Laos to Việt Nam

It used to be possible to take a riverboat up the Nam Ou from Luang Prabang. But Chinese-built dams made that impossible a couple of years ago. So we made our way to our next stop, Nong Khiaw, in a minibus. This wasn’t the most comfortable. They put the seats up and stuff every bit of space under them with luggage, and the bus can’t leave until all fifteen seats are full. We did eventually leave, fifteen foreigners and the driver all crammed in, with the last gal’s backpack held in the well of the sliding door. We stopped a couple of times in three hours, which was a mercy, because the roads are rough. Luckily, we each had a window seat. I don’t think the folks in the middle could see any of the scenery.

It was worth it getting to Nong Khiaw, though. The village is joined with the other side of the river, Ban Sop Houn, via a bridge, and standing on it you can see some of the most spectacular mountain features of northern Laos.

Morning mist from the bridge

We got a little bungalow whose starring feature was a balcony with

View from the hammock

a hammock. Probably the best view I’ve ever had, and certainly the most relaxing place to stay. And we needed it. Because the day hike to the viewpoint above Nong Khiaw, which was supposed to take an hour and a half, was the toughest we’ve done.

It was relentlessly uphill, steps cut into the jungle, and I was just pouring with sweat. I know that’s an expression, but I’m not sure I’ve ever poured like this before. It was just possible to imagine how the heat and humidity felt to servicemen fighting in the jungle for the first time. Only they were wearing and carrying all that war equipment, plus, the obvious danger of death. At the best of times, it is a punishing, hostile environment.

That's pretty much how we experienced it!

In about two hours, though, I did make it to the top. 

View over Nong Khiaw and the Nam Ou

Unaware that T. was right behind me, I started to go back. I was encouraging a young man to finish that last rock climb, when here she came! I guessed, correctly, that the guy was from Ontario—who but an Ontarian would ask if I meant London, Ontario, or London, England? He charmed us right from the start by calling T. “miss.” 

We got to talking to him about Australia, where we’re all eventually headed, and T. was recommending the possibility of renting RVs. “Are you over twenty-five?” she asked him.

“Twenty-eight, but thanks for that,” he said. T. explained that he is very young compared with us, and he professed to be shocked. “I would have guessed you were thirty-five!” 

“God bless you,” T. said. We have met many friendly folks on our travels, but this young Canadian has got to be one of our favorites! 

When we left the trailhead we passed an older North American man who asked us how hard it was. T. ran out of superlatives, but explained that she had done it, and the 360-degree views were worth it. He high-fived her and said he’d see us later. Which he did, several hours later, when we were sitting at a halal restaurant and he walked by on his way back from the hike. Yes, it was hard!

Another friendly guy we kept bumping into was a New Zealander who’d been on our minibus. We saw him when we went for a “nightcap,” which involved free shots of lao-lao, rice whiskey or wine. This is what Laotians who can’t afford Beerlao apparently drink. Infused with passionfruit, mine tasted pretty good.

Nong Khiaw boasts two ATMs, which is big for a provincial town. Unfortunately, neither of them was working during our stay. We were reduced to going into the bank. Remember when going into the bank was a normal way to get out money? They photocopied my passport and my credit card and ostentatiously made me fill out a form. I remarked that it still wasn't as time-consuming a process as depositing a foreign-currency check at our home bank, which requires a longer form and carbon copies in triplicate. T. was not amused. 

This set the tone for the next stage of our journey, which made the minibus seem comfortable by comparison. We got tickets for the riverboat up the Nam Ou to another two-ATM village, Muang Khua. Unbeknownst to us, only one of the boats leaving that morning continued all the way to Muang Khua, and we almost didn’t get on it. The boatman took our tickets and we never saw them again. Since our tickets had been demanded repeatedly on the Mekong River journey, we kept asking for them back; even one of Apostle-looking Guy’s friends tried to help us, since she spoke a little bit of Lao. Eventually, they found us a place in the stern of the boat. One of us was to sit on a can of diesel, and the other on top of someone’s shoes.

The worst thing about this journey, though, was how loud it was. What we thought might have been a basic toilet was just the engine room, and there was nothing cutting it off from where we sat. I was very thankful for my noise-canceling headphones on this particular occasion. As for T., she lent hers to some young parents who were having a terrible time getting their baby to calm down.

"First class," with the insouciant French guy 

As in Tanzania, locals had grabbed all the seats. Fortunately we kept getting “upgraded” as the boat stopped at villages and people got off. When we got to stretch out on the deck of the stern, a Frenchman who got on even after we did said we were now in “first class.” By the last two hours of the journey, there were only foreigners left, and we got the car seats! But overall, it was not a journey for enjoying the scenery. And that’s a shame, because we saw dams being built by the Chinese even as we passed, and soon this journey too may no longer be possible.

It looks nice when you can't hear the boat!

We disembarked at Muang Khua, where the Nam Ou meets the Nam Phak. It was our fourth river and last stop in Laos. From Muang Khua, we were to get a direct bus to Điện Biên Phủ, in Vietnam. Each town is some distance from the border, but there’s nothing but border posts there, so the daily bus was our only option.

In this part of the world, buses (and boats) always transport other things. If there’s any room on the bus, it will be filled with cans, mail, pigs, whatever needs delivering to some town or village down the road. The type of bus I mean is more like a little old school bus than a modern coach. We showed up at 7:00 like the guesthouse lady had told us, knowing that the bus would not leave until 7:30, at least.

Our bags on the bus

The mountainous journey up to the Laos-Vietnam border was very beautiful. It was high and very winding, but the road was in pretty good shape. I kept seeing things like a woman standing in her laundry tub on the side of the road—the kind of tub our laundry had been washed in only days before. And chickens, goats, even buffalo making their way along (or across) the road. I knew I was going to miss Laos, even at exit immigration when the officers asked for (and got) an illegitimate 10,000-kip fee “because it’s the weekend.” The other passengers on the bus, a European couple, promptly coughed up the equivalent of a pound each. What were we supposed to do, hold up the minibus in protest?

I had no idea how much I would miss Laos once we reached the other side of no-man's-land.

Our bags on the boat

Slow boat to Laos

Before researching these travels, I knew only one thing about Laos: a kid from Laos and his sister started coming to my school. I didn’t know anything about him or his family, but most Laotians who settled in the U.S.A. were Hmong refugees. That is because the Hmong were on the losing side when Laos finally became communist in 1975. Insurgent against the Lao ethnic majority, Hmong were recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for a “secret war” against North Vietnam. It was so secret that I never knew Laos, like Vietnam and Cambodia, was part of the war known to Americans as “Vietnam.”

In Vietnam it’s called the American war. It is more accurate, from historians’ point of view, to refer to the Second Indochina War, in which Laos was officially neutral. Its neutrality was recognized as far back as the Kennedy administration, but Laos also has a geography that made interference by the warring parties inevitable. When the Viet Cong started running troops and supplies through neighbouring countries via the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” the trail became a target. Just wrap your head around this official statistic: the U.S. spent $2 billion per day, for 9 consecutive years, dropping more than two million tons of bombs just on Laos. One third of the population was internally displaced, and no one knows how many people died.

Careful where you step--hiking trail in Ban Sop Houn

Unexploded ordnance is still an everyday danger in parts of Laos today. People who weren’t born during the war are regularly killed and maimed. And after all that, Laos is communist, in fact the first communist country I have visited. Well, in the sense that China is communist. For cultural reasons I can’t begin to know, Laos has a history of dependence on the latest foreign power: first France, then the U.S., now China. China seems to be communist in the sense of an authoritarian, one-party state, but capitalist in the form of rampant development paying no heed to human or environmental concerns. Seems like the worst aspects of both, to me. But if you travel in Africa or Asia you quickly realize that China is building the roads, railroads, and dams. It isn’t constrained by the concerns of the West, and the U.S. isn’t investing like it used to, when development was a proxy Cold War. 

So as far as developing nations are concerned, China is the world’s superpower. Anyway, we’re not going to mainland China. We're in Hong Kong, and I’m only typing my Laos post up now that we’ve left. It's still the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and I am still The Discreet Traveler.

I loved Laos. It was the biggest unknown of our travels, and I’d recommend it to anybody. That doesn’t mean I’d like to be an ordinary citizen there, never mind a journalist or an opposition figure. But it’s stunningly beautiful, and the people we met made us feel at ease and very welcome. I didn’t have a bad meal. Unlike in Thailand, where there was an A&P supermarket on the border with Myanmar, I didn’t see any chains (shops, restaurants) anywhere in Laos. Is this good? Well, it’s different!

We took the slow boat from Huay Xai, just across the border from Thailand, to Luang Prabang which is in the center of northern Laos. It’s a two-day journey with an overnight stop—that’s what makes it “slow.” It’s motorized, as are the speedboats that make the journey in half the time, but you wouldn’t catch me on one of them. 

The boat is supposed to leave Huay Xai at 10:30 but we were told it might not leave till 11 or 12. We also heard, from various sources, that there would only be wooden benches on the deck, and we’d have to pay if we wanted a cushion; that the toilet would only be a hole in the deck; that there might not be a toilet at all; and that there would be no opportunity to buy drinks or food all day, so we needed to buy them beforehand (preferably at the stall of the person telling us). All of this turned out to be grimly true of riverboats on the eastern side of the country, up the Nam Ou. But on the Mekong, we were seated at a table (opposite the two U.S. couples we’d shared a tuk-tuk with), under cover, with cushioned benches. There was not one but two toilets—“Western” toilets, by no means to be taken for granted in Laos. And there was a bar.

From this, and the fact that a full slow boat runs daily, it’s evident that this is a major attraction. Yet one of the measures of how big the world is, is that something dozens of people do every day is still an experience most people will never have. 

The scenery was gorgeous, from beginning to end. The people all seemed to be hippies, whether aging originals or twentysomethings who just wore their hair long. Apostle-looking Guy sat on the window ledge and smoked various things. There were books and card games, but few phones. It really did feel like a trip back in time, an effect that was only enhanced when we got to Luang Prabang and constantly heard ’60s and ’70s music (in the Aussie bar where we spent most of our time).

I understand that Luang Prabang also has the country’s first openly gay bar. We couldn’t find it, but then nor could we find the bar it was supposedly across the street from, the most happening place in town. Guess we weren’t destined for nightlife. I hope the bar is there for Laotians who need it, though, because homosexuality was illegal until very recently in Laos. In general, southeast Asia is probably the best part of the world to be queer in outside the West, and Laos is as laid-back as a communist country gets.

"Israeli?"

We kept seeing people we recognized from the boat, and this continued all through Laos. Whereas Bangkok and Chiang Mai are big cities, we very much felt like we were on the same country trail in Laos. Apostle-looking Guy turned up at our guesthouse, then on a moped (wearing a helmet at least), then on the day we went trekking, and then further along when we stayed in Nong Khiaw. We last saw him there (boarding our hideously loud and crammed riverboat) where he was wearing a Hebrew T-shirt. There were lots of Hebrew signs in Nong Khiaw, almost as many as Krakow. I haven't been able to discover the Israeli connection. 

But back to Luang Prabang. We shared a tuk-tuk with a Dutch couple, two Americans who were afraid we were going to ask them about elections, and a Chinese woman who assured us “this looks like China.” After disembarking and finding the Dutch couple’s guesthouse for them, it transpired that we were nowhere near our own…We traipsed through the night market with our full backpacks, getting madder and madder, then finally had to get another tuk-tuk “to the other side of the mountain.” This sounds dramatic—it’s just that Phu Si hill is in the middle of Luang Prabang, and you either have to walk (or ride) around it, or walk up it to the temple. We did that on another day.

Sunset over the Mekong, from Phu Si

The First Indochina War was fought to liberate what are now Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam from France. No doubt there were many terrible things about being a French colony, but there is one good legacy: having been French. What this means is that fresh bread and other wonderful foods are available everywhere. Bread is not something you see much of in Thailand, other than the odd guesthouse that offers white bread for toast in the mornings. 

Our first errand in Luang Prabang was to get our visas for Vietnam, which has a consulate in the town. Many countries, such as Thailand and Laos, issue visas on arrival for our nationalities (Laos for a fee), but Vietnam requires a visa in advance. People kept telling us that we could apply online, but this depends on one’s passport, length of planned visit, and most importantly, point of entry. As far as I was able to determine, the online application is only useful for airports. We planned to enter by land.

The consular staff were friendly and efficient, at least by the standards of immigration officers. Unlike the loud gentleman who wanted the officer to “look it up on the computer,” etc., we were prepared with passport-sized photos and the correct fee (in U.S. dollars). I guess, if China really were the world’s superpower, we would have needed yuan. 

From there we hit the bamboo bridge, built anew every dry season by a family that charges a few kip for the privilege of crossing it. By “a few kip” I mean a few thousand. The Laotian currency is worth very little per unit; one can easily get a million or two out of the cash machine. The river is the Nam Khan. Luang Prabang is on the peninsula where the Mekong and the Nam Khan meet.

Bamboo bridge over the Nam Khan

The most beautiful temple, or at least the one we visited, is Wat Xiang Thong. It has a striking “tree of life” mosaic and some quite unusual details on the exterior of the wat.

The night market was very laid-back, once we weren’t carrying our backpacks through it anymore. It had buffets where we could fill a bowl with whatever we wanted, and little coconut “pancakes” which were a dessert we’d discovered in Thailand. Best of all, Laotians are partial to sticky rice, which comes in little baskets. They scoop up all kinds of food with it, not just mango for dessert. 

Overall, Laos was kind of like I’d imagined Thailand would be. I was eating better than ever, plus, there was the French thing. At least, until a stomach bug laid me low. I don’t know if it was unwashed lettuce from the night market, or my failure to eat local yogurt on a particular day. Did I mention our neighbor’s excellent advice to eat the yogurt everywhere we go? That way, we’re supposed to pick up the “good” cultures that keep our guts healthy. Anyway, it took six months for either of us to get sick.

There was something else we picked up in the night market: souvenirs made by the villagers of Ban Na Phia. Theirs is one of the most heavily bombed areas of Laos, and they’ve taken the aluminum of the ordnance and made it into bracelets, earrings, etc. It’s a way to make some positive thing out of a terrible legacy, and adds a small amount of income to what are otherwise subsistence agricultural lives.

I was surprised, and impressed, by how many of what North Americans call “senior citizens” were roaming around Laos. No sooner had I recovered from my down time than I saw the Dutch couple from the slow boat (and our tuk-tuk)—biking around Luang Prabang, of course. T. was less impressed by our Hmong guide, Sa, who took us trekking from a Hmong village down to the Kuang Si waterfall. Not that he wasn’t a good guide, but he clearly hadn’t been versed in “senior citizen” terminology. When T. was huffing and puffing in the jungle heat, and complained of being “very old,” Sa just nodded and said “Yes, I know”! (To be fair, his age guess was still ten years too young.)

Kuang Si waterfall

Down at the waterfall, we had a chance to swim, which felt absolutely glorious after our hike in the jungle.

In the tuk-tuk back to Luang Prabang (our minivan having not materialized), Sa saw my wedding ring and asked if I was married. I was saved from this rather indiscreet conversation by T., who asked Sa if he was married. Thereafter it was nothing but pictures of his wife, son, and everyone on his phone. Which goes to show that the best way not to answer a question about yourself is to ask the other person to talk about himself; he’ll never stop.

In the Hmong village, Lao Lao, they were just getting ready to skin a pig. I could see this wasn’t just for show, as we were the only visitors. At least this pig was marginally better off than those we’d seen on the way to market, “hog-tied” but not yet butchered. Maybe I should try vegetarianism again.

Jungle hike from Lao Lao village

There are phenomena in Laos I wish I had pictures of, like the guy in the post office, slumped over the D.H.L. desk asleep. When told I needed to buy an envelope he roared to life and very carefully taped my parcel shut, whacking off pieces of packing tape with a huge knife. 
Or the showers in guesthouses. Maybe now’s a good time to mention that, in Thailand as well as Laos, a shower is usually a showerhead hanging off the wall in the same space as the rest of the bathroom. It may or may not splash the toilet—everything just drains away in the floor. So put the toilet paper away safely somewhere.

Don’t flush the paper, though. We learned that, wherever you go in the world, if there’s a wastebasket next to the toilet it means the plumbing can’t cope with toilet paper, so throw it in there. And always, always, carry a supply of your own.

Really? Nothing?

Top 10s

We’ve been on the road for six months now, months that have flown by and yet have been filled with experiences. We’ve shed a lot of stuff and gotten used to the idea that this is our present life. And inevitably, there are moments that stand out more than the others. We started talking about what our most memorable moments of the traveling have been—our “top 10.”

Of course, I couldn’t just pick 10. It quickly became apparent that I would use up ten slots just with eating and drinking experiences, which I’m sure is one of the deadly sins. Nevertheless, in order to accommodate some of my favorite photographs—most of which have not appeared in The Discreet Traveler before—here are two “Top 10s.”

10 most memorable occasions:

Photo: Kandoo Adventures

1. Trekking the Lemosho Route, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. It has to be. Of course it didn’t turn out as I’d planned, and I still go over those days and moments in my mind, wondering if I went too fast or started out wearing too many layers…Nevertheless, it was unforgettable from beginning to end, and I’m so glad I did it. This picture is from day 4, when Claire and I were setting the pace, and therefore still having fun. 

Scrubbing Grandma in the river

2. Karen Elephant Experience, Banpakangdoi, Thailand. I’m not sure what more I can say about Elephant Nature Park and this project they do with a Karen tribal village near Chiang Mai. It was just an amazing day of feeding, walking and bathing with elephants. I hope I never forget the feel of an elephant’s skin, especially rubbing mud on it!

3. Tengeru Cultural Experience, Arusha, Tanzania. The most unforgettable moments of this very worthwhile outing were when local Meru kids came out and talked and clowned around with us. It was all unstaged—they were just neighborhood kids who saw us pass by. And, they gave me one of my favorite pictures, possibly ever.

With our guide Sereu

4. Beaches. Okay, some of this has just been fun. We’ve hit beaches of various kinds in Donegal, Ireland (brrr!); Mimizan and Cagnes-sur-Mer, France; Bakio and Barcelona, Spain; Cape Town, South Africa; and of course, Mauritius. This picture was at Île aux Benitiers, where we went on a particularly memorable day, following…

5. Swimming with dolphins, Tamarind Bay, Mauritius. There are no dolphins in this picture but it wasn’t about photographing the dolphins for me; it was the experience. And that was made possible by T’s sister and brother-in-law, who at the very least, deserve this spot in the top 5.

6. Hiking with T. One of the unexpected pleasures of these travels has been how much hiking we’ve done together: at Glendalough and Diamond Hill in Ireland (pictured), the Cinque Terre in Italy, Šmarna Gora in Slovenia, Lion’s Head in South Africa, Black River Peak in Mauritius, and Doi Inthanon in Thailand. T. was never into hiking and, I thought, was only accompanying me so I could train for Kilimanjaro without hiking on my own. She tells me that the viewpoint above Nong Khiaw, Laos will be the last mountain we climb together, as it nearly killed her. We shall see.

7. Biking in Ayuthaya, Thailand. If T’s hiking surprised me, my getting on a bicycle apparently surprised her. It’s supposed to be the best way of getting around the ruins of Ayuthaya’s many ancient temples, and it is. We wouldn’t have visited as many without the bikes and it wouldn’t have been as much fun. I wouldn’t say it was a unique experience because I’d do it again. Not in a city, though.

8. Township tour, Imizamo Yethu, Cape Town, South Africa. Not the most fun or comfortable outing, but a real highlight of our time in Cape  Town. Most black South Africans still live in these circumstances and it was good to meet some of them, as well as learn some of what’s being done to improve things.

With our guide Kenny Tokwe

Melaji's brother finally makes himself useful.

9. Being searched by soldiers, Monduli, Tanzania. Most of our day with Melaji (and his brother, whose unexplained presence kept us crammed with Melaji in the backseat all day) was the opposite of what we’d expected—an undriveable road, hardly any hiking, no visit to his village—but this really took the cake. Because we’d passed Tanzania Military Academy on the way, we knew that was who was doing the checkpoint on the way back, and so we concluded that it must have been some kind of military exercise. No one told us that, though. All I knew was that Tanzanian soldiers made us all get out of the car and walk separately, at gunpoint, into the bushes, where we were told to empty our pockets. The Maasai guys got grilled about their knives, and T. and I were frisked by female soldiers. Not being able to talk to anyone I knew, knowing the woman behind had a gun pointed at me and was shouting at me to move, was not an experience I am soon to forget, although I remember feeling quite calm at the time. I just kept saying “Okay” which I hoped would be okay. I don’t have a picture of this, for obvious reasons.

10. Slow boat down the Mekong River, Laos. I haven’t had a chance to write up Laos yet but this was something I’d really recommend. We spent two days aboard the slow boat (with an overnight stop in the village of Pak Beng) and it was like going back in time. Not in the sense that the boat was uncomfortable, which it remarkably wasn’t, but because it appeared to be full of hippies of all ages. With all the long hair and card playing going on, we could have been back in the 1970s, which is quite evocative in southeast Asia. By the second afternoon our American acquaintance from the last post got out his harmonica and was playing us down the river. One of the young women got up and danced, and the character I will call Apostle-looking Guy clapped from his seat on the window ledge. I bet the American had dreamed of doing this for forty years.

Now the food and drink top 10, in reverse order: 

10. The cocktails at Be Cosy, Trou aux Biches, Mauritius. Partly because they had the only good margarita I’ve found outside Greater Mexico; partly because of the pina coladas (the last time I had one of those was when my Puerto Rican co-worker, Dalia, made her own recipe for a staff holiday party). But mostly because they had a swim-up bar.

9. Koaleng boat noodles, Chiang Mai, Thailand. There have been a lot of noodles in Asia and I’m sure there are a lot more to come, but it is possible to have bad and mediocre noodle soups. Not here, though. They only do six dishes: soup with noodles or with rice, and with chicken, beef, or pork. Simple. They know what they’re doing and we ate there every hot lunch we had. 

Chicken or beef? Note my iced coffee, the best drink in Thailand.

8. Soup, Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania. Every day of our trek, every hot lunch and supper, we started the meal with soup. It didn’t matter what kind it was or what kind Innocent, our waiter, called it, we ate bowlfuls until it was all gone, even if it meant we couldn’t finish the rest of the food. Chef David wanted to warm and hydrate us and we cheered when he did. Ask anyone on my team: soup was what we looked forward to most. (After all, they don’t have beer on the mountain.)

I don't have a picture of soup on the mountain, so here are tapas at El Tigre in Madrid--the best deal in all of Spain.

7. Baguettes, from France to Laos. Is there anything better than fresh French bread? Well, I’m sure there is, but it was ubiquitous in France so we could never be hungry. And I was glad to see it again in Mauritius and in what used to be French Indochina. Just wish they sold it out of street corner machines here.

Here I am drinking a mango lassi. 

6. Indian food. Indian restaurants aren’t found in quite as many places as Chinese restaurants, but they are in most countries we’ve visited and make a welcome change. Here in Southeast Asia, Indian restaurateurs tend to be Muslim, so no alcohol (and of course, no pork). The samosas and rotis in Mauritius made a wonderful cheap lunch. But this picture is from the curiously named Milan Indian restaurant in Moshi, Tanzania. All vegetarian, and really good. 

5. Shiraz, Cape Town, South Africa. I love shiraz and South Africa was really the last place I drank wine instead of beer. Why wouldn’t you? If it’s not too hot to drink red wine, there’s nothing better than a South African shiraz.

4. Everything we ate at our cousins’, Liguria, Italy. Every day at Gianmarco and Fiona’s we had something amazing and homemade. I’ve never had anything like Gianmarco’s seafood pasta, and it didn't last long enough for me to take a picture. So here’s one of me in Grinzing, Austria drinking white wine, which we also did a lot.

3. Wenceslas sausage, Prague, Czech Republic. I don’t know what the other types of sausages sold at street stands taste like because I never tried them. This one was the most delicious thing I’d tasted on all our travels. Or at least so I told T., every day we were in Prague and I ate another one.

2. Le Petit Verdot, Aix-en-Provence, France. For us, this qualified as a splurge, but it wasn't fine dining. They serve hearty Provençal fare here, along with wine so good even T. had a glass. We both had the slow-cooked lamb with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Really, this is one of the best restaurant meals I’ve ever had. Still thinking about it now.

1. Peach ice cream, Cacao, Ljubljana, Slovenia. I never knew this before but apparently Ljubljana claims to be ice cream capital of the world. I can tell you that the white peach flavor at Cacao is the closest thing I’ve ever had to the peach ice cream in Lakeside, Ohio when I was a kid. Ice cream isn’t my favorite food, but peaches are. This was another thing I went back and ate every day.

Having hiked Šmarna Gora, looking forward to my next peach ice cream 

The American presence in southeast Asia: Chiang Rai province

I’ve mentioned before how useful my Swiss Army knife would be on these travels, and how I didn’t bring it because I (mistakenly) thought we’d be flying with only carry-on bags. Before September 11, 2001, I carried my knife everywhere, including on flights. I used it to open packages of peanuts. It’s been a pain not to be able to travel with it, but that’s the tradeoff for not getting hijacked by men with blades. You know?

Anyway, back to Thailand. The Western and in particular U.S. presence is becoming more obvious every town we stop in on this backpacker trail. In fact, for all the monks we see everywhere, the only Buddhist nun I’ve seen was an older white woman—bald of course. The main Americans who’ve been in our lives in recent days, though, are an unforgettable foursome, only two of whom are originally from the U.S.A.

We first encountered them in Chiang Rai, the delightful town in northeast Thailand where we based ourselves for a few days. On our last night, we stopped off for a “cock tail,” as the quiet bar called it, and a dose of ’70s music, which seems constant in these places. That’s when an American accent started cutting through like a piece of glass.

“Where are you all from?” T. asked gamely. One of the men is originally from Ireland (his mother back in Kildare is 96, so there’s an idea of how old he is), and his partner is a friendly woman from Spain. The other couple is originally from Illinois. I cannot describe the man’s accent and voice except with the cutting-like-glass image. I don’t think he means for everyone in a restaurant to have to hear him hold forth.

The same thing happened in a consulate where we were applying for visas, and a loud, perhaps hard-of-hearing North American man broke everyone’s concentration with his requests: could the officer look something up on her computer; could she verify whether their visas were approved immediately—none of which is how things work in this part of the world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

We ran into our four new friends again at the border with Laos. And when we were getting our tuk-tuk to the boat dock the next morning, the driver said “Four more people,” and we just knew it was going to be these four, and all of their luggage. Or rather, not all. The Spanish-American woman assured us that they’d left their luggage back at the hotel in Chiang Rai—these were only their bags for the boat journey! They had hard-sided cases, more weight than what we’re carrying for two years. The Irish-American man was friendly as could be, but also a living stereotype: he’s lived in the U.S. for 50 years but wore a different Ireland shirt every day, voted for the current president (I didn’t ask), and, when we had some down time later, pulled out and commenced to read a thick green book about the I.R.A.

But as I said, these were friendly folks. The last time I saw them, the American couple was tootling along our road on rented bicycles, despite being the age they are and her having a problem walking. “Maybe it’s more comfortable for her to cycle,” T. said. You’ve got to hand it to them!

Back in Chiang Rai, I’d discovered my lychee wine from the Hmong women didn’t have an actual cork after all, so I didn’t need a corkscrew. Once again, I’ve managed without my Swiss Army knife.

We really liked Chiang Rai. It was another of those places where we felt reluctant to leave, even though we felt the same way once we got to the next place. We called in for lunch at a little place that had no sign in Roman script. I should have known something about it from the logo, though.

“Can I have a Coke, please?” T. asked. After a moment, the waitress explained that the issue wasn’t her English, but that they only serve Pepsi! Welcome to the so-called Third World.

We had good food from the Saturday night walking street, too, and the next day was Sunday. Just for a change, we stopped by the First Church as they were having services.

First Church of Chiang Rai, 1914. Sunday morning services are now held in a larger building next door.

I recognized the hymns, including “Fairest Lord Jesus,” from my church growing up, even though the words were all in Thai. Following along in English in the bulletin, I was fine until we got to communion. There’s always that moment in an unfamiliar church when I do something slightly wrong at communion. Fortunately, the fact that it was grape juice rather than wine (and the warm welcome from congregants) made me feel more or less at home. 

Our next stop was the Hill Tribe Museum, run by a nonprofit to educate about the Karen, Hmong, Akha, and other tribal peoples of the region. It’s a little dated (they still have displays about Laos being filled with dollar-a-day backpackers stoned on opium for months at a time, which has been cracked down on for about 15 years). But it's sincere, and they put their money into helping the communities with things like family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention. We booked a tour of the province with them for the next day.

One of the highlights of longterm travel is always getting clothes clean, since we have so few of them. At this particular guesthouse, reception took our laundry bag, and a little while later I saw the woman down the road bike up and put it in her basket. Turns out everybody on the road has clean underwear pinned to her clothesline. 

The Population Community & Development Association (Hill Tribe Museum) representative picked us up the next morning. She was bonkers, but in a good way. Next to her and the young Swiss women who were also joining our tour, I felt hideously tall. You can imagine how I felt as the day went on and we met some members of the hill tribes.

There was a lot of driving because we had to get high into the mountains, and on the way, we passed a billboard for something called “Vaginal Tight.” “Don’t know what that’s advertising,” T. said succinctly. We were distracted by the tourist attraction that is the Golden Triangle, the former opium-growing region where Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), and Laos meet. It’s not that we’re interested in opium, which is not grown so much by the hill tribes anymore. It’s that one particular border town, Mae Sai, offers the opportunity to cross into Myanmar without the usually cumbersome process of applying for a visa in advance.

Myanmar is supposed to be a fascinating country to visit now, but it hadn’t been on our agenda. After emerging from four decades of brutal military dictatorship, the country had such hopes with the election victory of the National League for Democracy and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Sadly, the Nobel Peace Prize winner seems less able in government than she was in opposition. While a disturbing pattern of “ethnic cleansing” [sic] goes on against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in western Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has taken to blaming journalists for reporting on the violence. One of my least favourite approaches is to claim that talking about a problem is the problem, rather than the problem itself.

We bought a day pass and dipped our toes into Tachileik, the town on the Myanmar side. All we did was visit the market, but we walked around and spoke to Burmese people, so I figured it was enough for me to collect another flag patch for my backpack. T. started pointing to my patches and asking salespeople where I could find one; she added a careful sewing motion, which I think is where the confusion began. Each person helpfully pointed around the corner or to the next shop in the bazaar, until we were thoroughly lost. Finally we found what we were looking for...a woman who was selling a cross-stitch set! I haven't done cross-stitch since back in Aunt Marie's time, though, so we gave up and just bought a patch back on the Thai side.

The Golden Triangle. L-R: Thailand, Myanmar, Laos

There would be three countries in twenty-four hours, but Laos can wait for another post. Our bonkers guide, who took lots of pictures of us as well as selfies, also showed me and the Swiss gals how to pray in a Buddhist temple. This one was called Wat Chedi Luang, like the one in Chiang Mai. I am beginning to think there’s something to this everything happens again and again belief.

Ban Lorcha is an Akha village, but a living one. So, while animal traps and the ceremonial village swing were demonstrated for us visitors, most of the villagers (who can afford it) now build their houses out of more fireproof materials than bamboo, and install satellite dishes. And I can’t blame them.

Akha traditionally hold animist beliefs, too, one of the least palatable of which is their attitude towards twins. This holds that only non-human animals give birth to “litters,” so the mother of multiple births (and her babies) have no future in traditional Akha life. This belief has become less common, though, as Akha have converted to other religions, whether Buddhism or Christianity. There’s a Christian church in Ban Lorcha today.

Each culture has to work out the balance of preserving precious traditions, while not at the cost of flammable houses or infanticide. Come to think of it, idolatry and child sacrifice are not unknown in the First World. But that would go back to the right to bear my Swiss Army knife.

I got an Akha bracelet, and T. got a picture with these women. Peace!