into china, early august

Anyway, next day we board the bus to china. And for being such rule-breaking line-cutting people, some Chinese folks really really want their seat number in the bus. Even if it doesn’t matter. Go figure. So I sat a row ahead of foo the whole time. And at customs I got stopped because the signature in my passport is different than the signature on my immigration card. The man told me that and I said yes, my signature was different then. I sign my name differently now. And he said ‘the signature is different in the passport than you signed here’ and again I said ‘yes, it is different because I signed my name differently then’ and he said ‘the signature is different…’ you get the idea. So then another man had to look at my passport and immigration card for about 5 minutes, and eventually was able to expertly determine that my signature was mine, both times.
Anyway, we got back on the bus to find that someone, not sure who, had gone through foo’s bag. And didn’t put everything back. She said she thought it was customs. I guess they can go through your stuff without you there. They didn’t take anything though. So we got to the city of mengla, where we had no Chinese money, so we walked really far for an atm, and we found one. and it wouldn't give us money. And we were so hot and tired and stranded. And then this man that had followed us from the bus station came up to us and wanted to change money. After trying to cheat us for a while, he gave us an exchange rate that was only a little unfair. but being as desperate as we were, we took it. We walked back to the bus station and foo looked at the schedule and said ‘you’re kidding me’ and I was like oh no, we just missed it, we’re going to sit here for like 5 more hours or something. But turns out, the bus was leaving in 5 minutes. So far we were feeling pretty punched in the face by china. So we rush to the bus where a lady and her kids were carrying their bags to the back to load them in. and then magically, foo pushes ahead and throws her bag in the back and then mine too before the Chinese lady could get her stuff there. Yessss! As we got into the bus foo says ‘take that, china.’ That was a good moment for me. It sounds rude to throw your bags in ahead of someone else but that’s how china works. Basically I can be as rude as I want and no one notices because they’re all doing the same thing. It takes a minute to get used to.

We arrived in jing hong, and were all sweaty and gross and soooo hot and found our way to the banna youth hostel. It was 60 yuan per night, which isn’t too bad. And we were able to steal wifi, so that was extra good. That night we went looking for dinner and where there apparently once was a night market was now a neon-lit strip of bars. So we started walking back. And we were so desperate for real food after traveling the whole day from the pits of hell in udomxai. We walked past a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and then another. We picked the one with more people in it. And when I say more people, I am referring to shirtless men, throwing their trash all over the floor and being loud. And one of them had the most glorious mullet I’ve ever seen. Chinese man with a flowing golden mullet. Hi-five, sir. You have just made my night.
We ordered four dishes and a beer. We actually ate all the food. Four dishes. The beer was kind strange though. Wheat beer maybe. It wasn’t very good. And the total bill was 30 yuan. That’s a bit more than $4. Amazing. What a good ending to a crappy hot long day.
We stayed three nights in jinghong, which were all amazing. I loved this town. The food was good and cheap. The first night we were walking back after dinner and came across a square. Like a concrete park covering a city block. And there were not only one, but two large groups of aerobics happening. Each had their own sound system and music playing. And there were tons of people-all kinds of people: old people young people, kids, ladies and gentlemen. all doing synchronized aerobics. like line dances. all together. awesome. And lots of kids on these funny skateboards that only have two wheels. Foo and I sat in between the aerobics groups and watched. It was a pretty magical night.
The next day was a failed attempt at tourism. We rented bikes to see some minority villages and rode there and turns out there are no villages, but rather lots of construction. And we were both tired and foo’s bike seat was doing some terrible things to her, so we stopped for lunch at a little noodle shop where construction workers eat. It was ok, super cheap though. foo said something like 'people like us DO NOT eat at places like this.' And based upon the cleanliness, the kind of place that you expect will make you poop all over the place.
I can’t remember what we did the rest of the day, we found another square that night where they played music and lots of people danced, not like synchronized aerobics style, but like grab a partner and show off your best moves. And everyone was all dressed up in their fancy dancing clothes. There were really old people and kids and young people and these two people that seemed to be quite good ballroom dancers. We got noodles and roti and sat and watched for an hour or so. This was also quite amazing. The next night we watched aerobics again, and also little-kid roller blading lessons. Three year olds on rollerblades might be the cutest thing ever.
Jing hong was my favorite town in china. It was so charming. I would go back there for sure. it seems like there's really a strong community there. you know, with all the aerobics...

f00: what else happened in laos

in laos, we hardly got internet connection at all. so here's the rest of what happened in laos....

we got to vientiane, it rained a whole bunch the first night and the ceiling in our guest house started leaking in the parts that looked mouldy. i guess that's why there's a mould problem. it was still raining a lot when we woke up so that was a little discouraging. we woke up early to make our first video chat date ever and that was pretty exciting though our connection there was pretty slow so there were a lot of dropped calls and delayed reactions. then we ventured next door for soup noodles that were delicious.

finally at noon, the rain stopped! we took a walk around town and bought some pretty expensive stamps then checked out the french cultural center - we heard that they screened french movies (with english subtitles) occasionally. we watched le ventre de juliette at 6.30pm.

vientiane was great for food. we had some delicious baguette sandwiches (thanks france!) with pickled vegetables and lots of fruit shakes. iced lao coffee was just delightful. i didn't know i had been missing good coffee till then.

by chance, as we were walking around town near the sketchy fountain, a boy handed us a brochure for COPE that seemed interesting so we decided to give it a shot. it's a rehabilitation center that provides prosthetic services to people that need them; with an emphasis on those injured by unexploded ordinances (UXOs). the UXOs exhibition was intense, to say the least. COPE was well worth the 30 minute walk from town.

we also ate at makphet which is a restaurant run by former street youth and their teachers. their families are given the option to make small crafts for sale at their store located in the restaurant. food was awesome (one of the best meals we had in laos), crafts were way cute and the students were way adorable.

from vientiane, we went to phonsavan in the north. it was supposed to be a long ride anyway but then our bus broke down and all of us had to wait on the side of the road. fortunately, the bus behind us stopped to help and after about 10 mins of trying to fix our broken bus, the crew on our bus decided that it was best for us to hop onto the other bus. so we did and because katherine and i were one of the last ones on the bus (china didn't train us well to be line cutting douche bags), we got plastic stools to sit on in the aisle. not stable. but 2 hours later, we arrived, mostly on time. crisis averted.

we went to phonsavan to see the plain of jars - fields of large stone jars that no one knows the origins of. this area of laos is also infamously known to have a large number of UXOs. the one site we visited had designated walk areas indicating whether an area had been cleared of UXOs or 'visually cleared' of UXOs. i was pretty excited about phonsavan not because of the UXOs or the stone jars but because we had decided that it was probably a good place to learn how to ride motorcycles as it was less populated than vientiane. we had the guesthouse boss loan us a motorcycle for the day and even though he knew that we had no experience and no bike license, he still agreed to let us take the bike. what faith. two foreign kids had just crashed their bike the day before. and the funny thing was that we met them while having breakfast the day of renting the motorcycle. i practiced riding up a little lane and got a few curious looks from the neighbours. then more curious looks when i picked up katherine to practice with a passenger. then we were off! half a day of riding around on a little scooter and no injuries.

after phonsavan, we took a pretty long bus ride to sam neua, near the lao-vietnam border. the drive was beautiful - winding through yet more mountains but also lots of rice fields and villages with houses on stilts and local women weaving textiles on their looms in the space under their houses. and lots of cute children looking on as the bus crawled past their village. some of the passengers also brought with them some fowl, and about 15 frogs. fowl went on the roof, frogs got to ride with us.

sam neua is near the pathet lao caves which was used by the pathet lao leaders and their followers when the americans bombed the shit out of that area. almost everyday for 9 nine years, the area around the caves were targeted. large bomb craters exist (one of the leaders converted a bomb crater into a swimming pool which i thought was pretty genius) alongside more UXOs. while on tour of one of the caves, we heard a low rumbling noise resembling thunder. when asked, the guide said it was just a bombie. just?! it was quite the adventure trying to get to tour the caves. the day before, we had failed because of a serious of unfortunate events. then when we finally got to the cave office, we were told that the 9am tour had to be cancelled because of a lack of tour guides. we were given a handdrawn map of the village and a mini tour we could do on our motorbikes before the 1pm tour. we grabbed breakfast then set off. katherine drove, i passenged and the frenchboy, julien, we were traveling with had his own bike. on the ride to the caves, i noticed that the brakes on the bike weren't all that responsive but they would do. plus we were in a rush and didn't really have time to turn back to get it dealt with. we should have. anyways, katheirne was driving and we all went down this pretty steep dirt path. and we started going faster and faster and she was down shifting but we weren't really slowing down. we zoomed past julien and by this time i was feeling some fear. eventually, we came to flat-ish ground and (with her feet) she managed to stop the bike. which is when i found out that the brakes had failed to operate. awesome. + panic! we spent some minutes trying to get our wits back. and some villagers came around to see what the commotion was - they probably noticed us bombing down the hill too. after some inspection, they didn't think there was much of a problem with the bike. anyways, so julien kindly offered to switch bikes with us thinking that perhaps the brakes wouldn't be as stressed if it only had to stop itself plus one person as opposed to two. so we continued the tour which was scenic. then it started to rain and we stopped under a giant rock for shelter. we continued after the rain had died down a little but not all the way and not 10 minutes later, the rain picked up again but we were convinced that town was not that far away so we trucked on. as we were going up another hill, our bike stuttered to a stop. we ran out of gas. so julien had to go get us a litre of gas from a provision store that was not too far away. after all that 'adventure', we finally made it back in time for the tour, did the tour and made it back to our guesthouse safe and sound.

from sam neua, we went to nong khiaw which was a little overrun with tourists then to oudomxay where we caught a bus to mengla, china. back to china!

sam neua, vieng xai july 27-29

this one's a bit long. written end of july:

this recent bit of the adventure really emitomizes laos:
the next day we went to sam neua. again, many hours on a bus. but no one vomited! there was a basket of chickens on the roof and a little basket of live frogs inside the bus. and a crazy man in the back of the bus smoking and coughing like he had emphezema. looking ahead at the two no-smoking signs on the bus. we got to sam neua (where i am while writing this). we met a french boy named julien and we've been hanging out with him. near this town there is a place called vieng xai, which was really heavily hit by the US bombing in the vietnam war. government officials and soldiers and many more people lived in caves there for the 9 years that bombing happened. they're called the pathet lao caves. so yesterday we woke up and met the french boy at 7am to go rent motorbikes to go to the caves. there are english tours of the caves at 9am and 1pm. we got to the motorbike place but it was raining a little so we thought we'd take the bus instead. we started walking to the bus station we came in at, but then we asked someone and he said that the bus to vieng xai left from another station three kilometers away. and he pointed us in a direction. so we walk that way, and get to an intersection. to the left, the paved road we are on continues, and forward and to the right it is dirt road. so we go left thinking that's the way a bus would go. after 10 minutes or so the road ends at a creek. and people are crossing to go work on fields on the other side. the bridge across? there is a rusting i-beam lying across the creek that people walk across. amazing. so we turned back and wandered around the dirt roads for a while, and we went to see two monuments of the town which were supposed to have good views. so the first one we walked and walked the wrong way (but we followed the sign) and eventually got there. to a locked gate. we saw another monument and walked there, only to find another locked gate. and then we went to the tourist office which opened at 8. they gave us a map! thank goodness! so it turns out that the bus station we want is indeed 3km away, but in a different direction. we set out at 9 or 9:15. at about 10:15 we get there, because it's actually 4km away. vieng xai is about an hour away in the bus and the buses leave every hour. and the tour was at 1pm. the next bus (which is actually like a small pickup truck with two rows of seats in the bed) is supposed to leave at 10:30. no problem, we waited. at 10:30 a man who works there told us there weren't enough people to go at 10:30, so the next one would leave at 11:30. which was fine, we'd still make the 1pm tour. so we waited. and we were sooo hungry, and there were no restaurants, only bus station food. so foo and i bought these cheese flavored crackers, which actually were sweet and only vaguely cheese-flavored, and also a pack of dry instant noodles. there was no hot water so we ate the dry noodles and crackers and the french boy bought a mystery food wrapped in a banana leaf. we sat down to eat and he opened it and it was fish. a whole fish. the head, the tail, the bones. cooked in some spicy sauce. he ate some parts but i think gave up after a minute because it was really spicy and many parts seemed to be unidentifiable. and eventually 11:30 came around. we sat in the bus with two lao women and no one around spoke english. at 11:45, the lao women were leaning over a giant box and looked like they were taking a nap. so at 11:50 i found someone who spoke english and asked when it was leaving and he said 12:30, still not enough people. if there were actually enough people by 12:30, which was no guarantee, we would miss the tour anyway. so after an hour walk and almost two hours of waiting, we walked the hour back to the center of town and ate lunch. where foo and i both found worms in our food. not the best day ever.

we decided to give it another go today. so we met the french boy at 7am again and walked to the motorbike rental shop. the guy from yesterday wasn't there, and the guy in the shop just looked at us and continued working on a bike. after about 10 minutes a woman came out and we asked about renting a bike and she sort of told us/indicated in limited english that the guy wasn't there. then walked away. so we were just left standing there. and after 40 minutes of waiting, finally the guy came back. he rented us two motor bikes and three helmets. but one was out of gas so the woman left and came back a minute later with gasoline in a soda bottle. they poured it in the gas tank and we were off. we stopped at a gas station on the way and foo and i got gas but the seat wouldn't open for the french boy to get gas in his bike. so foo and i went on and he went back to get it fixed and said he would catch up. so foo and i left, with her driving and me on the back. the french boy caught up with us and said that they just hammered a screw driver around in the lock on the seat for a while and 'fixed' it. the road to vieng xai is like other roads in laos, windy and full of hills. they're mountain roads but not very safe ones. you have to be in a super low gear going up hills and really downshift/brake going down hills. we got there in a bit less than an hour and found the cave tour office. we walked in at 8:50. victory!! a whole day of trying and we finally got there! no one was at the desk so after 5 minutes or so foo yelled 'sabaidee!' down the hall and someone came out. we signed in and then he told us that the one guide had to take someone to the hospital and the other one is busy, could we come back at 1pm? well, if that's the only option, i suppose so. what to do til 1pm? it was 9am. he was really nice and drew us a map of a bike tour we could do on our own to take around there seeing rice paddies and villages and rivers and caves and mountains until the 1pm cave tour. two hours on a bicycle, but less with motor bikes. then he said 'are you happy to do that? does this bike tour make you happy?' oh, cutest nicest man ever, no i was not happy but with no other choice, i was going to do the bike tour. we had breakfast at a restaurant in the market. we wandered around the market and oh my goodness there is some crazy food eaten here. huge bugs and worms, cockroaches, flattened rodents (with hair still on) skinned whole baby cow, giant bull head, sort of a jello made of blood from some animal. i opted for the more familiar fried noodles dish.
we started the tour and i took a turn driving the motorbike and foo was behind. first we were going up a really steep hill and the bike was really struggling so i shifted from 2nd to 1st and almost threw foo off the bike. oops. then we went down this seemingly endless really steep hill. it was a gravel road and there weren't too many other people/vehicles around. and the back brake of the bike didn't work so i was using the front brake. and the hill just kept going and going, so i shifted from 4th to 3rd. the brake seemed to not be working as well after a while, so i downshifted to 2nd, and i felt the brake working less well still, then it just gave out. and foo and i were on this motorbike going downhill with no flat ground in sight and no brakes. and it was going faster and faster and i couldn't slow down. we passed the french boy going really really fast and i didn't know what to do but going that fast was not a good option so i shifted into first gear to try to slow down which almost threw us both off because we were going so fast, and the engine was screaming really loudly and i was panicked and i know foo was wondering what the hell i was doing going so fast down this gravel road super steep hill. but the bike slowed down a little and the hill briefly got a little less steep, and i put my feet on the ground to try to skid to a stop. and finally the bike stopped. my whole body was shaking. and i got off and was all panicked, and foo and the french boy thought i was just trying to drive fast for fun. by the way, that is not a thing i do. speed is not a thing i'm attraced to. so i was shaking and telling them that the brake didn't work, we were just going down this huge hill with no way of stopping. then some people who lived on the side of that road came out and sort of looked at the bike while we tried to show them that the brake didn't work. so foo and i switched bikes with the french boy because we couldn't walk the bike back and the brake seemed to be working a bit more and it's easier to stop one body than two. so after that we continued on the trail and saw lots of this amazing beautiful country. lots of people in their little homes on stilts on the side of the road, with weaving looms underneath. and lots of rice paddies and corn fields. we got to a stream with a woven bamboo bridge and had to walk the bikes over. then got to another bigger creek with no bridge so we walked the bikes through. and this was probably an hour and 15 minutes into it, maybe more. we were thinking it wouldn't take more than an hour. it started raining so we stopped for a bit under an overhanging rock. some kids with giant cows passed us and laughed. probably not a lot of white folks go through there.
it wasn't raining too hard and we had to be back for the 1pm tour, so we continued in the rain (oh yes, foo was driving since i almost killed us going down the hill) we finally got to the fork in the road where to the left was vieng xai and to the right was the road to vietnam. and we were going up and up the hill and the french boy was ahead of us. and then our bike died. i yelled for julien but he couldn't hear. so we walked up the hill a bit and started it again. it went for a minute or so and died again. we started it again. and it died a minute later. we were out of gas. the french boy realized we weren't behind him, thank goodness, so he came back and then went off again to buy some gas and bring it back. about 5 minutes later he returned with a glass bottle of gas. we put it in the tank and drove about two minutes to find this little roadside shop with about 10 glass bottles of gas. i suppose lots of people run out of gas around here. but turns out we were only like 1km from the town. so we got into the town and to the gas station. which, of course, was out of gas. then the woman gave us plastic chairs to sit on. and we were all thinking 'of course, nothing here works. this is the hardest day of tourism ever' and then a pickup came with two barrels in the back. they siphoned out the gas into the big tank, and we got our gas and were on our way to the cave tourist office again! we got there at about 12:55. success! we got a guide and went to see several caves which were people's homes for 9 years! amazing! all hidden in the mountains. they had bedrooms and living rooms and dining rooms and kitchens and emergency rooms with air pumps and offices and meeting rooms. like a home but in a mountain. that was pretty cool. and all over the area (and the rest of the country) there are huge bomb craters in the ground. so the caves were interesting but really not so exciting compared to the adventure getting there. we headed back at about 3:30pm for the 30km ride to sam neua. of course, it started raining on the way, but not too bad, thank goodness. we got back at 4:30 in one piece. and here we are now, going to hop on another bus tomorrow at 8am. 12 hours to the next stop then about 6 more til we get to china!

to phonsavan july 25

we got to phonsavan, maybe 10 hours on the bus, more people vomiting. we stayed at this guest house called sabaidee (the lao word for hello). the sight to see here is called the plain of jars. we were thinking of renting a motorbike instead of paying for an expensive tour. but the guest house guy told us some tourists had crashed the day before. and that night we went to eat dinner and at the restaurant, guess who we saw! we met the couple who had crashed and had their arms all bandaged. so i asked about it because fast things without seatbelts make me nervous. and they said it was the first time they had ridden a motorbike. and they hit gravel and the driver got nervous and somehow they crashed. and they had to go to the hospital (which is not a thing you want to do in laos) and get stitches. the boy said it was the worst day of his life. awesome. so guess what we did! we rented a motorbike! we rented one and both rode on it, and drove to the plain of jars. the plain of jars is this mysterious, well, plain of jars. the jars are all huge and made of stone. they're like three feet tall. and very old. like ancient old. and no one really knows what they are there for or who put them there. there's no organic material in them so there's no way of dating them. so just hundreds of large stone jars all over. the jars were sort of interesting, and the land is pock-marked with bomb craters, but the highlight of this city was the motorbike rental. neither of us has ever ridden a motorbike. so foo learned first and drove to the plain of jars. then she taught me to drive and i drove us around for a while. it was really fun! we drove around more to use the gas we bought, because we weren't trying to donate any gas to the guy who was already overcharging us, then we ate chinese food for lunch (delicious). the guy said that since foo speaks chinese, we didn't have to order off the menu, she could order anything she wanted. so we ordered tofu hot plate, and a few minutes later the owner/cook leaves the restaurant on his motorbike. and comes back 5 minutes later with a bag of tofu! he actually went out to buy ingredients for our meal!
as far as motorbiking goes, the only injury occurred when it started raining so we went back to the guesthouse and were trying to put the bike on the covered porch so it wouldn't get wet. and we were lifting it up to the porch and the tailpipe hit my leg. so now i have a red blistered burn on my leg. but it's not too bad. it doesn't hurt anymore. and it's not bad enough to get infected.
then we had chinese food again for dinner, but at a different restaurant. we always get awesome chinese food when we travel because chinese people live everywhere and because foo speaks chinese so the people are always like 'we'll make you whatever you want because you speak chinese'. and i think they make extra good food because they know they're cooking for someone who knows what good chinese food is like. and we don't get overcharged by chinese people, unless we're in china. when we get overcharged almost everyday. so sometimes when we're feeling really tired or like that day kicked our asses, we eat chinese food. it's almost guaranteed to be good.

vientiane, around july 23

so we headed down to vientiane, the capital. it has about half a million people. we got there and found that accommodation is crazy expensive, and mostly full. we wandered for a while (having learned that we can't trust the lonely planet recommendations anyway) and we finally found a room which cost double what the other rooms in laos up until then cost. but...the city was kind of a relief. the second there evening foo got a beer and we went to this fountain to sit and drink it. we sat, and then a lady walked by. and watching her walk, i could tell she was a working girl. only working girls walk like that. then she went and flirted with some lao boys sitting on some benches. then we heard her talk and realized that she was indeed a boy. then some creepy looking kids came and sat near us. something about it just seemed strange. they were all probably between the ages of 11 and 18. then this fat, middle aged white man who looks like he could be somebody's dad walks up and sort of looks around, looks at his watch, looks around again, then is joined by a young lao boy who is maybe like 20 years old. they go sit on a bench and we can see them talking. then we realize a business transaction is taking place. then something happens with the creepy kids sitting next to us and one of them starts wailing. crying and screaming. and we can't figure out why. but something tells me we should not be there. and we shouldn't help this boy, even though he might be hurt. so we get up and walk away, and see the old white man with the boy walking. we walk out of that area, and stop to look at a restaurant menu. then the old white man comes up behind us with a different boy (i guess he changed his mind) and we decide to follow them. we followed them for a while, but then got distracted. so funny. to see a 60 year old white guy with gray hair and a beer belly picking up this small 18 year old lao boy. and the white guy is probably a responsible husband and father, and probably a businessman or something. it made me think about how many people that i know that might have secret other lives.
i got my vietnamese visa in vientiane. $45. again, foo has to pay nothing. i'm so expensive to travel with.
ooohh also, we went to see a place called COPE. it's an amazing program. but first a little history on the country: in the 1960s and early 70s, during the vietnam war, the US bombed the shit out of laos because they were trying to kill vietnamese people staying in laos. they dropped something like 260 million bombs. enough so that something like 1 was dropped every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for several years. and in tests of these bombs (they're carpet bombs) a third of them didn't explode on impact. so all over laos there are these unexploded bombs, called UXOs (unexploded ordinance), or 'bombies'. they're small little bombs, but if you step on it or play with it, it could explode and kill you and anyone else around. so there are potentially 80 million UXOs in laos. since the war ended (which laos wasn't involved in in the first place) 30,000 people have been killed by UXOs. and many more injured. losing limbs or eyes or fingers. often kids are killed because they find the bombies and know that they can make good money buy selling scrap metal, but don't know that what they have is a bomb. and there are tons of these bombs. people all over the country have bomb casings and other parts of bombs around their homes. they reuse the metal to make things like tables and stoves and flower pots. in the more rural parts, we saw all kinds of reused bomb parts as decoration and and functional objects. poor people are very creative and use their resources well. anyway, COPE gives prosthetics to people in laos, many of whom lost limbs from these UXOs. they have an amazing exhibit about it. there are videos of people telling their stories, about how they lost limbs or they lost kids or parents. you can see what all the bombs look like. and they have several home-made prosthetic limbs that were donated to the project by people who received new prosthetic limbs. some people even made their homemade limbs using bomb parts. very creative, i have to say. it was pretty amazing to see. but COPE gives people real, good-quality prosthetic limbs and teaches them how to use them. they even pay for transportation to vientiane and back to their homes.
we also rented bikes there and saw some historic things and such. rode down the river. had dinner on the river and at the markets and some little restaurants. saw a french film. (the french occupied laos for a while, so there are baguettes and words in french everywhere). foo discovered a baguette sandwich, containing pickled veggies, eggs, cheese, mystery sauce. very good. and i had quite a few fruit shakes. i think we used the time in vientiane to chill out and recover from super tourism. then we headed up to phonsavan.

south to luang prabang around july 18

so anyway, we left muang sing the next day and went back to luang namtha, stayed the night, then headed south to luang prabang, which was supposed to be really nice, according the the lonely planet.

it was maybe an 11 or 12 hour bus ride. lots of people throwing up (this is a theme on the bus rides here) we got there and took a tuk tuk to the center of town. it's a cute little place on a peninsula between the mekong and nam khan rivers. we soon realized that it's also kind of a major tourist destination. so all the accomodation was expensive. we looked at lots of places and finally found one for a decent price. turns out, it was a decent price because it's dark and humid and has no a/c. so it smelled all moldy, and a roach crawled out of the bathroom drain. and there were ants. so foo was panicking (another theme of this adventure). the next morning we went and found another one for only a bit more money, but much cleaner. we even got our laundry done there! also, the electricity was out city-wide for that whole day. we went to lunch at an indian food place. and i was suspicious of the food and picked at it a bit while eating because i get nervous when i can't tell what's in my food. then i saw foo picking at her naan. turns out, there were weevels in it. gross. yet she ate it anyway, and didn't tell me about the weevels til after the meal. awesome. and then the owner of the restaurant came up and was offended that i had been picking at my food. oh. extra awesome. in luang prabang we rented bicycles and rode around outside the major tourist section, which was really nice. we went to the market, found probably the only working atm in the city, road around the peninsula. it was pleasant. we ate one fancy dinner there. it cost maybe $20, which is wayyy fancy for laos. but unfortunately it was only ok food. that was sort of disappointing. our daily budget is $20 per person. we went over that day. the next night we had beer and pizza. much better deal. we also both got lao massages, which weren't very good and both ended 20 or 25 minutes early. i didn't complain because i didn't really want to finish the massage. it seemed like the last 15 minutes of it the girl was just making stuff up. like she was just sort of pounding on my back aimlessly.
there was also a night marked with lots of neat crafts and silk and clothing. but everyone who was shopping was white, which means the price doubles, and nothing is really 'authentic lao culture' anyway. so we didn't buy anything. mostly luang prabang was not that awesome. at least the parts we saw. and up until this point, i was not feeling very impressed with laos.

into laos on july 14

we stayed a night in chiang khong, thailand, before crossing over to laos. we found a cute little hostel run by a thai woman who had a retired american boyfriend named don. the town was small and the restaurant had mediocre food, but there was this cute old lady across the street selling food. she sold us banana wrapped in sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf. it was delicious. she also sold us something we couldn't identify but it had fruit in it i think. also it had a couple bugs on top. i'm becoming quite tough. i picked off the bugs and ate it anyway. it wasn't that good though.

the next morning we went to the border in the bed of the thai woman's pickup, the thai border is on one side of the mekong river, the lao border is on the other side. we got stamped out of thailand and then took a boat across the river into laos. i had to apply for a visa at the laos border. it took 15 minutes or so and cost $35. foo didn't need a visa. so it took her like 5 minutes and cost nothing. i'm always so expensive! so we were with 4 european guys and were going to take a tuktuk (like a taxi) to the bus station and a bus to a city called luang namtha. but we decided to hire a van instead which is a bit more expensive but much faster. so we get in the van, and turns out it's a karaoke van. so there are mirrors on the ceiling and walls with little led lights in them, and a tv playing karaoke music videos really loud, and huge speakers everywhere. it was kind of funny. til we started driving. the roads in laos are really winding. and there's construction in lots of places and potholes and gravel. and the driver was driving really fast (for a road like that) and there was a polish boy named kasper who was a bit loud and obnoxious. he asked if we could stop for food along the way because he was sooo hungry, so we stopped at one place and they brought out instant noodles and he was like 'oh i don't eat noodles. can we go someplace else?' mind you that this is rural laos. next place to eat is in an hour. so we go to the next place and there was no menu, but there were eggs, and of course noodles, and some rice. but the polish guy kept asking for salad. in his polish accent "i want a salad. do they have something like lettuce and some vegetable, like a tomato?" seriously? of course they're not going to have salad. anyway, he was loud and rude to the driver who didn't speak english that well, but kasper kept asking for other things. finally we got to luang namtha, and foo and i quickly departed from the group of boys. we found a guesthouse called khamking and stayed there for a night. we went to the night market to eat and got fried rice, some coconut noodle soup, a little waffle, and some crepes with deliciousness inside. the town has exactly one atm, which wasn't working, so we paid in thai baht for an exchange right slightly in the guesthouse's favor. we looked at trekking options (trekking, it turns out, basically means walk into the jungle/rural area and look at staged sights of local life/culture) , because it's supposed to be good around there, but the 'responsible trekking' was pretty expensive and didn't give much money to the hill tribes that we would visit. so the next day we went to muang sing, a town an hour north. we rode in an 11 passenger van with a vomiting child. i tried to give the mom some wet wipes we had with us, but i think that wet wipes don't exist in laos, because she didn't use them, but also didn't give them back. oh well. we got there and found a guesthouse, went to check out the trekking that was supposed to be the most responsible in southeast asia. it was wayyy more expensive, like 300,000 kip per person per day. that's like $35. and something like only 8% of it went to the tribes, and a huge chunk went to the government. and we read about all the different treks we could do, but decided that trekking is perhaps not a responsible method of tourism at all. no matter what, having all these relatively wealthy foreigners coming to a village to watch people do their normal daily tasks and taking photos and gawking is very strange. imagine if some rich foreigners came everyday to st charles MO to watch anne and mick zerr cutting their grass, going to work, washing the dishes. and they took pictures and talked about you in a language you didn't understand. it just doesn't seem right. so much exposure to tourists will change the culture. the highlight of muang sing was the chinese restaurant we ate at. ha. way to dive right into the lao culture, right?