Into Laos

This is a little behind, but I've finally chronicled my overland journey from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Vientiane, Laos. It was a rather uneventful trip by local standards, but a bit different from any trip you'd take in the States. More pics on my photo site.

We made it. After a long bus ride, and several hours spent figuring out the last several kilometers, we crossed over into Laos via the Friendship Bridge. The bus ride was not the best, but far from terrible. About 30 minutes outside of Chiang Mai, the driver pulled over and sent his co-captain across the street to a service station. After about 15 minutes, and the exchange of some parts and automobile fluids, we were off again. I feared this detour would define our trip, but fortunately the bus motored on until the final destination without any problems.

The trip was quite uneventful for the most part. The road was good, traffic was light and thankfully we were not subjected to hours of Thai karaoke music videos. While the roads were good, there were patches that appeared to be under construction and were less than ideal. The driver seemed undeterred by the shoddy road and plowed through without the aid of much braking. As the road turned more twisting and dipped up and down, the driver remained heavy on the gas. I tried to sleep, but the feeling of bombing down a steep decline around twists and turns would usually jar me awake. The more I woke up and was made aware of our driver’s lead foot, the more difficult it was to sleep. Lest I make it sound like I was on a runaway train, the bus was similar to those that frequent the DC to NY corridor.

We made a pit stop around 2am for some snacks. Our ticket included a “free meal” that I figured was food and a drink. A bit bleary eyed, I walked in with a fellow intern, excited about our meal. We handed over our meal ticket, and proceeded to pick out a beverage and head towards the food. The food did not look particularly appetizing, but when offered something free, especially in the course of travelling, I decided not accepting would be unwise. However, we quickly learned that as we entered we had been told in Thai that we could have a drink or food, but not both. This was a bit upsetting, but fortunately most of our friends on the bus didn’t have the physical or intestinal energy to get off the bus and eat. So, we had a meal of rice soup and something that tasted like sweet pork.

After a meal I was finally able to get to sleep on the bus. I had been asleep for about 3 hours when the air con condensation began steadily leaking on me. I woke up with a wet shirt and no signs that the dripping was soon to cease. I grabbed the blanket that was provided on the bus and covered up. I was able to get about another hours worth of sleep before the blanket began to get soaked through to my shirt. In hindsight, my inability to sleep due to the waterfall was a blessing. I was up around the time of the sunrise, which was quite beautiful given the somewhat mountainous landscape of northeastern Thailand. It was also a blessing because the bus driver decided that he would honk, sometimes for several seconds, every time we passed anyone travelling in the same direction. This included people on bikes, people on motos and other cars. I sort of understood honking as we blew past motos to let them know not to veer into the road, but the driver continued this practice even when we were in the outside lane where there were two lanes on each side of the median. Being that I was in the front of the bus, there was no chance of sleep being had while the horn honking was going on.

A bit tired, but happy to be at our first transfer point, I rolled off the bus in Udon Thani at about 8am. About 20 Thai porters quickly greeted us ready and willing to lug our bags to the next bus. Fortunately for them, we had all our bags plus 14 boxes filled with books and no clue which bus to take next. After about twenty minutes we settled on a bus to take us to Nong Khai where we could catch another form or transport to the actual border. The buses here don’t stop picking up passengers when they’re full. So being the gentleman that I am, I gave up my seat to a Thai woman and stood for most of the 40 minute drive. After a 12 hour overnight bus, standing was far more preferred than sitting.

The bus dropped us off on the side of the road in front of some official looking building. We were quickly met by tuk-tuk drivers eager to take us to the border. The only problem was we still had all our bags and the boxes. After some negotiating we procured several tuk-tuks to transport people and a small truck to take all the bags. I rode on the back of the truck with the bags to the border, were we met the everyone else and once again unloaded the boxes, unsure of our next form of transport. In the process we also learned that one amongst us left her bag on the bus from Udon Thani to Nong Khai. Fortunately we had paid attention to where the bus was headed and the bag was found with minimal amount of worry.

Again, numerous people ready and willing to offer us a “deal” to get from the Thai border across the Friendship Bridge to the Lao border, where we got our Lao visas, met us. After some price comparisons we settled on a deal that landed us a private bus capable of holding our bags, boxes and us. The deal was to include transport from the border into Vientiane, but fortunately some folks from a partner organization were there to meet us and they helped us land a better deal.

The actual crossing was easier than going through security at most federal buildings. No metal detector, no bag screening, no dogs, just a booth taking passports and money and a window on the other side returning them. Once I had my passport I walked through the checkpoint and I was in Laos. The boxes of books, however, did not have such an easy time crossing the border. They were stuck at customs for a few days before being released to us. It was a blessing in a sense though, like having your bag arrive on a later flight after arriving back home from a long trip. We no longer had to lug them and could feel the weight lifted. Everyone was now dead aimed on our guesthouse and a much needed shower.

The first day in Laos was uneventful. We had a brief meeting with our partner organizations, and then an early dinner on the Mekong. Our timing turned out to be very fortuitous, as the restaurants propped up on bamboo along the riverbank were all removed during our third day in town. Turns out the government is building a road right through the prime spots along the river. On the second day we were in our office at CARE and started to work.

We did a quick overview of the project CARE is working on, but didn’t get too in depth on the specifics. The rest of the week was spent browsing through documents meant to get us up to speed on the project. I learned quite a bit on the Laos government and was somewhat shocked to learn how things actually operate here. On the surface it appears things are equal and democratic, but in actuality the Party has strong hand over the goings on in the country, from top to bottom. I asked one of the Lao people working on the project if most Laotians felt like the government was watching them. Without hesitation, he said people don’t just feel this way, they know the government is watching them to some degree. The Party is not as overt as in Burma, but people don’t speak negatively about the Party. It helps that most people are woefully uneducated on their rights and wouldn’t know what to protest against even if they had the opportunity.

It was nice to have an easy week to settle into the office, familiarize ourselves with CARE and with the city. On Saturday and Sunday I rented a motorbike and toured around town trying to get a sense of where things are. I stopped by That Luang, the golden stupa that serves as the national symbol of Laos. It was impressive, but the real fun at the stupa was had in the party we were invited to join in a backyard outside the walls of the wat. Still don’t know what sort of celebration we were watching, but it consisted of woman dressed in traditional Lao skirts dancing around a column of flowers, leaves and money. There was lots of music and the BeerLao was plentiful. We were treated to some bottles of water and were given a turn banging some finger symbols and bamboo sticks. It was great fun to be invited in and have the chance to see what I’m guessing is a seldom seen side of Vientiane. It was a good first week in town and I’m looking forward to getting more involved in CARE’s project next week.