and sleeping mat.... The old wooden buildings (All 5-6 of them) makes up for center of town, and they are really nice; With the french taste for balcony's and the Asian; for adornments; every little piece of wood over doors, under windows or running along the stairs is either painted with complex designs/flowers or carved....

Here I meet a Kiwi travelling on her own, who's looking for a partner for trekking, but I have to disappoint her.. I'm not big on mountaineering in any shape or form.. I tell her of the 'big' market, there's supposed (According to the Gospel of the Lonely Planet Guide) to happen every fortnight in Xian Kok, another 100Km down the road; Being a bustling river port ( Again according to The Gospel) on the northern tip of what was once "The Golden Triangle" The Hill tribes from Laos, Burma and Thailand is meeting here.. And the plan is to get a boat downriver to Huay Xia ( Border town to Thailand) Where the "Slow boat" will take us to Luang Pra Bang .... She immediately change her plans of retracing her bus ride to Muang Seng and agrees to share the trip with me.. Great! That means cheaper rooms and a bigger chance of getting a Boat ride down Mekong River... As we talk; In comes a sweaty (dripping in fact) Falang (= French= all foreigners) He's German and just walked ( 79 km) from Luang Nam Tha... He's the kind of guy who only refers to himself in third person singular as in "Mr. Timm" and an ex Helicopter Pilot, thinks himself immortal.. So as not to carry too much, while walking the hills.. He has absolutely no aid kit, whatsoever!

Next morning we get a mini bus, actually- such luxury! to Muang Long, where we plan to stay the night... On the bus we meet a Swedish girl, who so dreamy and totally not there.. She is planning the same as us, but will go directly to Xian Kok on the Mekong.. We tell her, we'll get here tomorrow if she doesn't get a boat before...

In Muang Long, (The photo of the sky + bus) which doesn't have a main street.. it's really just a market and a bus stop.. Around 5 in the afternoon, Mr. Timm rolls in with a exhaust pipe burn on his leg... I give him some iodine, some antibacterial cleaning gear - The man sure travels light and a ignorant of the obvious facts and dangers... Laos goes to sleep at 9 pm and gets up at first light, and even I have now got that routine.... In choosing Guesthouse, and we did have an alternative! We overlooked the fact, that only young girls and small babies seem to inhabit the establishment..( And in case you didn't know already: Bamboo walls are paper thin! - Fantastic on airing and cooling rooms, not great on privacy... ) - Oh, yes and this Opium smoking old man in the backyard, but he had his own hut and therefore wasn't too bothered by the goings on in the main building - So after a bad nights sleep we took the earliest possible vehicle to Xian Kok ...

On the way there, we were only passed by the Lumber trucks and we when we got to the final turn ( The top photo) The "bustling river port town" was actually just a dead, dusty village, a mere shadow of its former glory... But the view of the Mekong and a lonely Stupa ( Buddhist monument in the shape of a cone) in Burma was awe inspiring! A quick walk around town showed us a place with at least 5 "Restaurants", a 'Disco'/brothel, a empty market, where the dogs slept on tables in the deserted stalls and a big white building revealing a ticket booth, and the issuing of borderpass'es, where the some piglets and a couple of chickens lived.... The Fortnight market was a thing of the past, as well...... We later discover, that the village is waiting for drinking water... And that all of the five - something eateries, all the tables laid out and ready to be " invaded" by hungry customers are devoid of food... There's no fruit in the small vending stalls, the bags of crisps and cookies are full of ants and in fact the only food in town is: Cucumbers and lime.....!

Well, we decide to take a brisk, morning walk.. After all, the drive here only took a couple of hours, and during the trip we met some unnameable tribal women, with combs sitting in their hair and some very pretty, embroidered tops.. As well Old style Akha women, with bare breast and huge old (1908- 1939) French 1 ounce silver coins sewed on to their head dress..... And we find this small Akha village, after the big french bridge, carefully avoid going through their "Spirit Gate" and are invited in to a cooking hut......

To be cont.