How To Spend Your Money In Laos

When in Laos do as the tourists do and spend. On everything. Not really much but on everything. Especially if you want to put yourself through a reasonable amount of trouble and as much pain as available.

First, take a bus (and pay a fair amount for it). Specifically, try the bus from Luang Prabang to Phongsali, which, when said it takes about 12 hours, it’s actually something more like 15 or even 16. But no worries, as you’ll spend a fair amount of time waiting at the bus station in their ‘reception room’, which mostly consists in a couple of benches under a rooftop but with a black-and-yellow TV screen, which everybody watches intently as there’s an important kickboxing match being broadcast. The irregular shouts and cheers will arouse you from any reverie and you’ll eventually have to join in rather than try to ignore them. And then you’ll start to notice that your bus is late; not half an hour, not one hour, not even two hours but some two and a half hours.

Then and only then can you join the happy crowds on the bus, but the first thing you’ll notice will be the beer crates on the aisle as well as the discarded empty beer cans tossed on the floor. Also, you’ll probably not be able to miss the wooden planks over which you’ll have to climb to get to your seat (people can move, even in Laos, you know). Well, at least you get two uncomfortable seats for the price of one and you can somehow cram your backpack on the floor and try to use it as a pillow at some point (right around the time when you’ll start to run out of ideas on how to get some sleep on the rattling bus). And the happy sots on the bus with you will make your life a lot easier once they start singing along the good-quality highest volume Lao music, which, incidentally, will also contain the great international O-zone hit, the same one that you so much love. Or they’ll be sitting right next to you on a plastic chair on the aisle. Truth be told, you’ll probably fall asleep praying to whatever greater force of the Universe you believe in that nobody will steal your handbag, which, although is loosely tied around your wrist, would easily be stolen by a patient citizen who’ll just wait for you to fall asleep, as you’d probably not notice anything having a very fruitful training in ‘Sleeping Wherever You Can’ in India.

By the time you suppose you should get to your destination (delay included) start looking around at names of villages although you’ll not understand a word and, even if you do, you’ll not be able to find them on the map. And at every stop you’ll just wait around (like all other passengers) for the bus people – who are at least three – to get the bags and sacks off the bus for the people who get off. A mere four hours later someone will tell you that you’ve arrived in Phongsali, even though the actual city (accused – maybe not quite wrongfully – of being just a string of villages) is another 3 km away. And then you’ll pay for the sawngthaew, the local taxi which will eventually bring you to the city.

Then pay for the motorbike you only want to rent for half a day (and not even that much – more like three hours), with which you plan to see the 400-year old tea plantation in a nearby village. Apart from the fact that that you are still confused about which side you’re supposed to drive on (India has had a definite impact on you and the Lao people don’t seem to care too much), you’re not even sure which way the shifting gear works (well, mostly it doesn’t work at all, as the bike is as crappy as hell, and, having a semi-automatic clutch, it doesn’t really matter). By the time you’ve driven the first 4 km on the main road and have to get through the next 10 or so to get to the village, you realize you’ve shot yourself in the foot, as there’s actually no road whatsoever, only an orange trail through villages and jungle (so to speak), that can or cannot take you where you want to go. Also, even if it is the right way, you’ll end up as orange as the earth, as the puddles are the most part of the road. Because you’ve said that you’ll not let yourself get discouraged by the people who will try to turn you around (and there's a lot of that kind of people, mind you!), you’ll persist in your quest and you’ll get a strong déjà vu with other Southeast Asian countries. Having your sneakers and the better part of your pants the same appearance and consistency as the surrounding ground, you’ll give up halfway (7 km to go) and pretend the tea plantations you’ve already seen are evocative enough. You will spare yourself the agony of climbing an excruciatingly steep 400 steps to the local stupa and, keeping your fingers crossed (as much as possible while driving a 100 ccm semi-functional bike), and you’ll drive up there and take in the sight of Phongsali by sunset. Driving down, though, you will remember the good-old days of your adventurous camel ride because of the pain in your nether parts, which cannot be compared to anything else.

This was what I was deja-vu-ing: Cambodian roads

The next day spend your money (a huge part of it) booking a trekking tour to the nearby Akha villages, ethnic tribal people where you can supposedly see the simple, old-style type of life while trekking through the Lao jungle. But, once you start your tour, all alone with your guide (this being the reason why the tour is a sheer robbery) you learn that part of your ‘trek’ is on the main trail that links the Akha Oma village to the main road. Only it’s a lot longer and harder (and quite ridiculous for the locals) to do it by foot rather than by motorbike (and the roads are not even as bad as the ones you’ve been riding before). In the first Akha village you’ll be greeted by the village chief, who’ll utterly ignore you in favor of his grandson, whom he’ll hold and cuddle and carry around tied to his back. You’ll visit the school, which closely resembles a stable, only smaller, where all the kids in the village supposedly learn, to whatever age you cannot be sure.

Some will smile at you but most will just run away, slyly laughing behind your back and speaking any other language except for the ones you know. Small kids and bigger kids will avoid you by tens of meters and some might even start crying at the mere sight of you but that’s nothing compared to the dogs, who’ll use their sixth sense (or, maybe just their normal senses) to spot you as a falang (a Westerner) and who’ll start barking and growling the minute you’re set foot inside their territory. You’ll then have lunch at the convenient hour of 11.30 and, after a shot of lao lao, the local rice spirit, easily compared to, if not stronger than your native moonshine, you’ll start the actual trek part of your tour, climbing high on the path through the damp, lush jungle on the path ‘reserved’ for tourists (apparently, locals are not that stupid as to climb mountains; they prefer engine-powered transportation on roads that do link all the villages).

You’ll soon notice that the jungle wildlife, just like the Lao people, lacks ambition and there are no animals bigger than the ‘mouse’ – that’s what the guide will tell you squirrels are: lots of joyful, colorful butterflies, tiny birds, spiders and your occasional lizard, nothing bigger than a loaf of bread, village pigs, chicken and dogs not included; mosquitoes and all imaginable insects will be attracted by the uniform, shiny film of sweat you sport on your face, which will soon (but rather definitive) turn into a never-ending gushing fountain, regardless of your trekking direction – up or down. The main reason why you just have to love (or hate) this country is because there’s more climbing down than climbing up and, some 4 hours after you left the first village, you’ll enter a second one, the one that you only have to visit, having to go another hundred meters or so to get to the last Akha village where you’ll spend the night. You’ll be the main attraction for about 15 minutes – just as long as everybody tries to sell you ‘locally made’ string bracelets and laugh at your lobster-red color and your dreadlocks – and then you’ll be discarded just like a banana skin. You’ll eagerly accept this, because your biggest desire is taking a shower and changing your clammy clothes. But as soon as you have one last hillside to climb to get to your hill tribe home a heavy steady rain will start falling from the sky, combining your sweaty protective layer with some fresh rainwater. Drenched and tired as you may be, you eventually get to the house and wearily watch the rainfall from the porch. You will get a short break though, just enough time to run to the bathroom and indoor shower (right next to the local showering/washing faucet-in-the-ground in the middle of the village, where everybody takes their rather public showers and washes clothes) and back before the rain comes pouring again.

You’ll get dinner and some lao lao, at least one shot for each leg – as the host explains through sign language – and then you’ll be tantalized to several more shots, which you politely try to refuse.

Still, there is a treat: an Akha massage for your aching, backpack carrying body that’s available at your request. You think: what the hell?! Sure, why not? You’ve spent a lot of money on aches and pains of various types, so why not try (buy) something soothing? So you get the local mute woman, who’ll gladly give you a massage, so you go lie down on your mattress on the floor. She’ll heftily knead your limbs and body a whole 45 minutes and you’ll actually unwind greatly, although the massage basically consists in her powerfully clamping all your muscles and leaving some bruises at that. You’ll be surprised to see that you don’t have to pay for something pleasant and relaxing… well, at least not pay extra, which, at that particular time will seem very agreeable. Still, you’ll have to circumvent some more lao lao drinking, which, by now, has completely absorbed your host and your guide, so you’ll have to excuse yourself on the basis of being very tired and sleepy and, all in all, too relaxed (because of the wonderful massage) to be able to do anything other than lay in bed.

The next morning you’ll wake up around 6 AM to the chorus of clucking chicken and grunting pigs and have breakfast: some leftover potatoes from last night’s dinner and some fresh salad made mostly out of unidentified plants, everything containing a fair amount of chilli. Of course, the lao lao is ever present and you can’t get around it but you’ll probably stop drinking it sooner than your guide, who, by the time you have to leave (right after breakfast and the tasteless tea), will be thoroughly imbibed in the traditional moonshine. The gods will want you to have perfect weather, so the sun will shine stronger than you’ve ever experienced in Laos and, once you get to the little shack in the dried up rice fields, you’ll retreat under the pillars of the little house and watch your guide falling to an inebriated sleep. Not long after he’ll get up and tell you he’ll prepare lunch out of some freshly gathered plants and leaves and will ask you what else you’d like to have for lunch. Being totally full from the breakfast two hours prior and having no clue as to what is possible to eat off the Lao ground, you’ll lift your shoulders and shrug in surprise and blankness but then you’ll remember the flowers you’ve seen on your trek, which your guide told you were edible (although he also said that those spiders as big as your palm were eatable as well) and you’ll ask for a healthy flower meal. You’ll go pick up the fallen flowers from a nearby tree and, after you’ve gathered enough, you’ll go back to prepare your picnic.

On a burning bamboo stick fire your guide and your host (who came prepared with some pots and a machete and the mandatory lao lao plus tiny glasses) will cook the plants to a boiling soup and will grill the flowers which they’ve previously filled with a mixture of mashed-up flowers, ginger and chilli. They’ll prepare the table on cut and washed banana leaves and make chopsticks out of green bamboo shoots, filling the glasses with lao lao and mixing another set of plants into a fresh salad. Top it all with a bamboo jug of sticky rice and you’re off.

You’ll eat just a little, favoring the salad soup, because everything has incredible amounts of chilli anyway but mostly because the fresh salad is not to your taste and the flowers are, if anything other than fleshy, bitter. But you’ll play along and convincingly attest to the deliciousness of everything.

As all the gathering, cooking and eating kept you busy until around 12, you’ll soon start your trek of the day, on the same type of orange dirt road (more like mud road because of last night’s storm) and prepare for a short two hour walk to the main road. From there another two kilometers will get you to Buen Neua, a village 41 km away from Phongsali from where you’re supposed to take the bus back. You’ll remember the guy at the booking office saying that the first day of the tour will cover the moderately difficult part of the trek while the second day will be an easy trekking day. Alas, the atrocious march you’ll have to go through during the second day will never – on your list – make an ‘easy’ trek day: walking in the purest, shiniest sun on a winding road after you’ve had some lao lao, all before noon is anything but easy. You’ll pray to unknown evil forces – mainly because those would have your soul, which you’re convincingly willing to give – that this part of the trek is over sooner and you don’t have to fight the forces of nature (mainly earth and sun) any more. To top it all off, your guide will be in such a state of drowsiness from way too many shots of lao lao that he’ll request several breaks along the way and every time you’ll resume, it will be more and more difficult to get your soaking wet backpack on and start marching again.

The glorious end of all this will be the penetrating sound of a bus horn, which will mean that the main road is close by and you’ll almost kiss the asphalt once you reach it. Still, the matter of catching the bus will still be a tricky one because you’ll do anything in your power to avoid the last walking kilometers. The guide will come to your rescue as he’ll call a friend from nearby Boun Neua who’ll drive his motorbike to where you’ll be waiting and graciously cede his bike so that your guide can drive you to the bus station and only afterwards return to get him (and yes, those two kilometers will be measured in Lao distance!)