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Thursday, 5th January, Namsok Guest House, Luang Prabang, Laos

What fun yesterday was! We met Jen and Kareem at 8:30, had breakfast, and then headed to find a boat we could rent for the day. We figured that between the four of us, it would end up costing the same as a tour, or less, but we get the joy of being alone and not constricted by tour guidelines .
Before we reached the Mekong, though, Jen mentioned that she was interested in having a spa, but the place she wanted to go to required bookings. Since James and I were keen as well (Kareem said he’d do it if James did), we booked for 8:30pm, a two and a bit hour “Luang Prabang Experience.” It included a 90min massage, a steam bath and a seaweed masque.
We ended up taking the first boat we were approached. The guy seemed nice, it cost us $5US each (which was the same as the tours), and he said we would stop at two villages and the Pak Ou cave.
The boat was long and sat very, very low in the water, but I think it was relatively new. Ji, our driver (I think that was his name, I couldn’t quite catch it), was quite a way away from us, and the boat must have been a good five metres long.
The day started out overcast, but the further we got away from Luang Prabang, the clearer it became. Speed boats went past, which are a notoriously dangerous mode of travelling. The passengers had crash helmets and life jackets, and the only warning they were coming was the insanely loud roar of the engine. Then whoosh they were past. The river itself was fairly warm, and the scenery was beautiful, typical river scenery. Kids played naked in the river, overgrown steps led to mysterious places, small villages dotted the banks. There was a prison, as well, a really plush looking prison, which prompted Jen to make comments about a country whose prisons are better than their hospitals.
The trip itself took about two hours, but after an hour and a half we stopped at a village fondly referred to as “the whiskey village.” Here they make, believe it or not, whiskey! At the first stall, a woman gave us sample shots of the whiskey and some rice wine, and that went quickly to our head like a warm, fuzzy animal, burrowing itself in our brains. But it faded, too. The whiskey was about 40% and had a real bite to it, but was an experience. The town itself was dedicated to tourism. There were stalls filled with silk scarves, jewellery and handwoven handicrafts. There was nothing else that exciting, although we did pass all the children on their way home from school, who stared at us or yelled “Saibadee!!” (“hello”). We wandered for a bit, then bought whiskey from a man’s whose hand shook so much when he poured our sample shots that I wanted to tell him to take a swig. His whiskey was much smoother than our first sample, so we all bought a bottle.
The cave was another half hour from the whiskey village. It was quite low in a limestone cliff face, and even from a distance we could see all the Buddha images looking out at us. Pak Ou caves was used as a holy place for images of Buddha, and there are thousands of statues of all shapes, materials, poses and sizes in the two caves. The king used to frequent the caves once a year, and the village across the river was responsible for the maintenance of the caves. After his visit to the cave, the king would go across the river and visit the village and worship in their temple as well. The lower cave had the most, and the upper cave was creepy and you needed a torch, so suddenly you found yourself shining a torch in Buddha’s face, which was kind of cool.
The lower cave was really incredible, just for the sheer number of statues there. There was a small shrine, but it was mostly just figures and a few small drawings. The upper cave was up many steps, and I was quite exhausted by the time I reached the top (hey, I never pretend to be fit!! I see more than five steps, and I know I’m screwed). A little girl sat halfway up, with finches in tiny cages. You’re supposed to pay to set them free, and I find myself really mixed about it, because I want to set them free, but then I don’t want to support the business, because then more and more will be caught just to be set free. So I had to walk on.
At the upper cave we caught up with Jen and Kareem again (James had been playing at being Ansel Adams in the lower cave, with his tripod and timed exposures), and the upper cave was dark and nondescript aside from that darkness. Then it was back to the boat for the trip across the river to eat lunch at the village there.
Our lunch experience was…strange. We went to a restaurant that was quite tucked away, and the male owner was so excited to have customers that he started discounting left, right and centre. We weren’t even asking him to!! The food, unfortunately, wasn’t the best, and I didn’t even finish my noodles, but the experience was fun and that’s all that matters. We wandered the stalls after lunch, and I bought a green stone and silver bracelet for $2 (I’m close to having bought a bracelet in every country!), then we got back on the boat. But before doing that, we bought some Coke to add whiskey too, since it was going to be a long drive back.
So we sipped our drinks and chatted, while Kareem smoked a joint and got major Marijuana Mouth (Jen’s term, which I like), and we giggled as Kareem spoke for about an hour about what it’s like to get a professional shave in a barber. James ranks it as one of the weirdest conversations he’s had with someone who’s stoned. We all found it hilarious. Jen and I would be talking for about half an hour, then tune back in to James and Kareem’s conversation, and laugh to hear they were still talking about shaving! Oh, by the way, Jen’s knee was fine, it hurt a little after the stairs, but she was being a real trooper. I helped her with any awkward downhill sections, but aside from uneven or muddy areas, she was doing really well.
When we got back to Luang Prabang, we organised to meet up at 6:30 to look at the markets and get some dinner before our massage. However, Jen and Kareem weren’t hungry, so James and I ate by ourselves, then met them in the markets. We weren’t going to buy anything. But we couldn’t resist. We ended up buying a hand-stitched blanket that had a story on (complete with embroidered graphics). The story was a Laos folk talk, I think, and it was written in really, really bad English. For example, one picture of a man and woman feeding some chickens has a caption reading “His brother asked him said how did he do why he had much wealth he went to do like orphan.” It’s gold, and very intricate and well made, so that, coupled with how hilarious the story is, meant we had to have it. It cost us $13US (we got her down from $15, but she did hand-sew the whole thing, so we were happy to pay it. We also know that we’re probably the only people in the whole world with a blanket exactly like this!).
But now I get to our massage. What an experience!! I think I might have received the best massage of all four of us, judging by later responses, but I also had a masseuse who was very blasé about nudity, and expected me to run around in the nuddy for the whole two hours. We were taking into separate rooms, showered, and then I was sitting in a towel, with my bra and undies on underneath. The girl came in, she was about 23, and she said,
“Please take off your underwear.”
“…my what?”
Because in Hanoi, we’d been allowed to leave our underwear on the whole time. Now, I’m not too shy about my body, I don’t mind taking my bra off, but I was really, really shy about downstairs. So I hugged the towel to myself and wiggled out of my underwear. She said,
“Lie down on stomach.”
And I did, still careful to cover my poor little exposed bottom. But then she whipped the towel off, repositioned it, and she began. She massaged one leg for half an hour, got the hiccups, I told her to go get some water, so she hurried off and came back not long after, to massage the next leg for half an hour. I ended up wondering when she was going to move on to my back, especially after a few close calls when she was massaging my thighs. I think in massage there are always close calls because you’re vulnerable, relaxed and the whole procedure is so intimate. She did my back and shoulders for a half hour. This girl was amazing, though, she had hands like iron vices, and at times it felt like there were ten people massaging me at once.
Then it was time for the steam bath, which was a herbal concoction inside a blue, plastic bag that you sat in. She grabbed my towel, leaving me very, very naked, and lay it in the bag, then I sat down and she zipped me up and I sat there sweating, sweating, sweating for what felt like way longer than 20 minutes. By about 15, I was getting really tempted to let myself out, and just as I was at my last straw, she came back. She opened it, I stood sweating and still very naked, and she told me to lie down on my stomach again. Then she began to put the seaweed masque on, and it was freezing! After so long in the hot steam bath thing, the seaweed was like ice on my skin, and I think I even shivered a little. But eventually I warmed up. Then she said,
“Turn over.”
By this time I was getting more comfortable with being starkers, but I did keep thinking “man, I really hope that everyone else is getting naked for this!!”. I turned over, and she was very professional, avoided looking too intently at any part of me. But when she slapped the seaweed onto my boobs, I couldn’t help but giggle. She gave a giggle too and said,
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, fine,” I said. “Just really weird.”
Then came the worst moment. She needed to get the sheet to cover me while the seaweed dried, and she left the door wide open as she went to look. I was like a body on a slab, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the door. Thankfully only one masseuse walked past, and she didn’t look into the room, but still…it stood open for about one minute, which is a long, long time.
Then I lay there for 25 minutes, until the girl came back, I showered all the seaweed off me, got dressed, and hurried outside to hear about everything else’s experiences.
Kareem’s had been fairly standard, I think, nothing too strange, James had been completely freaked out about being naked (but he hadn’t been naked until the seaweed masque), and Jen’s massage had been awful. I think maybe because her masseuse was scared of injuring her knee? But she’d only had a half hour massage, then had been left in the steamer for 45mins (she’d let herself out after 25), then she’d had the joy of having seaweed slapped everywhere. So I guess in some ways I had the best massage, even though I was very vulnerable for most of it. I thought it was a great experience, and I’d probably do it again, but there are so many other massages to try out!! Hopefully James won’t be completely freaked out of massages for the rest of his life. It would have been better if we could have been together, like in Hanoi, but it was nice to wonder what was happening with everyone else.
So that was our day yesterday!! And I still haven’t spoken about the rest of our time in Vang Vieng, so I quickly summarise it here, because that’s all it really needs. First, we did nothing after tubing. No kayaking, no caving, nothing. We just bummed around and it was great. We spent every day drinking 7-UP and beer on a pontoon by the river, and we spent every night drinking, eating and watching the movies being screened in different restaurants. We spent a lot of time with Mick and Jim, the English couple we met tubing, and the other English couple we tubed with, Izzy and Dan, we met a few more times as well. We spent New Years with the four of them, but because James and I had had a way too big night the night before (too many whiskey buckets, which is a frighteningly drinkable concoction of whiskey, red bull and pepsi), we didn’t drink much on New Years. We were sick for the whole Eve, barely able to leave our hotel room until the evening, and we left to go back to bed about ten minutes after midnight. But it was still a brilliant night, just way more low-key than usual. There was no official countdown, either, everybody had their own individual ones when they pleased, so after we had ours, we had about fifteen more.
One exciting thing is that we heard a huge fight in our corridor at about 6am on New Years Day, involving a man and a prostitute. He was yelling something at her, and she was yelling “You fuck you pay! You fuck you pay!” James went and got the guy at reception to sort it out. The girl slammed her fist into doors up and down the corridor, yelling for her money. Eventually the noise dropped, so I don’t know how that particular debacle ended.
I spent most of New Years swimming in the river, and it was divine. The current was really strong, though, and I had to hold onto James’ knees so I didn’t drift downstream. But the water was lovely, and then I baked myself dry, and it was a fantastic way to while away the day.
The next morning we left for Luang Prabang. Mick had been really sick all New Years Day, and though we’d seen Jim, we’d assumed we’d see him again and we hadn’t. We looked all afternoon and evening for them, just to say “goodbye” because we’d spent so long with them, but we couldn’t find them. So it was sad not being able to wish them luck with the rest of their trip and stuff like that.
The bus from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang was hell, though. Absolute hell. We had about three near head-ons (one of which involved squealing, swearing and generally eye covering around the whole bus), and every time we turned right it felt like the whole bus was going to tip over. I think it was because we were running late, though, because psycho-driver was a maniac all the way to our first stop, and then he drove much more sanely after that. We arrived on schedule, too, which was impressive considering we left an hour later than we should have, which may give you an idea of how quickly he went around those mountain roads to make up for that lost time.
Some cool things we saw were: a couple of soldiers with guns just sitting by the side of the road or walking along, a girl holding up a dozen rats by the tail and grinning at the bus, World Vision funded water tanks and lots and lots of baby animals (as well as totally breathtaking scenery).
As for Luang Prabang itself, it is definitely beautiful, but I think I found Vang Vieng more beautiful. Less busy, more unique. But Laos in itself is amazing, and it’s sad to leave. I wish we’d had more time here to explore more off the beaten track stuff, but I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be coming back here one day. Tomorrow we leave for Thailand, either by slow boat or by flying, depending on the cost of the flight. We’re just not keen on two days on a slow boat, and losing three days of our holiday as a result. We’re starting to realise that we really don’t have much time at all, and we’ve got to get really meticulous about how we spend our remaining three weeks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2006 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Travel, Laos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.