Laos: Long lazy days, too beautiful waterfalls, and everyone is getting "happy"

After our little adventure with the vagaries of Mekong River transport, myself and the small group of friends that I had made on the boat (difficult circumstances serving to accelerate friendships...also beer) needed a few days to get our wits back about us. Fortunately, when the boat finally arrived where it was supposed to, our disembarkation in Luang Prabang, the second largest city in Laos, was greeted with a loud yawn from the locals and the occasional haranguing from a tuk tuk driver, who seemed about as concerned with giving us a ride as he was with the lint in his belly button.


Buddhist temple, in front of which I was offered opium. Strange country...



Due to the former French colonization of much of South East Asia, there have been certain residual effects on the cuisine, those effects being fantasticness. Restaurants serving pan au chocolat, baguettes, croissantes etc., yet on the opposing menu page serving noodle soup with fish, fried everything with ginger and spring rolls. Eclectic doesn't even begin to describe it.

After removing the feedbag from my face, I ventured out into the town to see what it was like. 20 minutes later I found myself on the outskirts of town wondering what had happened to all of the people. A few traversals later, I realized that the entirety of town could be covered on foot in roughly 45 minutes, allowing for the occasional stop for ice cream along the way.


A temple?! In South-East Asia?! No way!







So what is there to do in Luang Prabang? Pretty much nothing, which is largely the attraction of the place. An interesting phenomenon which may have been unique to our boat or perhaps just occurs every time a new load of people arrive, is that I knew pretty much everyone in town by Day 2. Because it is the low season, there were very few travelers there who hadn't come at the same time as me. Given our peculiar circumstances, everyone who had arrived together at least recognized each other on sight and after a day knew everyone by name and an interesting fact about them. I wrote them down on note cards.









Thus I would find myself walking down the "main street" and being greeted by loud yells from both sides from people alternately 1. booking onward travel 2. sitting at internet cafes or 3. eating. This is what you do in Luang Prabang. It felt exactly like my first year of college, during which time I could barely get 10 feet down the sidewalk without being engaged in conversation about whatever it is that I was thinking about when I was 18. Probably girls.

However, the continuation of that phenomenon is that inevitably, another boat arrived. This was more analgous to my final year in college. I didn't live on campus, couldn't be bothered to meet anyone new, and all of the formerly familiar faces were replaced with those of a vaguely sinister and menacing nature. Who are these new people? What are they doing in my town? They're eating there? That place sucks. Et Cetera.

Aside from being the geographical equivalent of valium...


A whole day in Luang Prabang...guitar, beer, umbrella







...the town has a certain charm that makes it quite pleasant to hang out in for a while. As one walks down the street, the constant chant of "waterfall, waterfall?" from hopeful jumbo drivers (a jumbo being a pick up truck with a roof over the bed and some uncomfortable benches to ride on) who want you to go see a waterfall...apparently, follows you wherever you go. As I had not much else to do, I decided that it might be worthwhile.

What do you think?




























No comments really necessary here...







So yeah, this is essentially the most perfect grotto/waterfall/paradise that you could ever hope to get on film (or memory card). The water is exactly as blue as it looks and warm enough to suggest that a recent swarm of little boys had just vacated the premises grinning mischeiviously. After flinging ourselves off of the waterfall and taking turns playing Batman on the rope swing, we walked up to what we then learned was the "real" waterfall there.


Egads!








I hadn't showered in weeks. This was insisted upon.






After gaping in awe and nearly breaking our necks trying to see the top of the damn thing, we learned that there was an easy path up the right side to some of the pools, or a more difficult path to the pools near the top that ran up the left side.









The easy path, though inviting, was clogged with people milling about, so we decided that despite our fairly easy-going day, we'd hoof it up to the top pools and have a look about.



Jumping off, even though noone else was...







More perfect waterfalls...yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.











View from the tippity top






After 45 minutes of rugged climbing, that involved caribiners, harnesses, a helicopter and 10 tons of explosives, we found ourselves at a completely deserted set of pools, the space above them soon filled with our shouts as we hurtled through the void and splashed in the (thankfully deep-enough) water. From this pool, we were able to swim to the edge of the waterfall and look over. Scary, but awesome-scary.

I returned the next day since I had had so much fun, and in my enthusiasm, after dozens of people had swung into the pool on the rope swing, I gripped it tightly, kicked off from the branch while giving my best Tarzan yell, then heard a *snap* followed by my an immediate arrest to my forward progress and a loud drop into the pool. When I surfaced it was to catcalls in no less than 5 languages, and a number of exhortations that I eat less before I come next time. Since I don't get embarassed, lets just say that my pride was very slightly bruised.

I feel that the following sign is ironic enough to warrant its own paragraph break. Seriously, how ridiculous is this...?










After a few days, most of my traveling buddy-folks had made the decision to head South to Vang Vieng, a town renowned for harboring huge groups of backpackers who huddle around televisions everyday to watch Friends. No I am not kidding. The other reasons to go there are that there is a great river upon which to tube and drink, and at night you can have a "happy shake" or "happy pizza."


The whole gang, spending lots of money to see each other off in style





For those who aren't up on their South-East Asian-drug-euphemisms, allow me to enlighten you. A "happy"-anything is a food product that contains varying quantities of highly potent marijuana. Should one feel so inclined as to have an "extra-happy" pizza, it would involve a fairly significant amount of marijuana. To date, I know of at least 5 people who have ended up in the hospital as a result of getting too "happy". I also didn't hear from a single person who didn't regret having had one. I think that this functions a lot like peer pressure in high school to drink. Someone hands you a beer, you've heard that beer is great, everyone else is drinking one, you're excited, you crack the can open, it foams all over your hand, warm and fizzy. You drink it and it tastes like an old shoe, but you keep going because everyone else is having so much fun. 4 years later when you finally acquire the taste for it, you spend your time convincing everyone who hasn't already started drinking that they are missing out. I suppose that it should come as no surprise that this type of activity carries on in to any sort of large grouping of impressionable, herd-minded individuals (as many backpackers tend to be), but as nearly everyone who is backpacking at least ostensibly has survived certain rigors up to that point, you would assume that they could reason things like that out for themselves...but...well...not so much.

I just realized that writing any further events will require a massive posting, and as such, I will be cutting this one short and putting up the rest of my time in Laos later in the week. Stay tuned!

Next: Argh! Leeches!, Making friends with the hill tribes, and a capital city that didn't feel so capital