Warmest winter yet

I can’t believe it’s already almost Christmas. I think because I spent the first half of December traveling around Laos, it hasn’t quite caught up with me yet. So right before Eve and I left, we had one big last night out with Mairi and Natalie, which was super fun but bittersweet in that way only real ‘last night’s’ can be.

The first thing we did was catch a 6 hr bus to Chang Khan, which is the Thai border town. It’s super small, but really pretty since it’s right along the Mekong. The next morn we got up early and crossed into Laos, where we then got onto a slow boat. The slow boats are really long and skinny, and totally packed to the gills. They make about 5 stops throughout the day, and it really is pretty slow. It’s mostly full of young’sh backpackers, who use it as an opportunity to get trashed. The boat stops for the night at Pak Beng, which was another tiny town along the river. Our friend Kirsten had warned us that when she stopped there someone tried to sell her crack and made it seem super shady, so we were expecting the worst (and may have referred to it as “crack town”). But it really wasn’t like that at all, it was just really sleepy. I’m not sure what’s up with the electricity in Laos, but the electricity in Pak Beng went out at about 10:30, so finding our guesthouse in the dark was a little tricky, but we’re survivors.

We then had another long day on the slow boat, until we got into Luang Prabang in the evening. Luang Prabang is an adorable town, and it felt awesome to get off that boat. The next day we caught a truck out to this gorgeous giant waterfall, and there were these beautiful little pools you could go swimming in. We scrambled up to the top of the waterfall, and had the lagoon to ourselves, which is where we choose to go for a swim. There was also this deserted mansion that looked like it had either burned down, or been hit by a tornado. Either way, we climbed around it and had a lot of fun. That night we went out with some of the travelers we had met on the slow boat, who were all super nice though various levels of cool. All the bars close before midnight, and then everyone heads out to the bowling alley because it’s the only thing that stays open late. By the by, Eve and I are terrible bowlers…The next day was Tuesday, which is apparently “no electricity day” in Luang Prabang, so we hung out by the river for a while, and then rented bikes and rode out to another, smaller waterfall. There we went swimming again, and got some much needed sun.

We got up early the next day and took a bus down to Vang Vienne with the awesome Canadian couple we had met on the slow boat. We got into town around 2, and Wednesday is apparently “no electricity day” in Vang Vienne, so went straight to the river. Vang Vienne is basically known as a place where you rent an inner tube, and float down the river and drink. They have all these bars, and slides and rope swings, and it’s super fun. We went out that night, to a bar aptly called “Smile Bar”, and I have to say it was the only super fan (read: dancey) place I found in the whole country. The dj was playing some MGMT, Justice, and this incredible mix of 3 minutes EVERY good song from Dirty Dancing. Needless to say, I was in heaven. I went down the river the next morning before all the drunken backpackers got up, and it was super peaceful and relaxing. Hard to believe it was the same route I had taken the night before.

From there we caught a VIP bus into Vientienne, which supposed to take 3 hours. However, this bus was the biggest joke of my life (read: death trap), and it took close to 7 hours. The transmission and suspension were both shot, and the bus was slanting at a scary level by the time we got off. Eve and I and the Canadian couple had ditched all the other kids by this point, so the four of us rolled into Vientienne a little after midnight. Of course all the affordable guesthouses were closed or full by that point, so we walked around the town (which is about 3.5 streets, smallest capital city ever I swear) for about an hour before we were approached by a tuk-tuk. He offered to take us out of town a little bit to a “cheap guesthouse”. We didn’t have many options at this point, so after he agreed not to leave us in the middle of nowhere if the “guesthouse” was full, we got in. He took us to a couple before we found one that wasn’t full. It seemed ok at first glance, so we paid up and got ready for bed. After about 10 minutes, we realized we were in fact staying in a fully functioning, in fact very busy Laos whorehouse. I won’t go into the details that first tipped us off, but the pimp outside and the loud whores coming and going made us pretty certain. We got new sheets to lie on top of, and Eve and cuddled for warmth since we clearly weren’t going to get under the covers. The next morning Eve booked it to the embassy to get a new Thai visa, and the Canadians and I found us a cute, guesthouse right on the river that did not rent rooms by the hour.

We had to spend a full 4 days in Vientienne, since we got there on a Friday and it takes 2 working days to process a Visa. Many people had told us it wasn’t that dope of a town, but we really enjoyed it. The architecture and food were clearly French influenced, which was a nice change of pace from Thailand. We found a small (but still really fun) water park, and just walked around checking out the sights. We also caught a bus out of town one day to check out this beautiful Buddha Park, which had this one giant circular thing you could climb way up in. There’s definitely no good night life there, but we found plenty of fun hanging out with our new Canadian friends and lurking around. Overall, I had a really great time in Laos, and I think 12 days was a good amount of time to spend. It’s definitely not as developed as Thailand, but the food just might be better. It was weird too, because in total we had almost a full day on busses to get back to Chiang Mai, which was clearly annoying. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point Chiang Mai became “home”, because once I got there I just kept thinking how glad I was to be there.

Not a ton has been going on at my work. Today was my project head’s last day, as she is resigning. It’s starting to dawn on me that my boss may not be the best manager, and quite a few key staff people seem to be looking for other jobs. So for now, the situation analysis has sort of been put on hold, until we can either hire a new project head, or rent one from another NGO. But I get the impression my boss isn’t really going to do much about that until the New Year. Apparently next week some of us will be going down to Lamphun to build a house for one of the kids who recieves a living fund for us, though I'm not exactly clear how our NGO has the skills/materials/experience needed to build a house....I'll keep you posted. In the meantime we’ve been spending our time at work trying to plan our New Years, we are most likely going to go down south to the island of Ko Chang. Ok, hope you all are doing well, and those of you on the East Coast aren’t freezing.

Xoxo
Rae