Shop Talk on Putting HOME WORK Together

After 4 days of the big city I head for Laos. I fly to Luang Prabang, a gem of a city that somehow was spared in the war. There are over 80 temples, and elegant French colonial buildings. It's at the conjunction of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, a magic place. There seem to be dozens of great places to eat. At night the main street closes to traffic and maybe 100 women come with large bags full of silk weavings and set up stands on the street. It's spectacular, brilliantly colored silks as far as the eye can see. Each woman sits by her creations, the women are elegant -- black shiny hair pulled back in buns, sitting gracefully on tiny stools just off the ground. Lots of tourists. Many many backpackers. lots of Europeans, Japanese, Australians, not so many Americans. Hotels are $4-$25. Food is excellent, of all types: Lao, French, American -- great coffee, big-city quality lattes, crosissants, 30-cent fruit milkshakes -- there are internet cafes all over the place, in fact the place has been discovered, muchas turistas walk up and down the main drag searching out restaurants, checking the shops, it's a little strange, this ongoing procession, but also interesting to see all the nationalities. I find a restaurant called the Tom Tom Bam Boo Cafe and a great observation seat at a small table facing the street, but just inside the restaurant. The food is SO good. I have maybe 5 meals there and each is perfection. Like chicken baked in coconut milk and served on a banana leaf, rice, large BeerLao, $3.

Buddhist monk, Luang Prabang, Laos

One day I rent a motorcycle and head out into the countryside, off any beaten path. It soon gets VERY different, none of what occurs to me are the many signs of catering to travelers. Now I'm in the real Laos. The air is smoky from the slash and burn farming, so things are in kind of a red light. My funky moto has a faulty gas gauge and of course runs out of gas near a farm and I go down and talk to the coolie-hatted farmer, he finally gets it that I need gas and sends his two daughters to walk with me to the gas station. I start out at my usual pace and pretty soon there are giggles and I look back and they're running along in their sarongs trying to keep up, so we slow down. Dummkopf gringo! We get to town and there's a table with bottles of gas on it and the guy puts about a quart in a plastic baggie and ties the top. It works and I'm back on the road.

I follow a funky sign to "Waterfalls" and find a boatman and for $1.50 we cruise up the river for a couple of miles to the falls, observing river life on the way.

We hike about a mile into the jungle to the falls, The boatman, after showing me the way, goes back to the river and leaves me alone in the jungle. There's this extraordinary silence on one level, and the sounds of the birds and exotic critters of the jungle on the other. It's like nothing I've experienced north of the equator. I dive in the pool, sit around, walk back down to the river.

SILKS

Before I left I saw some silk weavings from Cambodia and Laos and decided to bring some back, maybe to sell. Idea was to see if I could bring back enough silks (light, compact) in a suitcase on the airplane and pay for my trip by selling them. It worked out great, it gave me something to do and in fact searching for silks defined my itinerary. The process by which silk is created is fascinating. I started by visiting a Cambodian silk farm, where mulberry plants are grown for the leaves, which are fed to the worms, who spin the cocoons, from which silk is spun.

Weaver at her loom at silk farm in Phnom Penh area

I visit dozens of silk sellers, on the streets, in markets, stores -- end up bringing back a suitcase with maybe 35 items. I also got Lesley some old things: dresses, Hmong tribe items. Started learning about the hill tribes, so I could tell the Hmong ladies from the Akha ladies when I see them on the streets; to distinguish between the weavings of the Lao Loum or Lao Neua, etc. tribes. The weavers were surprised that I was asking these questions. It's just a wonderful operation, from worms to cocoons to silk, then spinning, weaving, and dying. There's a huge variety of colors, designs, quality, these things are just gorgeous. I plan on going back this winter and bringing another batch back, then selling them.

Cave and Mountain/Agron and Sai

I decide to head upriver to a small town called Muang Ngoi. No vehicles. Only reachable by water or trail. My kinda place. It takes a 4-hour bus ride and a 2-hour boat ride to get there. Turns out to be lovely hillside/riverside village surrounded by limestone mountain peaks. Again, it's been discovered -- they DO have banana pancakes. But it's still lovely and wonderful. I rent a bamboo bungalow for $2/night, mattress on floor, hammock on deck, looking down on river and up at a 3000 foot craggy mountain range. Next day I head out in the countryside to see a cave and villages. I find the cave and it has a clear pool of water (it's along a river) and go swimming -- nice!. When I get out I look up above and there's a larger opening up the cliff and a young guy standing there. He is Agron Hasimi, 25 years old, native of Kosovo, fit and lean and he has a head-mounted flashlight and is about to descend into the depths of the cave. We talk. Uh, no thanks, I'm a bit claustrophobic and I think I'll just continue up the creek.

Cabin in midst of rice fields, constructed entirely of bamboo (including roof shingles, walls, framing, and flooring)

I see Agron back in town. He is INTENSE

He's been on the road 8 months. "I am cray-zee," he says and he's right. He's into everything, goes everywhere, climbs mountains, stays up all night, doesn't rest. That's fine with me. Give me crazy over laconic anytime. We decide to climb the local mountain, Mt. Phaboom the next day. We set out in the morning. It's 2500 feet and the steepest climbing I've experienced. We somehow find a trail and slip and slide and fall and grapple and finally in an hour and a half get to the peak, drenched in sweat. The view is spectacular. Agron pulls out a Sony Walkman and 2 miniature speakers from his backpack, and sitting on this Laotian mountain peak we listen to 21st century Britsh rock and roll...

Mt. Phaboom

That night there are 4 guys eating in the restaurant owned by the family that rents the bungalows and we're all sitting around talking and eventually the family starts bringing out food and it turns out this is a type ceremony the Lao people do for visitors. Tiny fried fish, sticky rice, tea, occasional shots of whiskey. They think I look like Gandalf (they watched Lord of the Rings about 6 times on a generator powered video player). They light candles and tie string bracelets on our wrists. The father, Sai is a hunter. He can make it to the top of Phaboom in one hour. He hunts deer, pigs, snakes, and birds in the mountains and has been on every mountain in the area. He carries along a pet monkey with him when he hunts. He's a beautiful man, strong, competent, capable -- a man to be reckoned with. When he was young he swam 30 kilometers in the Mekong to escape enemy troops. His first wife was killed when the car she was in was strafed by American planes...

Sai Talee, hunter, prop. of Sai Talee Guest house
Mung Ngoi, Laos

One night I am sitting in a sidewalk restaurant and this little girl comes along, sets up a table, loads it with food items, then takes a sharp knife and shreds a green papaya, with which she makes a salad. People then come along and buy salad as the evening wears on. She's so competent! A miniature chef. You see a lot of kids in this part of the world doing real work. They're not playing video games (they would if they could!), or whining about not enough to do. They're players in the game of life.

Streetside salad chef in Mung Ngoi, Laos

Snake Meat and LaoLao

On Sunday morning I go down to the river in Mung Noi to catch the boat north. Agron is down there in the ferry office with the captain of our vessel and a bunch of his cronies, sitting around a table, drinking Lao Lao (rice whiskey that is GOOD!) and eating barbecued snake meat and roasted tiny birds. They give me whiskey and a bird, it's delicious -- We finally get in the boat and head up river, Agron, me, Kesa (from Alberta) and a few river people, who get on and off. Kesa shows us an elaborate tattooed dragon she just got in Thaland:

We leave two hours late, it takes 6 hours to get to Mung Khua. Agron has brought along a bottle of Lao Lao and we take shots as we go along, passing the bottle to the captain once in a while. Kesa lights a joint. The captain is skillful -- the river is low and he has to hit just the right channel going through the rapids. The river is a life force here, people fish with nets and lines, kids with face masks and spears. It's water for farming, washing, kids are splashing around on the shores everywhere. Little brown lean bodies glistening in sunlight. The river is for transport in mountainous areas, all along it are villages...

10 year olds with spears, face masks and little creels worn on backs, getting small fish from Creek flowing into Nam Khan river, Mung Ngoi, Laos

Bus Laos Style

The boat arrives at Muang Khua, a dusty bustling little riverfront town. Agron and Kesa go looking for a guesthouse and I walk across the river on a swaying cable bridge (original bridge destroyed by Americans 30 years ago) and soon get invited by three young guys sitting at a table in the shade, bottle of Lao Lao and saki cups on table, and plate of shis-ka-bob beef. Of COURSE I want some! We talk about where I'm from, drink, eat, I tell them I'm taking photos -- young people everywhere want contact with the western world -- I decide to catch a bus that night to Udom Xai, on my way to Luang Namtha, an area known for its fine silks. The "bus" is a small flatbed truck with a roof over the back, benches on either side so you sit sideways to the road, facing riders on other side. They wait until every available inch of space is occupied with people or products. Here the aisles are so packed with gunny sacks of rice or who knows that I have to sit with legs twisted to the side. Two Hmong tribal women sit across from me, looking very together, tough, self-contained. Luggage piled three feet high on roof. Bad roads, lots of dust, some scary downhill mountain stretches, whoowee! -- finally to destination, sleep soundly in hotel and get up early next day, catch another bus to Luang Namtha.

Luang Namtha

By the time you get here (n/west Laos, near Myanmar and China), the tourists you see are a whole lot hardier (and younger). Mostly 20-30 year olds with backpacks, So hard and uncomfortable to get here that most people don't venture forth. Luang Namtha is a pretty nice town, nothing of the uniqueness of Luang Prabang, but still OK. Good food, one internet cafe, it's a trekking destination. All kinds of trips out to waterfalls, the jungle, river towns, hill tribe villages. I rent a mountain bike, am driving along and see two tribal ladies selling colorful bracelets. I stop and they show me the bracelets, then one of them pulls a little packet of opium out of her bag, and the other pulls out a bag of weed. I mean on the main street! They go into extreme hard sell mode. I keep declining, they keep insisting and finally I just ride away. Later, that night I'm eating at an outdoor restaurant and they come to my table. It takes about 3 minutes to convince them to bug off. They go over to two Germans at another table, sell them a few bracelets, then just keep badgering them to buy more. I set my little camera on the table, aim in their direction and shoot a few shots of them. Note: when I first turn on the camera the next day it no longer works -- is this some kind of message?

The only way to get back to Luang Prabang from Luang Namtha is a 10-hour bus ride. Ulp! I get to the station an hour early and got a window seat by the back door. First mistake -- dust pours in thru cracks in the door whenever (frequently) we got on dirt roads. But it IS an experience. Bus absolutely jammed to the rafters, people eating, drinking, telling jokes, laughing. A four-person crew: driver, stewardess (who climbs over people and luggage to collect or sell tickets), luggage guy (whose job is to load/unload bags on roof), and rear door guy. Maybe 60 people. Bus makes frequent stops -- to pick up passengers, once in a while a pee stop in jungleside, and many times to buy food at roadside sellers. People buy oranges, bamboo shoots, chickens -- at one place which turns out to be a hunting village there are about 5 dead porcupines hanging up and we stop, Several people, after inspecting the porkies, buy them, stick them in gunny sacks, which are piled into aisles, off we go again. It's really uncomfortable, but no one complains, everyone is jolly, happy, bus-wide conversation (all female) going on, people getting on and off, bus getting progressively more loaded down. Three young girls get on, laughing, giggling and join right in on the banter. Fantastic.

I Pulled Into Nazareth, I Was Feelin' About Half Past Dead...

We get into Luang Prabang around dark. Tired. Grab my pack and head for the Sok Dee Guest House, where my host Mr. Yen says, "You lucky, just one room left..." This guy is 25 years old, has built a 25-room hotel, rooms $10-12, it has the right vibes for me.

I shower, smoke some Laotian ganja, head out to eat at the Tom Tom. Hell, it's been a tough few days, so go for the big item on the menu: steak and fries, $4.50. Is it good! The cook is extraordinary. Everything she turns out is delicate and flavorful and fresh and satisfying. I later tell Mr. Yen he should marry her and he says to me, "Is she light or dark?" Uh, yeah, OK, dude.

Later that night I see these two striking women in an ice cream store, looking totally different from, everyone else, dramatic, tall, long dark hair, dressed in black. They turn out to be Swiss, and strangely enough they reappear at key points in the next few days, once in the night market, then at the waterfalls, then at the airport the day I leave, like the iconic characters who reappear in a Coen brothers movie.

Two Swiss women

The last day in I Laos I hire a tuk-tuk driver friend of Mr. Yen's and go out to see a waterfall in the country. I go swimming under the falls:

Waterfalls

Then hike up thru the jungle to a beautiful deep emerald pool and swim there too:

Waterfalls

****

Back to town and the next day head for Bangkok and the flight home. The trip has been just wonderful, and at the same time there's no place like home. The first day home I go down to the beach in afternoon and wade in the ocean. Waves crashing on sand, dim outline of San Francisco 11 miles across the water, fresh ocean smell, the smell of home sweet home. The beauty of it all just about makes me cry. Hey, life is rich!