or Why I Think Lao People Are Too Relaxed.
Fearing that I’ll not have enough time
to visit everything there is to see in Laos (this being a very common
globetrotter’s disease), I never have time enough to spend in one place. And,
not having enough time to spend in one place, I never have enough clean clothes
around. I’d actually wash them or, at least give them to be washed (machine
washed, nonetheless), but, as I usually leave the next day, there simply
wouldn’t be enough time for the clothes to dry.
But I finally found the place where I
could have some clothes washed: Phongsali, right before going on the tribal
trek. I was going to come back to the same guesthouse two days later, so I figured,
if they can keep my backpack for two days, they can surely toss some clothes in
the washing machine. Leaving in a hurry at 7 AM, I hastily gave them the
backpack and a crumpled bag full of dirty clothes, feeling satisfied, even a
little proud of formulating such a brilliant scheme.
Coming back, dirty, stinking and
sweaty, I was looking forward to a nice pack of clean-smelling, neatly folded,
fresh clothes. Alas, my excitement was short-lived, as they gave me the
backpack and the same crumpled bag full of dirty clothes. Almost in tears, I
looked questioningly and confused at the landlady, an elderly woman who dubbed
as the spokesperson of the family, as her daughters don’t know the slightest
bit of English, only with the help of lots of hands and fingers, and she
menacingly shot angry glances at her daughters; a couple of hurried words and
all the family shrugged and then started laughing. They forgot. And just handed
me (I should emphasize a person in agony)
the bag full of dirty clothes. No time to try and wash them myself and they
just got damper and soggier, still looking sorrowful in their smelly bag.
The next day I headed for the first
Lao boat ride, a five hour trip that would take me to Muang Ngoi, a little
village on the Nam Ou river, getting me closer to the southern part of Northern
Laos. The boat itself was small and wobbly, making all the passengers cram
together in threes on tiny benches, having all the luggage packed high on top
of each other at one end, and filling the other end with a sturdily secured
motorbike with the driver on top. That’s the way we rode down the river, up to
the point where most of the Lao passengers got off in a minuscule village by
the side of the river, leaving all the Westerners to joyfully splurge on the
benches. I chose a place in the back leaning on the heap of backpacks, finally
being able to unwind and indulge in my beers (the ones that I bought especially
to fully enjoy the river trip) and successfully ignoring the engine’s roar
close to my ears. As fate (or some cruel joke) would have it, it started
raining heavily, adding to the regular splashes of water from the rapids on the
river an ingrate, merciless amount of water, which, obviously, reached the backpacks. Mine was more
fortunate than others, as it was on the top of the heap, right under the
protective rag and the Lao boatman (the one in the back, that is) leaning on it
searching for some kind of shelter from the rain. But some other backpacks were
dangerously close to the water that had accumulated on the bottom of the boat,
so the owners could but pray that their stuff was waterproof. We had to let the
side flaps down, seeing only ourselves and the blue sides of the nylon sheet
that protected the interior of the boat. And that was the bigger part of our
trip. By the time we got to Muang Ngoi, we were pretty depressed, mostly wet
and very hungry. So I camped into the first guesthouse that met my eyes, had
lunch and, as the weather was not in my favor, I abandoned my plan to wash
clothes and fell into a restless sleep until the evening, when I was woken by
the small, chewy noises that were way too close to my bed. I somehow managed to
gather enough courage to look under the bed, where, next to drained plastic
bottles and some forgotten empty boxes, I found a hole partly covered by a
ceramic tile. The peanuts I had bought from the local market were dangerously
close to the exposed part of the hole, so I had to share my peanuts with some
newly made rodent friends. Turning my full attention to the laptop, I soon
found out that Muang Ngoi only has electricity until around 7 PM, making my
efforts of entertaining myself with any type of electrically charged gadgets
useless. I had an early night, preparing for the second day of boat riding
early in the morning.
Well, ‘early’ turned out to be
whenever they gather enough people to fill a boat, so eight people, mostly the
same westerner formation that had set out from Phongsali to Muang Ngoi, got on
another small boat that at least had slightly better benches, set on each side
of the boat. And off we went; into the sunny, optimistic day that was unfolding itself all
around us. I thoroughly regretted that I had not gotten myself some more beer
cans, as the set was perfect for some laid back, light alcohol and, while we
were stranded on the small bank full of water buffaloes, would have made
everything look brighter. Yes, I did say
‘stranded’. Meaning, after some four hours of smooth riding on a muddy brown
river into a beautiful luminous day, our boat broke apart and down. No
explanation, no sign of life, nothing. The boatman tried the Romanian method of
fixing anything, mainly with a large hammer and some cusswords, but even that
proved useless. So we were vigorously evacuated from the boat on the riverbank,
right into a herd of grazing and bathing water buffaloes, which overtly
resented our invasion and scurried gloomily away. We waited for the boatman to
smash the boat’s engine some more and, after an hour or so, he gave up, gave in
and gave a first bashful sign of help: he made a rescue phone call. In the next
15 minutes a new shiny boat arrived and took us to safety and, incidentally, to
our destination, a mere 15 minutes away. But this new boat was definitely the
VIP boat, having bus seats neatly pinned to the floor, exactly for the eight
shipwrecked people that we were.
Having found a guesthouse in Nong
Khiaw, I tried again to have my clothes washed, this time knowing that there
will be enough time to get them back clean and dry. And again, my dreams of
perfect clothes was shattered when the next day, carelessly walking by the
guesthouse, I notice the fence in front being burdened and weighed down by my
clothes; my red-flecked clothes. Wait a minute… Why do all my clothes have red
spots on them? And keep in mind that most of my clothes should have been white
(well, mostly whitish and off-white
or even light-brown, and I had been
advised to get rid of the ex-white stained clothes long before – thanks, Mona),
but now, they were mostly polka-dotted. It wasn’t very difficult to uncover this
mystery, because right next to my worn-out blouses, proudly sunbathing, were my
red pants, the ones I specifically asked to be washed separately – I knew, from
personal experience, that their color comes out incessantly. Again, looking pitifully,
I confronted the guesthouse people: and, yet again, they merely stared at the
stained clothes, shrugged and started laughing.
‘Relaxed’ is a far too light a word for
the Lao people, which are, mostly careless and sloppy when it comes to foreign
people’s need, namely clean, unstained clothes. Which I will never have again!
No comments:
Post a Comment