shit happens

The perfect slogan for the country of Laos. This is a place where time doesn't exist, everything breaks down- all the time, and the locals just sit back and chill out with a bottle of Beerlao, the national beverage, while they wait.

I am now in Luang Prabang, the beautiful former royal capital, a quiet idyllic town along the banks of the Mekong river. I could write a novel about the arduous journey here from Chiang Mai, Thailand, in which any other time I would have ripped my eyeballs out in frustration, but in this country can only shake my head and grin, because shit happens.

There are three ways to get to Luang Prabang from Chiang Mai. Lao airlines, which costs a fortune and has a terrible safety record, slow boat, which floats its way down the Mekong in two days, or a speed boat which takes half the time as the slow boat, for almost double its price. Because we are a bit time-strapped, we thought the optimal choice was the speed boat. After purchasing the ticket and arriving at the Laos border, I casually glance over my Lonely Planet and see a boxed warning against taking all speed boat travels in Laos as they are "dangerously fast" and about the most perilous thing you can do in Laos after walking through a field of land mines. This reassurance attained, we embarked our boat, literally a canoe with a greasy motor attached to the rear. Six people to a boat and absolutely no room to budge. Things were looking better and better. Our motor stopped working about ten minutes into the trip and our driver who spoke no english, managed to fix it with a wooden twig and a pocket knife. This ad hoc maintenance lasted us another couple of hours until it started drizzling. It then turned into a pour and then a torrent of waters from the sky, drenching us and all of our baggage on the uncovered boat. I didn't mind the wetness, but the motor had failed us again. And this time we sat on the river, tied to a tree branch, none of us talking as we could not communicate with the driver and found ourselves in that strange state of forlorn defeat in which we could do nor complain about nothing.

There we sat for an hour until another speed boat appeared. The driver whizzed off with the other guy back to the last town and returned with jumper cables that managed to fix the boat, but warned us that we may not make it to Luang Prabang by nightfall,and we should just stay overnight in the town. Lo and behold, it was the same town that the slow boats stop off for the night. Can you imagine the embarassment of running into the same people we smugly glanced at this morning? It was such a classic story of the turtoise and the hare.

The town was cute albeit completely subsistent on tourist boats, and that is where we woke up this morning. We were then told that plans had changed again! That slow boats were probably more reliable and safe for us because what if the motor breaks down again and we are to return back to this town for yet another night? At that point I was ready to take the risk take it anyways, but I suppose the other people on the speed boat were not down. Lame. So we ended up on a slow boat that was delayed for over an hour because the boat was filled to overcapacity with excess people waiting to board, and communication barriers between boat operators and passengers ensured that we just stalled with no progress for a very very long time.

Only at 5 pm did we arrrive in Luang Prabang, but just the evening wandering around town has already sold me on the place. The night market was the most unstressful shopping ordeal I had been through so far in Asia and the street food is amazing and cheap! I had an amazing Laos sandwhich (kind of like the viet subs with all kinds of things on a baguette) for about 60 cents, and they even have oreo/nutella milkshakes on the street!

I havn't posted in ages, mostly because I've been travelling around with little internet access. Apparently I hadn't emailed my parents in 6 days and I didn't even realize. Since I last posted from a private island off Phuket, I have been to Ko Phi Phi and Chiang Mai. I cannot wait to share the pictures, but those will have to wait. Bed time now.

Until next time!
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