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Day 8 – 11th December 2007

Woke up to extremely chilly weather that you can practically see the mists a-rolling around the surrounding mountains. The overcast skies made a further impression that it was gonna be cold.

We declared today a Rest Day again – fantastic isn’t it that we can just decide not to do anything anytime not like when back home? Walked around the streets, ate lunch, decided after walking around that the rising sun made it too hot to walk (ironically) that we just went back to the guesthouse (where we switched to the guesthouse where Jazz and Li Teng were staying as it was much cheaper) to rest.

Plans could be easily changed when you travel. Just yesterday night before the girls left we were debating whether to head straight to Nong Khiaw, a village described in the Lonely Planet guidebook and other online sources as having no electricity, or to wait for a few more days. As we decided against the slow boat as it was far more expensive to get to the border of Thailand (and um, slow – 2 days), we decided to settle a bit longer in Luang Prabang.

When we went out for lunch, the guesthouse owner, whom I shall henceforth name as ‘Uncle’ because the two Singaporean girls called him that way and he did look like a kindly old man, invited us for a birthday party for his 6 year old son (although we gathered later that it was for his 6 year old granddaughter – some communication problems)! He was blowing up red and white balloons when we were leaving.

At night, we went out at about 5.30pm when the sun was setting and ate dinner at the vegetarian buffet stall again. There were already many people by then.

How the town looked like at 5.39pm.

Royal Palace Museum from far.

Siew and I at the foot of a hill (we actually saw a snake when the locals across the street kept yelling incomprehensibly and pointed towards something on the ground).

Vegetarian buffet mmm cheap and um edible.

We went to the night market which materialise every night among certain streets, in search of souvenirs to buy and a birthday present for the little girl. Bargaining was definitely not my strong point, although I did buy 3 tees of shoddy quality for me and my two brothers for 52000kip total (~USD$5.20). Siew impressively reduced the price of his keychain from the offered USD$2 to USD$0.50.

Me looking stupid while choosing clothes.

We eventually bought a cloth book thingy on animals for USD$2 as a present for the little girl whom we had yet met: handmade picture book sewn together with pictures and words like “I help my mother to pound wheats” and “I help my sister to pluck bananas” wtf in incorrect grammar and accompanying Lao writing script. I thought that children here deserve a proper education, hence my reason for this purchase. We also bought a hideous handmade bear hybird doll thingy that cost USD$3.

We also met the Israeli couple from the mini bus (the fierce Israeli woman sprang to mind) when we were leaving the market and had some small talk. In the end the Israeli woman said “Come visit my country!” to which I replied “I’d love to, but my passport doesn’t allow me to go there” and so forth, and she looked surprised. She said something like “Ditch the governments, we’re such good friends here.”

Funny how countries operate sometimes.

From the supposedly “7pm something” that the party was to start, we arrived at our guesthouse where there were a few foreigners sitting inside and even more local children and few adults gathered. I was even a little excited at the prospect of the party beforehand, I’ve no idea why.

Where us the ‘foreigners’ were placed at.

After giving the birthday girl her presents, we went inside our room to put back some stuffs and went out again, and sat next to a French couple where we chatted.

Homemade birthday cake.. which I couldn’t taste due to my lactose intolerance. :(

Uncle and one of his granddaughters I presume – he speaks “good French” according to the Frenchman sitting beside Siew.

Lots of food – the usual suspects such as vege, beef (it was delicious), french fries, and carrots shaped like french fries.

Uncle’s wife in the red dress. The locals were all sitting inside chatting and watching Cartoon Network wtf.

Laotian kids crowding around the birthday cake.

The birthday girl in pink.

The locals singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in English wtf. We, the ‘foreigners’, laughed good-heartedly at this as we found it amusing.

Snapped when the others’ flash went off.

Cutting the cake.

From left to right, Swiss sister #1, 20-year old French dude travelling alone who played his guitar often enough when in his room (which was only next to ours), French couple, and Swiss sister #2.

Another picture.

When the party ended at 9pm, we (the French couple, the soloing French guy, two Swiss sisters, and two Malaysians) decided to have a round of Beerlao and off we went by the Mekong River (5-minute walk from our guesthouse) where there were bars along the stream.

The two sisters were awfully curious about Malaysia and what languages we speak etc to which we gladly answered, and the whole lot of us had a pretty nice chat which I enjoyed although since we were in a French-dominated group, they tend to relapse into French sometimes – even the Swiss sisters (at least, one of them) know French because she worked in a town in Switzerland that speaks predominantly French.

We also found out that despite learning English in France for 12 years, the French can’t actually speak much English.. like the Frenchwoman who was with us. Apparently the Frenchman learned how to speak (and he does speak well!) through interacting with other English/Americans, which is a good thing. It reminded me of Japan – where they do learn English in schools but all ended in naught as they couldn’t speak much anyway.

The bar closed at 10.30pm and we had to leave. It was a quiet, lovely night drinking by the Mekong, interspersed with our idle chatters and the cold that descended upon us.. and indeed, there is so much to learn from one another.

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Day 9 – 12th December 2007

After breakfast where I shivered through the entire proceeding, we spent most of our morning in the guesthouse – watching How I Met Your Mother, sleeping..

At 1pm, we set off to the Royal Palace Museum that decided to charge us a ridiculous 30000kip. Sure, it was interesting to see how a country’s palace looks like, but it wasn’t particularly outstanding. As I stroll into the throne room, images of the deceased royalty roaming the palace flayed my mind – ghosts of a distant past.

There were plenty of items on display as well, ranging from royal attires, gifts from other countries (the US gave a moon prober model wtf), local items like masks used for dances, etc.

Spell boring wtf.

The Queen’s bedroom (I have no idea why the King’s and the Queen’s sleeping chambers are separated). No pictures were allowed to be snapped, but who am I to follow rules anyway wtf.

The courtyard – beautiful innit?

So we left, I ate lunch at a restaurant by the Mekong which was expensive and awful (Siew ate his lunch while I was asleep earlier), and we explored this temple on the hill (20000kip per entry).

Hundreds of steps up to the temple, not unlike Batu Caves (not as many steps I reckon).

We saw a local aeroplane about to land on the airport from afar.

Another look at the side of the temple.

This is probably the most intriguing Buddha-related things I’ve ever seen (remember I’m not a temple enthusiast?) – they have Monday Buddhas, Tuesday Buddhas, right up to Sunday Buddhas wtf. I was puzzled at this, and found the answer later on in a Chiang Mai (Thailand) temple where they have similar Monday-Sunday Buddhas, where a dude told us that you pray (and donate) to the respective Buddha based on the day that you were born.

Buddha’s foot imprint WTF.

Some monks who were good enough to pose.

This was supposedly the real Buddha’s foot imprint and I’ve no idea which is real and which is not. Skeptic in me doubt it’s genuine since I’ve never heard of any stories of Buddha stepping into Laos wtf.

Some other river.

The two of us at the exit of the temple. Hooray wtf.

Walked around the night market again for about an hour or two as Siew wanted to buy souvenirs. Later under the blistering night’s cold, I shivered my way to the cybercafe, foolishly without a jacket. Siew and I constantly wear a shirt and a short pants as though it was summer, as even the locals and foreigners don jackets and other cold-protection gears all the time. T___T I didn’t anticipate it to be this cold, as we weren’t even heading up to China.

Going online, chatting with friends on MSN (Roy, Jessica, Yen), and getting in touch a little with the vast virtual world felt so good it put a smile on my face. Roy (who was supposed to come with us but couldn’t in the end) was online as well, asking me if I had checked my results which I clearly didn’t know – apparently it was out just today. After crawling through the appropriate website, I got it! Very satisfactory results. =D

Accounting 100 – 78
Business Information Systems 100 – 78
Microeconomics 100 – 80
Legal Framework 100 - 80

Siew went back to our guesthouse early, and later on at 10pm when the cybercafe was closing, I shuddered under the extreme cold all the way back.

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Day 10 – 13th December 2007

Heading from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw today.

Mornings were never my favourite in Luang Prabang. The way the clouds of fog descend upon the city blanketed it with a sheet of chilly air – it was so cold that as I grudgingly walk to the cheap stall where we had our 2000kip mee (~USD$0.20!), that when you blow the air, you could actually see the vapours, which Siew constantly did as he was very amused with it.

Even the jacket I had didn’t seem to help much withstanding the cold. The only respite I could get was when the uncle who manned and cooked the plain waffles lifted his pan from burning coal, did I actually savour the heat.

Another interesting bit: it seems that nobody in Laos use gas for cooking – they use coal. And you get coal from burning wood. Awfully traditional.

Another second interesting bit: I don’t know what is actually taught in Laos, but 9 out of 10 times we passed by any school throughout Laos, its kids can be found outside on the school’s grounds playing. Most of them didn’t even have schoolbags, and even if they did, the bag seemed really light compared to the kilogrammes of books current Malaysian schoolkids carry. And the most book I saw that they ever carried was a whopping one. Satu. Yi. Ichi.

So our tuk-tuk guy whom we booked two days before (by telling hihm we need him “tomorrow tomorrow” to denote ‘the day after tomorrow’ wtf) arrived 10 minutes earlier than the scheduled 9am. And because a tuk-tuk is never covered up completely, in that the only element it probably protect against is the sun, imagine the rushing wind coupled with the cold air which surely must’ve dropped the temperature around us to a single digit.

I was freezing from the frigid coldness of it all, and that was putting it mildly. I hugged myself and reduced my breathing and concentrated on everything but the cold, while Siew bravely sat through the entire ordeal nary a jacket, clad just in what I’d like to call as our ‘summer clothes – one tee and one short pants.

We reached the Northern Bus Terminal at about 9.10am, scheduled ‘check-in’ was at 9.30am, and departure was at 10am. Long stort short, we were supposed to go to Nong Khiaw, and then tomorrow, turn back to Pak Meng to take a bus to Huay Xai, as told to us by a bus agent lady. Thankfully, a man at the bus terminal told us to buy the tickets there and he could even help us book a seat at the bus that will pass by Pak Meng from Luang Prabang.

How our local bus looked like. Notice the stacked up red chairs that were ready to be deployed at the narrow aisle at a moment’s notice.

We finally departed at about 10.30am. I wasn’t even annoyed with the lateness as I was already accustomed to the Lao way of life. And of course, for an 18-seater bus, there was the need to cramp in more people than there were available seats with plastic chairs, as witnessed before in Vietnam, which was why I was now less intrigued.

Our local bus had a variety of the old and the young, but for some reason it was mainly the old – there was even a woman breastfeeding a baby while sitting in the plastic chair at the aisle wtf. The bus also picked up people and dropped them off continuously along the way. Assorted luggage that the locals brought along with them include a table fan wtf.

At one point, as the locals were dropped off at passing villages, there was once when a crowd (which consisted of mainly kids) suddenly took a string and ran across the bus in a feeble attempt to stop the bus. Our bus did stop anyway to drop off another local, and one of them started to pin a cheap paper-made brooch on an American man’s shirt and asked for donation (he was the other only foreigner aboard). The American was quiet, grim, and serious-looking, didn’t really find many such people while I was travelling.

Again, travelling on road through Laos offered nothing but endless green at any given viewpoint. The endless sea of foliage was inevitable – maybe a plant or two differing by location, or a flower, or a tree, but otherwise it was choking green everywhere, with the towering mountains around to boot.

Reaching Nong Khiaw some 4 hours later, I started to doubt the village. It was dusty, and nowhere near as picturesque as described until we walked further around the village. A stark difference compared to the other Laotian towns was that it was even more peaceful, serenading, and serene, if that was possible, as Laos was already quite peaceful as it was. Schoolkids (probably from a high school age) can be found volleyball outside at the school compound (thus reinforcing the belief that the kids here never study but play sports all the bloody time). Chickens, ducks, and dogs freely roamed the village.

Said first impression of the dustiness.

Walking around – dazzlingly hot.

Although we found out that the part where “electricity is only available through generators from 6pm to 10pm” was kinda false, although maybe it did ‘modernise’ over time.

Is it not fucking beautiful?

The long bridge that offered the many excellent, breathtaking vantages.

A foreigner snapped this for us.

Breathless sunset.

The sunset was setting further and I love this picture as well.

We interrupt this collection of beautiful pictures with a poser wtf.

This is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done – doing a self-timer while my camera sat upon a very narrow railing (like the one where we were leaning on in this picture). A nasty strong wind would’ve knocked my camera straight into the river, although that was unlikely.

Went back to our guesthouse, and hereby I offer you a picture of the toilet wtf. No hot shower (as expected, today marked our 2nd day of not showering as it was too cold and lazy), and this was the first time in Laos that I encountered a non-flush toilet system which I initially detested. So to flush our excreta down, you merely pour the water about two times into the bowl and it would’ve already been flushed down. Amazing.

Our rather tiny room with mosquito nets. And a fan which we didn’t need to use as it was – duh – cold.

Best landscape picture I’ve ever snapped in this entire trip – the moon being reflected in the twilight of the dusk. (Shutter speed 15sec while dangling camera precariously on aforementioned narrow railing FTW.)

And at night, we had dinner at one of the local restaurants (which was way better than the restaurant by the jetty we went for lunch at 3pm). Although we did have to wait for an hour for our food to arrive, I kid you not, the food was the most delicious we’ve ever tasted in the whole of Laos.

Us in said restaurant.

Kids playing a betting game involving slippers, and the ‘tops’ of drinking bottles.

Emo-ish pic that was initially displayed as my site banner – looked awful when enlarged.

And the night scene was just beautiful. The lack of light pollution (although there were still lights coming from what little restaurants and guesthouses and lampposts) aided this: stars peppered across the dark pitch-black sky, and I realised I missed seeing them. Siew and I stood for half an hour doing nothing but staring at the sky above us (we must’ve looked weird to passers-by), and take in the awe-inspiring image. That a simple dense black against the sparkling faint white jewels could be hauntingly beautiful. Deathly mesmerising.

We were also braving the cold coupled with the wind that kept assaulting our faces. And as we stared, Siew cried out that he saw a shooting star. Minutes later, as I was feeling a little disappointed from not being able to spot one as well, I saw a shooting star dashing vertically from top to bottom and I literally jumped around for joy.

This exhilaration, this childish excitement for seeing something normally depicted in shows or books, I clearly remembered how happy I felt. Though the shooting star merely lasted a second or two, it wasn’t something I saw everyday. It was in fact, my first (and Siew’s as well).

After shouting out loud to Siew about the shooting star, I remembered to make a wish. Silly tradition really thanks to movies and whatnot, but I breathed my wish silently to the night. Breathed the wish to be carried by the cold winds to the recipient above.

I later saw 2 more shooting stars (Siew as well, though we all saw different shooting stars). The exhilaration never quite matched the first time, but just staring into the night was enough for me, into the stars which in my mind began to develop shape and form. We even discussed the options of just lying down there and stare into the array of stars above us, as our necks were beginning to ache.

Siew said it was too bad I wasn’t a girl, and me likewise, as that was the most romantic moment on earth, but it was a night to be remembered.