So heres a long overdue update - we've been in Laos for a week now and had a pretty incredible time. Its a very different culture and pace to Thailand - a little less touristy which is kinda refreshing but also just a lot less manic. It's an interesting mix of influences - the french colonial era, 30 years of communism and isolation from the rest of world, the 'secret war' CIA bombing throughout the 60s and current Thai pop culture have all left huge, really tangible imprints on the whole look and feel and mood and character of the place. Its a poor country with a lot of hurdles to overcome but you get the strong impression things are on the up here.
We started our trip here with a two day slow-boat ride down the Mekong River from Huay Xing to Luang Prabang. We'd heard a lot of mixed reports about doing this trip but we had a blast - the boat was basic but the trip was really relaxing and quite social and we got to watch countless villages and fishermen and water buffalo and cheeky kids cruise by while we kicked back and made a whole gang of new mates. Thankfully it seems we left behind the significant proportion of "We've got two weeks off work, lets go to somewhere cheap and get PISSED" style backpackers at the Thai border. (Not that I haven't drunk my fair share of Beerlao already, but thats not the point!)
Luang Prabang was pretty incredible too - the guidebook said it's a travel photographers dream, and sure enough Sonya went nuts on the old Minolta. The central city is all well-preserved french colonial architecture mixed with beautiful pristine old temples. Monks everywhere, palm trees, two rivers, hardly any traffic, stalls selling top class fresh baking (thanks frenchies), and in a refreshing change from the tourist junk that fills shops and stalls anywhere a backpacker might go in Thailand the whole town has a kind of boutiquey feel with classy little resturants and road stalls selling actually really nice jewellery and handcrafts. I mainly followed Sonya around while she took about 30 billion photos and one night we had an extremely bizarre night out at the local bowling alley where the locals gave us plenty of tips.
Right now we're in Phonsavan in the northeast - one of the areas most heavily hit in the CIA bombings of the 60s (Obviously they left Luang Prabang alone - the US-loyal King lived there). The legacy of that campaign is unbelievable - the massive amount of unexploded cluster bombs still leaves whole farming regions unusable (or more realistically extremely dangerous to work) and everyone we've met here has a brother or a cousin or a friend who has died accidently or lost a limb or two. It's quite stunning what a huge part of people's everyday lives it still is - bomb shells are used everywhere as house foundations, fireplaces and fenceposts, the market is full of tools made from melted down bombs and the hills are pock-marked with enourmous craters. We did a tour today of the Plain of Jars - hills covered in giant iron-age stone pots of unknown origin - which was incredible - but I think I was more blown away by all the remnants of that war everywhere, and our guide was more than happy to tell us all about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment