The Indulgent Adventures of Bubbs and Bubs: Tubers or Tubers

Some interesting stuff has happened in the last few weeks: Megan got some flowers, we defined tubers; I understand what rabbit traps and UXO have in common; I figured out where dead race car drivers reincarnate; a monk made important predictions; muddy water, diesel gas and chicken can make you sick; and thailand suddenly seems quite sophisticated.

You probably already figured it out from the clues, but, yes indeed, we went to Laos last week. Just as aside note, why did the maker of the english language decide that Lao needed to be spelled Laos and that Lao people (who call themselves Lao-both singular and plural) need to be called Laotians. Lao doesn't even border an ocean (get it: Lao-ocean) and why add all those extra letters in? Why can't we just call it what it is called? We call people from Thailand Thai.

So Lao... it took a 12 hour bus ride, followed by a 1 hour bus ride, followed by a 15 minute Tuk-tuk ride, then another 5 minute bus-ride, then a 20 minute tuk-tuk ride, then a fun 5 hour bus ride to get there. no big deal. On the way, we passed through lots of thailand at nighttime, crossed the first bridge to go over the Mekong River, became quite confused at the border as to how one actually gets into Lao, Quickly passed through Vientiane (the Loa capital) and found ourselves quickly escaping from any sign of civilization until we arrived at our first destination of Vang Vieng.

I have to admit that I didn't know much about Lao before going there, but it appears that Lao was once colonized by the French, secretly supported by America during the Vietnam war and then just as secretly deserted and left to massive decay under the Soviet regime, then became an independent communist single party government after the fall of the wall.

The current government is still pissed at the remote hill tribes that America promised to support during and after Vietnam. In fact it regularly does sweeps and imprisons children whose families fought in the war. As recent as last year large groups of Hmong Hill tribe people give up and surrender themselves to the government for Guantanamo Bay style imprisonment.

So why would we want to go there? Because of tubers. Small potato like objects? Well, yes, but also because white backpackers have found this lovely spot called Vang Vieng where they can rent inner-tubes, buy some beers and float lazily down the river passing the day away and offending all the local people with exposed bellies. Actually, it looked kind of fun, but we were there to climb.

See, since the tubers have taken over, this area has become a tourist friendly kind of place, and since some tourists like to climb, there have been some routes established on the beautiful looking limestone that frames perfectly set valleys full of rice paddies and smiling children.

We had heard rumors of rock climbing, but didn't know too much about it. Well, as it turns out, the climbing isn't the greatest but it is set in some wonderful locations. One such location happens to be right by the river where the tubers come floating by. Because these tubers tend to wash up on the shore and need a place to restock their beer, relieve their bladders, and jump off pretty rope swings, locals have set up bars along the river. We were essentially climbing in a bar that when we got there in the morning was a pretty sleepy place. But the tubers come down in packs, and when the employees see them coming, Bob Dylan is played at high volume to attract the tuber in. Megan and I wanted to make a sighting of a tuber in action, so we'd sneak along the cliff and try to make spotting. Then the tubers, would stop, or not, and float off on their way. The music would stop, the employees fall back asleep on the tables and we'd go back to climbing. Then suddenly we'd hear Bob Marley and it would happen all over again. Oh yeah, and the climbing was chalky and not so well protected, but whatever. We got to see tubers.

At one of the climbing areas we had to bushwhack through some jungle when I was reminded of the fact that there is some ungodly amount of unexploded ordinance (UXO) nicely deposited by foreign entities (including the US) over the years. As I was pondering the thought, I saw a strange log propped up precariously with thin wire and trough dug underneath it (i know this doesn't give a good visual, but it is too hard to explain, and we didn't take a photo). After closer examination I think it was a rabbit trap, that when tripped swings a giant log into the trench. Oh how treacherous. At least it took my mind off the UXO.

After three days of climbing, exploring caves (if you don't know, caving is about the coolest thing in the entire world for me- about the uncoolest for megan), drinking Lao coffee and eating wonderful baguette sandwiches, we departed Vang Vieng for Luang Prabang. For reasons I'm still not sure about, we found ourselves sitting in a Minivan tearing off down the road towards the ancient capital of Lao. Yeah, we wanted to take the public bus, yeah we tried to get out of sitting in the two fold out seats in the minivan, yeah the road is sort of paved, yeah it is only 200 km, but no it wasn't pleasant at all. Strange really, the driver would actually accelerate when he saw that we were approaching any one of the 30 or so hilltribe villages lining the road. I think he must of figured if he just laid on his horn, put the gas pedal to the floor and swerved towards the running children, we would think the ride was that much more fun and tip him more on arrival. At one point I hear megan apologizing to the person next to her, as her fold down chair unfolded under the g-forces of the tight turn and thrust her into the lap of the sleeping german tourist. But 7 hours isn't too long and soon we arrived. Strange though, nobody did end up tipping the driver.

Luang Prabang was lovely and we wanted to stay for a few days. We did need to be back in Thailand after a few days, so we decided to suck up the price of a plane ticket. But wait, no seats available for the next 2 weeks. Therefore, we could either travel back the way we came, probably a 2 day bus voyage, or take the boat up the Mekong River to the thai border and then a 4 hour minibus home. Unfortunately, this was a 3 day option, but worth it to avoid having to backtrack. This left only one day in one of the most beautiful cities that I've been to. Luang Prabang is about the size of Bellingham, right along the Mekong and Namkham rivers, completely full of old temples and somewhat built up by the french in colonial style. We rented bicycles and rode around lazily for a day playing with kids and soaking it up. Lovely place. I'd recommend it.

But what I wouldn't recommend, is taking the boat along the Mekong for two days and getting food poisoning during the overnight stopover in Pakbeng.
There is no road that covers the 200 or so km of mekong we travelled. In fact there isn't a road anywhere within a 100 km corridor of big chunk of it. Pretty remote wilderness except for the small villages dotting the river here and there. Lovely, and for two days we soaked it all in.

So that was our trip to Laos. One thing that did surprise me was how much like coming home it felt to return to Chiang Mai. Also, how sophisticated Thailand is compared to other places such as Lao. They have paved roads here, hospitals here, coins, and quite a bit of organization when it really comes down to it. Since it felt like coming back to a modern country, I can't imagine what it will feel like to eventually show up in the states. I'm certainly not ready at this point. That is for sure.

Oh yeah, I almost left out the details on the flowers and the monk prediction. Well, Megan caught the bouquet at a friends wedding, she tried not to catch it, but it really did just end up in her arms. She tried to give it back, but couldn't. She caught the bouquet.
The monk, well we ended up talking with a nice novice monk (he was 18) for a while in Luang Prabang and he predicted that we will have a son in the next year.
Hmmmmm... fat chance.

Marshall