Days in Laos: Creeping along the Thai Border

Thakkaek:

"Thailand is so close from this city. You just need to cross the river. Have you ever been there?"

"O yes, many times", the boy at the hostel said excitedly, "A lot of people cross the river and sneak into Thailand. It has more jobs."

"Did you enter legally or did you also sneak into Thailand secretly?"

"I don't have passport. I crossed the border on a boat. I worked in Nakhom Phanom in a shop for a couple of months, then I came back."

I wanted to ask him so many questions about the whole process of going back and forth. 

Then we started discussing the situation of drugs and stuff in Laos.

"Most people go to Thailand to sell drugs there."

"What if you are caught?"

"The police will beat you and put you in jail. But if you are caught without drugs, the police will beat you up and send you back to Laos."

Another guy came to us with the room keys. Knackered and spiritless, I left for my room. Our conversation ended there. 

I reached Thakkaek at night after an interminable journey. While having dinner along riverside, I saw Thailand for the first time. It was right there across the river. Its streets were lined with street lamps, and cars zinged on its roads. The sight of the city instantly incited in me an urge to visit there and spend some time in basic luxuries of the place. I quelled my impulsive desire to cross the border and headed to Pakse - a beautiful place nestled in the hills of Bolaven Plateau.

Pakse:

Pakse was an absolute delight. I found a newly built hostel which has marvelous rooms at dirt cheap price. I was the only one staying in the whole hostel. Apart from traveling, I did a lot of reading here. 

It was in Pakse did I realize that I could not enter Thailand overland when I was deported back into Laos. My re-entry back in Laos was smoother than the exit. My exit stamp was repealed and I even got my exit fee back! At this point I was really itching for some city life. 

I found an Indian restaurant with an Indian owner here. For days, I just had Indian food which made my life even more comfortable. The owner came from Chennai but could speak fluent Hindi. He had spent nineteen years in Laos. He had two sons who had been brought up in Laos itself. He seemed to have mingled comfortably with the local populace. His dad had come to Vietnam long ago and opened a restaurant there. He then decided to do the same in Laos.

After having given up on an almost improbable trip, I decided to go to Savannakhet, the nearest border town from Pakse.

Savannakhet:

I originally came to Savannakhet to apply for Thai visa since I was not given a visa on arrival (so much for holding an Indian passport). I realized getting a Thai visa was even less economical than taking a flight to BKK. I liked Savannakhet since it had its name derived from Sanskrit (Suvarna-Khet, meaning golden land). It was an extraordinarily dull city. It had a marvelous riverside which was the highlight of the place.

Savannakhet is probably the second biggest city in Laos after Vientiane. The riverside had a few tourist attractions which I had totally given up on. A few people could speak French due to its history. They formed the richer upper class in the communist Laos. 

I liked going to a cozy, relatively posh cafe near my place owned by a Laotian couple who could speak English and French fluently. They used to remind me of an old man I met in Luang Prabang. He fled to France during the US-Vietnam war where he raised his kids. All his kids stayed in France, but he came back because of his attachment with Laos. He had a small shop in front of his house which served breakfast. His wife and he apparently lived a comfortable life in that beautiful city. His eyes would gleam with pride and a smile drew contours on his face every time he mentioned his children.

In the end I decided to take a flight to Bangkok reluctantly. If there was some part of Thailand I wanted to see, it was the lesser known edge along the Lao-Thai border. But I missed it due to lack of time and money. 

On my last day in Laos, I walked for an hour to the airport with all my luggage. When I reached the airport, I found it was closed. Except for me, there was no one around, not even security! Nothing was locked, I could even take a walk on the runway if I wanted to. I dumped my luggage and roamed around in parts I wouldn't have been allowed to otherwise.

After about three hours, I left Laos!

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A Chronicle of Running

Constant downpour and glum weather had frazzled me badly. I can't stress it enough - I _need_ to be outdoors to keep my spirits up and senses ticking, and that's exactly what I couldn't do in this weather. Fortunately, the sky grudgingly offered some sunshine over the weekend. And I did what I do best - go running outdoors. 

I ran along the riverside for the first time - it's a gorgeous stretch of parks, meadows and lush foliage on one side. The opposite side offers sweeping views of 新北市 and of mountains girding the city. Pumped up, I ran faster and longer than usual with a couple of stops in between and very proudly ended up with sore calves.

I am no great runner, but I can run much faster now than I did nine months ago when I left Singapore. And I made most of my progress in the past two to three months, thanks to the cold weather.

My first run in the post-employment itinerant phase was in Seoul. I participated in a free 10 km running event organized by Seoul Flyers. The location was a well paved riverfront along Han river. It was spring in full bloom, and the entire run was as smooth and calming as morning breeze. It took me an effortless forty five minutes, but later in the day my latent IT band injury resurfaced, and I limped badly for the next two days.

During the three weeks I spent in Laos, I went running just one day. It was different world, and I was more in awe of the place than usual. I spent some of the most intense, and some of the laziest days there. The day I went running in Nong Khiaow I had to constantly dodge vehicles on the road, and when I agreed to put up with that mild annoyance I was chased by a bunch of xenophobic canines. So much for a run.

Thailand was a big flop. I had a presentiment of it being banally touristy, and it came true. I recoiled in Bangkok, and spent time touring lavish malls of Sukhumvit and reading in spare time. Koh Samui was much nicer and it had the much needed space and nature. After weeks of torpidity, I swam in the choppy water and then ran on the beach barefoot. It was nothing less than a transporting experience, and it was one of the few memorable experiences I had in Thailand. This was Lamai beach, I tried running again at Bophut or BangRak beach, but it turned out to be too rocky to run. In spite of all the tawdry commercialization, the beaches in Thailand are heavenly!

Xiamen is a coastal city renowned for its university and its marathon. It's unlike any other city I have been to in China, and its neighborhoods resemble Taiwan more than China. It has a LOOONG stretch of beach that starts from 下大 which has been very efficiently decorated. The concrete pavement is meters away from the water, and sits on an elevated land. That's where I ran. And after a long time did I run for more than an hour. 

All these running drills were sporadic and non-incremental. Then came a phase of two months or more when I hardly ran. A big jump then came in November when I went to Nepal.

Nepal is the only place other than Laos where I spent days in a different state of mind. I spent a month in a mountain town nestled among giant hills. In this one month I tried my best to eradicate all randomness from my schedule, and took incremental steps for my fitness and career both. I used to go running early morning in the biting cold on a fixed path that ran along a scenic lake for a fixed distance. My run ended on top of a small hill that overlooked the lake, the town and a landing spot for para-gliders wafting gracefully in the air. On weekends, I used to hike up a mountain, trying to go as fast as possible. This was the month when my fitness went up a notch. I spent a long time working out, and I was totally enjoying the intensity of my lifestyle.

While I tick 'running 5k in less than 20 mins' off my list, I jot down new goals. I go running in a stadium nearby, and usually it stays as the highlight of the day. Currently my progress is highly incremental in nature, and I guess it will take a while before I hit another plateau. It just compounds the kick I get out of running including the little quanta of joy I feel while writing about it.

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Trips that never happened - Sekong in Laos

Aside the regular sightseeing, there were two things I particularly wanted to see in Laos - 

i) the opium fields (that I thought were) flourishing somewhere in hidden vales of northern uplands, and
ii) clearing the land of UXOs.

I didn't read much about Un-Xploded Ordnance (UXO) ridden fields until I reached Pakse. I intended to get some sketchy info on this but soon the topic piqued my interest. I delved deeper and scouring the web became rather discursive as I read about Hmong tribes, coup attempts, Indo-China wars and recent changes in government polities. 

A few decades ago the US rained oodles of different explosives on Laos many of which failed to explode. Some of these UXOs are occasionally discovered by locals who tamper with them recklessly and usually end up grievously injured or dead. The most common of these UXOs is cluster ammunitions or bombies. The touristy areas in Laos have been cleared of UXOs, but the least developed areas of the country still remain blighted with them. 

Sekong is a province in southern Laos - it is one of the most inaccessible areas of Laos, and one of the few areas still infested with UXOs. It hard to dig out much information about the place. Towing the line of generality, a few tourism websites call it utterly beautiful. The area is indeed rugged, rivers and waterfalls sprawl out, and its rustic way of life has hardly been affected by extraneous developments. Most months of the year don't see the road leading to Sekong town, and it becomes a herculean attempt to reach the place in rainy season.

I was in Pakse when I was reading all this. Sekong is a day's bumpy bus ride from Pakse. I was nearing the end of my third week in Laos and I had about a week left before my visa expired. I was weighing my options.

Phoenix Clearance Limited (PCL) is a company from NZ that specializes in clearing unexploded bombs. It has a strong presence in Laos, particularly Sekong. I wanted to see how they cleared the UXOs. Recently Laos government has curtailed the transparency of all UXO related activities. All the volunteering activities to help the victims of UXOs have been terminated. Skimming the web, I came across the account of one brave lady who has been covering the Ho Chi Minh trail and other areas on a frail bike. She writes down her escapades by the name of 'The Itinerant' on Facebook. I don't know how she did it, but I think she volunteered with MAG in UXO clearing in Laos. Other than that, I couldn't find any personal account of someone having been there during my rather perfunctory search.

A little spurred after all this reading, I decided to take a bus to Sekong the next morning. I was sober enough the next morning to think about the practicalities of making such a trip. I talked to a guy while having breakfast. He reaffirmed the route was nefarious in the least. I had to buy inventory to deal with inclement weather and hazardous insects. It was the month of May; it was rainy season at its peak.

I desperately wanted to be there - a world left behind in time, still trying to convalesce from a decades old devastating attack, discreetly cooped in a corner of the country, and forgotten by the world.

Of all the countries that I visited in Asia, Laos haunts me the most. It certainly lacks in creature comforts but its rugged landscape and antediluvian human settlements make up for it. I am not sure if or when I will visit Laos again, but if and when I do, this is one trip I will have to make.

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Northern Laos - Mekong and the mountains

Those rivers were more than just masses of flowing water, and those mountains were more than just inanimate limestone erections.

It was beauty in its most rugged form, untouched by placid strokes of nature and unharmed by human civilization. It didn't have the smoothness of those sloping hills covered with rows of pines. It's creation was planned by disorder and shaped by chaos.

I took a boat ride from Nong Khiaow to Muang Ngoi - both sleepy touristy villages snuggled in lush green foothills of giant mountains. I could only watch in awe the towering mountains as our boat paced irregularly on the choppy waters of Nam Ou. The chugging sound of engine echoed in the mountains that flanked the river.

Sunset as seen from Muang Ngoi

Mountains near Nong Khaiow

The landscape did more than just holding you in awe. It piqued your curiosity and triggered your imagination. The mountains were riddled with caves and covered with forests. It insulated from our mundane existence a hidden world full of deep dark secrets. It was a world where sprites dwelled and dervishes danced, where wisents still grazed and humans still hunted. Whatever there was beneath those trees or inside those caves, it was something that could only be seen in figments of your imagination.

Stalwart peaks inVang Vieng, There are numerous caves and creeks inside.

A brook near one of the caves

I kayaked in Nam Song the shores of which serve the town of Vang Vieng. Mountains here weren't as dense as in the north. Vast plains separated the vertical cliffs but their magnificence didn't diminish against the distance. These mountains were riddled with numerous caves, many of them massive. Most caves had a rivulet in proximity where it was possible to swim. At many points the banks of the Nam Song were several feet higher than the water level which tunneled your vision. It was a cloudy day. All I could see was the weak currents of river and cloud capped cliffs.

View from one of the rooms I stayed in, Vang Vieng

When I was in Luang Prabang, I spent all of the evenings walking/sitting along the banks of Mekong. The river sprawled wide in Luang Prabang. Its immutable flow of water made no sound. A few minutes after sunset darkness gobbled up the whole river. Green mountains turned into dark silhouettes. Faint lights from obscure houses on the mountains shone like sequins on a dark cloth. Mellow buffets of wind caressed the water which made the reflection of those lights quiver on the surface. Time came to a standstill. There was nothing to worry about, no past grudges, no future commitments. 

Things were more than just physical things. I was more than just a human being. Those rivers were more than just rivers. Those mountains were more than just mountains.

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Southern Laos - pockets of nothingness while in transit

[Rather than detailing a spectacular view or an unforgettable activity, this is an attempt to share my experience of transiting between two places while traveling in Laos. It's certainly not as glamorous as bountiful descriptions of well known touristy hotspots but it deserves a place somewhere as it occupies a lot of your travel time and more often than not gives you a better toehold on local life.]

The mountains have vanished and the landscape outside is a constant drone of level land. Hot and sunny weather intensifies the humdrum of journey. I am traveling from Thakkaek to Pakse, a distance of two hundred kms which will be covered in eight painstaking hours. Three days ago I had arrived in Vientiane - arguably the dullest country capital in the world, to apply for Chinese visa in the embassy there. In the morning I had decided to move to a cleaner and better hostel; in the next two hours I was sitting in a bus bound to Thakkaek. An hour was enough to check out the flight prices, sketch a new itinerary to visit China and Taiwan, and get out of Vientiane as soon as possible. 

Thakkaek: Skimming the web about this place gives you an idea how unremarkable the place is. It's upshot is lack of cheap and clean places to stay, but the situation turned out to be grimmer than expected. With a few other tourists, I went to this particular guesthouse a little out of the town. Shaking our heads disappointedly we left the place to find something better in the town, only to come back after a couple of hours, tired and battered. The receptionist pointed at us and laughed hard before he let us in. 

The town is situated on the bank of river Mekong, and riverside is a beautiful place to spend evenings and nights. While we were having dinner on the riverside, the city on the other side of the river looked brighter, busier and well constructed. We later realized it's Thailand (Nakhon Phanom to be precise, formerly a part of Lao). For a long stretch Mekong acts as a border between Thailand and Laos. As I expected, intrusion into Thailand from Laos is very common. A local guy sitting at the reception recounted some interesting incidents of the frequent incursion. People carrying cheaply obtained weed wade across the river and slip into Thailand where it's sold at a higher price. Intruders are occasionally caught and sent back to Laos after getting a nasty beating on their patootie and paying a bribe. If they are caught with narcotics, they're (unsurprisingly) jailed. Dissembling as a Thai, the guy himself had worked illegally in Thailand for six months.

Thakkaek acts as a base for the Motorcycle loop and Kong Lor cave. Like Vietnam, traveling from A to B in Laos is expensive and tedious. So I quelled my desire to visit the magnificent cave and decided to go cross over to Thailand the next morning. 

The next morning: I am in a bus bound to Pakse, a big city (by Laotian standard) which acts as a base for exploring Bolaven plateau. Shelving my plan to leave Laos, I decided early morning to cross the border from Pakse after visiting much praised Bolaven plateau. Southern Laos is less craggy than Northern Laos and while a few places might possess staggering beauty, traveling across cities doesn't offer sweeping views of landscapes. So here I am, witnessing a prosaic countryside sitting in a bus driven by a person who is not intent on arriving at the destination at all. He doesn't hesitate to stop at every other bend or shop, and the bus trundles down the road most unwillingly.

Laos is a small country but with ill-equipped and limited transportation, journeys consume a lot of your time. And in my experience, you meet more people during traveling than you meet staying in a hostel. A  vast majority of travelers are European/American students who have graduated. It doesn't happen very often but I feel a quick connection when I meet someone who also quit his/her job to take a break from work. And even less frequent is when you meet someone with whom you can have a conversation that goes deeper than just sharing itineraries and exchanging extended introductions. And it's a delightful detour from the generalized idea of backpacking when it happens. 

Pakse: I get off the tuktuk in Pakse and the first thing I spot is an Indian food restaurant. I have come to believe there exists no place on earth that is touted as a tourist hotspot and doesn't serve Indian food. Traffic lights and coffee shops are signs of a well developed place. Mountains can be seen  struggling for existence far away in the backdrop. There's hardly anything to do in the city itself but it has a certain positive vibe and is a good relief from monotony of Vientiane and unremarkable character of Thakkaek. I have found a good room at a reasonable price. 

It's finally begun to rain after a hot and ridiculously humid day. I am going to give a premature ending to this post to enjoy the weather outside. The loamy odor from the first few droplets wetting the ground is too inviting to resist. 

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Nong Khiaow - a tropic beauty

Imagine a place nestled in mountains which has all the ingredients of an idyllic landscape - a river snaking its way through foothills of magnificent thickly forested hills, a small village that's little more than thatched or tin roofed houses, and a pace of life that almost drags to a standstill. Add a few creature comforts for tourists and that's Nong Khiaow for you.

A stalwart limestone crag fronts my room, the grandeur of which never ceases to hold me in awe. As I write, I can see clouds wafting slowly below the cliff's peak, rubbing against its furrowed exterior; some of them have snuggled into the cliff's crevices and nooks. At its foothill is river Nam Ou that flows incessantly without making even the slightest sound.

In the snail paced way of life here dwells oodles of peace and calm which relaxes your mind and caresses your senses like the salving effect of an emollient on a parched skin. It feels as if you have been put back in the rhythm of nature, as if the elements that keep your body ticking have found  resonance with the elements of nature.

Evenings here are just magical - the soft evening sunlight compounds the beauty of this place. It feels you are viewing the world through shades of sepia and sienna. The golden tinge adds to the antiquated look of the village and it's not hard to feel nostalgia creeping in. The river tinsels in sunlight as the sun rays sway over running waves of water. A boat leaves a gentle wake behind as it elegantly chisels the water surface, and sun rays twinkle when they are reflected from the backwash as if cheering in happiness. As you watch the setting sun cast a shadow of craggy mountains on Nam Ou, you wish that you could bring time to a stop.

Sunset (as seen from Muang Ngoi)

Nights here are mystic - there's hardly any trace of human activity after ten. On a clear night the sky turns into a treasure trove for stargazers and offers profound glimpse of the astral bodies that spangle it. Stars are visible till as far as the horizon. It only needs a little power of imagination to connect the dots into any desired shape. The pitch darkness absorbs all mellow sounds of wind, rustle or clatter. Geckos cry, crickets shriek and unknown birds shout in strange voices which pierce the darkness unabashed.

It's days like these when all you do is attend to your very primal urges of hunger and sleep yet you feel most civilized, when you think of nothing yet you understand everything, and when you do nothing at all yet it's a time of your life very well spent.

[I have spent probably the laziest days of my life here. The place is very cheap and has incredibly good food (even for a vegetarian like me). Even more surprisingly, in the little known place in the middle of nowhere, a place so small that it can be covered on foot in less than twenty minutes, there are three Indian food restaurants. I spend my days eating, reading, writing, taking long walks, staring at the landscapes absorbing the vibes and occasionally working on my fitness. Afternoons are very hot and probably the least pleasant part of the whole day. And only in the afternoons do I feel a little bit down. For those looking for some kind of activity, this place offers various tours and activities, but not a lot of people opt for it. Unexploded ordinances (UXOs) are a common sight here - they serve as flower pots, chisels or just souvenirs of a sad past, aptly decorating the gardens or people's backyards. I can foresee this place will lose its charm soon as it transforms into a touristy haven. There's a very similar place nearby called Muang Ngoi which is as beautiful, but a little more congested. I have gone into a state of tranquility and serenity here. I have spent four days here and plan to spend a couple of more. It will take a while before I even feel like I might get bored in this place.]

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