laos.
'chicken or pork? meat!' tour
vientiane.
a good portion of temples with very few tourists who walk through my pictures, moderately hot weather - which means only local wimps complain about it. i already did my 'excuse me, i'd like to practice my english with you' training session with a young monk. good for my lousy kharma.
did my first negotiation with the tuk-tuk-drivers...they still looked sort of happy...no tears in their eyes...i'm getting mild... we'll book it as further plus on my kharma account...
had my cappuchino and started my favourite travelling hobby - finding (weird) local food: mekong fish - excellent ...'need more food' - 'are you sure?' - 'yes' (do i look drunk? or mentally unstable) - 'you must be hungry' - 'yup, and curious'.
back at the counter i choose what the common lao eats: frogs...not bad, especially the small bicepts...and certainly better than snake..on the way back to the hotel somebody offers 'dessert'...'sorry, i'm vegetarian, no meat please'...again she (or a former he?) doesn't get it...
did my first negotiation with the tuk-tuk-drivers...they still looked sort of happy...no tears in their eyes...i'm getting mild... we'll book it as further plus on my kharma account...
had my cappuchino and started my favourite travelling hobby - finding (weird) local food: mekong fish - excellent ...'need more food' - 'are you sure?' - 'yes' (do i look drunk? or mentally unstable) - 'you must be hungry' - 'yup, and curious'.
back at the counter i choose what the common lao eats: frogs...not bad, especially the small bicepts...and certainly better than snake..on the way back to the hotel somebody offers 'dessert'...'sorry, i'm vegetarian, no meat please'...again she (or a former he?) doesn't get it...
vang vieng.
bone breaking and guts challenging bus ride to the north. but vang vieng's landscape is worth the pain. limestone mountains, just like in thailand and china, but it still looks fine to me.
take a walk through the dusty backroads in the heat of the day and meet a few schoolkids...'pen?' - 'no' - 'money?' - 'no'. so they take my hand. strange kids.-)..and maybe not such a good choice they made... det's walking pace is not for the weak and wimpy...hike through riverbeds and ricefields, get lost (following a 'map'), invent my own path and get out (just like a real tough guy...) of the maze just in time for a perfect sunset (ok, forget about the 'tough'). make some friends at the river using my mp3 player for a cultural exchange with the local youth: norah jones is good to sing along, dianne reeves grooves obviously, but beethoven irritates...
tonight's dinner (type 'hungry'): a pot of chicken noodle soup, 3 portions of bbq chicken, sticky rice and fried vegetables. the people from the neighbour table look a bit irritated, my table is as full as theirs - they are 4. well, nobody told me it's complete meals, not starters and side dishes.
take a bike for a ride that permanently loses its chain, which makes it a hike in the heat with a lot of cursing.
what else is remarkable about the place: tourists who get drunk or stoned or both while floating on tires on the river. well, when i was very, very young (today i'm just very young), i was like that, too. ok, maybe... didn't do a lot of the tire-floating-stuff :-)
take a walk through the dusty backroads in the heat of the day and meet a few schoolkids...'pen?' - 'no' - 'money?' - 'no'. so they take my hand. strange kids.-)..and maybe not such a good choice they made... det's walking pace is not for the weak and wimpy...hike through riverbeds and ricefields, get lost (following a 'map'), invent my own path and get out (just like a real tough guy...) of the maze just in time for a perfect sunset (ok, forget about the 'tough'). make some friends at the river using my mp3 player for a cultural exchange with the local youth: norah jones is good to sing along, dianne reeves grooves obviously, but beethoven irritates...
tonight's dinner (type 'hungry'): a pot of chicken noodle soup, 3 portions of bbq chicken, sticky rice and fried vegetables. the people from the neighbour table look a bit irritated, my table is as full as theirs - they are 4. well, nobody told me it's complete meals, not starters and side dishes.
take a bike for a ride that permanently loses its chain, which makes it a hike in the heat with a lot of cursing.
what else is remarkable about the place: tourists who get drunk or stoned or both while floating on tires on the river. well, when i was very, very young (today i'm just very young), i was like that, too. ok, maybe... didn't do a lot of the tire-floating-stuff :-)
luang prabang.
temple heaven. and if you like saffron coloured monk robes, this is the place to enjoy your personal fetish.
as a well-known passionate early bird i get up at 5am to take pictures of the monkes getting their food from the worshippers (nowadays more tourists though). the rice seller mafiosa are really nice and servile people: they run behind you und tell you exactly what to do: 'buy rice!', 'sit here!', 'monks coming!'. so i do what needs to be done and i don't buy, don't sit and take my pictures. i don't know what's more interesting: taking pictures of monks or taking pictures of tourists who take pictures of monks...it's like a safari, except the crowd doesn't indicate lions but monks.
explore more of the culinary offers of the country (i'm addicted to these huge mekong fish with lemon grass, so i have several per day), fruit shakes (sorry mum, it's ice inside!!!), buffallo noodle soup, and the traditional necessity for my personal well-being: cappuchino...hang out with an austrian couple (friendly to piefkes - that means 'german' for our friends in tthe alps - who enjoy argueing with tuk-tuk-drivers as much as i do. and because we're 3 we can even play 'good cop, bad cop and indifferent cop'.
we have a look at the tad kuang si waterfall which is called waterfall because that is where people fall into the water when they stand to long in front of my camera when i want to take pictures. damned, who would have thought that that kharma stuff works instantly!
we listen to the monks' impressive chanting at the wat xieng thong during their evening ceremony and for dinner we offer more of the fish to the god of good taste.
as a well-known passionate early bird i get up at 5am to take pictures of the monkes getting their food from the worshippers (nowadays more tourists though). the rice seller mafiosa are really nice and servile people: they run behind you und tell you exactly what to do: 'buy rice!', 'sit here!', 'monks coming!'. so i do what needs to be done and i don't buy, don't sit and take my pictures. i don't know what's more interesting: taking pictures of monks or taking pictures of tourists who take pictures of monks...it's like a safari, except the crowd doesn't indicate lions but monks.
explore more of the culinary offers of the country (i'm addicted to these huge mekong fish with lemon grass, so i have several per day), fruit shakes (sorry mum, it's ice inside!!!), buffallo noodle soup, and the traditional necessity for my personal well-being: cappuchino...hang out with an austrian couple (friendly to piefkes - that means 'german' for our friends in tthe alps - who enjoy argueing with tuk-tuk-drivers as much as i do. and because we're 3 we can even play 'good cop, bad cop and indifferent cop'.
we have a look at the tad kuang si waterfall which is called waterfall because that is where people fall into the water when they stand to long in front of my camera when i want to take pictures. damned, who would have thought that that kharma stuff works instantly!
we listen to the monks' impressive chanting at the wat xieng thong during their evening ceremony and for dinner we offer more of the fish to the god of good taste.
nong kiaw, muang ngoi neua .
nong kiaw
we're off to nong kiaw in the north, which means we're taking a slow boat (which earns its name) on the man ou (yeah, certainly we all have heard of the famous river) and do what travellers do: stare at people who live their lifes at the river - diving for mussels, searching for precious stones, fishing.
as the water level is not really high, the tour turns out to be an active adventure. some have to get out and drag the boat over the stones. once the boat is floating in the water again, they have to hurry to get in the boat again...apart from that we permanently try to optimize the sitting position during the 8 hours trip. people like me, who are not blessed with a proper natural soft cushion, suffer badly.
finally we arrive in nong kiaw, a village that is not utterly touristy. that is clearly indicated by the blank face people in a restaurant make when you ask 'do you have capppuchino? how much is the coke?'.. the answer to that question is to go to the fridge, get what you want and give the expected price. if there's no complaint, you did well. or you paid too much.
as the water level is not really high, the tour turns out to be an active adventure. some have to get out and drag the boat over the stones. once the boat is floating in the water again, they have to hurry to get in the boat again...apart from that we permanently try to optimize the sitting position during the 8 hours trip. people like me, who are not blessed with a proper natural soft cushion, suffer badly.
finally we arrive in nong kiaw, a village that is not utterly touristy. that is clearly indicated by the blank face people in a restaurant make when you ask 'do you have capppuchino? how much is the coke?'.. the answer to that question is to go to the fridge, get what you want and give the expected price. if there's no complaint, you did well. or you paid too much.
muang ngoi neua.
another 'arsch attack trip' (= bad seat, much pain, nice views) to muang ngoi neua. finally the laos i expected: a small village, no traffic, relaxed people. huts with river view,...we organize our hike and spend the day with doing nothing, which means entering a restaurant, waiting 20 minutes for the menue, ordering, waiting another 30 minutes for delivery, and sitting and talking.
a reminder to the unexperienced: when an austrian says 'lights are out at 9pm' to a piefke, the piefke should wisely not start to take a shower around 9pm because at exactly 9pm you might stand wet in the dark and can't find the soap. they don't mean it bad, our neighbours :-)
a reminder to the unexperienced: when an austrian says 'lights are out at 9pm' to a piefke, the piefke should wisely not start to take a shower around 9pm because at exactly 9pm you might stand wet in the dark and can't find the soap. they don't mean it bad, our neighbours :-)
trekking.
day 1
after an elaborate breakfast at the waffles-fried banana-banana pancake-stall we take off: dry rice fields (have i mentioned that you should always go to asia after the rainy season, it's just greener), up the hill trough something that looks like a dry rainforest with a lot of bamboo (not the extremely dense african / south american stuff).
1st village ban phone: the kids are very curious and it's always a lot of laughter when they look at the pictures on the camera display. chicken and dogs in huge amounts all over the place, a satellite antenna that seems rather to be used for drying cloths than for watching tv. we have bamboo soup (which tastes similar to asparagus) and the infamous sticky rice (no, don't like). and on it goes: up and down and up and down. in the heat of the afternoon i don't look to fit when i go up a steep slope without any shade. oh well, we paid, so we do it...
2nd village ban xang: the initial atmosphere is calm and reserved. but in the end they came after me any way. first shooting. i try to break the ice with a few jump pictures, which was certainly not seen here before. a try to coordinate and synchronise their efforts to do it like the master...a disaster... next phase: make them smile in the pictures: 'hihi' - 'hihihi', 'haha' - 'haha', 'hoho' - 'hoho'. repetition method works, lots of giggeling and laughter. but when i try to shoot they're all calm. if i wasn't such a nice i guy, i would scream and curse 'you bloody little ones!! smile, we paid the trek!!' but i'm patient and wait 5 minutes...
there must be a serious lack of high-level entertainment. when the announcement came, that the falangs take a shower in the woods, the whole village (whole like complete, including their chief) was following us quickly to get the best seats in front of the. cinema in the jungle..we try to entertain the masses...it works, they laugh a lot. you think that's irritating? it is. surreal. the only thing that was missing was a host to comment on our shower styles 'this is our competitor from germany' and a jury for the scoring ...'5.7 for the artistic expression and a 5.4 for technical performance...
dinner: stickyrice (surprise!!), some deer...not bad. we sit in the hut, observe the locals trying to get lung cancer with lousy cigarettes and get some information about their life: early marriages (at about 14!), not enough money to go to school in a bigger village or town, so they live as farmers and hunters. as an outsider you can't really tell if it's a happy life but the social networks obviously works.
day 2
nicer day to hike, mainly because we walk hrough the wood and we have to cross little rivers all the time. and we develop a new hobby: standing in the water and cooling down.
back in muang ngoi neua: more soup. here's a short example of a typical communication with members of the local tourist industry when my(?) soup is brought to the table: 'is that chicken or pork?' - 'yes, meat'...isn't that why we like to travel..i do.
back at the maximum service speed restaurant: i show up - the service personnel disappears (surprise, i might order something), after a while of polite waiting i walk into the kitchen. 'you have coke?' reaction: obviously bothered the lady drags herself from her bed just to point to the fridge...so i walk to the frigde and get my stuff. and then the miracle appears: a try of active revenue generation... 'no eat?'. i won't mention the duration of the following transaction. if you think asian food is quick....other people invented rockets and nuclear powerplants while they make fried noodles...
after an elaborate breakfast at the waffles-fried banana-banana pancake-stall we take off: dry rice fields (have i mentioned that you should always go to asia after the rainy season, it's just greener), up the hill trough something that looks like a dry rainforest with a lot of bamboo (not the extremely dense african / south american stuff).
1st village ban phone: the kids are very curious and it's always a lot of laughter when they look at the pictures on the camera display. chicken and dogs in huge amounts all over the place, a satellite antenna that seems rather to be used for drying cloths than for watching tv. we have bamboo soup (which tastes similar to asparagus) and the infamous sticky rice (no, don't like). and on it goes: up and down and up and down. in the heat of the afternoon i don't look to fit when i go up a steep slope without any shade. oh well, we paid, so we do it...
2nd village ban xang: the initial atmosphere is calm and reserved. but in the end they came after me any way. first shooting. i try to break the ice with a few jump pictures, which was certainly not seen here before. a try to coordinate and synchronise their efforts to do it like the master...a disaster... next phase: make them smile in the pictures: 'hihi' - 'hihihi', 'haha' - 'haha', 'hoho' - 'hoho'. repetition method works, lots of giggeling and laughter. but when i try to shoot they're all calm. if i wasn't such a nice i guy, i would scream and curse 'you bloody little ones!! smile, we paid the trek!!' but i'm patient and wait 5 minutes...
there must be a serious lack of high-level entertainment. when the announcement came, that the falangs take a shower in the woods, the whole village (whole like complete, including their chief) was following us quickly to get the best seats in front of the. cinema in the jungle..we try to entertain the masses...it works, they laugh a lot. you think that's irritating? it is. surreal. the only thing that was missing was a host to comment on our shower styles 'this is our competitor from germany' and a jury for the scoring ...'5.7 for the artistic expression and a 5.4 for technical performance...
dinner: stickyrice (surprise!!), some deer...not bad. we sit in the hut, observe the locals trying to get lung cancer with lousy cigarettes and get some information about their life: early marriages (at about 14!), not enough money to go to school in a bigger village or town, so they live as farmers and hunters. as an outsider you can't really tell if it's a happy life but the social networks obviously works.
day 2
nicer day to hike, mainly because we walk hrough the wood and we have to cross little rivers all the time. and we develop a new hobby: standing in the water and cooling down.
back in muang ngoi neua: more soup. here's a short example of a typical communication with members of the local tourist industry when my(?) soup is brought to the table: 'is that chicken or pork?' - 'yes, meat'...isn't that why we like to travel..i do.
back at the maximum service speed restaurant: i show up - the service personnel disappears (surprise, i might order something), after a while of polite waiting i walk into the kitchen. 'you have coke?' reaction: obviously bothered the lady drags herself from her bed just to point to the fridge...so i walk to the frigde and get my stuff. and then the miracle appears: a try of active revenue generation... 'no eat?'. i won't mention the duration of the following transaction. if you think asian food is quick....other people invented rockets and nuclear powerplants while they make fried noodles...
savannakhet.
all the way down to the south.
phase1: slowboat from munang ngoi neua back to nong kiaw. it's cold, windy, water splashes, and the seats are just a litteral pain in the ass. so i put the separable legs of my pants on my head to cover my ears and the neck pillow under my butt. i look stupid but i'm certainly the only one with a relaxed smile on the boatphase2: with 10 people on the pick-up to luang prabang. thank god we're not sitting next to the exhaust. it's a real ordeal. no space to change your seating. so it's a great opportunity for meditating and ignoring the pain. phase3: stopover in luang prabang. spontaneous haircut: washing1 with fingernail massage, washing2 with acupressure, washing3 with thai massage and a bit facial massage. ah , yes...and a bit of haircutting. i'm supposed to point at one of the 20 pictures on the wall but i don't want to look like a 'lao pop idol'. 'just cut it, my hairdresser in germany will fix whatever problem you cause now'. so i end up with a 'just cut it' haircut.
after a short break at our favourite fish stand and a quick cappuchino it's night bus time to vientiane. one would expect night bus means silence, darkness and possibly sleep. well, no. this is the disco bus. the music goes on and on and on. and we're not talking about chill out music...it's all hardcore asian ding-dong-bala-bala music.phase4: bus from vientianne to savannakhet at 5:30. it's an all inclusive ride: spitting on the floor, walking market (women who walk through the bus and advertise their food with a lot of screaming), people who bring sacks into the bus that start to sound like chicken after a while (i wonder what's inside), breaks for no obvious reason (except maybe that the driver is suddently craving for oranges), certainly the infamous video entertainment (beautiful women is engaged to handsome guy1 with lousy character, handsome guy2 (nice) adores beautiful woman from afar. sometimes he rescues her, sometimes he's just beaten up, sometimes nice guy gets her, sometimes beautiful but stupid girl stays with handsome guy1 with lousy character...same, same but different...beautiful hard working waitress / sewer / cleaning lady is in love with her boss or the guy with the big car...guess what... a lot of crying...sometimes she gets him, sometimes there's even more crying (no smudgy make-up though))....2 beats of the video and you know the outcome of the story...for hour and hours. after 15 hours we have another break at a bus station and suddently i'm told (with hand and feet) that i have to get into another bus which looks very local (=low quality).
finally arrival in savannakhet: walk through the old colonial centre (the typical morbid charm of architecture that falls apart), get food with the 'make noises and point at pots method'...that's the way i like it. thunderstorm. monsoon in the dry season, i'm stuck in the restaurant for more than an hour. organize an umbrella, get rid of my clothes (ok, shorts are kept on) and rush back to the guesthouse through the pouring rain
phase1: slowboat from munang ngoi neua back to nong kiaw. it's cold, windy, water splashes, and the seats are just a litteral pain in the ass. so i put the separable legs of my pants on my head to cover my ears and the neck pillow under my butt. i look stupid but i'm certainly the only one with a relaxed smile on the boatphase2: with 10 people on the pick-up to luang prabang. thank god we're not sitting next to the exhaust. it's a real ordeal. no space to change your seating. so it's a great opportunity for meditating and ignoring the pain. phase3: stopover in luang prabang. spontaneous haircut: washing1 with fingernail massage, washing2 with acupressure, washing3 with thai massage and a bit facial massage. ah , yes...and a bit of haircutting. i'm supposed to point at one of the 20 pictures on the wall but i don't want to look like a 'lao pop idol'. 'just cut it, my hairdresser in germany will fix whatever problem you cause now'. so i end up with a 'just cut it' haircut.
after a short break at our favourite fish stand and a quick cappuchino it's night bus time to vientiane. one would expect night bus means silence, darkness and possibly sleep. well, no. this is the disco bus. the music goes on and on and on. and we're not talking about chill out music...it's all hardcore asian ding-dong-bala-bala music.phase4: bus from vientianne to savannakhet at 5:30. it's an all inclusive ride: spitting on the floor, walking market (women who walk through the bus and advertise their food with a lot of screaming), people who bring sacks into the bus that start to sound like chicken after a while (i wonder what's inside), breaks for no obvious reason (except maybe that the driver is suddently craving for oranges), certainly the infamous video entertainment (beautiful women is engaged to handsome guy1 with lousy character, handsome guy2 (nice) adores beautiful woman from afar. sometimes he rescues her, sometimes he's just beaten up, sometimes nice guy gets her, sometimes beautiful but stupid girl stays with handsome guy1 with lousy character...same, same but different...beautiful hard working waitress / sewer / cleaning lady is in love with her boss or the guy with the big car...guess what... a lot of crying...sometimes she gets him, sometimes there's even more crying (no smudgy make-up though))....2 beats of the video and you know the outcome of the story...for hour and hours. after 15 hours we have another break at a bus station and suddently i'm told (with hand and feet) that i have to get into another bus which looks very local (=low quality).
finally arrival in savannakhet: walk through the old colonial centre (the typical morbid charm of architecture that falls apart), get food with the 'make noises and point at pots method'...that's the way i like it. thunderstorm. monsoon in the dry season, i'm stuck in the restaurant for more than an hour. organize an umbrella, get rid of my clothes (ok, shorts are kept on) and rush back to the guesthouse through the pouring rain
pakse, tad lo.
highlights: an atm and a real cafe with great cappuchino. i try to organize another trek through a national park but there's nobody who wants to do it...all lazy sissies, these travellers these days.
bus ride of hell to a waterfall. what is supposed to take hours is a half-day trip. that bus looked like a wreck, it sounded like a wreck and it behaved like wrecka. on the way from the bus station to the street (50 metres) we we're passed by old ladies. it would have been better to take it to junkyard than to use it for public transportation. but miraculously we arrive at the water falls. tad lo = kids playing in the water and guys taking pictures and getting sunburn.
bus ride of hell to a waterfall. what is supposed to take hours is a half-day trip. that bus looked like a wreck, it sounded like a wreck and it behaved like wrecka. on the way from the bus station to the street (50 metres) we we're passed by old ladies. it would have been better to take it to junkyard than to use it for public transportation. but miraculously we arrive at the water falls. tad lo = kids playing in the water and guys taking pictures and getting sunburn.
don det .
yes, it's MY island, as the name says. perfect place to relax: palms, river, silence, and great food (i put pineapple pancake on the incomplete menue). well, the guesthouse owner is a bit gay ('you have nice skin'...'no, that's called a sunburn', 'you want to share a beer with me'...'no i don't drink beer'...), but at least he can cook (no, there is no relationship to my cooking) and the doors have locks...