The wheels on the bus go round and round (and I feel it every time)
As I mentioned earlier, T and I decided to buy our bus tickets to Si Phan Don from the sweet-faced man at the travel agency next to the internet cafe, mostly because he had such a nice face, but also because he was $5 cheaper than his competitors. The kind-faced man promised us beds next to each other on the sleeper bus, a good dinner on the bus, and pickup and coffee in Pakse before the trip to Si Phan Don. It all sounded good to us.
The kind-faced man LIED. Yes, we were in beds next to each other, but the beds were actually a single bed, on the top bunk. Never in my life have I been so grateful to be married to a man as wide as a bean sprout. I thank God (and the other passengers should too) that I was traveling alone, or else I would have been crammed into a bed with some tiny unspecting Lao person, who would have been CRUSHED when we turned our first corner. The “good dinner” was another of the Lao twinkies you get on buses, and a juicebox of soy milk. Mmm, delish.
I had thought this experience would be fun….I had never been on a sleeper bus like this before, and since I can usually sleep anywhere, I figured it would be okay. HA. Hahahahaha. I was sleeping next to the window, where I nearly died of frostbite, and I spent much of the night with the bean sprout’s bony knee in my back. Every time I was about to fall asleep, the lights would come on and we would pull into a new bus station. I finally fell asleep just as we arrived in Pakse at 6am.
When we arrived in Pakse, we looked around for the minibus that was supposed to be meeting us. No minibus. T eventually called the number on the ticket, and was told we would be picked up shortly. After an hour, the bus finally arrived, just before I exploded in a fiery rage. Then, our bags were thrown atop the bus and we were carted off into town, where we sat INSIDE THE BUS, outside the office for about half an hour, roasting in the sun, as we waited for the drivers to sort ourselves out. There was no coffee. There was not even water. The only thing the kind-faced man was got right was his tutuk driver being on time, and even that was wrong–he was early!
That’s the last time I buy tickets from someone based on them looking nice. Next time I’m going to buy from the meanest-looking SOB I can find.
Vientiane, where the living is easy
The first thing that happened when we returned to Vientiane was that we were stopped at a light in the back of our tuktuk and a motorbike with a tiny girl pulled up next to us. The tiny girl looked at us and shouted, “Hello sabaidee how you are? When we all smiled back at her and said hello, she frowned and yelled again, “”Hello sabaidee HOW YOU ARE?” She seemed happier with our second response, in which we said exactly the same thing as the first time. It was good to be back in Vientiane.
We stayed at the same guest house, more out of habit than anything else. As T said, better the devil you know…but this time, we got a fancy A/C room, which was much nicer than the fan room (which obviously makes sense). Given that we were used to Vientiane already, we were quite happy to settle into a little routine, which was Lotus Restaurant for sticky rice breakfast, JoMa for bagel lunch, and Khao Nieo for baguette dinner. We started right with Khao Nieo, where I had another ham and cheese baguette that was so good, it almost made me cry.
The next morning, we went to Lotus for breakfast. It should be said that Lotus has the friendliest waiters in the world, who want nothing more than to speak English with their customers. We had a different waiter than the last time, a man named Bee, whose uncle lives in San Diego (the first waiter’s sister lived there). Bee chatted away with us for ages about America and basketball and how most of the tourists are Aussie and how he can speak English and French and Italian and Japanese and Danish well, and about five more languages not very well. He was lovely and charming and I wanted him to be my best friend. Unfortunately, this time the sticky rice got the best of me and I could not finish! Tragedy!
The main reason we had come back to Vientiane was to pick up the godforsaken Indian visas, which we had been told took “Five days, or a week.” We had been gone for a week when T decided to call the number to see if they were ready. He was transferred to an Indian man who told him “No. Visas tomorrow.” When my head almost flew off at the prospect of waiting another day for visas that take five days everywhere else in the world, we decided to call back. I called and got a Lao woman who assured me that they were both ready. At this point, T’s head almost flew off because this was the second time an Indian man at the embassy had given him misinformation, and this time it could have cost us a day instead of $15. Ah, India. I am so excited to meet you.
With visas in hand, we were visibly relieved and decided to celebrate. We went to dinner at Sticky Fingers, which is an Aussie-owned restaurant full of glamorous expats. We went there for dinner our first trip to Vientiane, and I spent the entire meal whining to T, “IIIIIIII want to be a glamorous expat!” There even appears to be a glamorous expat door, accessible only if you are employed by an NGO or speak 14 languages (or more likely, just know your way around). This restaurant is good for more than just expat watching, though. They have good western food, with things like blue cheese! and cocktails! This time, we split some nachos and I ordered a Bloody Mary and T had another dark Beer Lao. It was happy hour, so of course we each had to have two, and then share a cheeseburger that might have been the best I ever had. Laos, you continue to amaze me with your Western food. On a sad note, T had his last dark Beer Lao at Sticky Fingers (though he did not know it at the time) and he is now in a corner, trembling and shaking and calling its name.
As I said, we had a little routine down in Vientiane, and one of the things we found was a cheap and fast Internet cafe, in which we could use our computer. So we went back (sometimes twice a day) to use their computers for pennies an hour. Next to the internet cafe was a hair salon, and on the other side was a travel agency. Because our laziness knows no bounds, we booked our tickets to Si Phan Don from the kind-faced man at the travel agency and I got my hair cut at the hair salon. This is how it went:
I walked in and asked if they could cut it. About ten women were in there, all staring at the TV, which was playing some kind of soap opera. Finally, one said she would do it, and she proceeded to wash my hair. For 20 minutes. Now, I don’t know if a Lao hairwash is typically 20 minutes or if she was waiting out the end of the soap opera, but it was good. She washed and washed and massaged my head and even though there was no hot water, I didn’t mind. Then, I was moved to the chair, where I received a 5-minute back massage. At this point, I am thinking this is the best haircut ever, and she hasn’t even touched my hair yet. Finally, it’s time for the haircut. Now, let me explain. First of all, my hair never recovered from China, where it either got tangled up from the pollution or from my new fleece, but either way turned into the biggest rats nest ever. It was coming out in chunks in my hands weeks later. Even so, I was still traumatized from my honeymoon haircut in KL, the mullet of doom, which took years to grow out. So I was watching her every move when I noticed they had a giant mirror in the back of the room which reflected everything she was doing. And she was not cutting a mullet–she was giving me a real haircut! After she cut away all the dead, angry Chinese hairs, it was time for the blowdry. TWO WOMEN blowdried my hair at the same time. Thats what I call service. I wanted to make out with her when she was done, but instead I tipped her $1. It was the best $4 haircut ever.
On our last day in Vientiane, we were sitting in JoMa eating bagels when I noticed a little face at the window. It was a man with Down Syndrome, and when I smiled at him, he gave me a huge smile and started waving as if we were old friends. Then, he pointed to his wrist, pointed to the left and ran away. I didn’t know what that meant, but I was happy to have seen him. When we went outside to go to the fancy supermarket next door, he was there, selling braided bracelets. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I volunteered in junior high school and in college with people with Down Syndrome and there are few people in life I enjoy being with more. So, there was no way I was not going to buy from this man. I was not disappointed. When we approached him, he greeted me like an old friend, crying out HELLO! and grasping my hand in both of his. I don’t even think he wanted to sell me anything, but when I pointed to the bracelets, he took one and carefully tied it around my wrist, smiling at me the whole time. T was unsure about how much they cost (he had a sign that said 2000 kip, but then he had pricetags in various amounts stuck to his little stand), but when the man held out another one for T, he let him tie it on as well. We gave him 5000 kip (60 cents), which was what we were planning on giving him anyway, and he was most appreciative, telling us thank you, thank you. He was the happiest, most beautiful person I have seen in a long time and it made me happy just to be near him and sad to be leaving town.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I love Vientiane.
Get on the bus
On the map of Laos, Vientiane and Luang Prabang don’t look that far from each other–about 300km. Wrong. They are only 300 km from each other, but the bus ride takes 9 hours. Why, you ask? Well, mostly because the road is a NZ-style curler that winds around hill after hill, meaning that the speed limit is 30 km/h. Yes, you heard me right. 20mph.
You would also assume that a Lao bus would probably be bare bones, with no exciting amenities. Wrong. Lao buses are equipped with TVs that play Thai and Lao karaoke songs for nine hours, which means that if you have no iPod, you are quite likely to go insane.
You would think that spending 9 hours on a bus going 20mph along a curly road listening to Thai karaoke would be tedious. Wrong. It was fantastic. First of all, you get a free lunch at a local restaurant (which isn’t all that delicious, but is free) and they give you a snack and some water, like on the Thai VIP buses. Second, the Lao bus drivers are not demented maniacs, a la China or Cambodia, drivers with a death wish who want to meet their maker traveling at speeds that make your blood stop. They actually go the speed limit, which in turn gives you the chance to look out the window and see the life outside.
I saw bare bottomed babies and girls riding upright on bikes and boys walking down the street with their arms around each other and old women drying palm leaves on the streets and entire families bathing in outdoor showers next to the road and lazy dogs lying in the dirt and bands of kids walking to/from school and people sitting inside darkened houses looking out and magnificent limestone cliffs and smoky valleys and curvy roads and families with four to a motorbike and school yards full of laughing children and women gossiping inside shopfronts and a handful of white tourists walking around and one overturned oil truck and one beautiful little boy with a baby strapped to his back, all alone, waving to the bus from the side of the road.
Lazy in Luang Prabang
Our bus from Vientiane took about 9 hours, so we arrived in town in the late afternoon. We walked to our guesthouse with two lovely couples: Mick and Sarah, a British couple, and Mike and Sarah, an Americanadian couple. We all ended up in rooms next to each other, but after that, we didn’t see each other for ages. T and I settled in our room and went out to dinner, where we met a hilarious Kiwi couple who had arrived in Luang Prabang in the afternoon and had been drinking ever since, to recover from their trip up the river from Chiang Mai, which took three days on a boat meant for 70 Asians but held 140 Westerners, during which a dead body floated past. I would have wanted a drink too, after that.
Luang Prabang is a quiet little place that also happens to be a UNESCO Heritage Site. Apparently, this combination is quite enticing for tourists, because the place was packed with them. And not just white tourists–a fair number of Chinese and Japanese, as well. LP is full of lovely French architecture, with dozens of restaurants and bars and internet cafes meant to cater to the flocks of tourists everywhere, which made it extraordinarily easy to get around, if a little disconcerting. Even the stray dogs are well-groomed, including the golden retriever we saw who looked just like my parents’ dog Finn, who spent all day cruising around town eating scraps. As T said, that dog was living the dream!
The best news about LP was that there was a HMONG MARKET at night, which took up streets and streets. And these Hmongs sold more that just jewelry and blankets–they sold baby clothes, and duvet covers and Beer Lao t-shirts and all kinds of other potentially useful stuff. The good news is that I cemented my bargaining skills at this market when I bought a Beer Lao t-shirt. The man selling it told me its price, and instead of begging for less, I handed it back to him and walked away. As I was walking away, he offered me less, and I countered with an even lesser price, and he accepted! Take that, Grow! The bad news is that these Hmongs don’t seem to be anywhere near as sassy and hilarious as our girls in Sa Pa, which just made me sad that we didnt go there in the end, because I miss those kids, and our Facebook friendship just doesn’t cut it.
In addition to the hundreds of tourists and Hmongs, there were also a fair few monks wandering the streets. There were quite a few in the internet cafes at any give time, and at one point, I was standing in the street waiting for T, and a little one walked by and sneezed, so I blessed him. Thats right, I BLESSED A MONK. I think that makes me pretty holy. I’m going to heaven for SURE!
T and I managed to come up with a pretty great routine while we were in LP: sleep until about 10-11, then bathe and stretch (my yoga mat finally came out of the backpack), and go for breakfast. Then, wander around and check our email for a few hours, then come back to the room and watch TV for a little while, then go back out for dinner. Then come back to the room, watch some more TV, and then go to sleep. It worked like a charm.
The best thing, hands down, about LP was the bagels. Yes, you heard me right. There is bakery chain in Laos that is clearly Western-owned, called JoMa Bakery. Theres one in LP, where our tuktuk driver dropped us, and we decided to go there on our first day for breakfast. I was waffling about what to get for breakfast when T told me he was getting a bagel. I thought he was deranged–not only getting a bagel outside of NYC, but getting one in LAOS???!! At best, it would taste like concrete! Not wanting to miss out on the small chance it was good, I got one too. OH MAMA. It was so good. It was the best bagel Ive had outside of New York, and now I am totally pissed because we will have to go back to Laos to get them (bad news: Laos is far away; good news: we get to go back to Laos). And so, every morning left in LP and Vientiane, we ate bagels for breakfast. And we liked it.
On our penultimate day in LP, we decided we should stop slacking and actually see something, so we did a directed walk around town. We walked down the banks of the river and sat for ages watching the kids playing: little boys shrieking and being swept by the current, before grabbing a rock and jumping off, shrieking some more; little girls in the river carefully washing their hair, yelling at the little shrieking boys who come by, splashing the newly washed hair. It was great. Then we walked down to the tip of the city, to look at our guidebook. At this point, we were greeted by an old man with a bicycle, who told us he was poor and selling ice cream. Did we want some ice cream? When we said no, he nodded and said, “Good luck and prosperity to you in life!” Eh? We just said no and you’re wishing us good luck? Have I mentioned I LOVE LAOS?! After the ice cream man, we walked to LP’s most famous wat, which was lovely and also quite deserted, which worked for me. Unfortunately, the desertion didn’t last long, because we decided to go to Phu Si Hill.
There is a wat perched on the top of Phu Si Hill, in the middle of town. At night, it’s all lit up and is quite beautiful. Our book said the best time to hike up there was sunset, and we stupidly listened to the book. Damn you, Lonely Planet!! We forgot that other people have the Lonely Planet guide as well, and Others were everywhere, crawling all over the wat like ants, many of them elbowing people out of the way so they could get the best photo position at the front of the wat. I don’t understand what’s wrong with people like this. First of all, its a friggin’ holy site! Get a grip on yourself and have some respect! Second, why should you get the rights to the best pictures just because you are a pushy little bastard? Take your pictures and cycle through like a decent human being! At one point, there were about ten people all perched on the tip of a rock, clicking away with their cameras while about 50 other people, INCLUDING MONKS, craned to get even a view. It was at this point that I imagined a swift gust of wind coming along, making them plummet to their deaths. It was a good vision. Then I remembered that I was at a Buddhist holy site, and I should rein it in.
On our final day in town, we happened to run into Mick and Sarah at JoMa Bakery (I told you it was good–everyone goes there!). They told us they were going to the waterfall; we told them we were too, and did they want to share a tuktuk? They did! FRIENDS!! Hurrah! Mick and Sarah are a lovely couple who live in Leeds, but are planning to move to France! How glamorous! They had also just come from India and were full of useful information. They were also very charming and interesting and not 12 years old like so many of the people we meet. I loved them.
The waterfall turned out not to be a waterfall in the woods as we all imagined; it was a waterfall in the woods surrounded by shopping stalls and restaurants, with tourists everywhere. Nonetheless, it was quite an impressive spectacle. We had heard you could swim at the top, and Mick and Sarah brought their swimsuits, so we started the trek up. It was quite a scramble, but we made it, only to find no swimming pools. So we carefully stepped across the shallow pool at the top of the waterfall, trying not to fly over the edge and face certain death, and we went down the other side, where we (or the boys) could see a girl in a pink bikini swimming further down. About halfway down the hill, there was a way to climb out to the pool, and T and Mick, overcome by testosterone, quickly vanished. Sarah and I were left squinting to see them in the distance, but instead seeing the silhouettes of people who appeared to be hurling themselves off the side of the waterfall to land in a bloody heap (they weren’t). Eventually, the boys came back down and we carefully stepped our way back down the hill, only to find that at the very bottom of the waterfall, on the path we didnt take on the way in, were a number of beautiful pools that did not involve risking one’s neck to reach.
Also at the waterfall were a number of bears who had been rescued from the jungle and were lazily hanging around, and a beautiful Asian tiger named Phet, who was meandering around when we arrived, but pacing like my father by the time we left. She was really beautiful and had also been rescued as a baby. It pained me to hear one of the tourists comment that she was the same kind of tiger they just shot at the San Francisco Zoo (she wasn’t) because she was truly, truly glorious to see. And so that I don’t start crying all over our new computer about how people are stupid to kill such beautiful animals so that the remainder have to live in cages and it makes me really angry, I will stop talking about this now.
We spent our last night in town having dinner with Mick and Sarah at a pizza place we discovered few nights earlier. I can’t say enough how nice it is to meet people you like when you travel–even though it’s lovely to travel with T, it’s always exciting to have some new blood and discuss things you don’t normally discuss or discuss to death with your partner. Mick and Sarah were really interesting and smart and funny, and to prove it, I have attached their blog at right. They are traveling for a year, because they are much cooler than we are. We’re not jealous, really. (Do you believe me?)
Sticky rice for breakfast
From Nong Khai, we went to Vientiane in a minivan with a German couple. We were dropped off in the middle of town, and we walked from there to our guesthouse. The guesthouse had told us they had no fan rooms (“No. We no have.” is a response we got very used to), but sooprise! When we arrived, they had one for us. With a Western toilet. And a sink. And satellite TV. Were it not so disturbingly unsanitary, I might have hugged the toilet.
The first day, we just walked around town and went down by the river. Vientiane is possibly the sleepiest capital city I have ever seen, with only 200,000 people. It feels more like 200, which was perfect for me. Practically the first thing that happened (and we later discovered that this was a highly rare occurrence) was that a woman with a tiny little girl came over to us, begging. I DID NOT EVEN LOOK AT THEM. And they walked away! Imagine! No pulling on my clothes, calling, “madame, madame!” No jumping right in front of me, so I can’t get past! No following me down the road, making me look like a mean old bitch! They just walked away.
And then a little bit of my soul died.
After I completed my first heartless act, we decided to reward ourselves with lunch. After all, what better way to celebrate your immense wealth and prosperity by denying it to the poor and spending it on yourself? We went to a restaurant called BanLao Beer Garden, where T tried his first Beer Lao and I tried my first Lao banana shake. It was, hands down, the best banana shake I have ever had. I’m not sure what was in it, but I suspect there was just the tiniest bit of crack. And man, was it good. I also tried laap, one of Laos’ signature foods. The laap was also good, but it was overshadowed by the shake of love.
After a few hours of vaguely wandering around town, I got a pain in my back. Hooray! Time for my first massage of the trip! We went to a place called Mixay massage, where I got an hour-long oil massage for $4. It was quite possibly the best $4 I have ever spent, and when it was over, I tipped her $1. Look, I was still rich from ignoring the beggars, so I had to spend it somewhere.
After the massage, we decided to look for a place to have dinner. We cruised around town for ages, looking for a place, and then, down the street from our guesthouse, we found it: Khao Nieo. Khao Nieo is a small little restaurant across from a fancy French patisserie called Le Banneton. It had a garden outside, so we thought we’d give it a try. It was the best decision of the day, massage excluded. We made two important discoveries that night: I discovered that the baguettes in Laos are %%##*( great, and T discovered his one true love—dark Beer Lao.
Between Sydney and Vientiane, I had been so good at eating local food. With the few McDonalds excursions in China excluded, I ate local food at every meal, and I liked it. I had no desire to eat anything Western. That all changed when I tried the beautific baguettes at Khao Nieo, which were the best we tried in all of Laos. As for T, he was doing pretty well with his beer consumption. He had maybe one a day, but he wasn’t all beered up. Again, dark Beer Lao changed all that. He got completely cracked out on it, and started refusing to eat at restaurants that didn’t serve it. When dark Beer Lao was mentioned, he got a soft look in his eyes, as if he was remembering a particularly hot girlfriend, or a really big soccer match.
Unfortunately, there were some mosquitoes at Khao Nieo that night, and mossies like nothing more than feasting on my ankles, so on the way home, we decided to buy some Tiger Balm. We were most surprised when, instead of the jar of Tiger Balm, the woman gave us a tiny tin about as big as my thumbnail. When we got it home, we found that it was White Monkey Holding Peach balm, which is just about the greatest name for a mosquito bite remedy ever. It also works very well, and I ended up buying another tiny tin and a larger one, just in case. Who knew monkeys holding peaches made such a fantastic cure? I plan to make my millions by importing it into America, where it will clearly become much more popular than stinky old bag balm.
The next great discovery we made in Vientiane was at Lotus Restaurant (and yes, pretty much all we did in Vientiane was walk around and eat, so get over it). Lotus Restaurant was about 150 paces from our guesthouse, and when we first passed it, T noticed they served sticky rice with mango for breakfast. SOLD. I had sticky rice with mango for the first time on our honeymoon, at the end of our time in Thailand (in a post that I never got around to writing, but maybe one day, I will). I was like T with the dark Beer Lao. I wanted to get me some more sticky rice with mango, and I NEVER DID. It was a TRAGEDY. And so, when I saw it in Vientiane, I had to have it. And I did. And it was sweeter than a hundred golden retriever puppies, but I ate every last bit. And I loved it.
One of our goals in Vientiane was to get our Indian visas, which had eluded us in Australia, New Zealand, Bali and China. We didn’t want to have to wait for five days in Bangkok, so we planned to get them either in Laos or Cambodia, where we could take off while they were being completed, and then pick them up after a trip somewhere else. So we got a tuk tuk to the Indian embassy, for $8 return, which seemed a little spendy, but T didn’t want to haggle so early in the morning (it was 8.30am). We got to the embassy and went to apply for the visas. They take five days. Fine. You need two photos. Fine. You have to pay in USD. Not fine. T had called the day before and spoken to an Indian fellow who told him they take baht. I imagine that man got off the phone and rolled around on the floor, laughing his ass off at the funny trick he played on us. So, we ended up having to go back into town to change some dollars, so we could go back to the embassy so we could get the godforsaken visas. In the end, the tuk tuk cost $15, which is approximately the same amount as a bus to Luang Prabang.
Our final goal in Vientiane was to send some stuff home to America, so T had some more room in his bag and could stop his incessant moaning about how full it was, so we could avoid divorce. Here’s how the post office works in a communist country:
1. Bring your package to a table where a woman weighs it.
2. Move it along the table so a woman can fashion a box and have you fill out a customs form.
3. Pay the woman for the box.
4. Take the box to the man at customs, who makes a check mark on it, takes your customs form and asks you for some more money, for an undisclosed reason.
5. Take the box to window number 5, so the woman can send it for you. Take your little parcels to window number 7, because the woman at window number 5 doesnt do small packages.
6. Marvel at the fact that five people are employed to do the work of one person, yet thank God that its not Vietnam, where they just take your stuff and wrap it in paper and it arrives (barely), all torn to shreds.
Literary myopia and creepy white men
Our guesthouse in Nong Khai, Mut Mee, was right on the banks of the Mekong overlooking Laos. The staff was very friendly and warm, and the restaurant was lovely. Also, they had free internet. For these reasons, Mut Mee was delightful. On the other hand, we had a tiny room (which is fine) with a squat toilet (which I can stand) and no sink (which is just icky).
The main problem with Mut Mee was that it appeared to be populated mostly by pretentious wanktards, creepy dirty hippies and drunken American sorority girls. Dirty hippies I can deal with—usually, I even like them, but there was one couple in particular that was constantly groping each other and the girlfriend got really drunk one night and started talking about 30 decibels too loudly, and I wanted to poke her in the eye. Drunken sorority sisters are much lower on my tolerance list than dirty hippies, especially the ones who were staying at the guest house. They were all like, you know, totally! And he’s super into you! And ohmygod, this wine is like, so good! Totally! at the top of their lungs. For hours. I wanted to set them on fire, and given the looks they were getting from the other visitors, I was not alone.
Lowest of all on my tolerance list, however, are pretentious wanktards. And oh mama, was there a doozy at Mut Mee. I first noticed him when we arrived and he swanned in, wearing nothing but black. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was just eurotrash, but then he started talking—he was either Canadian or an American trying to affect a British accent (which I suspect was the case). There was an older man staying at the guesthouse, some kind of writer or literary historian or something, and the Man in Black took to him immediately. As T and I were trying to eat our breakfast, MIB approached the historian and started telling him all about his linguistic studies and talking all about his “scholarly weight.” The historian responded by telling him stories about early 20th century writers (I’m not sure what this has to do with Pali studies), and the conversation worsened from there. It actually got to the point where the historian recommended a novel to MIB and MIB responded with “Oh, I only read nonfiction. It’s my literary myopia.” I swear to God, I threw up a little in my mouth.
Apart from the wanktards, the hippies and the Delta Delta Deltas, things were okay at Mut Mee. Nong Khai is an interesting town, in that it appears to have an inordinately high percentage of middle-aged, flabby white dudes hanging out with young Asian girls. Not in the Phuket kind of way, but in the all the pictures of couples in the local photography shop are of white guys and local girls way.
Most of the time we spent walking around town or using the internet while overlooking the river, but one day, we rented bikes and rode around town. We went down the riverbanks to a local wat, and then rode out into the country to look at a local sculpture park. We didnt realize until we got there that the sculpture park was clearly an important local attraction, full of tour buses and souvenir stalls. It was worth it, though—some of the sculptures were enormous, and there was a pretty rad one of giant snakes.
From Nong Khai, we left Thailand for Laos. This meant we took a tuktuk to the border, then went through Thai immigration and customs, then waited for a bus to take us across the Friendship Bridge, then went through Lao immigration. Going through Lao immigration means you hand in your forms and photos at one window for the visa; then wait for ages for them to appear in another window; then you go through immigration, during which they ask you no questions; then you go through customs and then you pay a 10 baht (30 cent) entry fee. Ah, southeast Asia. Thanks for making it simple.
The longest day
After the bizarre taxi ride to the Shanghai airport, T and I checked into our flight to Bangkok. We were flying Air India because it was $200, which we thought was very clever, but everyone we told would look at us in horror and yell, “AIR INDIA?!” as if we had told them we were thinking of taking a helicopter ride over Baghdad, just for fun.
T had warned me that Air India is notorious for being late, so we were not surprised when the gate check woman told us that the flight would be a half hour delayed, AT LEAST. We went through security and then noticed our gate had changed. So, we went to the new gate. Then, the new gate changed, so we waited at the third gate. It was nearly two hours after our scheduled departure before the plane even arrived. At that point, it was 3am and neither one of us was finding the Shanghai airport as charming as we did upon arrival.
The plane ride itself was okay…there was a funny smell on the plane and one of the flight attendants woke me up to see if I wanted my meal (Yes! Of course I want to eat at 4am when I was just sleeping because this stupid flight was delayed by two hours! Give me some naan!), but apart from that it was uneventful.
We managed to get through customs and immigration, and I was sleepwalking my way through the Bangkok airport when some stupid American wanktard drove his cart into my ankle. Oh, homicide was on my mind, but I was too weak from exhaustion to pull the eyeballs from his head, so I just glared at him and staggered into the taxi.
Our hostel in Bangkok had gotten our reservation confused or something, because they only had a single room available, so T and I climbed in and slept for five hours. We awoke to realize our room looked like a cell at Rikers Island, which didn’t really matter because we were leaving on the night bus anyway.
Then we decided to walk into the center to buy our new computer, the ASUS eee. We managed to get a few kilometers before the roads all split and we had to take a taxi. At the electronics mall, we ate some Thai food court food before buying the computer: a precious little munchkin who weighs less than a kilo and cost only $400. Then, it was back into a taxi to go back to the hostel in rush hour.
We grabbed our bags at the hostel and went out to get another taxi, but no one would take us. So, we ended up in a tuktuk that careened its way to the bus station in record time and with minimal terror. Of course, the bus we wanted didn’t leave at 8:30, as we hoped, but at 10: 30, so we were stuck for three hours. We ate at another food court, where I had to abandon my first meal because I was afeered for my life.
Then it was on to the VIP bus. I actually really like Thai VIP buses—they give you blankets and a pillow and the seats recline almost all the way back and they give you nice food and water and it’s really very comfortable. So I didnt mind the 8-hour journey to Nong Khai. This is lucky, because when we arrived in Nong Khai, we couldn’t check into our guest house until 11am, so we ended up chatting with the owner’s wife while drinking tea, then sitting in the restaurant next to a charcoal heater for four more hours. Finally, we had a room, only 36 hours after we first arrived at the Shanghai airport. Travel is truly delightful. Someone, please buy me a private jet. I promise I’ll let you ride in it.
Don’t tell my mother
For years, I have ridden the Fung Wah bus between NYC and Boston in abject terror, wondering whether everyone in China drives like that, at mach 10 with a cell phone attached to their ears, screaming in Mandarin as they veer from lane to lane. Beijing traffic was surprisingly sedate, so I wondered if it was just the Chinese in America.
It isn’t. There are moments in travel when you think, Yes! I am a genius! I can travel for the rest of my life and I won’t ever regret it! These are usually moments when you are lying on a beach, sipping a margarita. Then there are moments when you think JesusMaryandJosephwhatthehellwasIthinkingtakingthistripIcouldbeonmycouch
rightnowwatchingtheDailyShowandeatingAnniesmacaroniandinsteadIamgoingtodie
rightnowandnoonewilleverknow. During these moments, your life begins to flash before your eyes, and instead of stopping at the parts when you looked really good lke high school or your wedding day, you are stuck in junior high when you had glasses, braces and a hideous Sun-in mullet (shut up, it was the 80s). These are often moments when someone else is driving.
We had one of these moments in Chengdu with our taxi driver. Thinking we were supremely clever, we eschewed our hostels taxi service because it would have cost 70 yuan and our taxi in was only 48. Our first taxi refused to take us to the airport, so we gladly popped into the second.
I spent the first half of the ride trying to detangle the snarls from my hair, so I was distracted and didnt notice the outrageous speed at which we were traveling. Unfortunately, I detangled it all before the ride ended and started paying attention. We were weaving in and out of lanes, around rickshaws and motorbikes in alleys and spending a great deal of time in oncoming traffic while we were in town. Then we got on the highway, where the driver increased his speed to 140km/h, which to the Yanks is 90mph. I would like to add that there were no seatbelts in the back seat, so I was gripping the door handle with enough force to break a bone. The best part was when there was traffic in the right and left lanes, so the driver decided to pass them both on the SHOULDER. I was giving T looks that would melt his brain (because its obviously his fault that we ended up in a taxi with a psychopath) and it was the first time of the trip that I thought it might have been prudent to just stay home, especially when the bill came to 65 yuan.
The second experience we had like this was also in a taxi, going to the Shanghai airport for our flight to Bangkok. The taxi picked us up at the Holiday Inn, and started out okay. Then when we got onto the highway, he too started driving like a maniac. So, I started sticking my face right behind his head to see how fast he was going. I thought I unnerved him, because he slowed down to a reasonable speed. Then, he slowed down even more, to the point where we were going about 35mph on the highway, and everyone else was going 70. I might add that we were in the passing lane, for some reason I don’t understand. Then, the car started to jerk, and would speed up, then lurch back down again. T and I thought we were running out of gas, but now were pretty sure he was just screwing with us. We managed to jerk our way to the airport, when the driver emerged with a giant smile to help us with our bags. Dude, are you kidding me?!
With a little bit of practice, these guys could be the star drivers for the Fung Wah. All they need now is the phone.
Old dudes love me
In our Lonely Planet, we had read that Chinese people are somewhat stand-offish and reserved, and not generally known either for their warmth or friendliness. In Hong Kong, I found the locals very pushy and loud, so I wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting the mainland Chinese. With this in mind, we prepared for two weeks of frosty relations with the locals. Again, the book and I were both way off. I came to realize that people have to be pushy to survive in a nation of one billion people, and that most of the people we met were warm and patient and kind—especially considering that we spoke no Chinese and probably jumped all over their last nerve. Here are some of the lovely people we met in China:
-In Beijing, T and I were getting into a taxi when I saw an old man on the sidewalk waving to me. I waved back at him, and he gave me a thumbs up. When I did it back to him, he waved me away, as if to say, “Ach! Crazy girl!”
-On Christmas night, we were getting a taxi back to the hostel when our driver suddenly held up a photo of his baby son, and asked if he looked like him. We said yes, of course, and he started talking to Mara about babies in America. Then, he asked if we had any American dollars, because he is collecting money to give to his son. We told him we had some at the hostel, and we could give it to him if he waited. In return, he said he would decrease the fare. When T ran to get the money for him, the driver turned around to look back at me, and said “Welcome to Beijing” with a big smile. When we gave him the money, with some Cambodian riel and Thai baht included, he beamed with excitement. It may have been the best Christmas present we’ve given anyone in a while.
-Another day in Beijing, when T and I were standing outside the hostel eating our egg pancakes in the cold, a young girl in her early 20s walked by. She paused as she passed us, and then said “Welcome to China!”
-In Chengdu, we got quite a lot of interested looks (not stares, just interest) from the locals and lots of kids saying hello. Eventually, T said to me that no one had pointed at him, and he was really surprised. Sure enough, that night, as we walked home from dinner, we passed two young boys in the street. They started walking faster to keep up with us, and eventually pointed at T. I almost died laughing. Then, they started daring each other to speak to us. Finally, one of them said “Hello! How are you?” When we told them we were fine, they burst into giggles. When they recovered, they asked what our names were. We told them, and we walked in silence for a while. When we turned to go to the hostel, they cried out “Goodbye!” together.
-There are a lot of cute kids in China. In Beijing or Shanghai, when I smiled at a parent or a grandparent with a cute baby, they either ignored me or smiled back. In Chengdu, however, if I smiled at them, they would turn the baby (or child) around so I could get a closer look, and if it was a child, they would make it say hello. This was probably really annoying for the kids, but I loved it.
-Mara had warned us that people in Shanghai weren’t as friendly as in Beijing, which we assumed was true because it was a bigger city. Thus, we were surprised when the first person we met on the street was totally adorable. We were looking for the Indian embassy and T asked a girl on the street how to find it. To our surprise, she spoke fluent English and she told us she would walk with us even though we were going in a completely different direction. The boys buggered off together, and I was left talking to her. She was very sweet and very interested in America. When I told her that we lived in New York, she told me she had a good friend who lived there. When I asked if her friend liked it, she hid her face from me and cried, “No! It is not a good friend! It is my boyfriend!” It ws so cute, I wanted to hug her. She walked us all the way to the embassy and seemed to want to hang out with us longer, but we said goodbye. It was surprising to have someone offer to help us with nothing in return, but I think she just wanted to practice her English.
-And, the grand finale: I am beloved by old dudes in Chengdu. When we were at the teahouse, we started to notice that all the old workmen on the street would walk past and smile at me. Then we noticed that it wasnt just workmen—a rickshaw driver on the street actually blew me a kiss. Finally, I am appreciated somewhere other than the streets of Harlem (that came out totally wrong)! I am HOT on the streets of Chengdu! T better watch himself—if I get sick of him, I am moving to Chengdu, where I can find myself a husband who is already older than I am, so that I dont look like an old haggard witch in comparison (this is an important consideration for Western women dating young Chinese guys, apparently. It seems that white girls age much faster than Chinese men. Keep it in mind.)
Everyone loves a candied rat
Like others in my family, I grew up believing that American Chinese food is far more palatable than actual Chinese food. I’m not sure where this belief started, but it is a dirty, DIRTY LIE. Chinese food is some of the most delicious food I have ever eaten in my life, and the American version is about as tasty as saltines in comparison. Getting food in China was both our biggest obstacle and our greatest reward. Ordering it was often frustrating and embarrassing (its never cute to be the stupid white people), but it was always good. Always. Even at the hideous McDonald’s of doom in Shanghai, and that wasn’t even Chinese food.
One of the things we noticed first about Chinese food is their love of food on sticks. You can get dozens of foods on a stick in China, which endeared the country to me immediately. You can get meat on a stick, sugary fruit on a stick—even a candied rat on a stick. Yes, you heard me correctly. One of the most popular foods we saw in Beijing was a candied rat on a stick. Ew, not a real candied rat, but toffee fashioned into the shape of a rat on a stick. Sadly, we never tried it, because it took us a while to realize it was toffee, and then we stopped seeing them!
Other noteworthy eating experiences in China:
- Before Mara arrived in Beijing and showed us all the delicious local food we didn’t know how to order, we had an adventurous night and went out to a nearby restaurant. The restaurant was full of old men in a halo of smoke, talking as though their voiceboxes had been removed. We tried ordering some food, and found one of the most hilarious menus I have ever seen, including:
Old adopted mother’s fried kidney
Pimple soup
Explode a chicken
United States hook speculation
Lotus leaf in a small fry
Family food that goes well with wine
The peasant family cooks vegetables ingeniously
The fragrant flowered garlic fries pig liver
The open country growth mushroom fries the potato to silver filament
Hot bull’s penis
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When Mara arrived, she introduced us to the egg pancake—on Christmas Day! It was perhaps the best Christmas present ever. As the egg pancake is street food and we have no clue how to read Chinese, we would never have found them on our own. This is how the egg pancake is made: on a circular hotplate, the cook spreads a very thin layer of batter, then cracks an egg on it, while smearing the egg around the batter so it doesn’t clump. Then, she flips the whole thing over, smears some sauce on the other side and adds scallions and coriander before putting what looked like a waffle on top. She cuts the waffle into three pieces, folds the pancake around it, and puts it in a plastic bag. Mara told us that when she first discovered these, she ate them every day for weeks. We dream of one day being so lucky.
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In Chengdu, we were wandering the city looking for a place with an English menu when we went into a restaurant to ask. Instead of answering us, they ushered us to a table with a big hole in the middle and sat us down. We assumed it was a hotpot restaurant, but there was still no menu. Two girls came over and tried to speak English to us while handing us an order form to fill out. Since we are, as we mentioned, ignunt foreigners who don’t even know how to speak Chinese, one of them finally yelled out “Turkey!” And we nodded. Then a man came over, looked at the food section of T’s book and pointed to chicken. Okay. Then he filled out the form for us, changed one of the entries to a lower price, and disappeared.
A few minutes later, one of the girls returned with a giant pot full of broth and a half a raw chicken. She turned on the heat on the table, put the chicken pot onto it, and left. I almost cried. What the hell do we do with a half a raw chicken in some broth? And how do you eat it with chopsticks??! Fortunately, she soon returned, took the chicken away, and came back with it all chopped into pieces. After that, hotpot ended up being fairly easy. At first, the women would come over and dump the assorted condiments into the pot for us, but after a while, we were able to do it ourselves (that’s what 3 masters degrees between us has gotten us—thank you, higher education!). It turns out hotpot is pretty good, though I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience again too quickly.
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Another night in Chengdu (the night we asked for a Sichuan restaurant with an English menu), we decided to eat local again, in the hopes of some spicy food. The woman at the front desk who laughed at us wrote down some good local dishes on a piece of paper, and directed us to a local hotel. At the hotel, they clearly thought we were brain dead, showing up with a piece of paper with Sichuan foods written on it, and then staring blankly at them when they spoke to us. It’s my personal opinion that the woman wrote “Please feed these idiots some food so that they don’t come back and bother me again with their ridiculous requests.”
Whatever she wrote, it worked, more or less. They had a photo menu at the restaurant (the saving grace of every stupid non-Chinese-speaking tourist) and we were able to indicate more or less what we wanted. And it was good.
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On our penultimate day in Chengdu, we walked around the city for ages, searching for a restaurant recommended by our book, described as being a tiny doorway with a long flight of stairs. Uh, thanks. Needless to say, we couldn’t find it. And so, we headed for McDonald’s again when we noticed a number of Chinese fast food options in the food court. We headed toward the one with the best photo menu, and then a miracle happened.
A young guy with a round baby face popped out of the restaurant and said “Hello! Welcome! Please come in!” I practically French kissed him, I was so happy to see someone in a restaurant who spoke English. He took us to the side of the queue and helped us order. We ordered the egg-tofu things we had in Beijing, and some spicy chicken and the milk, made at the restaurant. Our new friend stood with us in the line, speaking his beautiful English and Chinese, and I think I spied a halo above his sunny little face.
We found a table, and waited for the food to be delivered. When it was, we each got the main course, the milk, rice and some interesting salad, and some soup—and, of course, chopsticks. The food itself was okay, but the service was fantastic. Our friend was circling the restaurant, checking in on all the tables and he came past ours a number of times to make sure we didn’t need anything else, and that the food was good.
When we told him he spoke beautiful English, he beamed and did what all Chinese people do when they get compliments—he shook his head and looked profoundly embarrassed. We were thanking him compulsively, and every time, he would say the same thing: “It is my pleasure to help you!” Oh, little Sichuan man with the baby face, it was our pleasure to be helped by you.
