It seems as if we’ve been getting up early nearly every day of this trip; maybe some day I should try one of those lay-on-the-beach-and-do-nothing vacations. I’ve tried to lone-traveler thing and the group travel thing; both have advantages, but I think I need to have both kinds of trips to stay happy. I wonder how many girlfriends Paul Theroux went through until he found one who was happy to see him leave and willing to wait for his return. According to the last book I read, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, he was having troubles with his then-wife when he took his first Railway Bazaar book in 1973.

I shot almost no video this trip, and the pictures I took were quick shots grabbed while passing various scenes and falling behind from the group. I was never really alone, and these accounts have as a result been shorter and more desultory than on my previous trips. Still, I never would have gotten to go to the places I went if it hadn’t been for Chenble and our Malaysian friends: Gimzui, Ah-lin, Ouyang, Tianshun and Ah-wing, Stuart, Steve and Ah-dan and many others. In Laos, Prince Roy and Spicygirl were excellent hosts as well, and I’m grateful to have so many generous friends in interesting places.

Tianshun and Ah-wing drove us to the airport this morning, the sun rising from behind misty banana tree orchards. We had breakfast at the same airport Starbucks, this time sans wifi for some reason, before grabbing a last-minute Dunkin Donut before boarding the Air Asia, which was slightly delayed for some reason the crew didn’t feel it appropriate to tell us. The flight was smooth, though, and we were back in sunny Taipei ahead of schedule, and I was back in Bitan as the sun set. My place is a mess after the flurry of leaving, and I have thousands of photos to transfer to my hard drive. Tomorrow it’s back to work and my regular schedule, but I think it will take me a few days to retrieve my head and heart from vacationland.

February 27, 2010

We drove back to the coast, to an Indian neighborhood for a breakfast of rice combined with various parts of a pig this morning. The restaurant was a space by the side of a building, where a bridge passed over the railroad tracks. It was cloudy; rain was forecast.

After breakfast we took a train filled mostly with Malays to the port at the end of the line, where we waited for a ferry out to the island of Pulau Ketam. The ferry turned out to be a long, skinny vessel, much like an old airplane with the wings cut off. The resemblance continued on the inside, with one long aisle between the smallish seats and a claustrophobic feel. I prefer boats with open decks. The trip out was smooth, and I dozed as the docks and cargo ships slipped by the plastic windows, splattered with rust and paint splatter.

It was low tide when we arrived at Pulau Ketam; the fishing village was perched on stilts above a vast, crab-inhabited stretch of grey mud…not the most appealing sight or smell. We deferred a tour of the town and instead took a smaller boat out to the floating fisheries in the river, inhabited by dogs, men, a cat and thousands of fish. Everything was painted green and blue. The cat had it the best, I think; it’s fur was as sleek as any cat I’ve known, and it strutted around as if it owned the place. The workers’ quarters were small huts built above the walkway. The manager showed us the various types of fish, getting them to fly out of the water by tossing food into the pools. The second fishery boasted a floating hotel for those who truly need to get away from it all. The hammocks looked especially inviting.

Back at Pulau Ketam, we had a good lunch at one of the restaurants by the dock. The water was edging up the mud flats by now, and boats began to make their way into the village via waterways and canals that were slowly appearing as the tide rose. It was as if the place was just now coming to life. We walked through the colorful alleys and neighborhoods, crossing bridges and up the main street, which doesn’t look at all as if the whole thing is propped up on stilts. The place has a decrepit Venetian feel to it, and, as I’ve said many times before, I could spend a lot more time there just walking around, exploring and taking pictures. Alas, we only had a short time before we had to catch the ferry back to the mainland, a series of Chinese New Year videos playing on the TV the whole time. This ferry was older and seemingly built for kids, with tiny seats and low ceilings. But Chenble was eager to take the firefly tour he had enjoyed so much the last time he was here seven years ago.

The sun had just set when we reached the area where the firefly tours were, and we had dinner first at a busy warehouse filled with foreign tourists. The rice noodles, fish and yam leaves were all delicious. Stuffed, we drove out to the firefly place, which has changed significantly in the past seven years. It’s now a large complex, and the tour, possibly due to the strong current thanks to last night’s rain, includes only a short stretch of coastline. The fireflies were numerous, but not as impressive in the light of the moon. I’d wanted to get a massage in KL before returning to Taiwan, but we didn’t have time. We ended up back at Tianshun’s place, where everyone said their good-byes and we thanked them all for their assistance and company during our trip. We fly back to Taiwan in the morning, at least if Asia Air doesn’t screw up again.

February 27, 2010

I could understand how the Muslim call to Prayer at 6 a.m. could become annoying when I heard it this morning. For some reason, the plumbing in Tianshun’s apartment answered in an eerily similar fashion whenever the toilet is flushed.

We were up early to go out to Malacca, in the southern part of Malaysia, before the holiday traffic hit. Tianshun drove us there; I’m afraid we’ve been a terrible burden on our hosts, sleeping in their beds, eating their food and taking up all their time as they drive us around.

The shops and stores of Malacca were just getting ready to open when we arrived after a couple hours’ drive. More opened as we walked down the streets on what promised to become a hot day. Thanks to the largely Chinese population in that area, I could speak quite easily to shop owners and people at the temples in either Mandarin or Fukienese. They seemed happy enough to be photographed, too. The colors inside the Indian temple were amazing, as were some of the men walking around the temple clockwise wearing bright purple and yellow fabric wrapped around them. A bowl of rice lay on the floor just inside the entrance; a woman walked up and took out a handful to eat. The mosque looked interesting, but Tianshun advised against going inside.

We browed the history museum by the mouth of the river where the settlement of the area began. It seems that Malacca has a rather tragic history, beginning with the Portuguese, who decided to come in, burn everything down, and take over. Then it was the Dutch, then the English, then the Japanese. We went aboard what appeared to be a reconstruction of an old European sailing ship, to find that it was another museum inside; I would have better appreciated an actual reconstruction of a ship’s interior, but at least it was cool inside.

Back outside, the day was sweltering as an amphibious vessel crawled across the river and up the street, full of smug-looking tourists. The line outside the chicken rice place was daunting, so we took refuge inside an air-conditioned restaurant across the street from a vendor with half a face. I sat with my back to him. We were served by a big, burly, dark-skinned Indian man, but the food wasn’t very good; even the salad dressing was spicy.

The drive back was uneventful; we returned to Ah-lin’s place to pick up some things we left there last time, watching a really exaggerated Malaysian movie while waiting for Ou-yang to show up so we could head out to a place that was reputed to have fireflies, but rumors of rain killed that plan. Instead, we headed out to a fishing village, walking out onto the docks for dinner. While the surroundings were impressive, complete with an approaching lightning storm, the food was anything but. Gimzui had taken us to another scenic spot on the coast when the storm hit, and we somehow ended up in a mall up the freeway looking for a place to eat. Nobody could decide on anything, one of the hazards of traveling with a group, and as the rain had stopped, we went to see a development called iCity, which is basically a new apartment complex strung up with LED lighting. The entire country was there, it seemed, and parking was a nightmare. The lighting was interesting to shoot in, though.

February 25, 2010

Prince Roy and Spicygirl took us to breakfast at their favorite restaurant, a little place near their office, decorated in tasteful shades of blue. I’ve seen a lot of blue in Laos for some reason, and it’s always tasteful. In fact, most of the men in the place, apparently on their way to work, wore blue shirts. The noodles, however, thanks to my outright hatred for spices and cilantro, were fairly tasteless.

Proceedings at the airport were quick thanks to our lack of check-in baggage, and we passed the time before boarding watching badly produced military programs on the airport TV. We also ran into the group of Malaysians once again; they were on our flight.

The Air Asia flight took off more or less on time for once, and the flight was mostly smooth. Laos faded into a grey haze below as I took pictures of the red plane engines framed by the blue skies out my window while enjoying the massage chair treatment courtesy of the child sitting behind me.

Back in Kuala Lumpur, we were picked up by another Malaysian friend, Tianshun, who drove us to get massages given by two fellows from Fujian Province in China. They expressed their desire to work in Taiwan, as yet stymied by government policy. Back in the car after some fried rice, Tianshun regaled us with stories of car theft and other social order delights of KL, which he connected with recent immigrant workers from Indonesia.

We headed to KL Tower, an observation tower not quite as tall as the Petronas Towers, to get some shots of the city as dusk fell. It was full of tourists, and as the sun set I realized that the background lighting made night-time shooting very difficult. The tourists’ trying to use flashes on the glass didn’t help things, either. So I took shots of the tourists instead, earning a glare from a man after photographing some women in burkas sleeping by the window.

After coming back down, we attended a “Cultural Show” which featured three dancing men and three dancing women. The dances themselves were rather effeminate; Tianshun insisted that all Malay danced were that way, and in no way reflected on the sexuality of the dancers. There was also a traditional Malay band on traditional instruments. I got the feeling that some of them also played in rock bands.

February 24

We were up early again this morning, this time visiting the morning market, a busy scene. Vendors were setting up stands, laying out colorful vegetables and presiding over large spreads of bloody, fly-covered meat. Already the monks were out begging for alms, and I shot a couple of photographs before moving on past the one corner where all the foreigners gather to watch them. We went back to the temple to visit our wifi-stealing friends, Thong and Dham, but Dham had a headache, and Thong, looking very serious, sat us down at a table and proposed that we fund his higher education. It was all a bit awkward and sad.

We walked on to the end of the street and down to a rickety bamboo bridge across the river, but a man was waiting there to collect a fee, so we turned back and walked to another temple, where a man and a woman hurried up to us to collect another fee, but we declined, tired of all the fees. I suppose it’s just a natural result of being oversaturated with tourists from rich Western countries for so long.

We found a small, run-down temple that didn’t charge for entry, and walked around the grounds. A monk was practicing writing Japanese on a chalkboard, while other monks listened to rock music in their dorms. A rough model of one of the airplanes that takes off every day from the Luang Prabang Airport hung on the ceiling; I wonder if they dream of being on that plane. But I’m probably overanalyzing things.

We had some lunch at a café where Chenble startled the resident tomcat into thinking another cat was nearby by meowing in a high register. The tomcat jumped up and searched around our table, even looking out the window for its nonexistent mate. After lunch we browsed the market for gifts for friends, and then went back to the hotel to check out. A tuk-tuk drove us to the airport, stopping at the gate as tuk-tuks aren’t allowed inside.

As we got our tickets checked in the lobby and sat down to wait before boarding the MA-60 back to Vientiane, I was thinking of all the monks of Luang Prabang, most born to poor families who couldn’t afford to raise them, novices until the age of 20, when they can either chose to become full-fledged monks or a civilian life. As the plane took off, I got a good view of the town, including the monasteries and the statue on the hill where we had watched the sunset the night before. We’d told Thong we might be back at 11.

The flight down to Vientiane was a lot bumpier than the one there; the plane stayed at lower altitudes in rougher air, but things never got truly scary. We arrived ahead of schedule, taking pictures of the clouds on the tarmac before walking into the arrivals area where Spicy Girl was waiting. She drove us to the big arch at the intersection of several roads, built by the French in 1969. It seems that they never quite finished it; the interior was rough and unfurnished, all bare concrete. The upper floors were all gift shops, but the view from the top was nice. The grates on the windows at the very top minaret mirrored the shape of the roads below, weaving the scene into a portrait of the Buddha.

Back at the bottom of the tower, Spicygirl marveled at my daring in snapping pictures of random people there. “What if you offend someone who wants to fight you?” she asked. I handed her my camera.

“Try swinging that around,” I said. “The 16-35mm 2.8L is not only a fine lens for wide night photography; it can also render a man unconscious with one blow.” When it came time to take a shot of policemen guarding the presidential office, though, I ate my words and asked if it would be ok to photograph them. They said no.

We drove to another temple, a big gold thing that had just closed as it was already 4 p.m. On the way in we were recognized by the group of Malaysians we’d met at the waterfalls outside of Luang Prabang, where they overheard Chenble mention that he’d caught ghosts in one of his shots.

Prince Roy was getting off work at 5 p.m., so we drove to a spot nearby and walked around, poking around an old temple that was undergoing renovation. Again, many cats roamed the place. Spicygirl and Chenble agreed that the Lao reverence for cats might have something to do with the nation’s financial status.

Prince Roy met us at a nearby café, and we set off for dinner at a pseudo-Korean barbeque place, where meat and vegetables are cooked over hot coals. It was good, but I ate too much. Now we’re back at the princely estate. Tomorrow we fly back to Malaysia, and find out if Air Asia can get at least one flight on schedule.

February 23, 2010

I managed to get up at 5:45 a.m., but Chenbl had problems, so it was well after 6 before we got out the door and along the still-dark streets as the day began to show up. We saw the flashes of the hordes of tourist photographers well before we saw the lines of monks walking down the street. I took a few halfhearted shots, but lost interest quickly; it was just too awkward. So we walked over to the temple and found our two friends from last night. They were sweeping the temple courtyard, and were waiting for the bell that called them to breakfast. Kittens played under their feet. They gave us their email address so we could send them the pictures we took of them. As we left, we passed a monk standing in the gateway talking to a girl on a motorcycle.

The sun came out as we were walking back towards the hotel, but it was still cold out. When we got back, looking forward to breakfast, we found the tuk-tuk driver waiting to take us to the docks for the river cruise we’d signed up for yesterday. He was half an hour early, though, so we told him to come back after breakfast. He didn’t seem very happy at this. The breakfast, however, was good, omelets, bacon, French bread, fries and fruit served out on the front balcony by the river.

The now-surly tuk-tuk driver drove us in silence to the nearby docks. We could have walked there easily, but I guess there was some sort of ticket procedure that we would have missed. Someone who would have gotten paid wouldn’t get their cut, I suppose. A large group of foreigners sat around waiting for their number to be called. I chose a spot in the sun and tried to warm up after deciding to leave my jacket in the room; I figured it would warm up soon enough.

I was wrong; after climbing aboard our assigned boat and sitting in front of the others, the wind on the river cancelled out any warmth the sun could deal out at that point. The other four people on the boat were two older couples, rich westerners from Australia and Canada. They had much to talk about, mostly about all the places they’d been and the horrible accidents they’d seen there. Chenble and I pretty much pretended we didn’t speak English and avoided the ghastly details of their conversation.

We passed houseboats and construction sites, fishermen and people on the bank sorting rocks, crossing rapids and navigating rocks. The boatman shifted right or left in his seat according to Chenble’s position.

We stopped for gas at a floating fill-up station. By the time we reached another village set up for tourists, the sunlight was gaining strength. We saw the same scenes as at the other village, but there was a temple nearby, so we stopped in to find a small monk chanting mantras in his little room as his friend played with a balloon.

More rapids awaited us back on the river before approaching the caves that were our destination. Of course we had to pay to get in; we had to pay for just about everything, including the restrooms. The caves themselves held thousands of Buddhist statues, almost one for every tourist there, it seemed.

On the way to the upper cave, I passed, in addition to the obligatory small children selling trinkets, a small American boy wearing a t-shirt reading “The Next Big Thing” being carried down the stairs by his parents. How appropriate, I thought. The upper cave was dark inside; the woman outside was renting flashlights and selling water at thrice the usual price. She could do this, of course, as nobody else at the caves was selling water.

Back down the stairs, the boatman was yelling up at us to hurry up, as he was in a hurry. Next to all the other boats, it appeared that we’d gotten the slowest boat with the worst seats. Other boats had been passing us all the way there, and they’d all featured comfortable bus seats instead of the padded benches we had.

Other boats continued to pass us, one with foreigners hanging their legs off the sides into the water. The warmth of the weather and the gentle rocking of the boat made it easy to doze off on the way back; waking up on a boat going down the Mekong is an interesting experience.

The return trip was much faster as we were traveling with the current, and a sudden wind blew in as we pulled up to the docks at Luang Prabang. I’d read that arriving there by boat is the best option, and I could see why; the beautiful buildings along the high bank make for an impressive sight.

We walked down the now-bright, mostly empty streets and had a delicious lunch of chicken sandwiches and salad before going next door for a traditional Lao massage. Unlike most massages, this one didn’t hurt and felt very nice.

At another temple, I took pictures while Chenble chatted with a monk who wanted to learn Chinese. Up past a group of monks fixing a wall were a bell tower and a drum tower overlooking the river below.

As the afternoon was beginning to wear on, we made our way up the hill at the center of town, paying a fee to ascend to the very top, from which the whole valley was visible. As sunset approached, huge crowds of tourists appeared to take pictures. I sat next to a European woman who lived in Houston; I wondered aloud just what people like so much about sunsets, taking pictures of the crowd every so often. The crowd was not impressed with this. We met the girls from the waterfall trip yesterday, and a group of French tourists got yelled at for hogging the view. The crowd began to disperse immediately after the sun disappeared behind the hills that surround the town, but we stayed on, accompanied only by a few other people. Well-known photographer Michael Kenna showed up, amazingly, setting up his tripod facing the structure at the top of the hill. “The light is going to get really good in a few minutes,” he told me. He was right; as soon as they turned on the lights of the complex, it was downright magical.

The downside of staying for this phenomenon was walking down the mountain on a path completely devoid of light. We managed with the aid of my iPhone as a flashlight.

A pizza dinner attracted a black cat to jump up on my lap in search of scraps. Cats are a common sight in Laos, I’ve found; perhaps the Lao people have an affection for them, as opposed to Chinese people, who think cats are bad luck. After dinner, we picked up a few things at the night market before returning to the hotel. We’re leaving Luang Prabang tomorrow, flying back to Vientiane, but hopefully we’ll see a few more things before go. I quite like this place, though it is entirely overrun with tourists. As with many of the places we’ve been on this trip, I could spend weeks here just wandering around and taking pictures.

February 22, 2010

Prince Roy drove us to the domestic terminal of the airport this morning, dropping Spicy Girl off on the way. We had plenty of time, so we had some breakfast in the international terminal. The domestic terminal was an exercise in retro design, sparse and muted. I had some reservations about having breakfast before a flight in a relatively small prop plane, but I needn’t have worried. The flight was smoother and more comfortable than a large jet would have provided. The pressurization didn’t even give my ears any trouble, and we were in Luang Prabang in no time.

The help desk at the airport in Luang Prabang wasn’t very helpful. They did manage to suggest a hotel on the river, the Mekong Lodge or something, but after an expensive taxi ride into town, we were told by a guy standing outside that it was completely booked. Luckily for us, however, they did just open a branch down the street. I suspected this was a trick and actually went into the lobby to confirm, and they were indeed booked. The new branch is also on the river, and we bargained the price of a nice room with a balcony overlooking the river down to US$65.

After putting our things away, we walked over to the tourist information center, where we were assisted by a Chinese-speaking woman with crooked teeth; Po Jiao is a member of the Dai minority and lives in a village just outside of town. We booked two tours with her, one to some waterfalls and another up the river to see some caves.

By then it was noon, so we had some chicken sandwiches at a nearby hotel/restaurant that was charging 10,000 kip for their wifi password; I declined. Then we walked around town a bit until returning to our hotel at 1:30 to catch the bus to the waterfall.

It was almost 2:00 before we gave up and went back to the tourist center to ask what was going on. Po Jiao made some calls and found that since our hotel was new the driver didn’t know about it. Eventually the van showed up, and we joined the two Canadian women who were also going to the falls. A small TV screen was showing a series of Lao music videos featuring a band, old footage of the war, and various dear leaders. I’m afraid I must have seemed a little rude as I divided my attention between her and the scenery, which included an elephant and many leafless trees.

There were bears at our destination. I hear there were also tigers, but I didn’t see any. We were lucky to get the two hours we had, as the driver seemed to think the delay was our fault, and originally only wanted to give us half an hour. The smallish black bears were lazing around a complex surrounded by wire fences. Two of them seemed to be playing poker; another couple were having rough sex on top of a playpen.

The waterfalls themselves were nice enough, with the limestone shelves giving the water a light blue cast, but the place was overrun with tourists, many swimming and diving. Actually, most of Luang Prabang is overrun with tourists. You see more tourists than locals in most parts of town, it seems. Chenble was showing me a photograph he claimed included the ghosts of people who had dived in the water before (they were just rock shadows) when a voice just behind us made both of us jump. “Is that a ghost shot?” It was a member of a group of Malaysians, excited at the thought of such a thing.

On the way back from the falls, the driver stopped at a poor village with a sign announcing its participation in some kind of tourism development plan. The gist of this plan, I gather, is that a dozen small girls will swamp tourists that are brought there, demanding that they buy woven bracelets and little bags. There was also an elephant.

Back in town, I walked down by the riverside to take pictures of the beached boats as night fell, muddying my sandals as I walked. Then we browsed the night market, where I bought a T-shirt with the Lao alphabet on it. Dinner was from one of the alley-side buffet deals, all the dishes cold and vegetarian. Each plateful of food was 8,000 kip; Chenble, who is a structural engineer, somehow managed to fit half the entire buffet on his little plate. We sat next to a Western girl who was practicing Japanese with a girl from Japan. While she didn’t seem to know much actual Japanese, she had the exaggerated cuteness down pat.

We walked to the end of the street, down by the river on the other side of the peninsula, and then up to the temple, where we came upon two young monks looking at a laptop on the wall, their young faces lit up by the white Yahoo! on the screen. They were both studying English, so we chatted for a while. It turns out that they’d discovered that they could snatch a free wifi signal from one of the cafes at that spot. We might see them again tomorrow, if we can get up early enough.

February 21, 2010

The Elephant’s breakfast buffet this morning featured delicious Fukien noodles, scrambled eggs, omelets, fruit, French bread and orange juice, which we ate under the baleful glare of a scary blonde kid with a huge forehead at the next table. The hotel’s beds and sheets were quite comfy, and I slept better than anywhere else I’ve done this trip, so getting up was a bit difficult. The morning began mistily, but the sun came out while we ate, and the day was hot by the time Prince Roy showed us to the boat rental place.

I sat in the front of the slim, flat-bottomed boat, furthest away from the buzzing motor, and we slipped up the river past the hotel, under the wooden bridges and empty swings and slides the backpackers would be lining up for later in the day when they awoke from their slumber. Rugs on wooden platforms and hammocks slung between trees on each bank beckoned, and I wondered what it would be like to just take a week or a month and just pass the days in such places, reading, or dreaming or just staring into space. Some of the places were named “The End”, and I wondered how many foreigners did indeed spend their last days here or in similar places.

Despite various wriggling that I assumed were accompanying Chenble’s attempts to take photos at strange angles, the ride was smooth until we hit rapids, the motor struggling to get us through as the boat’s bottom scraped against the rocks. The view of the karsts against the late-morning sky was wonderfully refreshing, especially in the cool breeze accompanied by the rushing water, which was seldom more than a few feet deep. Occasionally we’d pass Lao people fishing for something on the river bottom or washing clothes. A couple of the suspension bridges reminded me of Bitan and home.

The ride back was not quite as awesome, as the sun, hotter now, was in our faces. Prince Roy was waiting for us back at the Elephant, and after checking out we decided to take a walk on the other side, past the hippie enclaves and cow pastures, to a small karst with a flag on top. It was reputed to have a cave. A sign was posted at the foot of the path up extolling the views and displaying a price for admission of 10,000 kip. The Lao man manning the post had run out of water.

The “path” turned out to be a rock slide sprinkled with a few rough bamboo ladders. Prince Roy led the way up, and by the time I had scrambled up, he was out of view. I climbed until I ran out of mountain, but it turned out I was on the wrong peak, so I had to follow the sound of PR’s voice to the real peak, where he was sitting underneath the flag. The view of the surrounding fields and karsts was quite nice, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by a nearby Lao karaoke session. Chenble eventually made his way up as well, and PR, wanting to proclaim his mountaineering superiority, went over to sit on a slightly higher outcropping to survey his realm.

The climb back down was different and more difficult in ways, but still fun, especially the parts where I had to swing from low branches over small crevices. At one point I had to wait above a ladder for a couple of Brits who were ascending. “We didn’t expect any heavy traffic today,” one of the told me.

“Well, get ready for some more heavy traffic,” I replied, referring to Chenble, who was still on his way down.

Someone had thoughtfully set up a rug on a table at the foot of the hill for climbers to rest on before returning to the village. The herd of cows was running around the fields as we crossed, little packs of bulls following certain cows in heat while other cows looked on. I felt like I was back in high school.

After I soaked my feet in the river a bit, we headed over to the Australian bar for lunch. It was quite authentic, swarms of flies and all. The hamburgers were good despite the sweet buns and tough-as-nails bacon. On the way back to the car, we passed a bar that was not actually showing Friends episodes, but Simpsons episodes instead. I suppose that counts as an improvement.

We left Vang Vieng at around 2:30 p.m. The drive back was similar to the drive up, with the same lawless drivers, trucks overloaded with goods and people passing on bridges and blind curves, and herds of aimless cows. Though the houses seemed fairly neat and well-kempt, even the poorer-looking ones, the temples were in the best condition. We passed the bit of good Japanese pavement and the Japanese bridge, and a strange accident in which someone had hit a tree in their own front yard, somehow involving a “King of Bus” bus.

Coming back into Vientiane, the city looked more appealing than it had when we were leaving from the airport. Prince Roy dropped us off at a restaurant overlooking the Mekong River, Thailand on the other side, where we sat drinking juice and watching people frolicking on the sand spits below while he went to pick up Spicy Girl. We ordered after they arrived, and despite a few mixups from the kitchen, the food was all excellent and the atmosphere very relaxed. If you’re in Vientiane and you have the means, I highly recommend it.

After dinner, we stopped off in the city’s Backpacker Central area to walk around amongst the foreigners, occasionally spotting a Lao person, who almost inevitably offered up a tuk-tuk ride. The area’s full of little cafes and guesthouses, nice old buildings spared from the relentless bombing during the war.

I’m at Prince Roy’s and Spicy Girl’s castle now, where my Thinkpad is (you guessed it) refusing to accept the wifi signal. Tomorrow we’re flying to Luang Prabang. Hopefully we’ll be able to find a decent hotel there. I’m looking forward to seeing it; even PR hasn’t been there.

February 20, 2010

After finally getting all my stuff packed up again, I went to sleep at 2 a.m. and woke up three hours later, at 5 a.m., so that Ah-lin could drive Chenble and I to the airport in time for our flight. For the second time, however, we were informed at check-in that the Air Asia flight had been delayed, for two hours this time.

Lamenting the lost sleep, we sat down in front of the window at Starbucks and had some breakfast. I took advantage of the free wifi, which worked with my Thinkpad, to update my blog and Facebook stuff as well as check my email. As I did this, the sun peeked over the airport canopy, and more people arrived for flights.

The flight was delayed another half hour as we sat in the departure lounge, but eventually we were allowed to walk across the tarmac in the morning sunshine to the red-and-white jet. Inside, the man in the aisle seat found another space, allowing us to stretch out while I munched on last-minute donuts bought at the terminal.

Immigration in Vientiane was slow. The line of passengers from two flights was processed by a row of visa officials with greased hair and unfashionable uniforms, one by one. I got the typical questions about my nationality, and then we were allowed to go downstairs to pick up our one piece of checked luggage, and then out into the arrivals lounge to meet Prince Roy, who had fortunately checked his email in time to know when we were arriving. We changed money, bought tickets to Luang Prabang on the 22nd and back on the 24th, and then set out north in his Civic.

Vientiane, or at least the bit I saw on the way out, seemed a dusty, odiferous town, reminiscent of the towns of 1990s China. I have to admit I was glad to leave after only a few minutes there. Well out of town, however, things improved quite a bit. “Laos is generally very safe,” Prince Roy said as he dodged between a herd of cows and a truck with 17 people hanging off the back.

The road improved dramatically in the vicinity of a bridge built by the Japanese, and then resumed its natural state, winding up into the hills. Occasionally we’d pass a bio industry complex operated by PRC interests, red dust kicked up by passing cars blurring the air in between toll stops manned by a couple of guys chatting.

Things got nicer just before we arrived at Vang Vieng, home of an old Air America runway and thousands of hippie backpackers. We found our hotel, the Elephant Crossing, easily, and after putting our stuff away, went for a walk around town.

Vang Vieng is bizarre in many ways, but I think the most surreal part I’ve seen so far is the dozens of young foreigners laid out in front of TV sets showing episode after episode of Friends. We had some delicious banana cakes and then walked over a plank bridge to the other side of the river as the sun set behind the Guilin-esque hills. Little bungalows on stilts dotted the other bank, home to bands of roaming hippies and their recruits. The remains of bonfires dotted the open fields.

Chenble was chased by a drunk Western girl as we walked up the street and back, while Prince Roy chatted up some mainland Chinese people. I took pictures of vendors, empty barber chairs and sitting monks, for which, I was told, I should have sat down to shoot in order to show respect.

We walked back to the Elephant for a delicious dinner on the riverside next to a table full of Russian mafia members. Prince Roy has had to abandon his vegetarian ways, and he had chicken fried rice. The kip/dollar exchange rate makes everything seem quite expensive when it is actually quite cheap.

Now I’m back at our room, where the Thinkpad is once again refusing to connect to the wifi, so I’m going to just save this and upload it when I can.

February 19, 2010

Another brilliant morning in Penang; we had breakfast at a blue-tiled restaurant downtown among the old estates that seem to line each road, some housing fast food restaurants and some tire shops. This one served noodle soup and sweet herbal tea. Then we all drove to the Burmese temple, which is right across the street from the Thai temple. The Burmese temple had cool, breezy pavilions and monks sitting in armchairs, as well as a cool monument with all of the 12 animals of the zodiac represented in their proper order, including the animal each is “opposed” to. The Thai temple had a giant reclining Buddha that was filled with the ashes of dead people in urns, which freaked Chenbl out a little. As if this weren’t spooky enough, I discovered that some crude-looking statues of monks were actually their dead bodies, covered in a rather slapdash fashion in gold plating. Damn. This kind of freaked me out a little, especially the parts they missed, not-insignificant parts such as the eyes. We decided it was time to hit the road.

After passing the time on the long bridge back to the mainland by photographing some Malaysian bears on motorcycles, we stopped by Gimzui’s sparsely appointed apartment near an industrial complex. Gimzui was interrogating Chenbl about whether there were any ghosts there, as he felt it kind of spooky. I think the reason it was kind of spooky was because it was nearly empty, as well as the fact that it was in an industrial area. A place doesn’t need ghosts to be spooky.

Our next stop was an Indian barbershop. I’d heard about the delights of Indian barbershops, and I haven’t seen a barbershop in a while; the heat of this region makes long hair a burden, so it seemed an opportune time for a haircut. The actual haircut didn’t take long, the barber, a dark-skinned man in a white uniform, humming along to the Indian music playing as I stared up at the mini disco ball hanging from the ceiling. He trimmed my beard, shaved my cheeks and neck, and then beat me soundly about the head in a very satisfying fashion. This involved the application of several coats of various liquids and gels, many of which were obtained from a small refrigerator in the corner. The whole process, including washing, took over an hour, and it was probably the best haircut I’ve ever had. All for the same price as a haircut and wash in Taipei.

We had a lunch of Chinese noodles at a nearby shop, and then it was the highway back to Kuala Lumpur, stopping only a couple of times at rest stops. Along the way, Chenbl continued his habit of pointing out which Malaysian buildings would never withstand an earthquake in Taiwan.

Back in KL, we stopped by at one of the Malaysian’s luxury apartment in a ritzy neighborhood. Such are the varieties of the real estate market that it cost about half of what my place in Bitan cost, though it’s about twice as large and newer. The Muslim chanting started up as the last vestiges of the sunset abandoned the horizon, floating through the open windows as the owner of the place questioned Chenbl about the resident ghost, who apparently means no harm and should “just be ignored.”

We went to Chinatown for dinner of earthworm-ish Fukien noodles in an alley bordering a cloth shop. The area is full of backpackers and hostels, and I’m not sure if it’s the safest area, seeing as men there often stalk the owners of recently parked cars and demand “protection money.”

I haven’t been able to get my Thinkpad online at Ah-lin’s yet, though my iPhone seems willing enough. We’re flying to Laos tomorrow. Should be interesting to see what that’s like.