the horror, the horror > travels in indochina

Huay Xai, Pak Beng and Luang Prabang: attack of the 50 foot women

Posted by Jeff

I. The Mekong

The Mekong is the chocolate brown river of Augustus Gloop’s fantasies. It begins in the Himalayas and wends down though China, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia to the South China Sea.

We crossed the border into Laos at Huay Xai for our first experience of a communist country (Hong Kong really doesn’t count). So far the politburo seem to have impeccable taste- visas cost considerably more for Canadians than anyone else ($42 vs. $30 for the rest). Otherwise Huay Xai looks a bit like a frontier town- yellow concrete paving makes the whole town seem in need of a sweep and no street lights means most shops were decorated like Christmas with fairy lights. Even just across the river Laos is very different to Thailand. As a great man (well okay, Nick Preval) once said “the food is Laos-y, the people are Laos-y and the weather is Laos-y.”

To avoid getting stuck on the floating sheep truck of the slow ferry we decided to splash out a bit and booked two tickets on the luxurious Luang Say cruise. The Luang Say plies the same route as the cattle cruiser but provides meals, accommodation (in Pak Beng), guides, life jackets and room to stretch your legs.

Quite a lot of room as it turned out. Instead of the normal 40 passengers there were eight: your humble narrators, four Aussies who had retired to sail the world and two not-so-quiet Americans. The Australians had been sailing around the region for about four years and had been deep-fried by the sun until their skin was the colour and consistency of spring rolls.

The Americans were on a vacation where they packed in three countries in two weeks. They had the pristine pink baby skin of people who spend nearly all of their time under artificial lights and at a constant temperature of 23 degrees.

The voyage downriver was quite extraordinary. Instead of battering you with adjectives, here are a couple of photos:

Our accommodation at Pak Beng was the most luxurious we’ve stayed in. We had our own beautiful teak chalet. With a certain irony, given the dodgy joints we’ve been staying in, the Luang Say Lounge was an ‘eco-lodge’ which is Laotian for “open to the elements but pricey anyway.” You know you’re in the jungle when a grasshopper the size of a toblerone lands on your mosquito net next to your face.

After another day of making our pampered way downstream we docked in Luang Prabang.

II. Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is the old capital of Laos and the former seat of the Laotian kings. In 1995 UNESCO declared it a world heritage site and mandated its protection. It is a surprisingly compact charmer of about 100,000 people. The narrow lanes and sidewalk cafes feel very French but with a laid-back Laotian pace.

One of the highlights of Luang Prabang is the National Museum.

It is in the former Palace vacated by the royal family in 1975 when the Communist Panthet Lao forced them into exile. Although the Government hasn’t admitted it yet, the King of Laos and several of his siblings later died of starvation in a re-education camp. The museum preserves much of the palace as they left it including exhibitions of their clothing, personal effects and the table set as if for dinner.  Most Lao believe that the palace is haunted by the ghosts of the royals and will not venture near it after dark. Certainly it is a most eerie place: whatever you thinks of regicide it echoes loudly.

The sign for the ex-royal Theatre in the palace grounds with ‘Royal” painted over

Otherwise we’ve mainly been mooching around eating great food and sweating in the heat. It’s been sheer torture and we’ve longed for the New Zealand winter.  Sara’s done a weaving course which she loved but I’ll leave the gory details of that to her.

III. Farangs

The terms for foreigners (farang in Thai, falang in Laotian) actually mean ‘French’ as the French were the first Europeans to regularly show up on the doorsteps of these countries. Perhaps, however, this is more than a linguistic artifact. I had initially put my declining personal hygiene and insistence on speaking my mother tongue down to backpacking and poor linguistic skills but now the horrifying truth dawns. I suspect that I am, in fact, becoming French. The next time you see me I may have a little dog under my arm and a man purse.

Two types of farangs are strangely omnipresent:

1. Dodgy old men. Inevitably accompanied by a young, pretty Thai woman. Nearly all bear an uncanny resemblance to Josef Fritzl. The dodgy old men are a disturbing manifestation of the free market gone wild.

Another sound decision on the part of the politburo in Laos was to ban all relationships between Laotians and foreigners unless Government sanctioned. While this seems a bit draconian in theory, in reality it more or less quashes the exploitative sex trade. We haven’t seen any Josefs here and Laos is the better for it.

Now if they would only ban commercial relationships between tuk tuk drivers and Westerners we’d really be talking.

2. Really tall women. It seems like every second farang women is a six foot plus gargantua. I’m not sure what lures these amazons to South-East Asia but it can’t be anonymity: on crowded streets they hove into view above the mass of dark Asian hair like clipper ships.

We’ve seen more massively tall ladies in Thailand than elsewhere. I suspect medical tourism of some sort. However I have no idea whether the tall women are having vertebrae removed to become average-sized or whether regular women are having extra bones added to their legs in order to become giantesses.

A bientôt,

Jeff and Sara

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