Laos

LUANG PRABANG. DATE: SAT, 01 DEC 2001 20:20:04

In Laos, you're never far from the egg factory

We have entered the internet-zone of Laos, a nice little city-town in northern Laos called Luang Prabang. But we are ahead of ourselves, so we'll start at the beginning.

We last wrote from Ubon Ratchatani right before getting our laundry which was to cost 50 baht, an outrageously cheap price. When we went to pick up our laundry, it was still being ironed. We felt somewhat sheepish, as we knew the fate of our nicely ironed underwear was not so pretty. Turns out that "fifty" referred to the number of clothing items we had, not the price. 500 baht later, we packed our bags and left.

    I. Michael offends the King of Thailand

Our bus was making pretty good time from Ubon to Phibun, where we would catch a sawngthaew to Chong Mek and the Lao border, when we encountered a roadblock and settled in to wait. We thought maybe there was a big accident, maybe road work, but many, many cars were waiting on the side roads for the roadblock to clear. Hagar asked the guy next to us who was generously sharing his longan and rambutan what was happening, so he pointed to, "Obligation" in the dictionary. That cleared everything up. Michael got thirsty, so he wandered down to the main road where there was a small store. With sunglasses to keep out the harsh rays, he merrily skipped through the crowds whistling a happy tune. Seriously, he whistled a little bit. The crowds snickered a bit, but Michael didn't know why. He wanted water, and the store owner looked at him a bit warily. He looked behind, catching many Thai staring back in a less-than-friendly way, or in outright mockery. The crowd started to grow on both sides of the road, to maybe two or three hundred people, at least half of whom were staring at Michael. Getting nervous. A Thai girl with a French boyfriend approached Michael and said, "The police officer says you must take off your sunglasses." Okay. "Why?" "Something about offending the King." "What?" She spoke briefly to the store owner. "The King is coming and it is a deep insult to him and to Thailand to cover your head and eyes." Michael removed his shades and booked it out of there before the King's convoy passed by.

II. We become illegal immigrants of Laos

We arrived at Chong Mek, a dusty town with dirt roads and seemingly not much else. The border was closed already, so we scrambled to find a place to sleep. For Chong Mek, Lonely Planet said, "The border hours are 8:30 to 4:30." It was 6, and we had no other information, so we set out to look. Someone from our ride showed us a guesthouse and there we stayed. We showered in a cold bucket shower, among the first of many. It was cold, and it was with a bucket, and it took some skill. We are spoiled with our showerheads indeed.

In the morning we awoke to screaming chickens at approximately 4 a.m., and the racket didn't stop until... well, it didn't stop. So we got up finally and got ready for Laos. The sun was strong so we bought silly tourist hats. Hagar's had cows on it. Michael's had a silly plaid pattern. And then we asked, "Could you tell us how to get to Laos?" The guesthouse owner pointed down the street and gestured to go left. We wandered down the street, through a bustling market where we bought longan, and wandered through an open gate along with dozens of other Thai and Lao people. About fifty meters down, we found an official and asked him where we could get our exit stamp from Thailand. "You must go to Thailand." "Where is Thailand?" He pointed us back the way we came. Oops.

 We finally got our stamps and off to Laos we went, past the unguarded "border"-gate with hordes of people, and on to the official Laos building where we were asked to pay 200 baht. From China we learned a) never argue with Communist officials b) they have guns and they're not afraid to use them. So we paid, and off we went down the road to the bus station, where we caught a sawngthaew to Pakse, a major town. These are our observations from the ride:

1.          As in Thailand, it must be illegal in Laos for a sawngthaew to leave the bus station before holding at least twice as many people as it has seats, but in Laos there also seems to be an amendment to the rule: the more bags each person brings with them, the better. We sat among 42 people in a space about 20 feet by 5 five feet (along with bags of MSG, sugar, rice, blankets, fruit, a rooster, etc.), and there were about five or six people on top.

2.          As in China, there is no personal space in Laos. We were grabbed, touched, petted and used as hand-railings.

3.          As in everywhere else in the world, giving away food is a big hit. Our longan made its way around the sawngthaew, and soon we had friends asking us questions. Our answer was always "California," assuming that Laosians can only ask "Where are you from?" Sometimes we would vary our answer to be "Pakse," assuming that there may be another question of the "where are you going" sort. We were a big hit, judging by the laughter and pointing.

4.          Not all roosters know of their fate as skewered chicken. The rooster on our ride took particular pleasure in the wind -- he would stick out his neck and close his eyes, looking very serene and happy being held by his owner.

We switched to a shared taxi and finally arrived at Pakse after a couple of hours of traveling. The chaos at this market was overwhelming and we managed to buy a baguette and avoid an expensive tuk tuk drive by finding a sawngthaew to our next destination -- Champasak. We got on the vehicle, and sat. And sat. And sat. See conclusion number 1. We sat for an hour and a half, and then we roared to a start and slowly made our way down the road. We arrived after some time at the Mekong and waited for some time until a rickety thing called the "vehicle ferry" arrived.

III. "Where is that truck going?"

The vehicle ferry was made of a bunch of wooden logs tied together not so tightly with rope, and attached to a motor. On this ferry went our sawngthaew along with two others, a big garbage-sized truck, a motorcycle and a couple of tuk tuks. We feared for our lives and made plans for escape in case we went down. On this particular 5-minute ride some interesting things happened. First, the truck next to us started to change its tire. Then, the truck behind us began backing up towards the water, who knows why.  And then everyone else started going forward and backward a couple of inches, we think due to impatience. Our knuckles turned white, and we stuck our heads out the window ready for a life-saving leap, camera above our heads. When the ferry finally arrived at the opposite shore, everyone got off the sawngthaew to walk off. We stayed. Bad call. When in Laos... Anyway, the wood planks described above do not make for a smooth ramp, and we had about a foot drop from the ramp to the beach, after which our driver had to gun the engine to avoid sinking into the sand.

IV. Champassak, Wat Phu, and a Boat down the Mekong

 We were dropped off next to a guesthouse and found a room for 10,000 kip ($1). Not until we entered our room did we discover that this was not exactly a guesthouse. The son who lived in the room was busy cleaning up, shoving things into a bag and throwing his dirty laundry over his shoulder. We stood awkwardly in the doorway, and said sorry. He said sorry, and we said sorry again. The mother downstairs who collected our 10,000 kip didn't have a problem with it, though. We hung our mosquito net in a way that was so incredible that we took some pictures. Then we took a tuk tuk to Wat Phu and spent some time exploring the beautiful Hindu and Khmer ruins. The foundations of a palace are merely outlines now, but up a hill lies the sanctuary in a very well-preserved condition. Elaborate stone carvings, pillars, and lots of stone steps remain. We saw rock carvings of an elephant and a crocodile (or gecko). Two little girls hung out with us after we gave them 500 kip for flowers to hang around the Buddha's neck. One said, "pen," which means "to be" in Thai, so while Michael tried to figure out what they could be saying, Hagar gave them a pen, which was exactly what they wanted. We ran into a really fun German guy on a tour who didn't like his tour group: "Zey alvays drink Diet Coke, not regular Coke." Strange complaint, if you ask us.

We ran into a couple that we had met in Thailand and chatted for a while, ate an awful dinner with them (Hagar had a very big slug in her curry, which came only after everyone else, including the restaurant owners, finished eating). Off we went to sleep, and woke up the next morning ready for our 8-hour boat ride to Si Phan Don, or 4000 islands.

 The boat arrived about an hour later, already full, but everybody piled on. Bags got stacked high in the middle of the boat, and people sat on the roof and on each other. We found a cozy spot with a bag to lean against and some Lao women to chat with. One asked Michael if he would like to marry the girl next to him. Hagar pointed to the ring on her finger before Michael even had a chance to consider the proposal. After this joyous moment, we shared their sticky rice and they shared our baguettes and peanuts. The ride was beautiful, with tropical weather, coconut palms, terraced gardens on the river banks, and little children waving every time we passed a village. A woman in the boat took out her betel nut set, and we watched the whole process. The German guy from Wat Phu tried one and looked like he was struggling not to vomit. Must not be used to the taste. First he ate the nut, and then a green leaf smothered in white paste, and then some chewing tobacco. He was then instructed to spit and swallow in intervals, and seemed to be concentrating very hard.

As the sun set, we got ready to disembark, and the boat driver anchored near a bank to collect our fare. The fare he wanted was double the correct fare, and everybody complained (about twenty tourists left, after all the locals got off en route). The Brits were the most stubborn, and an argument ensued between a German guy, "Pay ze man. I am tired." and the Brits, "It should be 10,000. Crikey." They didn't really say, "Crikey" but it sounds funny. We finally began feeling pathetic about a dollar, and besides the whole thing was ugly so we made the first move, paid our 20,000 and were followed by the rest. Although we know we were cheated and that the boat drivers use this intimidation method every time, it felt ridiculous to get into uncomfortable and perhaps dangerous situations over a dollar.

VI. We arrive in paradise

Si Phan Don is beautiful! With the sun rising up, so did our spirits, and we took a boat down to the southernmost point of Laos to visit Samphamit Falls and Don Det island. We walked through rice paddies, coconut palm-lined villages, and along the Mekong (not as muddy here as it is elsewhere). Very, very pleasant. The falls were fun, even if they were no Niagara, and due to time we had to skip an Irrawaddy dolphin tour and the Khon Phapeng falls. Still, the day couldn't have been prettier. Of course, throughout the whole island are happy chickens and very fat pigs. We snickered maliciously at their fate later this evening, as we have been awakened at 4 a.m. by chickens for three nights now.

That night, we chatted with an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Bristolman, an Australian-turned-Irishwoman, and a Canadian. The latter three smoked a joint while we struggled to understand the first two. The Irishman accused us of complicity in the CIA scandals of the 60s. We tried to point out that we hadn't been born yet, but he just repeated, "It's your people." The Scotsman said, "Ay, I have the runs." And so we went to sleep.

We also met a Thai man who kept asking us if we saw a Frenchman named Pierre who always wears a white baseball hat and drinks a lot. We haven't found him yet, but let us know if you know him. Anyway, the Frenchman was nice and with his help we taught a little boy the beginning of the English alphabet (at the request of his mother). Then we were invited to eat dinner with the family and we were relieved as we have been feasting on noodle soup for days now. Noodles were coming out our ears. We ate sticky rice and had to eat the very fishy soup. It was one of those uncomfortable moments when we were kindly and generously offered food we really didn't find palatable. We bravely ate, and thanked the family profusely.

VII. Ethnographic interlude

 The village houses are built on wooden stilts with walls woven from bamboo and the roofs made of bundled rice straw.

VIII. Bikes-with-no-brakes

 The next day we rode our bikes-with-no-brakes around the islands and were thankful for the lack of downhills. It was a very beautiful and nice ride. We then rested a bit and treated our sunburns with a bit of aloe, and set off to rent a canoe, which was quite difficult. We ended up getting a longboat (about thirty feet long, powered by a motor whose propeller is out on a ten-foot shaft) with the motor taken out per our request for "canoe, no motor." It was tough going, and we only lasted about forty-five minutes before returning to the dock. The locals zooming past us in longboats WITH motor laughed. But the guy who helped us convince his "friend" to rent us the boat was quite impressed with our against-the-stream rowing. It was a nice day which ended with a beautiful sunset and a drunk New Zealander.

 IX. "Maybe we should just keep going north..."

We then got on a bus to Vientiane. The plan was to stop there for a day and then continue north to Luang Prabang, but the Israeli woman we met on the bus convinced us to just continue to Luang Prabang. The end result was 34 very grueling hours on the bus. At least the bus driver drove slowly and stopped to pee a lot. We were happy. It was cold at night, but no other complaints except... the bus twice left without us. Once it returned a half an hour later ("Don't worry, friend, we come back!" said the bus-ticket-guy). The other time, we were told we had ten minutes to find a toilet, so we found a toilet. About eight minutes later, we came back to see our bus driving away. We chased it down, they stopped, and we got on. This time, the bus-ticket-guy just looked a bit sheepish. We also had the nice company of chickens under the seat, who squawked at 4 a.m. There's a Far Side comic about how to fold a cat to put it into a drawer. The lady who owned the chickens went for the "stuff-bag" theory and just kicked them till they fit. We felt bad and gave them some baguette crumbs.

 The end result of our trip is that we are in Luang Prabang, Michael is sick and we are resting. We will extend our visa, most likely, and stay here till Michael is energetic like a spring chicken. Not flat and squished like a Lao-style grilled chicken.

Regards from Michael, Hagar, and the chickens of Laos.

[From a postcard from Luang Prabang, received 10 Jan 2002:  "Laos has almost no infrastructure; most of the roads are in terrible condition, except for what has been done as a joint venture with Germany, Sweden, and Japan. There are no trains in the country. While Laos is about the size of Britain, only 5 million people live here, and only half of these are ethnically Lao. The result is many villagers whose lives are independent, with people who may not travel very far their whole lives. Also, most of the land is uninhabited and uncultivated, giving beautiful vistas and forests everywhere in the north, not just national parks, as in Thailand."]

ON THE WAY TO VIENTIANE: Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:55:21

All this for a couple of jars! 

When we last wrote in Luang Prabang, we were recovering from our 34 hour bus ride and various illnesses.  After four days of rest, we rented a motorbike and went to see "the cave." This turned out to be a cave with lots of Buddahs inside and nothing more.  The ride was very nice though, as we got lost so many times it took us 2.5 hours to cover the 30 km distance.  We met a Hmong woman from Wisconsin who came to visit her family after 20 years in the States.  She asked us what we thought of Laos, and we said we think it is beautiful.  She replied, "Very dirty country. Very dirty."  It made us think that since we're on vacation, we always see the best of the place we're in, while if you're visiting the country that you fought against you may see other things entirely.  Either that, or we like dirt.

 Part I:  Michael does a pop-a-wheelie

After the Pak Ou cave (literally, "mouth of Ou"), we biked back south to get to the Kuangsi waterfalls.  While still on the dirt road out of the cave area, Michael committed a sin against the-way-of-the-bike.  Going up a steep hill in second gear, the bike (only 110 cc) started to slow and would soon have stopped.  Michael decided to downshift, but unfortunately for Hagar's clean bottom he kept the throttle up while doing so.  The bike shot up, dumping Hagar off the bike.  For about one and a half seconds, Michael was the coolest motorbiker around, going on one wheel up a dirt path in the middle of Laos.  After this brief flirtation with coolness, he returned to his usual self, lost control, and the bike slowed and fell over in a very un-exciting way.  The camera fell out and the lens was detached from the base.  Not worth the one and a half seconds.

 Despite this setback, we continued south through Luang Prabang to the waterfalls.  It was about 3:30, and a 25 km ride turned out to be all dirt and rocks.  We were tossed along the rocks and somehow arrived at the waterfalls an hour later.  It was a very pretty waterfall with three different pools.  We climbed to the top and then realized that we were climbing and hiking through the jungle!  Michael even had a little Tarzan moment with a genuine vine hanging down.  The stream he crossed was a full six inches, too!  It was getting dark though so we walked back down the steep mountain. 

After eating a snack, the snack-man vendor guy gave us half of his coconut, so we gave him a cigarette.  (Originally we carried cigarettes with us to bribe hassling communist cops in China, but have found them [the cigarettes, not the cops] to be much more effective in bribing people to be our friends.  Also, they make good manipulation tools for the bus drivers -- the more cigarettes you give, the more bathroom stops he makes. Anyway, it was a good coconut.  After a slight water fight that left Hagar wet and the Lao vendors giggling, we were on the road.  It was dusk, and time for new adventures.

 Part II: Hagar takes flight

We left right before a French guy we had met.  He complained that you can only buy 100-110 cc motorbikes in Laos, and lamented the days of Thailand and their off-road bikes.  Granted it is a strange complaint, but when you see that road...  Anyway, he caught up with us and passed us going 60 km an hour, while we were speeding along at 30 km and scared.  It was getting dark.  The rocks weren't so much a problem as were the pot holes.  One of them snuck up on us, and no one saw it before or after.  After what?  After our bike all of a sudden lifted up in the air and flew.  The wind in our hair, the ground flying by beneath us, we.... screamed.  The camera flew out again and the water bottle hit Hagar in the stomach before flying away as well.  That was the end of the lens. We have to take it to a repair shop.  But at least we landed gracefully.  As gracefully as a dancing elephant.

After arriving at Luang Prabang we had a feast of Indian food in order to prepare ourselves for the adventures to follow.

 Part III: You think there is room in there for me?

We were going to take a sawngthaew to Vieng Kham (don't know where that is? neither do we), but some nice folks we ran into were going to Nong Khaew and said it was pretty, so we changed our ticket to join them.  Good call on our part.  It would have been about ten hours to our original destination, but four was plenty, and we were quite relieved to pull into Nong Khaew.  The ride up was fun, as always, with Hagar holding a plastic basket of someone's laundry and sitting on huge sacks of more clothes while Michael squeezed in on the bench across from her.  We mentioned earlier that it seems to be a law that public transportation can't leave until overloaded and overflowing with people and cargo.  We now have confirmation.  The sawngthaew was supposed to leave at eight, nine, or "soon," depending on who you asked at the station, and it turned out that it left at 8:37 a.m., when the last sack of clothes was shoved in, squeezing the breath out of everyone inside.

The beauty of Nong Khaew made this ride well worth it, however.  Mountainous but totally covered in jungle-y vegetation, we had a wonderful time sitting by the Mekong gazing in the morning as the mist rose to reveal taller and taller mountains with ferns, banana plants (herbs not trees), and all kinds of trees and shrubs.  We had a tasty meal of spring rolls and Coke along with our friends from the ride up, and went to sleep quite contented.  The next morning, we set out to visit the Pathor cave, where the villagers hid during the American bombings from 1964-1975.  The cave wasn't all that big, but we were told over a hundred villagers would crowd inside.  Now it's time for a little historical interlude.

We knew that there was a "secret war in Laos" but we never really knew the details until we arrived.  For example, Laos is the most bombed country in the world, winning that grim title because of the 2 million tons of explosives that the U.S. military dropped here, beating Nazi Germany by about 30%.  We learned that the U.S. decided to support a Hmong general who agreed to help them fight the Communists.  This general, now living in wealth in California, was given funds based on the number of soldiers he recruited.  He was very active, obviously, but didn't pass on the pay promised to his soldiers, instead enriching himself.  To make matters worse, Hmong villages which wholeheartedly supported the American cause were bombed as soon as the Pathet Lao (the Communists) captured their territory.  The result is children and families killed by the government they supported, all in secrecy.  Unexploded Ordinance, or UXOs, continue to be a major problem in Laos, having killed or maimed almost 12,000 people since the war's end. Our guesthouse owner in Phonsavan watched two of his friends get killed after playing with a tennis-ball like piece of metal -- an unexploded cluster bomb.

After our walk we came to the realization that we need to do some laundry.  Unfortunately it was already 2:30.  We borrowed a bucket and to the neighbor's great amusement we washed our clothes together.  The women laughed at Michael when they saw him going back and forth from the bathroom carrying wet women's underwear.   We got a choice spot on some neighbor's line, and hoped that the hot sun would dry out our clothes in 2 hours.  But it didn't.  So we had a lot of damp laundry on our hands, but at least it wasn’t dirty. 

We found that the minute a place becomes popular with tourists the kids start asking for things.  It starts with pens and ends with money.  Nong Khaew was at the initial stage -- kids asking for pens and candy. 

We don't make a habit of giving them, but one crafty girl offered to help with the laundry in exchange for gum for her and her little brother.  She was very tricky though because once we went together to buy the gum, she took her brother's piece and said her brother was too young to chew.  We compromised and she gave him the prize sticker that came along with the candy.  All this with 2 words in English and one in Lao.

Among other things we got to do in this little village was to "help" with the gardens -- we wandered into someone's back yard and followed her to the river.  While helping to carry water from the river to the garden and watering the vegetables, we got a crash course in Lao vegetable names.

After the laundry, we decided to go for a swim in the Mekong, but first we wanted to get a snack.  We wandered across the bridge to “restaurant row” (three of them), and chose the one with a bunch of Lao guys and a couple girls eating and laughing.  They invited us to sit with them, but it wasn't until we were committed that we realized we had gotten ourselves into a drinking table. 

Four shots of Lao-Lao later (rice whiskey, very strong), Michael was hugging the guy next to him and Hagar was putting pieces of fish and chicken from her soup on everyone's plates.  There was great merriment all around especially when it was our turn to provide the entertainment.  We do not have a special hideaway for brewing liquer, so we bought Beer Lao. After three big bottles of beer, the sleepy and drunk crowd dispersed.  We realized the power of peer pressure.  We do not drink unless we meet locals who guilt us into it while constantly refilling our glasses.  It's really impossible to decline other people's generosity and good company.

That night, an Argentinian guy arrived with an interesting solution to the pens-candy-money dilemma.  He brought out balloons and soon all the children from the village (about fifteen) were playing with them.  His balloon supply almost exhausted, he moved forward to reap the rewards by playing with the laughing children, but soon realized the town would not be satisfied until the mothers also got balloons.  "Mak-bet! Mak-bet!" they called, pointing to their children's balloons.  When he presented our hotel owner with a yellow balloon, she filled it with air and started making squeaky noises with the balloon.  It was a happy loud crowd, until dinner time when everyone all of a sudden disappeared.  Four children came up the path with a dead dog which we later saw being prepared for cooking near the fire.  We forgot to mention that outside of the main cities there is no electricity.  In some places, like this town, the generator kicks in from 6 pm to 9 pm, which makes for an early night.  Makes sense -- we all wake up with the chickens at 4 am anyway.  This makes for a nice and lively evening though, because most of the family/town life takes place around the fire.  People retire to their homes after dinner, but until then it's family fun for everyone.

 Part IV: Famous last words: "We should get there tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest."

The next day, we decided to continue on to Phonsavan, about 250 km over major highways.  We prepared for the journey with glazed fried dough (almost-a-doughnut) with Lao coffee, and played with a monkey tied up to someone's gate.  Hagar grew attached over the course of one minute, and spent an hour or so petting the monkey, scratching it, and giving it pieces of banana.  The owners offered to sell it to us for 80,000 kip- eight dollars!- but Michael refused, due to logistics.  Hagar is still crying at night, missing her little friend.

Our route was supposed to be as such: take a bus from Nong Khaew to Vieng Kham.  Switch to a  bus for Vieng Thong. Switch to a bus to phonsavan.  Sounds easy enough.  We waited for the bus to leave for Vieng Kham, and at 10:30 it drove without us (but with our stuff).  An Irish guy traveling with us jumped out of the cafe, chased the bus down and hopped into it.  As half an hour went by, his fiancee became worried, but it eventually came back. The ride started on the bumpy road. 

Several hours later we pulled into Vieng Kham.  There is so little there, it can hardly be called a town.  There was the road (not really a highway but more like a one lane two way paved strip of land) and a couple of houses, and the river.  We ate somewhere and tried to figure out the bus situation.  It looked as if there was a bus directly to Phonsavan that arrives at 11pm.  Later it turned out that the bus would be arriving between 11pm-3am.  At the same time a sawgthaew arrived and we thought it would be wiser to just jump on that one.  So off we went merrily down the road, feeling happy that we resisted previous temptations to take other rides to towns further down the road instead of patiently waiting for our direct to phonsavan bus.

We are still not sure if we should have waited.  We climbed into a small truck filled to the top with Hmong men and women.  There were so many people that two of us had to stand outside, holding on to the frame of the truck.  That was fine as long as the road was paved, but the road was paved for only a kilometer, and for the rest of the ride we were bumping along on pot holes and rocks.  At around dusk we got our first flat.  An hour later, the spare went too.  It was already dark and we were hungry, so while we ate packaged noodles prepared by the shop-lady we had awakened, the neighborhood children watched, and our Laos truck companions built a fire.  Finally a truck pulled up and filled our tires with air, and we hopped back on, looking at the tires suspiciously. 

We drove forever, it seemed, and we amused ourselves and everyone around us by singing some ole rock tunes.  Finally we pulled in to Vieng Thong, and found that there was only one guest house open.  We foreigners (us plus the Irish couple) were placed in two rooms, each with two beds.  Still, we hung around to see what happens with the Lao people (we were suspicious that we were being made to pay while everyone else slept for free in the local Hilton).  Nothing was happening with them and slowly it became apparent that they had nowhere to go.  So we took three Hmong women and our Irish friends took the other three, and all the men went into the third room that all of a sudden became available.  When Hagar took the Hmong women to the Irish couple's room, Tony was already in bed.  Picture this scenario:  Tony, a big bald Irish man, lying in bed, on his side, resting on his arm.  Hagar mentions to him that if he moves to the small bed, then the three women could sleep in the bigger one.  He agrees, but before he moves, Hagar motions to a very old and tiny Hmong woman that the big bed is all hers.  Tony opened the covers a bit, and raised his eyebrows none-too-subtly and the woman jumped back in absolute horror, using the universal hand gesture meaning, "I don't want to sleep with that big man!" At this point Tony and Hagar are in fits of giggles, and have a hard time convincing the woman that she's not sleeping in the same bed as him.  After all, we have no language in common, and Tony is still in the bed doing the eyebrow move.  In the end, we each had three Hmong women in our rooms, and they all woke up at 5 am, right before the roosters.

The next morning, we got ready to go, but to our dismay saw our driver building a new tire out of our old one and some extra scraps of rubber he'd found.  The result did not inspire confidence: a slash in the side out of which the rubber lining bulged out, while the other side can only be described as lumpy.  This tire looked more like a strange tree growth than a tire, but on top of our roof it went, “just in case” we had another flat.  Ten minutes of driving and we had our third flat of the trip.  We thought it would be best to use the homemade spare to drive back to town, but the driver was clearly thinking, "Must save money. Tire must last for next 150 km."  Twenty minutes later we heard a very loud pop, allowing us to add to our auditory experiences the knowledge of a popped tire (as opposed to a fizzling flat one, as the two before had been).  We were now about 10 km from town and our driver started to run back along the road the way we came. 

Everyone lay about, and we all had a positively wonderful time lounging in the sun as sticky rice and freshly chopped sugar cane were passed around.  The view was incredible, and it was easy to forget that this wasn't our final destination.  Four hours later, the driver came back on a motorcycle with a new tire that looked all right (no tread, but no gashes either; can't be picky).  By 2 pm we were on the road again, and the conditions had deteriorated further.  There isn't much to tell about the rest of the drive except that we kept thinking there will be paved road soon, and it took a very long time until there actually were no pot holes on the road.  The driver felt bad for us at one point because we'd been taking turns standing outside for two days now, so we got the first two seats that became available in the cab.  We squeezed between the old lady from the night before and  another lady.  The old lady took a liking to Hagar and put her hand on her thigh for most of the ride.  Not used to this sort of affection, Hagar gave her a hand massage which left the whole car giddy with excitement, and hand massages were being passed around everywhere.  Then the lady held Hagar's hand, and thus, cozy, we bumped along the road.  Then it came the Irish couple's turn at warmth, so we went out to the cold and cuddled another woman who we used for body heat.  And she thought we were being nice! Ha!

Michael has composed a song in honor of this ride, sung to the tune of "12 days of Christmas":

On the twelfth day of traveling, my driver gave to me...

12 kinds of bananas,

11 thousand potholes,

10 dried fish,

9 people on the roof,

8 words in Lao,

7 squawking chickens,

6 bags of rice,

5 seconds till I puke,

4 flat tires,

3 Hmong women,

2 days to go,

and I only have one chance to pee!

 Part V: We feel obliged to mention the jars

In Phonsavan, we were dropped off on a dark road and pointed in two directions to look for guesthouses.  We tried a hotel, but at $10 a night said no thanks.  A laughing, Dr. Hibbert-esque (from the Simpson's) fellow who spoke perfect English offered to take us to his friend's guesthouse.  We checked it out, but when it was discovered that "yes we have hot water" meant they would boil a pot of water for us and bring it to the shower, we decided to look elsewhere (two days of a hard ride makes a hot shower less of a luxury and more of a necessity).  He took us in his James Bond car (an old Russian one just like in the movies) to another "friend's" guesthouse and here we found happiness.  Warm water, if not hot, but the owner was very friendly, chatted with us for a while, and the food was delicious.  Veggie fried rice, turkey BBQ (yum!), steamed rice, french fries, and tea really hit the spot.  We settled in to our bungalows and showered quickly before the electricity went off.  We sat by the fire (built in an empty bomb canister), and had a nice chat.

The next day we got a tour of the Plain of Jars.  There is not much to say except that they are really big jars and we were happy that we went on our bus ride more for the adventure than for the jars.  We saw jar after jar after jar, and then lots of bomb canisters and an old Russian tank.  We made note of the fact that bomb canisters are used in Phonsavan for lawn ornaments and parts of buildings and fences.  It's a bit eerie.

Part VI: "Are we there yet?" "Don't ask."

Our allotted time up, we grabbed a bus to Vientiane over a new route that was supposed to take 12 hours.  Yeah, right.  We were happy to see that the road was paved, which should have been our first warning signal.  Soon after we left, we stopped.  There was a stalled truck carrying a bulldozer in the middle of the road.  The truck looked like a minor improvement over the Model T, and the bulldozer must have weighed a million tons, and everyone was scratching their heads over why they tried to drive it up the hill in the first place.   We were wondering what the plan was, especially when we saw some men from our bus shoveling aimlessly at the ground.  Turns out it wasn't so aimless, and they turned the ditch into a smaller ditch.  The bus went quickly into the makeshift road and.... got stuck.  So out comes the cable, and every man on the bus begins to pull.  Somehow, after some pulling and digging, the bus made it out and the men ran all the way up the hill with the bus, cheering and yelling their success. 

It was touching the first couple of times, but these things get really old really fast.  Without exaggeration, we pulled/dug the bus out of the mud/trenches seven times over two days.  Each time it looked hopeless, a big truck pulled up to help out after an hour or two.  We broke a shovel, moved piles of dirt and rocks, and pulled and pushed.  We even performed emergency first aid on a man's bleeding finger.  There was a lot of blood coming out of that finger, and Hagar's shirt became a casualty of war, as it was used for a bandage.

Just when the rocky wet roads turned into flat and compact roads, it began to rain and the good dirt road became muddy and red.  We got stuck again, and were fishtailing in very frightening parts of the mountains.  Still, we made it.  Until at 11:30 pm, when the bus stopped.  We burned through two tires.  In China we always thought it was strange that there were conveniently placed tire-hosing stations in the middle of nowhere, but now we know why.  Needless to say, the crowds climbed out the windows of the bus and changed the tires.  And off we were again, until the bus stalled on a steep incline, and more pulling ensued.  We finally arrived at 9:30 am, 25 hours after we left.  We should note that the bus driver never slept and that he drove or directed the rescue efforts the whole 25 hours.

We are now in Vientiane, and have already enjoyed a warm shower (hot just can't be found) and yummy coconuts.  We're hungry, as we haven't had a proper meal in two days (you should have seen the look on our faces when the scallions and tomatoes intended for breakfast flew out the window).  We were quite lucky to keep our stomachs empty though.  Most of the people on the bus feasted on the usual bus food -- sticky rice and dried fish -- and most of them spent a great amount of time vomiting.

A word of advice for travel in Laos -- always arrive at the bus station an hour and a half in a advance, otherwise you will stand for many hours.  Such was the fate of other pitied souls.  We were lucky.  We had learned our lesson in China.

Wat in Luang Prabang

Wat in Luang Prabang

Wat in Laos

Wat Museum, Vientiane

Wat

Vientiane

Calling-for-Rain Buddha, Vientiane

Woman with sticky rice steamers, Laos.

Wat Phu near Champasak, (older than Angkor wat).

Our sawngthaew taking us to the ferry, Champasak, Laos.

Near the ferry on the way to Champasak, Laos.

Ferry Landing near Champasak, Laos.

Boat ride on the Mekong from Champasak to Si Phon Don, Laos.

Waiting for a new (?) tire, Vieng Thong, Laos.

Si Phan Don (4000 Islands), Laos.

Hagar's 22nd Birthday Party! Off the road near Khong Kaen, Laos.

Master of Ceremonies at Hagar's Birthday Party, Laos.

Victory Arch, Vientiane

Wat in Vientiane

Novice Phet (l.) and friend in Vientiane

Luang Prabang, Laos.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Old wat, Luang Prabang, Laos.

Reclining Buddha, Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang, Laos

"On the road" near ??

Hagsy and her new friends in Nong Khaew, Laos.

Hagsy and her other new friend in Nong Khaew, Laos.

Woman spinning silk in an exhibition center near Khong Kaen, Laos.

Mekong River

Mekong River

Mekong River, southern Laos

Mekong River, southern Laos

Mekong River

Weaver and loom near Khong Kaen, Laos

Plain of Jars, Phonsavan, Laos

Plain of Jars, Phonsavan, Laos

Novice Phet, Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

Victory Arch, Vientiane, Laos

Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

Vientiane, Laos