We’re in a town called Khoun Kham today (tonight), and last
night we stayed in a town called…. Something or other. It was next to
impossible to find on the map because here in Laos the name of anything depends
on how you feel it should be spelt, leading to …some confusion.
I have to say it’s not hard to see this place was once a
French colony with all the ways they hide everything so no-one can understand
anything except the locals. Anyway, the town was called either:
Pak Xin
Paxxan
Paksan
Pakxan
Paksane
Pakxane
Pak sin
Or Paxxane
Between road maps, street signs and what have you, I don’t
know how to spell it.Our journey here
to Khoun Kham was uneventful but very interesting. We stopped off on the road
to have a look at the “limestone forest” which was in all honesty, very
beautiful.
We found a room for 1 euro a day (about a buck forty to all the
‘mericans) which is an absolute steal, though I get a feeling that a zero may
have been omitted somewhere.
Once we got the room here in town I was doing a quick run
over the bikes and discovered that we had next to no oil in the engines so we
went to a local mechanic, who spoke oddly great English. The guy ended up
checking our bikes all the way over (all brakes, greased the chain, tire
pressure and complete oil change) for just 75,000 kip ($9.50) for both bikes, which
is very cheap considering he was working for almost a half hour between both
the bikes. We were well happy!
We wanted to blog loads for everyone tonight but a very odd
storm passed by town (no rain, just thunder and lightning) and there was no
electricity for a few hours, and despite the power coming back, the internet
hasn’t. So I am writing to you from the past, as I plan to post this once the
internet recovers.
Hello future self.
Well now that our bikes, Betsy Black and Lady Stark (previously
Arya, but her title and surname has a better ring to it) are fit and healthy
and well fed, it’s time for us to venture from here to the 7.5km Kong Lor cave.
Why is that significant, you ask?
It’s a cave, and I’m claustrophobic. Also, it is home to not
Laos’, not Asia’s but the world’s biggest spiders discovered in the last
decade.And I’m arachnophobic.
Well, friends, we’re back, after a long and dusty road
of…dust. Seriously. That’s about all I can recall from our last couple of
drives. We left Vientiane, having done all that city has to offer (like seeing the
abandoned water park and trying to find the zoo that mysteriously disappeared
at some point), two days ago, apparently a Tuesday. We never really know
anymore.
The long road ahead
Getting a drink of water before heading on again.
We drove to a small town called Paxsan, one of those places
where if you blink, you miss it. And we pretty much did. When we got close to
the town we saw a guesthouse and decided to get a room there, as opposed to
driving on and trying to find another one. The room was cheap, which was fine,
but I’ll get to the not-so-fine stuff in a minute.
We dropped our things off, and headed back on the road to
find a place with internet and food so we could do a little blogging. We drove couple
kilometers and the small wooden buildings became ever more sparse so we had to
pull over and ask each other if we had passed the whole city. We had, so we turned
around and drove through the two or three streets of the actual town. And
apparently the whole town is internet-free, so we satisfied ourselves with
overpriced drinks at a bar outside of town, not blogging. Meanwhile, a few feet
away from us, the ladies that run the place were sitting on the floor watching
TV, while pulling wings off of giant bugs that they would later eat.
Ladies hard at work.
The final wingless product
If you want to see them in action, here's a video for you.
We ended up going back to our guesthouse where I debated
taking a shower, but I decided against it. To do so would require me to stand
against the toilet, over the flush-bucket (a bucket full of water and a scoop
to dump water into the toilet when you’re finished. Also doubles as back-side
wash water after a healthy number two), and far too close to a huge cockroach
carcass being carried away by hundreds of tiny black ants. Instead, I took a
nap, covered in red grit from the dusty drive.
When I woke up, Ricky
and I went for dinner at a karaoke place where no one was singing and there
were 3 whole tables of people. I ordered “fried fish with basil.” What came to
me was undercooked, boiled fish with onions and carrots, whole leaves of basil
on stems, and sliced peppers in an unbearably spicy sauce. By the third bite I
felt like even my teeth were on fire.
Now, there are a few things I really dislike: snow on my
face, overuse of the word random, Crocs. But needlessly spicy food is at the
top of the list. Everything from my gums to the back of my throat were tingling
with some sort of mutant-power chili spice.I had to take a break every couple of bites so I could down some more
soda, and by the time I was finished (and given away the mushy uncooked bits to
the begging dogs around my feet), I was so grumpy and in pain that I demanded
we stop to find ice cream on the way home, which we did.
Today we got up and headed out of the guesthouse, once again
not bothering to shower. The roach was gone, but when Ricky tried to rinse his
hands off in the shower, the shower head fell off. So we hit the road, not caring how dirty we
were, because we knew we’d just get dirtier. And did we ever.
Now, I sweat. A lot. And here in Laos it’s incredible the
way my sweatstache reappears just seconds after wiping it away. So when I’m
covered in sweat and then driving on sometimes-unpaved roads, I get real dirty real
quick. Take a look at this pic. That’s not tan. That’s dirt.
Here's a better view of the karsts behind us.
And an even better one.
We also had to drive through veritable clouds of white
butterflies. Now, butterflies may look delicate and sweet, but when you hit them going 80 km an hour, they feel like rocks pelting you.
When Ricky and I finally got into the village we were to
stay at, I was so gritty and dirty that I could scrape off layers of it with my
fingernails. We decided to eat before we really got settled, and while we
waited for the food, I decided to have look at a nearby market for a loofah or
bath scrub of some sort. What I found was a scouring pad, guaranteed
to get rid of grease and grime. Well, I was covered in that stuff, so I bought
it, and let me tell you, I’ve never felt cleaner.
Of course, the glory of my super clean and shiny skin didn’t
last long, because the power shortly went out, so Ricky and I played cards by
headlamp in the main building, while small children chased puppies in the dark
and somehow did not fall.
So now the lights are back on and I am typing this while we
wait for our post-dinner dinner. The Lao boy next to me is playing World of
Warcraft and there’s a moth fluttering on the floor. I have to admit that the
last couple of days have been pretty strange, but sitting next to this kid that
thinks he’s a warlock is pretty cool.
Today started off as a normal day. I woke up quite late
because I couldn’t sleep. Meanwhile, Ricky was on the bunk below me, giggling
to himself while watching Top Gear. At
about noon, we got out of bed, had ourselves some cereal and prepared for the
day.
Some of our plans fell through, so we decided to go for a
little drive and see a couple of sights.
We headed toward a huge golden stupa in the distance, and as we neared,
we saw that what separated it from us
was a massive empty parking lot, the kind you put a traveling carnival in. As
soon as we scooted in past a mostly closed gate (which should have been our
first sign), Ricky got a devious grin on his face.
“This is going to be fun.”
We drove around the lot for a while until we came to one end
and he challenged me.
“Naught to fifty to
naught.”
So we backed up to the curb, counted down and took off. Much
to Ricky’s surprise I stayed right with him, and when I looked down I was
nearly at 55 kmph and slammed on the brakes.
My tail snaked around me, but I stayed upright, much to my own surprise.
Well, it was so much fun that we decided to go again so we
headed back to the start. Right behind us, however, were the coppers.
I smiled at them as they headed toward us, despite my fear
that I was about to be arrested, because I heard that was the best defense
mechanism for Lao police, and offered a cheerful “Sabaidee!” (hello)
They didn’t speak English, but sign-languaged their way into
telling us that we can’t be here and that we have to leave. We apologized
profusely, told them we would exit right away, and thanked them with a smile.
Before we had put our helmets back on they had driven away.
We were pleasantly surprised, because we had heard some
horror stories about foreigners being locked up or forced to pay outrageous
amounts of money.
Well, our time would come…
Later in the evening we met a couple from Spain and an
American girl they were traveling with. We sat and chatted for a while, then
went off for dinner. After dinner, Ricky suggested that we burn some cash.
Literally.
See, in China, they sell fake 100 RMB bills for people to
burn in huge piles on the street. When they burn, the ashes and smoke go
upward, toward the person’s ancestors in the afterlife. There, they will be
rich.
Ricky had bought a stack of the money in China but we had
never gotten around to burning it. So we got the money and headed down to the
shores of the Mekong River to make an offering to our ancestors.
We sat in a circle, taking turns tossing bills into the
small fire, as we said who each one was for. Grandmothers, grandfathers, great
aunts, everybody. It was actually quite nice to take a moment and think of the
ones we had lost.
We had just burned the last bill and begun talking about how
we felt (awww!) when trouble came.
The police came to bust up our party. There was one who
seemed to be in charge, and a few lackeys.
The conversation went something like this.
Police: You, no here.
Us: What?
Police: You, no here, after 9. You mistake.
Us: Oh yes, mistake! We made a mistake, we can’t be here
after 9! We’ll just be going now!
Police: Stop! You, Thailand *swimming motion*
Us: No sir, we didn’t swim over from Thailand. See? We’re
dry
Police: Passports!
Us: Sorry, we don’t have our passports with us.
Police: You, mistake, no here. Follow me, police station.
Us: What? Why? We’ll leave now. We didn’t know. We’re very
sorry.
Police: Passports! You smoke?
Us: What?
Police: You smoke (something no one understood)?
Us: No, sir, we don’t smoke that.
Police: Bag! (pointing at Ricky. He then proceeds to go
through the contents of our backpack. He was
very suspicious of one pen.)
Police: You follow me police station. Give mistake money.
Us: Well, how much?
Police: (counts us) Ah, 5. Ah, $200 each.
Us: What? No way! We don’t have that! We’ll just be going
now.
We began to walk away, ignoring a weak “Stop!”
We walked faster, feeling like fugitives escaping the law,
and when we were brave enough to look behind us, we realized they weren't following us. We walked fast anyway and hurried through the marked and out the
other side, back to our guesthouse where we caught our breath and thanked our
ancestors for helping us out, which was nice, after all that money we sent
them.
So now we’re here, safe in our tiny dorm room, with a cement
floor and a window that looks out into the indoor stairwell, basking in our fugitive glory.
The Lao police probably aren’t hunting for us, and that’s
probably for the best, but being a fugitive for those couple of minutes today
sure was exciting!
As you can tell from most of our pictures of Laos, it's one big jungle here, and if you ever paid attention in school, or to the Travel Channel, jungles are the home of tons of freaky creatures, and we've seen a few of them. Here's a list of some of the weird stuff we've seen.
5. Massive Black Beetles
This is what greeted us as we got off the bus at our first pit-stop in Laos after leaving China.
Yes, a big bowl of black beetles, all crawling over each other, making a most unsettling scritch-scratching noise. Also, they were there to eat. Yummy!
4. Very Large Pill Bug
Some call them pill bugs, or potato bugs, or roly polies, but they are technically woodlice. When I was a kid, I loved playing with these little guys. We'd pick them up and all of a sudden they'd be little gray colored balls rolling around in our hands.
Well, one day Ricky and I went looking for a cave in Vang Vieng and I spotted something that looked quite similar, except that it was huge. It was about an inch and a half long, and maybe half and inch wide, and black. Of course I picked it up, which grossed Ricky out, but I thought it was great.
I didn't think to get a picture of it at the time, but I found these pictures.
My bug wasn't quite that big, but just about.
3. Huge Geckos
Ok, this isn't so weird. I mean, back home in Texas we have geckos that live all over our house. Here in Laos, they are even more abundant. And aren't they cute?
Oh, wait, I mean--
But what we've seen here in Laos are the huge geckos they sell in pet stores, like this.
We saw a couple at one time, just hanging out above us while we ate at a restaurant. I wanted to take pictures but the light was bad and there was no way to show scale, but they were about 6 inches long.
2. The Star Wars Bug
Ok, I have to apologize for this one. We don't have a picture, and I couldn't find one online because I have no idea what this bug is. As we were climbing some stairs to a cave Ricky let out a shout and started going on about a bug that looked like it came right of out Star Wars. I didn't know what he meant until we came across another one a few days later.
We were standing at a small bridge, watching kids play in some water, when this thing flew up near us and landed on the railing of the bridge. It had sort of translucent wings and underneath it appeared to be glowing. It had yellow and orange and pinkish kind of spots that were almost neon-like. It was an odd shape, kind of like a squarish oval. We reached for the camera, but as soon as we did it was gone.
1. Large Bamboo Rat
It took a lot of googling and Wiki-ing to find out what this thing is. Remember that bowl of huge beetles? Well, I think that was a side dish for this.
Because yes, you eat these too.
Now, I know these aren't really all that strange, and we hope to see even more weird creatures when we get out of the big cities and into the real jungle! Stay tuned!
That's right folks, it's time for a little competition.
As most of you know, we are on a sweet motorbike tour through Laos. So far, our drives have been 8 hours and 5 hours. Sometimes those hours can get a little tiresome, despite the beautiful scenery. To keep our blood pumping, we like to plug in to some music and drive away.
So here's our question for you:
What is the best song to listen to on a motorbike while driving through the jungle? What's that song that keeps you loving the journey, the one that puts a smile on your face?