May - June, 2001

We crossed the Mekong river from Chaing Kong in northern Thailand to Huay Shai, Laos in what was a small longtail boat. Our first impressions of Laos was one of 'thailand's sleepy country cousin', there where apparent similarities of theravada buddism,colorful wats and a commen mother language, along with the usual varities of food and dress. Laos also differed in many ways as it immediatly had a very laid back almost sleepy-stuck in time look and ambience. There were old russian jeeps, volgas and lada cars rumbling around, town to town transport was of the pickup truck and bales of rice and live chicken variety. our first night we walked up to the local hilltop Wat and watched the sunset over the mekong, later got our first nights sleep in the "government hotel" (complete with the all the latest outdated information) and sat back on the lumpy, humid mattress listening to the first of many rainstorms we would go through in Laos.

Our ride up to Luang Nam Tha was classic with me standing and holding on to the back of the pickup as it climbed up through the dirt and mud 'logging' road pass some of the most gorgeous virgen rainforests, dense bamboo jungles twisting and turning with all kinds of vines, pass mountainside green rice paddies and mud splattered water buffalo, and plenty of smiling and waving kids. In Nam Tha we hung out for a couple of days riding bikes out to some of the local villages and checking out the market, where old ladies sat in front of steaming pots of toads-heads while holding up live frogs for our expection. One night comming back from dinner at a noodle stall we got caught in a heavy monsoon downpour and davi got seperated from me. I later could see her flashlight in the distance after she had ducked into some buildings for shelter. Our room got real soaked and flooded all our papers and clothes since we had left the windows open!

Many people in this part of Laos are from the various hill tribes, Hmong, Akha and Black Thai and on our arrival into Muand Sing, about 10k from the Chinese border, we were submerged by various women from these hill tribes who tried to sell us all sorts of jewelery,clothing and the ubiquitous "O" as a matter of fact Muang Sing, (golden triangle area) is one of the prime spots for poppy and opium production. It was here that I decided to try some and one day as we were riding out to the border area we met "the man in the treehouse" who after the right hand signals led us out into the jungle, where he laid down a bamboo mat and some burlap. Myself and 2 other friends we met smoked several pipes from our 'friend' and it was one of the most pleasurable experiences you can get outside an orgasim. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at this place called 'adima' drinking beerlao and swaying in hammocks. it was blissful.

The four of us hooked up and went over to Xieng Kok, which was defiently off the beaten track. Actually it turned out to be kind of a frontier town, right on the Mekong across from Burma, where I think many of the towns population was either doped up or trying to smuggle "O" between Burma and Lao. It was somewhat seedy and there were some strange, drunken characters running around that night as we ate by lantern light at a noodle stall they had a couple of monitor lizards tied up under our table. Later I tried to see if we could manage a way around the 'speedboat mafia' who wanted exorbient amounts of thai bhat to go down the river, by trying to get a ride on a chinese river barge that was unloading tractor tires. I whish i could of spoken chinese, but it turns out they were going back up river to china. Our speedboat ride back down to Huay Shai was absolutly thrilling with fou of us stuffed into this small longtail that had a 1500cc toyota car motor mounted on the back. The Mekong river in these parts is actually quite rough with lots of rocks, bamboo logs and loads of fast swirling river currents,rapides and eddies flow everywhich way. The mountain scenery on the way down was stunning with all the mist covered green valleys snaking around this huge convoluted muddy-brown raging river as we careened past at 50mph.

We spent the next several days going down the Mekong on a slow boat to Luang Prahbang. this slow boat went at a nice liesurly pace with about 40 people crammed on the boat that was only inches above the waterline! and a hole in the floorboards behind the engine for a toilet, that when you stood up your head poked through the roof. we stopped at Pak Beng for a night, where all the local kids stormed the riverbank to try and carry our packs, quite a scene and i saw several backpacks fall into the water as they tried to skimmy down the plank. later had to change boats when ours broke down in a driving rainstorm, this was probably a good move as ours seemed to be taking on water.

In Luang Prabang, which is the old royal capital of Laos and is a great place to unwind by the river, we went out to see this waterfall (forgot the name for now) that was like something from out of "the beach" or better a disneyland inspired setting, except this was the real deal. It had several levels that you could climb to and crystal clear water pouring over white smooth limestone, surrounded by huge bamboo thickets. We also went over to explore the budda caves at Pak-O, which was a very nice quiet place that we were able to meditate in for a little while. On the way back we stopped in to drink some "Lao-Lao", the local varient of moonshine, with some fisherman at a noodle shop on the banks of the river.

Vang Viene was our next stop down and we spent over a week there just chilling, exploring the numerous caves and tubing (probably one of the most fun things we did) and kayaking down the river. There was this one cave there where you could swim up into the cave for about 60 feet or so and then just float back downstream. It was here that we met "Stokes" the classic example of a drunken englishman, his mates and tooo much "O" all in a exotic foreign setting. Stokes was a character. Here was where we started to get interested in hearing "Maw Lam" music sort of the local version of the blues. It has a very driving baseline and hypnotic vocals. We saw some of this in the local lao disco and later heard much of this during the 'rocket festival' in Nong Kai, Issan, Thailand.

Our last few days were spent down in Vietiene, the capital which also has a very sleepy "where are all the people!" feel. it still has some of the old french-chinese colonial merchant shops and buildings around and the wide boulvards complete with some of the most viscious "tiger traps" (large unexplainable holes in the sidewalks that drop down into the sewers) that we have seen. At night you could stroll along the promenade on the mekong and eat spicy-papaya lao salads and sip cold beerlao (one of my personal favorites up to now). On our last day here we went out to see the 'budda park' which is this fantastical dali-esqe park filled with sculpturs representing a various concoction of Hindu and Buddist dieties, that have build crafted by amatuer artists. This was very cool place to hang out soak up the surrealness of the whole place and remember our last experiences in Laos.