Laos: Leeches! Mud!, Norm and the hill tribes, and a city that I'm all done with

Our antagonists were everywhere, surrounding us. They closed in, shimmering brown in cool morning air, rising up off the floor of the forest, reaching out with hungry intentions

"Run!"

puff puff,wheeeeze

The bright green of the bamboo and the sun reflecting off of it all seemed so beautiful yesterday, but today is oppressive and dangerous. I desperately swing the only weapon that I have to ward off the ever-advancing evil, flinging back only a few at a time before the attack is reinvigorated.

"You must keep running, come on, they're all over!"

hurghhhhhhhhhh, puffpuffpuff, splat!

Trudging up-hill, the sun permanently fixed in our eyes, limbs burning like brands being pressed into deep muscle tissue, we continue our hysterical ascent. The air feels close among the bamboo and thick patches of muck slow us down on the few flat places that are teasingly interspersed with the near vertical wall we are climbing.

"Please! Hurry! We must keep going!

ker-thumpkerthumpkerthump, puffpuffpuffpuffpuffpuff, "argh!!!"

Relentless, unfeeling, uncaring, our aggressors close ranks for hour upon hour, mercilessly advancing without knowing the signal for retreat.

Yes, leeches can certainly be terrifying.

As I clomped and clambered up the steep Northern-Laos hillside, occasionally stooping down to brush the homemade leech repellent/killer of tobacco, whiskey and raw salt on my feet with a feathered bamboo brush, I was struck by how quickly circumstances can change. Not three days before I had been sitting quietly under an umbrella, enormous bottle of Beerlao in one hand, The Great Gatsby in the other, contemplating the easy flow of the Mekong. Now, exhausted only one hour after waking, muddy, covered in bleeding wounds from sucker-mouthed leeches and sweating through the long sleeved shirt that I had, in a veritable orgy of poor decision-making chosen to wear, I began to wonder at the sanity of my undertaking.

Northern Laos, not much to see...







Jumping back a few days in time to the end of my stay in Luang Prabang, as everyone who I had been spending time with decided to go South, I ventured Northwards. This wasn't for lack of fellowship, as these fellows of mine from the ship (ouch! pun!) were certainly wonderful to be with. However, my occasional and seemingly bizarre need to be alone for a while had manifested itself and it was time to, as the kids say, "split."

This involved taking a (say it with me now) "local bus" which added a new twist to my previous conception of exactly how uncomfortable you can make a bus ride. I bought my bus ticket, and arrived at the station what ended up being 2 hours early. "Great" I thought "I'm definitely getting a good seat." Gods of travel feeling grumpy that day, when the bus arrived at the station, it was completely full, every seat taken. This particular bus had originated in Vientiane, the capitol, and had spent the last 10 hours acquiring passengars, bags of rice, coconuts, etc. The sight that I was greeted with then upon setting foot on the bus was that there wasn't a seat anywhere to be had. A bit confused, I stopped moving for a second to try and figure the situation out. Big mistake. Immediately, I was pushed from behind by one of the drivers and told to "get to the back." Thoroughly confounded, and with freedom rider-like thoughts, I motioned that there didn't appear to be anywhere to sit. That was when he handed me a small red, molded plastic stool, you know, the ones that they have kindergarteners sit on when play time is over, and gestured into the aisle.

Ohh okay I get it. 12 hours on a red plastic stool touching everyones elbows around me. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn....

Then I realized that I could put the stool on my chest and sleep on the floor, and that is how I spent the night, waking up every 10-15 minutes to allow people to get on and off the bus. I arrived in the Northern Laos province of Luang Nam Tha at 6AM and lurched away from the bus, feeling a lot like a grumpy zombie. It is useful to note that I was heading to an area that is largely undeveloped tourism-wise, so it's not like there was any really helpful (if annoying) little men with cards for guesthouses that I could simply rely on to get me somewhere, anywhere, that I could sleep.

at 6AM, this hut seemed like a fantastic option







Did you know that it's hard to read a sign that is written in a language that you can't read? And that this is made more complicated by the fact that it was an hour before sunrise, and that my eyes were crusted over and bleary? Well, even though I've been in this situation before (with Yeah Yeah in India) it never gets any more fun. By the time that I had found a guest house, dropped my bag and passed out, the sun was shining and the flock of roosters that were kept behind the guest house were arguing over when dawn was. I tried to protest that everyone was awake so they could shut the $#*@ up, but my objections met with no response.

Vaguely rested, I set out to try and book the much talked about trekking in the region. As I canvassed the town, I learned that there was only one trekking company (or "outfit" as one super-too-cool-for-school American informed me) so I had to use them. Being an incredibly small town, on the Burmese border which had only recently (4 years ago) opened any areas to commercial trekking as a kind of ecological experiment, it was not hard to find what I needed. As with any double edged sword, I got cut two ways by being alone. The treks that were provided could be quite reasonable in price, provided that you traveled with at least one other person. As there was practically noone else in town, I ended up spending a real lot-ton of money. But I got to trek alone, just me and the barely-English speaking guide, for three days.

Ket and I got acquainted as completely as we could with sign language shorthand. After a night spent in town in which I learned that absolutely nothing was open past 10pm and that you were expected indoors by 11, as that was when the guest house was locked, I managed to get some sleep.

Bright and early the next day, Ket and I started off, on the first leg of our journey; a 10km walk through a brief lowland area, followed by lots of hill climbing. Our itinerary was to hike for the day, then sleep in a village of native Hmong villagers.

Yes, yes, I know, I look like an idiot in this picture







As I have spent a fair amount of time describing the beautiful and amazing landscapes through which I have ventured, I will not try your patience by expounding on Laos at length. However, failing to do so entirely would be doing it a massive disservice.

"...in leaves no step had trodden black..."







Like all of South-East Asia, Laos' topography varies hugely, between long low valleys and, more frequently in Laos than in Thailand, enormous forest-encased rolling hills. Passing through them, particuarly at a low point, they rise above you like a great moss covered dolphin fin, row after row not glistening with water in the sun, but absorbing all light into a cool darkness beneath the canopy. The only way through is the very definition of windy and getting to the top of one hill affords you neither rest, nor much of a view, as the thick stalks of bamboo and conifer trees obscure any distance that may be look-at-able, and the way down is often more treacherous than the way up.


This hill is named "flipper"...by me















As Ket and I began walking, the sky turned gunmetal, a dull grey and blue and he urged me to increase my pace. Rain, when walking straight up hill, is not particuarly fun. We made it to the first village where we stopped to eat. Ket dissapeared for a few minutes with his machete, and returned with two enormous bamboo leaves. I then learned that most hill tribes use bamboo leaves as a kind of makeshift table when they are out hiking, and also to wrap food in as they grow high above the ground and are generally very clean. Lunch consisted of eggplant and sticky rice, and was, despite my previous distaste for eggplant, quite delicious. The fun began when the rain started and we weren't more than a little bit past the halfway point to the village in which we were to spend the night. Going up a muddy hill is one thing, you can sort of dig your feet in and push. Coming down a near vertical slope, while it is still raining and the path has been mutilated by passing cattle, is close to impossible. Add to this difficulty the fact that bamboo is the primary construction material in the region, and you find that much of the stalks near the trail have been cut at an angle. If you have never been around live, growing bamboo, it is not so much interesting as necessary to remain alive to understand that falling on a cut piece of bamboo can easily wound you deeply, if not impale you. At the grade of descent that we were attempting, falling on such a staff would be a very serious issue indeed. However, in a superb example of a problem leading to a solution, Ket hacked off two huge pieces of bamboo and together we edged our way down the slope with our improvised walking sticks. Each step necessitated reaching far out in front of your body with the stick, driving it with all your strength into the soft soil, and then trusting it enough with your weight to get your feet to a stable position.

Funny story: I walked into this spiders web, and rather than breaking through it, it was so strong that it snapped my head back. Then Ket pointed up while taking big steps backwards, and I screamed like a little girl





As exhausting a practice as this became, it was also incredibly rewarding when, at the bottom of one of the hills we looked up and saw arcing high over the greenery a brilliant rainbow, a rainbow that even as we watched was shot through by sunshine as the clouds cleared for a few moments. A unique expereince in many regards, not the least of which was feeling a sense of accomplishment upon reaching the bottom of a hill.

Me and Ket, best friends 4eva







Near sundown, we arrived at the village. Dropping our soggy gear, and sitting down inside the special "visitors hut", many of the locals came by to stare at me. Then they offered me a Beerlao. We were 10 hours of hard walking from anything resembling a road, I saw no particuarly easy way for them to transport in goods, and here they were offering me a beer. When I said in an earlier post that Beerlao is an institution in this country, I was not understating the fact.


These kids did not think that the joke that I told them was funny.






Anyway, the beer was sitting out warm and covered in cobwebs, so I elected to pass.

After a dinner of fish soup, fried fish and some more fish things that I can't remember (sensing a theme?), I went outside to see what the village people did at night. In short, they go to sleep. The town did not have any electricity (although they had a very small generator operated off of the running water of a stream that I was told was just installed and had enough power for two light bulbs for a few hours...whoppeee!!) so after the sun went down, the families ate by lamplight and got some shuteye, to be awake bright and early to fish the river for the next days food.

In my wanderings, I came across a shallow dock that hung into space a bit over the river. On the dock were a number of young boys from the village, eagerly crowding around a cheap radio, scratchy music coming out of the tinny speaker.


"Sittin' on a dock of a, uhhh...river"









When the aerial would get jostled (which was frequently as everyone was elbowing each other to get closer to listen) the sound would dissolve to a low static hiss and the one holding the radio would have to realign it with the heavens to get the signal back. I sat with them for a while and occasionally acted as a kind of antenna extender, standing at full height and reaching as high as I could into the sky to perhaps better the reception. I think that I was at best, moderately successful.

The long wondered about boys who the movie "3 Ninja's" was based on. They asked me to keep their secret, and I said that I would, but I had my fingers crossed behind my back.





I wondered about what they hoped to find when they tuned in each night. I caught snatches of what sounded like the news, some pop music and maybe a talk program. Did these kids care deeply about world events? Would the croonings of the big pop singer of the moment be a necessary fix for them after a hard day of net fishing? How would they even know who to listen for, as the tabloids only were parachute dropped in once every month, leaving them hopelessly behind (I mean, they still thought that Brad and Angelina were a rumor for chrissakes!).

My musings carried on past the time when they were called in to bed, after which I decided that they could be listening for anything, but that mostly, the radio served as a kind of reminder, even proof that there was something going on beyond their little stretch of forest and river, and that maybe they could come to that brilliant something one day. Maybe it is something that sustains them, or terrifies them or is only of enough interest to warrant a few minutes stolen each night. But no matter what, it betrayed a curiosity that I found endearing and hopeful.

The next morning saw us awake at dawn and engaging in the jungle warfare described above. The trail was covered in fallen leaves, and since apparently leeches can spawn spontaneously when only given a leaf and some moisture, they were everywhere. More an inconvenience than anything, it was still a challenge to hold the small glass bottle with my improvised "leech-off" and try to struggle up an increasingly muddy hill. As mentioned before, inter-village commerce necessitated the transport of large animals along high narrow paths, and the passage of even one cow over a muddy trail is enough to render it nigh-on impossible to get through without getting seriously dirty.

This days hike was to take us even deeper into the hills, then down to a river where we would begin a day and a half of kayaking on the Nam Tha river. For some background information, the region that I was trekking in is known as "Luang Nam Tha" meaning "The big river Tha." Similarly, "Luang Prabang" (where I been previously) means "the big Buddha."

Etymological roots aside, the trekking this day was particularly strenuous, for the abovementioned reasons of leech killing, cattle freight and intermittent periods of very heavy rain. Of course, it was wonderful. The only sounds were those of the cicadas in the trees and the bamboo growing (and yes, at anywhere from 15cm to a meter a day you can actually hear it growing). It is a strange experience hardly speaking at all for 3 days (and one which I'm sure many of you are astonished to hear I was capable of) but it allows a lot of the clamor in your mind to calm down and, when not focused on edging your way down a hill, you can get to thinking quite clearly.

One thought that remained persistent throughout my time in Laos (Authorial intrusion here: I'm in Vietnam as I write this where the feeling pervades) is that I was an American traveling through what was, up until the war in Iraq, the most heavily bombed country by the United States. Ever. Occasionally, Ket would point out a region of forest where there was simply nothing growing.

"Bomb here" was his only comment but it resonated with me for some time. Later on, I learned that Ket was a field medic in the Laos army during that war. I didn't get into particulars with him, but he surely had to deal with casualties caused from American bombs and that thought sobered me throughout the trek. It's not as though I had never had a social consience before, but being confronted so directly with the results, even 50 years later, of a sustained bombing campaign brought certain facets of my resolve into sharper focus.

We arrived at another village, got our kayaks and took off down the river. The Nam Tha river winds its way through much of Northern Laos, originating somewhere in Burma. The shores are steep and sandy, giving way to the same vertical walls of forest through which we had been hiking. I regret not having pictures of this, but pretty much every where that I've been in rice producing countries, you will see huge swaths of burned hillside, completely barren and deserted-looking. However, far from being something negative, this burning is intentional, as the ash from the fire serves as a perfect fertilizer for the rice crop that is later harvested. I don't really get it, but it seems to work.

Kayaking for 6 hours straight, especially when you haven't done so in a very long time, is hard. Really hard. But, going along with that quietness theme of before, I managed to get myself into a rhythm that sustained me throughout most of the ride. Then I utterly collapsed when we reached the next village and slept for the few hours before dinner.

It is continually fascinating to me the range of responses the arrival of a "white guy" has in remote villages. For the most part, it can broken down into 3 categories, and these three categories are almost always based on age:

First category: Old people. The've seen white people before, are vaguely skeptical and have more important things to be doing. Usually you'll get a head nod of acknowledgement, occasionally a smile. Not much else

Second category: Teenagers. Of course, teenagers are a weird sort no matter where you go, but in these villages there seems to be a great amount of cognitive dissonance when I first show up. They vascillate between "oh cool! someone different who has information about the oustide world and trends and stuff, lets talk to him!", and "but I'll just remain aloof and kind of glance over a lot because, well, I'm a teenager." This group is usually friendly right off the bat, then goes away for a while, comes back, and then dissapears for the rest of your time there. They want to ask loads of questions, but feel constrained by, well I'm not really sure what.

Third category: The kids!









...these are the best because they go back and forth between laughing out loud at everything you do, running away in fear every time you stand up, trying to climb all over you when offered the chance, posing for pictures, watching you while you sleep and being generally interested in everything about you. It's great.

So I awoke from my nap surrounded by a group of perhaps 15 kids between the ages of 1 and 12, standing over me and watching me while I slept. A little weird. As soon as they saw my eyes open, they all screamed and ran for the door of the hut, where, just like in the movies, a few moments later you could see a vertically stacked row of heads, peering around the corner to continue their vigil. I spent the night teaching and being taught. For instance I now know that "mu" means "nose" in Hmong, which is the extent of what I recall. For my part, I taught them "head, shoulders knees and toes" with the acompanying melody, how to count to ten and that cake is delicious. I'm really hoping that last one stuck.









We woke up the next day nice and early, set out kayaking and thinking, and arrived in the afternoon at the tour pickup point. I was smelly and sweaty and pretty dirty and leech-bitten and sore and I felt great. The truck ride back to "civilization" was a 4 hour shock absorber free-for-all over the rained out roads and mud puddles that passed for roads, finally arriving back in Luang Nam Tha just in time for me to bolt down whatever food was placed in front of me and to pass out.


The end of the line






I rode the crappy bus back to Luang Prabang, stayed the night, caught a bus to the capital city of Vientiane and stayed for 2 nights. If that sounds like a pretty dull description of travels, it's because nothing really of note occured and Vietniane is pretty much just a big ol' captial city, albeit one where nothing every appears to happen. The real highlight there was that I went bowling at 4am with a bunch of Laos people and had a lot of fun. There really isn't much more to say about the place. So have a look at the pictures.

Those silly monks and their weed-whackers

It's like the Arc de Triomphe in France, except...not

Next: Vietnam!, Further travel-related superlatives, and the terrifying sight of a swarm of mopeds