Sanuk: Lao Democratic People's Republic

Traveling in Laos alone turned out not to be a big deal. I felt just as safe there as in New York. Only the tuk-tuk drivers were really pushy and annoying. Thus, I rented a bicycle for the last two of the four days I was there to see the city at a slower speed.

Although its the capital, the population is only 200,000, so there are much fewer cars than in Bangkok. It was a pretty flat city, and cooler than Thailand. You could pretty much navigate without a map, there being only a couple of main streets, and the river on one edge of the city. First I rode up to the bus station to check on bus tickets to Thailand for the next day, only to find out that the bus leaves at either 2 or 4pm. The next day I needed to pick up my Visa at the Thai Embassy at 1 pm, then catch the 2 o'clock bus in order to get to Udon Thani by 6pm, so I could catch the bus to Chiang Rai.

After the bus station I looked around the "talat" or market. It had some fruit, textiles/crafts. Surprisingly Laos is more expensive than Thailand, even thought they have a lower standard of living. For this reason I figured the sooner the better that i make my way on up to Mae Sai. Later I rode my bike (which was about $2 a day to rent, or 4000 Lao Kip), east to Tat Luang; a famous temple in Laos. Unfortunately it seemed like every other temple I've seen, so I just rode my bike around the fence outside to get a view of it. Afterwards I went into the neighborhood behind it, and ordered a cold pink milk from a house-front store. It cost 20 Baht, normally in Thailand, its 5 Baht.

I did get a little bored after this and took the long way home back to the guesthouse- looping and circling around the town to get the far view of the Mekong River. Then as I pulled up to the guesthouse, Ning, one of the workers was leaving. She asked what I was up to (in Laos, but Thai is similar enough to understand), I told her I was just cruising around town, and trying to kill time until I had to leave the next day. Ning said she just got off work and also had some time to kill before she went home, and invited me to go on a bike ride with her. Of course!

She took me to the most amazing place. If you follow the river downstream for just 5 minutes or so, there is s little dirt road turn off towards the river. Follow it and it leads you to a little plank bridge over green acres of crops. It was such a stark difference from the dusty/ sandy, car filled city scenes. After the bridge the dirt road turns into a packed dirt path with kids, motorcycles, and vegetable hand carts moving along. On the left side were small houses made of wood or metal siding, then on the right side of the path was field after field of vegetables, then a steep drop to the river. Occasionally there would be a small "food stand" with tables to sit at, or a little cart selling candies and chips.

After riding on the path for 15 minutes or so we got off our bikes and walked them along the edge a garden to sit by the river cliff's edge. Although you can't really tell in the pictures, the drop is about 30 feet. Here we sat and chatted in English about Laos and Thailand, her family, tourists, and etc.

She told me that she just recently started working at the guesthouse 10 days ago. She liked it okay so far, but the bosses were really pushy and strict, and whenever they were at the guest house they made them work constantly. She thought she was the only person who didn't like them, but a co-worker was also complaining about how the annoying the bosses were. [Inner thought of Beky- I thought that it was kinda funny to hear that other people in different countries have the same problems that are in the states, I think its kinda neat to see how small the world is and how people's feelings cross over the boundaries of culture or location.]

Ning told me that she has two brothers, but both live in Thailand at the moment. One is in school studying communications, and the other one is a missionary. So i asked her if she meant a monk, or a missionary? She said: "A missionary, we're Christian." I said, "Me too!" So we talked about being a Christian in a Buddhist / communist country. Quite hard. At her Christ Church, there were only two people that currently attended. Not because of disinterest, but because about a year earlier their church meeting was busted by the police, and arrested about 10 people. Since then, everyone else was kinda scared off into coming back. She was able to go to a bible camp in Bangkok a little while ago, where she bunked with 10 other girls.

Ning doesn't have any parents, I didn't ask what happened to them.

I also felt bad when she said she was jealous of westerners (falangs) because they all had enough money to travel and go where ever they want. I tried to explain that there are also poor falangs, who are homeless or live in the streets, but its prolly hard to imagine when all you see are white people shopping all day.

After we talked by the river we rode back towards the guesthouse and went out to eat at a little bungalow style restaurant. I had some fried rice, and we both had yummy fresh pineapple smoothies.

Day 3-
Visa rush-dropped off my passport at 9 in the morning, then picked it up the next day at 1:10 in the afternoon, only to rush back to the guest house, drop off the bike and pick up my huge suitcase, catch a tuk tuk, go to the bus station to get on the bus by 2pm. I made it. It was a 2 hour ride to Udon Thani, then a 4 hour wait and play with the monkeys. At 8pm to 9am, there was a 13 hour bus ride to Chiang Rai, then at 9:15 am, a 1.5 hour bus ride to Mae Sai, then 2 motorcycles took me and my stuff to the school/volunteer center, only to be intercepted by border police who thought I was a border runner, and illegally immigrating to Thailand.

ATTENTION people who think big businesses aren’t all that bad. They are and its been confirmed. Singha Brewing and water company, illegally bought land around one of the villages we are helping out. The village used to have okay land to grow their food supply on, but Singha bought it from the ‘people’ ie. Government, and now the village has minimal land, and what they do have is being poisoned by the leaching pollutants from the brewery.

Also, its been brought to my attention that the USA is growing GMO rice and marketing it as Real Jasmine rice. (The majority of REAL jasmine rice is actually grown in Thailand), but now the USA is producing it so cheaply they’re actually trying to sell it to Thai people for cheaper than the Thai people can produce and sell it for. They’re just pulling the carpet out from underneath their feet! Its absurd. So make sure if you buy jasmine rice that it was grown in Thailand, unless you want to support cruel and heartless practices.