Upcountry - Nong Khiaw, Laos
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 25 Feb 2012 15:55
| 20:34.25N 102:37.06E January 17, 2012 - January 19, 2012 After a two-day stay in the relative luxury of Luang Prabang, we decided it was time to get serious about this Laos traveling thing, so we went upcountry to Nong Khiaw. I'd like to brag and say we hiked or cycled or kayaked the sixty miles north along the Nam Ou (Ou River), or even that we braved the almost nonexistent public transport system to get there, but we didn't. Jackie, Michael, Don and I wimped out and hired a private minivan and English speaking driver for the trip instead. At home, a sixty mile jaunt in a minivan with a driver would hardly qualify as an outing, let alone a journey, but traveling by land (or river) in Laos is definitely a journey, sometimes even, an adventure. It took six hours to go the sixty miles from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw. Six hours. The road wasn't really that bad (especially when compared to others we traveled later on), but the few paved roads that exist in the bit of Laos we saw are well-used and maintained…um...haphazardly. There are no highways in Laos (aside from a 5-10 mile stretch leading into and out of the capital city of Vientiane), so all roads connect villages and follow rivers just as walking paths did before them. If you are prone to car sickness, stick to river travel by boat because the Laos roads' twists, turns, bumps and grinds will make you wish you were sitting on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean at night with no moon in rough seas. Ok, ok, not really. Rough seas on a boat at night with no moon is worse, but a strong stomach is a good thing to have when traveling in Laos (for several reasons). Our driver was a very pleasant 20-something young man currently working on his master's degree in IT at the local Luang Prabang university, and moonlighting as a driver/guide to pay the bills. He was small, as most Laotians are, and looked like a 10-year old behind the big wheel of the slightly tired minivan, but he was a good driver - diligently tooting the horn at every wayward toddler, chicken, pig and dog loitering in the road. And there was a lot of that - toddlers, chickens, pigs, and dogs loitering in the road. The road seems to be the communal gathering place in many of the villages, which made us wonder about the number of accidents. We didn't see any, so perhaps the horn tooting method works. It also seemed to work when approaching hairpin turns in the wrong lane or passing another vehicle with zero visibility of oncoming traffic. This first sixty mile drive was a good introduction to Laos road travel for us. It was a journey, but not quite the adventures we had later. Part of the reason it took us six hours to go sixty miles is because we ran into this commotion in one of the villages along the way. The police stopped traffic (there were only a few trucks and tourist vans like ours, the locals don't have cars) in both directions while all the townspeople assembled in the road parade-style. After chatting with one of the villagers, our driver told us the village was celebrating its new status as a 'cultural village'. We aren't sure exactly, but assume this means the village will maintain its historical culture including traditional architecture, crafts, food, agricultural methods, etc.. The people seemed jolly enough about it. We waited a half-hour or so while the parade assembled, marched, waved flags, and eventually turned off the road into what looked like a community center. Photo courtesy of Michael. View of the Nam Ou (Ou River) from the bridge leading to Nong Khiaw, a very small village nestled on the river's eastern side. Peeking through the trees on the right are the bungalows we stayed in for two nights. One of the Nong Khiaw Riverside bungalows. This is our bungalow bedroom, complete with mosquito net, an under-bed heating system and what's this? A mini-bar! All this and a gorgeous river view for only $35/night. We liked the under-bed heating system best. It was downright cold at night (50's for us boaters who are used to 90's - brrrrr!) and the walls constructed of woven bamboo strips didn't provide much insulation. The management instructed us to plug in the heating unit, which consisted of a couple of lightbulbs (infrared?), several hours before we planned to go to bed so it would become nice and toasty. We did as directed, and after surprisingly tasty meals served with Chilean wine (my, how small the world is when Chilean wine is available in the mountains of Laos!) in the hotel's open air restaurant overlooking the river, we went to bed. Staying in Nong Khiaw is a bit like camping. When it gets dark, and in this case cold, and there is no 'indoors' to escape to, instead of crawling into your tent, you crawl into your bungalow, bundle up in Smart Wool(™) socks and sweaters, pull the mosquito net around the bed, listen to the geckos chirping on the ceiling (hopefully eating the insects) and read your book with a flashlight (the two lightbulbs swinging from the ceiling didn't provide quite enough light to read by). Don unfortunately was sick with a nasty cold at the time, so had to sniffle through the night, but still, it was a treat to be cold and cozy instead of hot and sweaty. I know, I know, it's not very tasteful to post pictures of bathrooms on the blog, but I couldn't resist. We've spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia, and I don't think I've mentioned once the delights of a squat toilet or pan-full-of-water flushing method. Well, it's about time. This is our bungalow bathroom (the shower head is outside the photo to the right). This isn't a squat toilet, but as you can see, it has no water hook-up and no water tank. How does one flush, you ask? Simple. Fill the saucepan-shaped dipper floating in the urn of water in the corner and pour it into the toilet bowl with a quick flip of the wrist, send up a short prayer to your deity of choice, and hope whatever you put in the bowl will flush down. If that doesn't work, repeat until satisfied. Quite effective, really. The squat toilet is a whole other bundle of joy. We've yet to stay in a hotel with squat toilets, but we've run into plenty in roadside restaurants, bus terminals and the like. For those that haven't seen a squat toilet, it consists of a porcelain sink-looking thing sunk into the ground (or sometimes up on a pedestal) with places for your feet on either side. There is rarely toilet paper as the Southeast Asian crowd prefers a water sprayer - like the one found in your kitchen sink. All toilets in Southeast Asia, whether squat or sit-down western style, usually come equipped with a water sprayer. We've been in Southeast Asia for nearly eighteen months, and have yet to figure out how exactly one uses a water sprayer in place of toilet paper without completely soaking oneself with water and…and…anything else that happens to be hanging around. It's too embarrassing a topic to bring up with the locals, so we remain completely ignorant as to the proper use of the perplexing water sprayer. To be honest, the first time I saw a water sprayer in a toilet stall, I thought, "Oh! What a good idea! It must make it so much easier to clean the toilet!". It wasn't until much later when a Muslim woman was in the stall next to mine and I heard the water sprayer going that I realized its purpose was not for toilet cleaning. Who knew? Ok, one more toilet story and then I promise not to mention such things again for a long, long time. In most Malaysian airports, the available toilet stalls offer a choice to travelers; squat or sit-down. The same is true in Kuala Lumpur's glitzy international airport where the ladies rooms are large, clean and stretch on forever with a long row of sit-down stalls next to a long row of squat stalls. The first time we flew home through Kuala Lumpur, I entered the ladies room, chose a sit-down stall, and proceeded to read all the caution and warning signs posted on the inside of the stall door. All the warnings and cautions were illustrated comic-strip style with few words. My favorite showed a sit-down toilet with two scenes. In the first, a stick woman was sitting properly (and smiling) on the sit-down toilet. In the second, which had a circle with a line through it (as in "Don't do this!"), the stick woman was frowning and squatting over the bowl with both feet planted firmly on the toilet seat. I suppose if you've never seen a sit-down toilet before, you might be inclined to try and squat on it. And - I suppose a Malaysian woman would probably find my inability to use a water sprayer properly just as funny as I find her inability to sit on a sit-down toilet properly. Fair is fair, after all. River weed drying in the sun. It's not so much a delicacy as it is a staple in this country full of rivers (rivers with lots of weed, apparently). The weed is gathered from the river, pulverized and flattened into a sheet, sprinkled with sesame seeds and dried in the sun on bamboo racks like this one. Before serving, it is fried in oil and cut into smaller pieces. We ate it several times as an appetizer and it wasn't bad - proving once again that anything fried tastes good. A local shop in the town of Nong Khiaw. Like all the places we've seen throughout the Pacific and Southeast Asia, the chickens run where they please. Nothing other than 'free-range' chicken exists in these here parts. As you can see, this area is extremely rural and poor. There were tourists in Nong Khiaw, but not many. The Lao people seemed a little perplexed by us camera carrying, zip-off, quick-dry travel pants wearing people. While Don convalesced in our bungalow, Michael, Jackie and I took an afternoon stroll through town and found shops like these, a few open air restaurants, lots of river weed drying racks, a small Buddhist temple, and men and women bathing in shorts and sarongs or washing dishes at the few community water pipes that sprout up alongside the road at semi-regular intervals. After our first night in the bungalows, we understood better why everyone seemed to bathe in the late afternoon - with no hot water and temperatures plummeting from 80 to 50 after sunset, we'd be out there in a sarong washing our hair by the roadside in the broad daylight of late afternoon too (don't fret, our bungalow bathroom was equipped with hot water for the shower so we didn't have to do any roadside bathing). Photo courtesy of Michael. The caves - remnants of a very ugly time in Laos modern history. The caves, of course, are not part of modern history since they've been around for a while, but the way they were used in the 1960's and early '70's is an indication of how bad things were in Laos at the time. Nong Khiaw, like many other small Laos villages near the Vietnamese border, was subjected to horrendous bombing campaigns run by the Americans - namely the CIA since Laos was a 'neutral' country and the US was not officially at war with Laos. The planes took off from bases in Thailand near the Laos border and over the years from 1964 to 1973, the US dropped 2,093,100 tons of bombs on Laos (all the guidebooks agree on this number and reference US government records released after 1973 as the source). As the Footprint guidebook points out, "This is the equivalent of a plane load of bombs every eight minutes around the clock for nine years." There were two reasons for the bombing. First, the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through eastern Laos allowing the North Vietnamese to move troops and supplies into South Vietnam. Second, communist Pathet Lao forces backed by North Vietnam and the USSR were battling Royalist and Hmong Laotian forces backed by the US in a long civil war in which those supplying arms (North Vietnam, USSR and US) are said to have been more interested in the fighting than many of the Laotians themselves. The US supplied air power for the Royalist and Hmong army in its struggle against the communists in the civil war. The caves like the one shown in this photo were used as a refuge by villagers caught in the middle of the fighting, or as headquarters by North Vietnamese or Pathet Lao troops. In its zeal to stamp out the communists, the US bombed these areas liberally, and unfortunately, as in all war zones, the people killed were not always soldiers. It's not known how many civilians died. The cave in this photo was used by the local people of Nong Khiaw as a refuge (the stairway was added much later for tourist access). Villagers lived in the cave, some say for years, and tended their rice paddies only under cover of darkness. All in all, the nine year span from 1964 to 1973 was darn grim for Laos. These two lovely girls (note only the hint of a smile on one), acted as our tour guides in the cave pictured above. With nary a word exchanged, one took Jackie's hand, and the other mine, as we walked through the surprisingly large, very dark, and now empty, cavern. Michael, Jackie and I were the only tourists there, and we only saw a few others during the nearly two hours it took us to walk to the cave site and back to town. Laos is so much less developed than other Southeast Asian countries (with the possible exception of Myanmar) that it was both a relief and a shock to us to see so little tourism and so little development in general. The four of us spent our second day in Nong Khiaw hiking to another cave in the area - one that served as a Pathet Lao (communist) regional base during the civil war. On the way, we met this congenial water buffalo as he(?) lounged in the rice paddies we walked through. As we neared the entrance to the cave, which according to the message scrawled on this rock wall in black was only 100 meters away (it was more like a 300 meter scramble up a steep foothill), we walked by what was once the security guard station, and is now just a small, empty alcove in the rock face. Photo courtesy of Michael. Looking out from the old Pathet Lao headquarters at Jackie and Don looking in. This photo was taken by Michael as he ventured into this steep, narrow and particularly uninviting cave. Aha! The really little kids still smile (the unsmiling must come later). These two and their farming implements were alone and on a mission in the teak woods we walked through en route to the Pathet Lao cave. Photo courtesy of Michael. Ok, time to move on from the war to something more fun. Like shooting down the rapids of the Nam Ou in this river boat gem. Based on research Michael and Jackie had done, traveling downriver on the Nam Ou in a traditional river boat (there aren't any river boats that aren't traditional in Laos) is the best way to travel back to Luang Prabang from Nong Khiaw. We debated about taking the cheaper, public river boat, but opted for this private 6-passenger luxury liner instead. We shared the last two seats (and the cost) with a very pleasant American couple (again with the Americans!), he an independent travel writer, and she along for the trip. The beauty of hiring a private boat rather than taking the public version, is the luxurious seating. The seats provided were what looked like seats from a car, placed in a staggered double row for our comfort. They were comfortable, as long as you didn't dwell on the fact that the seats were in no way attached to the rest of the boat. Instead, they were placed with their metal frames leaning on the bottom and curved sides of the boat like weebles just waiting to wobble. In fact, they did wobble if an excited passenger shifted his or her weight around in an overly energetic fashion. There is a reason the Laos river boats are long and skinny like this one. Navigating the rivers, especially in the dry season, is not easy. There are no navigational marks, no buoys, no lights, no electronic charts (no paper charts?). No nothing. Just the boat, the river, and the captain (and in this case, his wife too). With one pit stop (shown here on a sandy bank) and a stop for lunch, it took about five hours to make the trip. In that time, our driver/captain negotiated at least twelve sets of rapids and avoided countless treacherous rocks - those we could see and those we couldn't - all with what appeared to be little effort. The length of the boat gave it stability in the rapids and after the first few sets even Jackie and I started to relax. A little. The boat's narrow width allowed it to squeeze between rock hazards with no problem. Being the boater people that we are, we find traditional boat designs extremely intriguing. Every country we've visited has its own version of a fishing, cargo, or passenger boat - each design feature perfectly matching the local boating environment. No surprise there, but we still find it fascinating. The excitement of the rapids aside, our trip down the Nam Ou was smooth and scenic. Scenic in terms of the landscape, which included heavy morning mist lifting slowly to reveal massive limestone pinnacles not unlike those we know and love in Thailand's Phang Nga Bay, and also scenic in terms of the river life. Not river life as in fish, but river life as in the people living along the banks. As we glided by, we saw fishermen out in their canoes, attracting fish by pounding the water's surface with the flat of their oar, and then tossing a handmade net over the soon-to-be-sorry fish respondents. We saw women washing laundry, people bathing, water buffalo wandering and crops growing. Afterwards, we wondered what will happen to the river bank villages when the various hydroelectric power stations are built on the Mekong and its tributaries. The potential for vast amounts of hydroelectric power exists in Laos due to its abundance of rivers. A huge natural resource, for sure, and one that would certainly help Laos move ahead with much needed infrastructure development, but, what about the river people and their way of life? Isn't that always the way with 'progress'? Yes, there's a lot to be gained, but always there's something lost too. The trouble is, you can't deny a people the luxuries progress brings, you can only hope the trade-off isn't too detrimental to traditional culture and the environment. This sounds a lot like tree hugging (unheard of from two people who used to make millions of pounds of plastic bags!), but after seeing so many developing nations, it's hard not to worry about the negative side of progress. Oops! This was supposed to be a lighter topic. Instead, the discussion spiraled from war to the doom and gloom of third world economic development. Sorry about that. Maybe more toilet-talk would be helpful? Next up: Giant mysterious ancient jars, bomb craters and Lao Lao whiskey - Phonsavan, Laos. Anne |