Laos

Luang Prabang

This small city feels like France with a South East Asian flare. The streets are potholed, the sidewalks dirty, but aren't scattered with doggy landmines found all throughout France. So, in a way the streets are cleaner here. French restaurants, cafe's and bakeries dot the main street and trickle down the side streets, leading to the Mekong River. It's a laid back, friendly vibe here. There are a number of temples littered throughout the city and are accessible by walking. Most all of them are living, breathing monasteries, so rather than look at the statues inside, the real treat is watching the monks in action, doing laundry, hanging out. Boys from poor families are often sent here to receive their education to reduce the financial burden on their families. They stay here until they are 18 to 20 years old at which point they can decide their path. All Laos boys, however, are expected to commit to monk hood for a period of 3 months. A highly popular tourist attraction is to wake with the sun and watch the procession of alms. This ancient tradition was never meant to attract tourists. It's the means to which monks and novices receive their food for the day. They walk, single file, through the streets, stopping at little outcroppings of locals who place food in their serving bowls, returning home before most of us wake up. This is a highly respected tradition and all tourists are asked to silently watch from a fair distance, dress and act appropriately. Some tourists do engage in giving food, but this is met with mixed feelings from locals. So, if this is on your to do list, please educate yourself and act appropriately. If you'd rather sleep in, don't worry because the monks are everywhere, all day long, all over town.

The Night Market is pristine, well-lit and organized by type A personalities. Vendors set out their blankets on both sides of the street with two more vendors, back to back, down the middle. Each and every one of them, and there are many, lay their goods out with perfection.

These perfect rows nearly make shopping painful, as we don't want to disrupt the beauty of it. But we do, purchasing a scarf for my sister, one Beer Laos t-shirt each and a pair of slippers for this girl. The vendors aren't pushy, it's a playful dance and the price falls quickly, agreeably. Down one of the side streets we sqeeze our way through local snack vendors and buffets of local salads, grilled meats and fish, noodles and fried veggies. 20,000Kip, or roughly $2.45, will get you a large bowl which you fill as high as you like, grilled meats and fish are extra. It's the most cost effective way to eat your way through this city. But, if it's too crowded in here for you, it's crowded and seating limited, head across the street to the sandwich, juice and coffee stalls. They are open all day and serve some delicious fresh foods for a great price. While here try the Laos BBQ, terribly inexpensive and super tasty.

For the best iced Lao coffee head just out of town. From the tourist center in town, turn left, toward the bus station, walk about 5 minutes and you'll see a roadside stand to your right. She's the only thing out there, so you can't miss her. I highly recommend selfishness here and do not share with your travel partner. It's too delicious. Laos coffee: coffee, milk powder and sweetened condensed milk. This makes for a chocolatey, perfectly sweetened and delightfully creamy iced treat, for around $1, served in a bag, secured with a rubber band and poked through with a straw, then placed in a paper bag, within another plastic bag. I returned the rubber band and outer bags, silently hoping for a free refill for my recycling efforts. Instead, we let the ice melt and pretended it was a never ending bag of Laos coffee.

Laos coffee, iced

The sun is intense here. The river really isn't a place one goes to cool down, so we booked a van through a local tour company (this would have been cheaper through our hotel, but was still a great price) to Tad Sae waterfalls.

There are two ways to get to the falls once paying the nominal entrance fee: straight up the paved road or turn right and wander through the Asiatic black bear (or moon bear) rescue center. Each of the bears here have a rescue story, printed for your reading enjoyment. Terrible things have been done to each and every one of them, in the name of financial profit. We watched, in horror, as an Asian man threw his cracker over the fence to entice a bear off his post. There was a sign right in front of the man that said "DO NOT FEED THE BEARS". It took a few seconds to realize it was indeed food he threw into the enclosure. As he readied his hand to throw another one, we yelled "NO, STOP" and repeated ourselves, walking towards him. As it turns out, we have a soft spot for bears. We live with them in Truckee and appreciate their beauty and purpose. We've witnessed what feeding bears does to them. It just isn't right. This sorry excuse for a man, was so cocky and self-centered and he thought we'd just go about our day, and leave him to entertain himself by feeding the bears. After failing to find a single staff person, to have this man handcuffed, led into the parking lot to receive a quick and justifiable death by firing squad, we decided to just monitor the situation on our own. I made sure that he and his friends saw, read and understood the many signs, telling us not to feed the bears. His friend shook his head in agreement that he wouldn't do it again and we began walking out. That ignoramus threw another cracker over the fence! I yelled and silently hoped he'd choke on his lunch. I tried to explain this to staff at the entrance gate, but they did not understand English. This was beyond frustrating.

In search for dinner one night, I walked into a Fair Trade shop and before long was deep in conversation with the mother of the owner. Besides being beautiful and well spoken she was kind and friendly. I told her about our trip and she said that her daughter, the store owner, had done the same thing, quit her job and set out for a year-long trip around the world, 16 years ago. She had several months to go, when she traveled to Laos, falling in love with Luang Prabang and set out to fix the issue of there not being a single book store here. She decided to set one up, selling new and used books, committing to finish her year abroad and accepting that her store may only survive a month, but it was worth the risk. It was a success and the first slow season she closed the doors to finish her travels, returning to run her business for another 10 years. She now lives in Los Angeles while her mother runs the shop. The books are wildly overpriced and from what I gather are traded in by travelers for discounts on other books, or coffee, or a meal. The shop is a two-story with the street level offering a number of local Fair Trade textiles and the small used book selection. Upstairs is an art studio and tea room. At 7:00pm every night they offer a free movie, and the list is impressive. We watched two movies here, ordering one thing to eat or drink each, as one agrees to for the free movie. The portions are small and the price is near double what you'll find at the street stalls, but you get comfortable seating and an entertaining movie.

Speaking of movies. Jason met a movie star. Okay, not really a movie star, but a famous person nonetheless, and to Jason better than any movie star. We were walking through town one evening, on a main side street and a white guy on a scooter passed, going the opposite direction. I looked at Jason and said, "hey, that's Anthony Bourdain." Jeans, loose fitting shirt and oh so cool posturing on his scooter, I knew it was him and kept walking. Famous people make me act stranger than I already do. In my attempt to play it cool I make oddball comments, blush radioactively and generally act as if I just got off the short bus (this comment is not intended to belittle those who ride short busses, as even they would act cooler than me). Jason froggered himself across the street, walked right up to him and said "Anthony? Hi, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm a big fan." Anthony, "Always nice to meet a fan." A smile and a handshake and he was off. And we were off, coincidentally to watch a free movie at the exact resort he was staying. If you call hunkering down in some bushes outside a fancy hotel room, watching what they're watching on TV, a free movie.

Back to this interesting woman at the Fair Trade store. Her story is just as inspiring as her daughters. She had worked as a financial planner, in a senior, coveted position, in Quebec. At 49 she decided to retire, knowing that she would eventually have to work again, but she was done. Co-workers, although thrilled for her now open position, thought she was nuts. "Why give all this up," they openly asked. She sold her big house. She sold her baby grand piano and moved, site unseen to Los Angeles. She didn't know a soul there. She didn't have an apartment. But she just knew that's where she needed to be. She met and married a man, they had 7 blissful years together, before he passed about 10 years ago. When her daughter decided to move back to Los Angeles, from Laos, she grabbed the opportunity to live here and manage her daughters thriving business. She has no regrets. She evaluated her life, at the young age of 49, and decided her story would be different. She wasn't going to live to work. She wasn't going to work to obtain stuff or things. She was going to live, really live. My fire, which had been dimming in regards to motivation for what's next, career- and life-wise after this year, began to burn brighter.

Nong Khiaw

We came up here to relax. Not that there's hustle and bustle in Luang Prabang, but there are a number of tourists, and to be honest not much we wanted to pay to see and do, although there is plenty. We booked a bus through our hotel and were promptly picked up in a beautiful grey air-conditioned van just out front the hotel. We then drove around town until the van was full. Once full we drove about 10 minutes and got out of the van and piled into a smaller, older, less shock absorbent van and braced ourselves for the three hour drive. We arrived, just outside of town, and jumped into a tuktuk, learning that the vans used to drop you off at your hotel or guesthouse. It's a small town and tuk tuk drivers quickly figured out how to profit from the growing tourist interest. It's not an expensive ride, but the tuk tuk drivers were referred to as "the tuktuk mafia" by a couple of the locals we met.

Nong Khiaw

Our hotel was basic, but with a huge deck over looking the river, a cranking A/C and comfortable bed. Family owned and operated, I silently stalked grandma as she weeded around the place. She fascinated me. Probably in her 80's she was bent over from the waste, in a perfect ninety degree angle. This was how her body was, after, we assume, years of hard physical labor. She'd catch me looking at her and smile, say something in Lao, and go about her weeding, only to look up a few moments later, where, yes, I'd still be staring. But, if you stare with a kind smile, it's not weird.

There's not much to do here. So we decided to take the advice of a friend and go a hike. The trail begins across the street from the Hive Bar. (There are two hikes, this is the shorter one.) We gently woke the ticket seller from her nap, paid the small fee and began our ascent, literally up the side of a densely forested cliff. Using all four limbs we scrambled to the top, stopping often to wipe sweat from our eyeballs, hydrate and ask ourselves if the napping ticket seller would think less of us if we called it quits, 5 minutes in.

We agreed that her judgement of us would lead to shame drinking and so we continued up, finally resting on the roofed platform on top, about 50 minutes later. The morning had been overcast and dreary, but it was now blue skies and great views. Blue skies means heat. Tropical forest means humidity. Being white, high dessert people, this means death by sweat.

We have literally never sweat this much, ever. Jason looked as if he had gone swimming with his clothes on. Water pooled under his seat at the Hive bar, so much so that we felt it necessary to inform the kind owner that he in fact did not urinate on the floor.

Without any clever way to end this blog, I will abruptly end it now. However, if in Nong Khiaw, drink as many coconut shakes as possible at the hotel / restaurant, JOY, to the immediate left of the bridge, once you cross the bridge. Creamy, sweet, ice cold and coconuty delightfulness.