LAOS - PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

...messing about on the river!




Laos PDR stretches out flat from the Friendship Bridge, with the wide Mekong river separating it from Thailand. The Mekong will now lead us up, down and eventually out of Laos when we'll follow it through Cambodia, then it will fork off to Vietnam and away. This is South -East Asia proper now, and the Mekong is THE water and source of life for millions.

A short taxi from the border to Vientiane, the only capital city we've ever seen with only one hi-rise. Broad avenues, hot fresh air, river maybe one mile wide, cars spotted every now and again...and BeerLao - the best and cheapest in Asia! The French were here and left in the 50's, and left behind a taste for coffee and baguettes, and an occasional glass of wine...
but they also left behind chaos and ultimately revolution, and today Laos is still trying to pick itself up from the unfortunate position of being the most bombed country on the planet. The USA flew more than half a MILLION bombing missions over Laos, and dropped more bombs from aircraft than were dropped on Europe, by either side, during WW2.
The people are amongst the gentlest, kindest, and welcoming (to ALL races) that we could hope to find...

Pleasant couple of days here, wandering the boulevards, visiting the National History museum, studying textile shops and markets, and I got to watch Laos vs. Australia at the football stadium, 0-0 draw, 20 pence to get in, Laos more skillfull, but at one moment had two stretchers on the pitch as they struggled against the Aussie giants! Also visited an eccentric 'Buddha Park', created by a sculptor, scores of mad statues and sculptures on the banks of the Mekong.
Laos is simple, still socialist by name, but opened up to business and tourism, and nice not to be surrounded by Mcdonalds, Coca Cola etc who still do not trade here. Learned to love a good bowl of noodle soup, often served with a sideplate of raw veg: quarter of a cabbage, a few beans and chillis, and a handful of mint sprigs, mmm...
From here a bus up to Vang Vieng, a riverside village popular with backpackers - a playground for them. Here you can go 'tubing' - float down the river for 4 or 5 kilometres, thru the most amazing scenery - steep limestone Karsts and caves rising on either side, scenery straight out of
'Kung-Fu' or Lao-Tsu, whichever your taste, while eager locals try to sell you BeerLao from the end of their bamboos, or join them for illegal distilled spirits (Laolao), or other exotic substances.
On from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang, a tortuous bus journey north to a chic and picturesque little town, fully open for tourists, dominated by an ancient temple in the middle, with 34 other temples within 2 miles! We teemed up with an English guy (Simon) and Thai wife (Gan) for a couple of days of discovering the town, and a river trip, up the Mekong to see caves used as a pilgrimage site by locals and dignitaries. We seriously thought about going up to China from here, not far but still 3 days bus to Kunming and totally out of our way really, so had to bite the bullet and go all the way back to Vientiane on the bus - an excruciating day! Route 13 is safe now, but drivers on public transport still carry a gun, some other travellers we met said a guy had an AK47 on board the bus! Worse or better than CCTV? don't really know!

Anyway, back in Vientaine we galvanised some thoughts we'd had on the lovely textiles and furniture we'd been looking at, and have made some contacts for possible future business ideas and researched export possibilities...watch this space.

And then to south Laos, poorer with even less roads, communications etc. An overnight bus took us to Pakse, eventually after letting out a LOT of smoke at midnight and us waiting for a replacement bus till 3am, and then left bustling Pakse market at 11am in a sonthai - a converted pick-up truck, same as my old Nissan Cabstar, with 22 of us on board, and 8 piglets! We headed down to Champasak and piled onto a ramshackle (that word again!) wooden ferry to the village, site of a World Heritage temple area, Wat Pu. We stayed a couple of nights here, courtesy of Mr Vong, the happiest and most Jovial guesthouse owner we've ever met. A poor town now with occasional electricity, large colonial houses set back from the one road, with the remnants of their once proud gardens! Met lots of talkative travellers and realised that in Bangkok we talked to no-one! -out in these parts you all get on. We enjoyed our midday cycle ride to Wat Pu, losing most of our flesh as sweat in the process, and decided to head down to Four Thousand Islands on the Mekong the next day.

Mr Vong told us he could fix us up a boat ride for the 80 km journey so we went down to the river with him and waited, watching the riot of life at this villages 'ferry port'! We also watched the boat sail by, while furiously waving at it, so squeezed into another pickup, back over on the ferry, up to a road junction while we waited for our pickup to Nagasang, watching the local children desperately trying to sell their wares of papaya and raw water chestnut to passing traffic. Our pickup came eventually and hurtled us down to another ferry for the ferry to Dondet, an island, one of 4000, where the Mekong suddenly widens in the far south of Laos.
And Dondet is beautiful. Thick with trees and a smattering of bamboo huts, served only by tiny longboats for ALL their needs, laid back tourism where for 2 dollars you have a hut with bed, balcony and two hammocks! And views to die for!
We chill and read, meet other travellers, and a couple of English guys who have bought 1/3 of the island next door and are hoping to develop a small resort there. He needs a landscape architect, I tell him what I am, so we pile off and have a look, I do a footstep survey and am working on some ideas, but I know he wont be able to pay me yet, and I don't even have a ruler on Dondet, nor does anyone else, never mind a big piece of paper! But good to think design anyway... We team up with them for a river trip up river to an island looked after by monks - a little BBQ area, pineapples planted, beans, chillis, water melons, and spend the afternoon playing with Martins pet monkey and roasting duck! We stop off at the local policemans island for a quick drink on the way back, and this is where I lose my wallet. Damn!
24 hours of confusion follow, finding the islander with a mobile who buys top-up cards for me to phone UK, countless searches and lots of frustration. 15 dollars cash, not bad, my cards, and all my phone numbers!
We feel we should move and there is only one way out now - south! Cambodia beckons down that winding Mekong, our visa will come to an end soon, and all we can say to all you wonderful Lao people is: Kopchai Lalei!!

BANGKOK!

Wow!
Teeming city of the 21st century...monorails and skytrains, asphyxiating pollution, skyscrapers galore, temples and stupas, orange clad monks with umbrellas, hot noodles off the street, a backpackers Capital City and Centre of Operations.
One Big Shop!...anything available here, if you want what what they,ve got.. although all somewhat now standardized and packaged for the bargain hunting tourist...
The Best Hotel...clean towels and sheets and bedrobes that looked and felt like furry waffles, air conditioning and a swimming pool on the roof, and breakfasts you help yourself to and always regret on day one when you get your money's worth...and CNNad nauseum, and spotless rooms. We loved Buddy Lodge and its $25.00 a night of luxury...
Spent 5 nights here, doing some belated Christmas shopping for the fashion afficianados back home, some sightseeing and enjoying that hotel and city, but its changed so much - Jac was here 15 years ago and could barely recognise it - yes, the beggars are gone and you can't buy live sparrows for dinner off the streets anymore, but its joined a lot of those other big cities in the world, and by the first weekend we had our ticket booked for the night train to the border, visas in hand, for Laos.
LAOS!

Sri Lanka

Aaaaahhhh!
Can we take it home please?

SRI LANKA:

The name just conjures something beautiful and exotic, if not some sort of paradox, buddhism and war, tranquility, Asia and sometime hardship...
To come here from India is also a mixed feeling, gone is the chaat and hecticness, smells and poverty, but welcome a serenity and purity, touched with a raw consumerism hungry for the tourist dollar...
At last the best tea we will ever probably taste away from home, served in beautiful crockery and enormous pots, savoured three times a day!

We were somewhat wary on arrival, having heard about mafia control of tourist shopping etc. on the beaches, but this was really just someone's bad experience and our experiences so far should teach us to keep reaching for the salt!
We trained it straight up to Kandy from Colombo, sat in the 'observation' carriage at the back of the train, as it sped across the lowlands then chugged up the lush, tropical hills to Kandy, about 500metres above sea level, enough to cool slightly from the humid heat in Colombo. The day we arrived was the first day with no rain for the last couple of months, a late and heavy monsoon. (La Nina? I believe). Kandy is a cool place, fronted by a refreshing lake, tall trees and surrounded by hills. Arriving from India you can't help but compare: gone are the smells and rubbish, in arrives Buddhism...with a much more evident colonial past.
Stayed one night at a guidebook hotel, but moved the next day 100 metres away, 1/3 of the price and 1/3 of the rules! Lakshman made us welcome all week in his home: a single parent with teenage daughter, musical brother and a Spaniel called 'Bubble'! - home cooked food Sri Lankan style, and a colourful little garden to relax in.
Kandy - a pleasant place to wonder, to check out some yoga classes we could both do, which we did, take in all the different array of sights, sounds and smells, people and pleasant cups of tea at the 'Old Empire Hotel'.
We joined a yoga class for a couple of mornings, run at a meditation centre by Mahesh, and also there could meet some expats to whose we were invited out for dinner later in the week. Corr - a roast chicken dinner in Sri Lanka, a beautiful house and garden to enjoy it all in, interesting company, just a strange feeling of being served by servants! who do it all! still, life on the other side, and make a point of thanking the servants especially!
The Botanic Gardens was a full day and a set of batteries for the camera. Large, labelled well, set out in good distinct zones, only main difference with Wisley being the gardeners who will find scorpions for you to photograph, at a price..
Elephant Orphanage... ooohh, aahhh! Here's one to make the most hardened crumble into gooiness...and awesome when up to 40 elephants, with young, are led down the street` outside after lunch , to the river where they spend a couple of hours bathing and playing in totally natural surroundings.
Sigiriya - ancient settlement and important Buddhist centre, complete with 1800 year old water gardens still visible and partly restored, if not working! An 1100 step climb, pleasant in 35 degrees of sun, and a view over what looks like most of Sri Lanka when you get to the top!
All these trips on local buses - 3hour rides that cost less than 50p, hurtle you to your destination with amazing faith in the Lord Buddha! Beats the tourist buses anyday, but infuriates the touts pleading with you to go their way!
The main tourist attraction in Kandy is the Temple of the Tooth - said to house a tooth of Buddha wrestled from his funeral pyre. Well, an amazing building, and from within the complex I was actually able to foto the temple, a Hindu temple, a christian church and a mosque in one frame! The building is Sri Lankas pride and a big pilgrimage for many Buddhists, but still sets out to become something which is perhaps not what Buddhism is all about..? Wonderful gilted decoration, fine art, staggering wealth? All very lovely tho'..
Kandy is a picturesque and interesting town, but our fondest memories will probably be with Lakshman on his musical nights. Brother and friends come round, out comes the harmonium, fiddle,tabla drum and arrack, and old songs played and sung by all, in a lilting almost sea shanty music, almost Gaelic I asked - songs and influences handed down from the Portuguese. All sorts of guys here from taxi drivers to Colombo businessman, in fact he brought 10 bottles of arrack the first night!, and a privilege for us to be welcome.

We trained again back to Colombo then down the coast to Galle, the largest town on S.L. southern coastline, and heavily sufferred from Tsunami. Off to Unawattuna where my niece and nephew (hi Ben & Indhu!) learnt to snorkel years ago. A glistening cove of blue sea with low buildings - restuarants & hotels, with a temple and stupa to overlook it all. WE spent a beautiful few days here, glad that we had done a lot of sightseeing first, cos we'd never leave it otherwise! Luckily we had a plane ticket out!
The Tsunami crushed this place. Concrete and brick buildings crumpled, boats were ripped in half, many people went with it. The aid came in, and I would think that a tourist resort such as this probably had first pickings! Much has been rebuilt, and is still being rebuilt, and there are not enough tourists yet, but, probably to be expected, there are a lot of loose ends un-done, a lot of government mishandling and popular disapproval.
i.e. - one bar we used which was a 'shack on the beach' in our guidebook, is now a beautiful new building, concrete, with good architecture and fine new furniture, still with the labels on.
Meanwhile, a wonderful family we met, the Chandrullahs, had their large guesthouse demolished by Tsunami, no aid because their house was within 100 metres of the sea, the police smashed down their attempts to rebuild - twice!, and have depended on donations from old friends and guests to finally start a rebuild. They have a roof of sorts, plaster half way up the walls of one room, a fridge (essential) donated by Project Galle, and a TV (essential to watch SL play cricket) We only met him on our last day and left him some spare rupees to buy some cement.
Big Problem, after Tsunami, government only granted money to buildings 100 metres from the sea. Most of Unawattuna lived within 100m of sea. Who benefitted? Often the large resorts set back from the beach owned by wealthy Europeans. Difficult one, and I've heard just recently that changes have been made to the 100 meter rule.
Yes, millions of moneys from all over the world did reach here. Much reconstruction has gone on. Sri Lankans ARE grateful. Problems are bound to arise, injustices and inequalities...Lets hope they never have it arrive again...and that meanwhile they don't plunge themselves into war anyway...
Nuff of that - Unawattuna = excellent snorkelling 50 metres from shore in perfect waters and all those wonderful technicolour fish. Wonderful fish served on to your plate. Interesting old town of Galle a 5p bus ride away. Yoga served on a daily basis. Heaven really!
We drove up to the airport north of Colombo during the evening, at this time of the day with people still out: eating, drinking, shops half open, bookies still open, car lots, loads of places to buy your Nissan Cabstar, police and roadblocks, it reminded me of Thornton Heath High Street - or Shirley Road! Honest! Slightly scruffy but alive and kicking...thru the heaviest security to get into the airport, then suddenly the return of airconditioned world, CNN, expensive tea and Thai Airlines whisking us away to the monday morning rush-hour,Bangkok!