Bus: Vang Vieng � Vientiane

               Feeling like plastic and small? Can�t get up in the morning? Sea-sick? Blues got you down? Well � insert happiness here.
               Cramped tight on a bus, more and only more get on. Tighter than a wet grannie-knot. Living and life in Taipei a beneficial advantage (note: opposed to an un-beneficial advantage, or even the vice-versa of the original statement) for preparation and submersion into high population density. Like down in the bunker, holding my breath...they�ll all jump me for the seat, and leave a carcass on the roof, baking in the mid-afternoon sun.
               Bus broken down. All the people on the road. I speak of another bus here, and thus other people. Always room for more? Not necessarily, but let �em on anyway. These other people become other passengers at yet another pick-up stop.

Vientiane

               I interrupt for another comment and commercial break: once out of the dichotic luxury of Bangkok, it can be noted in the rest of the country and compared with other neighbouring countries to be divided in its choice of cola beverages. One, and only one is available, and even moreso advertized in the smaller towns. Even smaller cities, like Vientiane, have restrictions on accessibility to �the competition.� Thus, the �other brand� can be purchased at inflated prices compared to the country�s �sponsor brand.� And in consequence we have Thailand: brought to you by Coca Cola, and Laos, PDR: brought to you by Pepsi Cola. It�s trite, and it�s not over-apparent, but it�s noticeable.

               One thing quite noticeable right away in Vientiane was to pay heed to guidebooks� warnings of �Watch your step.� Manholes and sewer covers, some nearly a meter square, have been removed from sidewalks and roadsides. Add poor lighting on the streets and you have yourself a potential broken leg, fibula jutting out of the skin, blood streaming down the calf.
               As always, I made my rounds to get familiar with the new surroundings. For the first time I got lost. While nowhere to be found, I wrote this in an email:

------------
(07/13/02)

Hi there.

  It's taken a while to get through. Back in Vang Vieng they only had these C64/cracker jack box computers which ran through some sort of new fangled call-and-response modem between geckos and roosters finally making their way around the world through fiber-optic mekong catfish. But it just didn't work.

  Things are better here though, they've got at least 14.4k and at 1 cent a minute it only cost about 60 cents to get a couple notes out.

  So, we pulled into this new city earlier this eve. Alya is out...cold, tired from the bus and convalescing from kayak overturn. As for me, I'm wandering...and am technically lost. One thing: they either have motorcyle-taxis with female drivers or prostitutes on wheels (unlikely alternative 3: i am just a handsome fellow wandering the streets of Vientiane).

  So where we left off from that last email so many nights ago: So we cut into that boat ride and it was awful, just the way you'd like it. Two days of discomfort, wet and tedious, and jungle on both sides. No way out. At night pulled into Pakbeng where small children pleaded to carry heavy backpacks for you while seedy characters skulked about proffering opium and amphetamine-laced marijuana. These vocations were occasionally reversed...(which is sadder, you decide...) Cut out of there in hurry 7 am pouring rain all the way to Luang Prabang which was a beatiful change of mind for Laos. Friendlies all around.

  People's Democratice Republic of Lao, our current country, what's with the hammer and sickle currency?

  As for the last few days: wonderful. Now in the capital, the big French Vientiane. Immediate calligraphy states i'm in the Chinatown zone. Otherwise: lost.

  This place is less friendly. Not unfriendly though...but there's a 12 o'clock curfew (overstay=armed escort back to residence) so i best find our guesthouse. There are lots of cops and checkpoints with suspicious eyes...not wonderful after the last two towns we visited over the last week...free for all...kayaking, caves, fruit shakes and ganja pizza. More expensive here too - can you believe we had to pay (US) a buck fifty EACH for dinner?! Back in Vang Vieng that was the total.

  Any how, we're here for a couple days until we fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia and the big ol' temples of Angkor and landmines.

  Here is a funny story: it's rainy season and my passport got soaked. Soaked. Everything is in order Except:
1. My Laos PDR stamp. (fortunately alya's is intact for corroboration of my pitiful excuse and i do have proof i left thailand...but as for entry into laos there's a generic date stamped and a signature...hope that's good enough as the stamp is gone...as is the visa now just a red blur...

2. My multiple re-entry to Taiwan stamp...fortunately there's 2 week visaless free stay there and we'll only be back in formosa for 3 days before returning to canada.

should be fun.

love john
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               Vientiane, a nice break back into a �city� atmosphere, as much as it could be called, was pleasant, but really was more of a transit point given the presence of Wattay International airport.

Suan Phut (Buddha park) in Xieng Khuan, in all its obscurity, grabbed our attention for an early afternoon. Just past the Friendship bridge, and only a moderate swim away from neighbouring Thailand this odd park housed a zoo of bizarre stone statues. Fifty-foot gargoyles carrying (proffering?) dead princesses. Pig-headed dominators grasping stone women by the back of the hair. Semi-comical, ambivalent �octo-Buddha.� Complex Three-headed elephants. Immense stone apple, a �Giant Peach� of the horror era, housing motionless statues made even more eerie by photography flash, lightning-like tree structure piercing out of the top into the sky. Hundreds of stone statues, all watched over by a vast, stoic Buddha stretched in reclining posture halfway across the park.

It was here where we met Monk Joy. A young man of knowledge from reviled Pakbeng. We met many monks along this trip. Often they will great visitors to Wats and ask some generic questions, allowing them to practice their English skills. The interviews are short and general, and usually one-sided to the Monk�s ken. Monk Joy however, was as informative as he was interested. He stayed with us for our entire time at Suan Phut, and we spoke of many things, even posed pretty for the camera for some Asian tourists. I still hold his photo in my wallet, in promise that I�ll email some pictures to him.                Speaking to Monks gives you one obvious realization: they are just regular people. There is the image that they are high and mighty on another plane of mental awareness, that they are unapproachable in their spirituality and meditative enlightenment. But, (should you have one), just like when you find out your own religion�s celebrant does normal things like eat fast food and go to the movies, talking to a Monk about sports and traveling really reveals the humanity of them all.

               I received a traditional Lao massage at Wat Sok Pa Luang. Herbal sauna and forty-five minute (which extended to one hour in the final edit) for $2 U.S. Never had a massage so relaxing, afterwards at least. Quite painful and bone-cracking at times. Really wasn�t ready to hear my neck crackle the way it did to that sudden quick jerk to one side. (I had had another massage in Vang Vieng � but I really don�t think the fellow was trained at all. It was a generic backrub, one that might be expected from an untrained boyfriend or girlfriend, with a few extremity maneuvers giving semi-qualified impression. Towards the latter half of the massage the fellow began talking business partnerships and money-making ideas to profit in his town. More of an entrepreneur than a masseur).

               An early morning wake up to catch an early morning flight. Bags heavier with Talat Sao morning market goods and the white elephant brigade totaling three now. Wattay International not even completely awake yet as we try to enter the gate after a next-to-securityless entry. Wait until eight-thirty. Walls again caving in around me and intercom sounds of the incompatibilities of airwaves. Sitting in a plastic curved seat patiently watching a large generic wall-clock. Regardless of how it�s felt, time always moves at the same speed. Some few meters behind, smokers collect in the designated �smoking area� which is nothing more than a rectangular space by the wall bordered off with red tape. Wafts of smoke occasion the air, exhalations caring little for boundary limits. Some of the smokers have taken chance escape tactics stepping into the middle of the waiting room from their taped-off walless cell. The warped room of tired eyes is undeveloped, unplanned, and disorganized, and smacks of anything but an international airport terminal. At such a point, so early in the morning, I am hallucinating.
               There�s no way out of Laos now but that small propeller plane out on the field. The Journey has come to this final flight of fancy. And even then, Cambodia is ahead and all. But how simple it all is...for the travelers. How depressed that man was, in the misty mountain rain, army jacket and discarded eyes. What chance did he have, or ever stand to have? The clouds are circling all around us, the villages too, and all one can do is just stand still, watching. I�ve seen millions of sad faces, but only one like his.
               On happier notes, new people and places are ahead. When the sun goes down, new places we shall be. You ever wake up in another country and forget? All the smokers were standing, some finicky enough to break the boundary momentarily to drag a chair from the borderless coffee shop back into their hazardous prison. The rest of the people sat anonymous and defeated. The rest of the world did as it damn well pleased.

A learning experience? Any old experience could be. If anything, the amount of food, wisdom and love gleaned from these landscapes is enough to satiate any metaphorical heart. The food glows warm, spicy, and fresh. Those roosters doddling about the streets could truly be part of tomorrow�s paad thai. Its freshness shines out from the dingy, sweat-stained aprons of local cuisine reptilians. They mix and match delicate seasons. Snow falls in the most humid of places. Sun shines in delight. Chilis battle it out over colour lines. Vegetables only in this race war. Everyone is eating when they come to my house. Everyone is eating eating. Watching movies local or visitor. The food comes so fresh and so edible. Esculents for the masses. How many bellies filled to pure happiness each day? Is this a moment of sadness? Are all the travelers contextual gluttons. Are the locals satisfied? They seem so friendly, day in and out. Pretty faces, tired faces. Never angry faces; never. And when they eat, the locals, it seems it often comes from low-to-the-ground grills of never-ending barbecues. They cook chunks of meat, chicken mostly. Nearby stand thatched domes housing/imprisoning later�s choice rooster. These chunks of meat, small bowls of rice, and a BeerLao, funds allowing, serve as the average meal. The people are thin. Spice and heat definitely. But what of quantity? The poorest most beautiful country in the world.                Wisdom shines through an undying understanding that you made it out here, once and for all and deserve to see the world as it is. No longer does North America have its impact in daily living. Gone is the West and its compulsion to wax safety standards, nutritional statistics, and maximum seating capacities. Now we see the world isn�t in our hands. Got it made, got it easy. Back home. The blues. Got it so easy back home it�s insanity. And should insanity arise, top-rate subsidized health care would rear its tender caring hands.

               When the first-class seats aren�t available, coach seats on the Greyhound bus recline just fine and give ample room for the in-flight movie, full amenity bathroom in the back. What do we get here? Just enough room to breathe, and the first block of metal on wheels that comes our way. It all adds up to a different world and the bleak realization that the dishware is not always crystal clear. Things aren�t always up to non-existent regulation standard and are not always ready and available at a snap of the fingers. There is a trust that the people know what the people want. Let the people help themselves to what they need. When we are all at rock bottom there�s nothing but necessity. And here are the travelers, fat with pineapple shakes, newfound insight to the world, and naive jealousy. It would be simple to disappear. If this isn�t wisdom it�s something else.
               Where are plastic moments now? The most horrible but most prevalent memory: two days on Mekong isolated only by a paranoid sunset in Pakbeng. Feeling anonymous and shapeless with a distraught pen to damp cringed paper, women�s voices screaming through the night; a bitter perverse harmony to the percussive chirps of geckos. Camouflaged spiders cascading over sleeping bodies lie. Given to silky discharge of score lines in the twinkling air, arranging and forming the orgy into savage wind-blown notation. Mosquitos around our membranes. Wishing malaria and potential illness; they only want to survive. All in a day�s meal.
               And the love. The love we all felt was real enough to traverse the globe several times over. Each. The romance of Europe is linguistic and architectural, here it is plain chaos of everyday living. The love of the people. That small boy playing with fire, burning away another day. His mother would never let him hurt himself. And it only takes one mishap to learn the subtleties of your plaything. Learned at three. When the clouds cloud over and the sun stays sunny only up and above them out of eye�s sight, the rain climbs down slick wet tendrils into our hair and bodies and licks away sweat in sensual yen. Temperature bleeds down into valleys and throughout the lowlands. Water glistens, brown and blue alike. Anonymous bodies float all along, corpses of tomorrow�s future. Only the named die back home.
               �Do you have any ideas?�
               I�m blank, full, restless, horny, callous, full of ideas. Flies were all about, and my toes had been scraped and reddened like the face of a pimpled adolescent. For months I will have the cicatrix of memory�s blisters.
               I just came for the massage.
               So small these places and so small the ways of the people. So tiny the worries and so great the tolerance. Medium-sized roosters litter the street, geckos painted across walls everywhere you look. Walk out onto the runway to greet a shaky-looking little propeller plane, just like mom used to make. Rocky and bouncy little fellow. After a stopover in Pakse, the captain comes back into the cabin and makes request for half the passengers to move to the back � weight dispersion and all, you know. These little planes take off so quickly, much lighter than the jumbo jets which just leave me in wonder at takeoff noting it�s just a bunch of nuts and bolts.
               A closet textbook case of fear and wonder, so anonymous and pleasant. No one wants to hurt you. There�s no way out sometimes. You just have to find the trapdoors. When you find the quiet entrances and egressions, it�s only a matter of a few steps.

�LAOS PDR�
DEPARTURE

               On happier notes, new people and places are ahead.

john
June-September, 2002
Don�t forget your memories.

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