Luang Prabang

A 6-hour bus ride north took me to Luang Prabang, which is a cute little town on the river with a lot of colonial architecture. Like Vang Vieng, it has been pretty much overtaken by tourism. But it is still pleasant with lovely just-so restaurants and guesthouses. Kind of like the Napa Valley of Laos (without the wineries). My ATM card had been cancelled due to some security fraud issue, so I was almost out of Lao Kip by this time in my trip. The only place that would take my credit card was the plush Ancient Luang Prabang hotel. Alas...

Vang Vieng

Next I took a bus north to Vang Vieng, which a few years ago was a sleepy river village. Now it's backpacker central, with tons of drunken 20-something kids floating on innertubes between bars on the river. The town has been completely taken over by tourism, with restaurants, thumping techno dance clubs, internet shops and some sketch massage parlors vying for attention.



The area around my bungalow down by the river, though, was beautiful and serene. Surrounded by mountains, rivers and rice paddies, the scenery is still worth going to see. And it seems like every nearby village has discovered a cave in the mountains that they tout as a must-see destination.




I went to see a cave with a Buddha shrine inside of it (complete with a slightly lame "Blue Lagoon" out front), and met intrepid Scottish white-water rafting tour guide Amon there. We ended up taking a motorbike tour through the jungle countryside, getting lost for a couple of hours looking for the road back to town. The minute you get out in the country you can really get a feel for the level of poverty that exists in Laos, hidden from view in the tourist-oriented cities. The countryside was just amazing though. The mountains just shoot straight out of the ground and the scenery alternates between browned-out dry rice paddies and lush jungle.

Vientiane

I took a couple of weeks off posting, so now I'm catching up with my Laos trip (which happened in late January). After Hanoi, I had about a week to spend in South East Asia before heading back to India for a spiritual retreat. I really wanted to get to Laos, even for that limited amount of time. You hear a lot about Laos when you are traveling - how it's not very touristy (false), how it's pretty but there's nothing much to do (false) and how it's changing fast (true!). Laos was great and I enjoyed my time there, but it was surprisingly well developed for tourism. It takes a bit of time and effort to get out of the tourist bubble. I'm hoping to be able to go back and do so later this year. BTW, did you know Laos was still communist? I didn't!





I flew into its capital, Vientiane, and was struck first by how clean and modern it was. The streets were wide, clean and tree-lined. Underground sewers! Grocery stores! But not much traffic or crowding. Vientiane is probably the laziest capital city I've ever been to, but pleasant nonetheless. Though it did feel like there was not a lot to focus on there as far as a city center. It has a lot of guesthouses and tourist restaurants, but Vientiane is big enough to not feel completely taken over by tourism, as were Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang.

I spent a bit of time sightseeing, a lot of time eating, and also got an incredible massage from a clinic of blind masseuses. Lao massage is all about applying lots of pressure to pressure points, and at one point my masseuse had me screaming as he stood on a special spot on my thigh.



The main attraction in town is the Golden Stupa, or Pha That Luang. This is the most important temple in Laos and is blindingly gold in the sunlight.




By far the most interesting and bizarre sight is the Buddha Park, about 25 km outside of town. I rented a motorbike and drove out there on my last day before my bus left. Built in 1958 by a priest who attempted to integrate Hinduism with Buddhism, it contains over 200 statues from both religions (and some strange demons). Tori, I think you would have liked this park!

The food is similar to Thai food, with an emphasis on curries, and there are a number of dishes that both countries seem to lay claim to (like green papaya salad and laap, raw marinated meet like ceviche). I couldn't get enough papaya salad, but even my fondness for steak tartare couldn't get me to try laap in its pure, raw form. My stomach was just feeling healthy after weeks of problems, so I didn't really feel like pushing the envelope. The Laotians also have tons of sticky rice, which I love. I went down and ate at a seafood shack by the Mekong River, where I met the very drunk but very funny Richard, an economics professor teaching in Shanghai. I asked him how he thought the economic downturn would affect China and he said "Oh, definitely, they might only grow at 7% this year." Jerk.

Ha Long Bay

After a few days in Hanoi, Cindy and I took a bus out to Ha Long Bay for a 3 day boat tour. This was our last destination together and it blew away our expectations. Ha Long Bay is an enormous body of water containing over 1,900 islands. These islands shoot straight out of the water, barely any with beaches or walkable access, and no land inhabitants. The beauty is on a different scale than most places I've been - it reminded me of seeing the enormous glaciers in Alaska.




Thanks to a recommendation from Steve McAdoo, we found ourselves on a great boat, with only about 6 other passengers, and wonderful tour guides, food, and cabins. This is a huge business in Vietnam - the harbor where we took off must of had over 50 "junks" for touring the bay.



We didn't know what the actual tour was going to be like and pictured just cruising around among the islands for a couple of days and getting shown floating gift shops or something. The first day out, we spent a few hours chugging out to what turned out to be the main tourist area of the bay. First stop was an enormous cave, complete with theme-colored lighting, that was truly spectacular (it didn't hurt that this was also our first encounter with Oreos on the trip).




Across the harbor from the cave is one of the few islands that you could actually walk on, with a man-made beach and a pagoda on top that you could climb to. The views from the top were I think the highlight of the trip for me - 360 degrees of gorgeous. Of course where there are tourists, there are hawkers, and here they followed us around in rowboats (we started calling them the "Oreo Ladies"). We dropped anchor at a nearby cove for the night, ate a fantastic dinner and turned in early (after trying some squid fishing off the back of the boat).





The next day was completely different. We went a couple more hours into the bay, leaving the other tour boats behind, and took of on kayaks for a few hours. Nearby was the largest floating village in the bay, and a number of aquatic caves. The caves ranges from simple passageways to one called the "scary cave" that was something straight out of Scooby Doo - long, windy and at points almost a low as the kayak. I was getting to the limits of how much I could scruntch my body down towards the end of that cave. On the other side of the caves were often completely enclosed lagoons - it was so amazing to be inside of them, usually the only people there, with no sounds of the outside world.




The last day we went for one last kayak to another lagoon, and then cruised slowly back to the harbor. Feeling completely satisfied with our Ha Long experience, we headed back to Hanoi for one last night before Cindy headed back to Bangkok, and I went on to Laos. We had one of the best meals that night at this Hanoi institution called Cha Ca La Vong. This place only serves one meal and has been doing it for almost 100 years. It's fish fried in oil at your table with basil, scallions, chilies and peanuts. Served over noodles with a stinky fish sauce. The whole thing together is unbelievably tasty! (I had to go back for seconds the next day for lunch before I flew out.) Cindy and I said good bye, sad to see her go after so many adventures of the past few weeks!

Hanoi

After our great night hanging out with Cambodian breakdancers and a sobering morning learning about the Khmer Rouge regime, Cindy and I bid fairwell to Phnom Penh. We took a flight to Hanoi, which was a shock to the system on a number of levels. We had strange mojo with the taxi driver from the airport, our hotel didn't have enough rooms for us, and it was cold - much colder than we expected. Evidentally central heating is an Imperialist concept because our hotel was actually colder inside than out.




The city itself is very crowded and chaotic. Vietnam has about 10 times as many people as Cambodia and it shows. For traffic lovers, it's a bonanza. There are so many motorcycles whizzing by at any given time that just crossing the street is a major accomplishment. After a while you learn to just start walking and keep going.

I had such a fond impression of the southern Vienamese from an earlier trip ten years ago, remembering them to be some of the loveliest people I'd ever met. So I was pretty shocked by those in Hanoi. A crass commercialism, combined with a seeming lack of social skills, made them seem obnoxious and annoying. The vendors on the street wouldn't smile at you, but just yell: "You buy from me?! You buy from me?!" The worst were the pineapple ladies, who would follow you around relentlessly, putting their balancing pole on your shoulders and trying to get you to pay for a photo op. And everyone in the city with a motorbike (all 3 million or so), had gotten the same idea that they could be an impromptu taxi for tourists. Which is awfully convenient and the best way to get around, but overwhelming when you have literally the entire city yelling "Motorbike?! Motorbike?!" at you.




These were our first impressions, and of course after a we became acclimatized and bought some more appropriate clothing, we um...warmed up to the city. Hanoi is quite beautiful and walkable, with a compact, largely preserved old town core, many picturesque lakes, great restaurants and amenities. The residents have a certain kind of big city, Communist chic going on. Women wear high heels and drive motorbikes, with their fur-lined jackets and face masks. I found a sweet, excellent tailor to get some suits made, a friend of a friend of Cindy's ran an alternative movie house where we saw a great documentary on Saigon, and our hotel did have its chilly charms (mainly delicious pho for breakfast and the internet in every room). The cinema owner gave us directions for an awesome walking tour: we ended up going to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (from the outside, it was closed), the lake where John McCain was shot down (he's actually very popular in Vietnam and was a favorite here for the election), and on a fairly posh island of apartment buildings on the lake, a cockfighting ring (okay not awesome but interesting). Aside from it being pretty awful, the location was so weird - it was as if someone had decided cockfighting would be a good addition to the Kirkland waterfront back in Seattle.