As a side note, the monks I met in Laos seemed to treat their monastic choice as a friendlier and more enlightened version of the way many less privileged Americans view our armed services (specifically, the associated college fund). In other words, it is a way to gain access to travel and educational opportunities that would otherwise be unattainable. Phra Khanthong told me about several former monks who had disrobed and gone on to establish careers and families, and he predicted he would do the same within five years. It also bears mentioning that I saw very few elderly monks in either Laos or Thailand.

Anyway, back to my original topic… I hope the developing Laos tourist industry can find the balance needed to serve both the pleasure seekers and the adventure seekers.

The rather funny dynamic this set up is that many tourists in Vientiane and Vang Viang seemed to be attempting to create for themselves the illusion that they were truly off the beaten path. They went about this mainly by trying – sometimes going to great lengths – to avoid any eye contact with other tourists. I admit that I was disappointed at first to see so many tourists, but I accepted this reality pretty quickly, and as a result I got to meet a lot of very interesting people.

The children of Laos…
They are truly beautiful – always quick to smile and wave. There is nothing in their faces that speaks of my relative prosperity (compared to their poverty). There is nothing in their eyes that suggests my presence in their country mostly means potential income. I should say that I found most of the people I encountered in Laos to be extremely warm and friendly, but as in Bali, their warmth was disingenuous just often enough to make me just a bit cynical when dealing with grownups.

Having and having not…
In general, my visits to Bali and Laos are a good reminder of how little we really need to survive, and often it’s the financially poorer communities that seem to be the richest in heart. Perhaps I digress here, but the people of Laos typically bathe twice a day – once in the morning and once in the evening. Outside of Vientiane, they bathe in rivers and streams – in full view of each other, although not in the nude. It’s a beautiful and intimate piece of real life that I was lucky enough to see. Through this daily act the people of Laos share something we think of as naturally private, while we westerners are putting wider and wider boundaries around ourselves.

charity…
Finally, it seemed a little strange to me that the ex-pats in Laos who are working for NGOs like UNICEF live in huge mansions and drive brand new SUVs.

We ended up walking for several kilometers along the river and through various back alleys of Vientiane, and he showed me his school and his temple. He also introduced me to his English teacher, a monk named Phra Khanthon.

I visited with them for a while, and the monk asked me if I would allow him to be my volunteer tour guide to Vang Viang – a village about 100km north of Vientiane and known for its beautiful landscape and numerous caves. Basically, he was asking my permission(!) to provide me with expert (and free) tour service to a scenic Laotian village, as well as a day of interesting company. It was the kind of too-good-to-be-true offer you’d never accept from anyone but a buddhist monk.

I met Phong Sawath and Phra Khanthon at 7:00 this morning, and we walked to the bus station. We boarded something called a minibus, which is really a standard Japanese pickup truck with a sort of canopy installed over the bed. Aside from the monk, the novice and me, seven others boarded the “bus” – making ten in all. Ten people may seem like it’s pushing the capacity of the back of a pickup truck, but at one point along the way, there were seventeen of us and about 25 chickens – tied in three bundles by the feet, although only about a third of them were dead. At another point, there were 26 of us (and, thankfully, no chickens). I was the only foreigner on board, for the duration.

The trip to Vang Viang took just over four hours (and cost US$1.50) , and we were not dressed for the cool wind whipping through the “bus” (I’m going to continue to put it in quotes). When we arrived in Vang Viang, however, the sun was shining and despite the higher altitude, it was already pretty hot. I was happy to have the temperature change, and I’ve never been happier to stand and stretch my legs.

We walked through the village, past the usual assortment of street vendors and curious children, to a footbridge on the outskirts. A sign told us about two caves – one at 2km and one at 6km – down the dirt path. We debated for a minute about whether to walk or hire a tuk tuk – the monk nixed the bicycle rental option – and decided to walk to the closer of the two caves.

We paid the bridge-crossing fee of 5,000 kip (US$0.50), and a little further on we paid a cave-viewing fee (another 5,000). We walked for another 600m through a dry rice field and then scrambled up a steep and boulder-filled trail. The energetic young novice led the way, and his childhood roots in Luang Prbang province suddenly became obvious. Luang Prbang is a region famous for its beautiful cliffs, caves and waterfalls, and the monk and the novice were born in neighboring villages there. Up the difficult trail, it was amazing to watch the way their feet naturally landed in all the right places without any hesitation. I eventually stopped bothering to look at the trail myself and just walked in their footsteps.

The cave itself was bigger than any I had ever explored, and the air inside was hot and damp as a sauna. At the deepest point, we turned out our lights long enough to let our eyes adjust, and we were able to make out the very faint light of the entrance.

A few minutes later, we scrambled back down and made our way back to the main trail. The novice barrelled ahead, and by the time we caught up to him at the main trail, he had stopped a tuk tuk for us to travel the remaining 5km to the other cave – which promised a swimming hole.

The tuk tuks in Vang Viang are not the sleek (ha ha) urban variety found in Bangkok and Vientiane. They are the off-road variety – chopped farm tractors pulling wagons. Having experienced one, I now call them egg scramblers, for reasons you can surely guess.

The inside of the second cave was as big as a cathedral, and indeed a reclining buddha shrine had been installed inside it. The cave air was cool and dry. We could feel it well before we entered, like the earth breathing to cure us of our second strenuous climb.

We paused inside in silence for a while and then scrambled back down to the swimming hole. The sight of two orange and yellow robed buddhists and the whited dude strolling up for a swim earned us a lot of strange looks, but the turquoise water provided the perfect cooling break.

Eventually, we hired a tuk tuk back to the village and made our way to the bus stop. There were no more minibuses back to Vientiane, so we boarded one that would take us about two-thirds of the way.

As darkness fell, I could see that the “bus” had no working tail lights, which added an extra bit of thrill to our rapid descent down the winding mountain roads – often cutting curves across the oncoming lane or breaking to avoid trucks and cars doing the same in the opposite direction.

About 3 hours later, we transferred to a large air-con bus for the rest of the way back to Vientiane, and when we stopped at Wat Yapa – the home of my buddhist friends – the monk hailed a passing motorcyclist for me. I hopped on the back of the bike for the last few miles back to my hotel, and tonight I will sleep the sleep of the buddha.

Crystal claims to hate hugs, but she’ll have to endure a few when she returns to Singapore.

Many travellers here in Vientiane are desperate to hear from friends or relatives who were in the affected areas, and although I’m overjoyed that my friends are safe, I am very sad for those who were not so lucky. Right now the estimated death toll stands at more than six times the number killed in the September 11th attacks. A natural disaster is a much different thing, of course, but I make the comparison because I have so many friends in New York City. When events like these throw themselves into our lives, it makes us realise how interconnected we are as human beings.

Finally, thank you my friends and family for you concern about my own well-being. Fortunately for me, the most harrowing and life-threatening experience I’ve had on my trip so far was largely self-inflicted: I rented a motorbike today to expand my exploratory range.

My parents will be thrilled to learn it came without a helmet, a clutch or working turn signals, and road rules here are loose to say the least. To make a left turn onto a side street, for example, the general strategy seems to be to cruise in the oncoming lane for a dozen or so meters, then cut diagonally accross the oncoming lane of the side road – swerving between the cars paused there if necessary.

Anyway, It’s the end of the day. I survived, and I’ve returned the motorbike to the shop it came from. Rest assured, I’ll stick to foot travel and public transit for the rest of my time in Vientiane. I won’t make any promises about Vietnam.

The bottom line is, celebrate and cherish life. Make your moments meaningful and you won’t have to keep your eyes peeled for tsunamis and renegade tuk tuks.

For about a dollar, I had an amazing dinner beside the Mekong River this evening. It was a kind of warm noodle salad with all kinds of vegetables, chilis, fruits and some slices of the local style pork sausage all mixed together. My beverage was a blended smoothie of fresh pineapple and orange juices. My ambiance was a dry and comfortable 77 degree (25C) evening temperature and the sun setting over the Mekong River.

My company varied. A Cambodian consultant to the local power company saw my beverage and ordered the same. I invited him to sit, and we chatted for a while – mostly about the history of the region, and in particular about Thailand’s and Vietnam’s various encroachments on Cambodia.

He left, and a Japanese woman strolled up a few minutes later. She was wearing a Razorfish t-shirt, so I took the opportunity to practice my Japanese. I told her that I worked for Razorfish, and I asked her whether she worked in our affiliated Tokyo office. Apparently, Razorfish has branched out into a kind of minor fashion label in Japan.

Anyway, the stereotype says that the Japanese travel in large camera-toting groups, but I’ve seen numerous solo Japanese tourists on this trip. Come to think of it, solo touring has been a common plot component in many of the Japanese novels I’ve read. So much for stereotypes.

If Bangkok is New York City, then Vientiane is Tucson. The capital of Laos, nicknamed the jewel of the Mekong, Vientiane stretches along a lazy bend in the Mekong River, and its small size and slow pace are a welcome relief at the moment.

I only arrived early this morning (it’s just noon now). I booked my first night at the Hotel Day Inn, and I’ve just taken my first stroll around town. I stopped into several other guest houses and hotels to check availability, room features and prices. The Day Inn sits on a quiet side street, a few blocks from the river. At US$25 a night, my corner room is large, sunny and clean, with high ceilings, large windows a nice balcony. The staff is super friendly, and the free breakfast looks like it will be good. A few other places I checked out are cheaper (US$15-20) and/or closer to the river, but I like the vibe of the Day Inn, and I think I’m content to stay there.

The transliteration of the Lao language into western characters was done by the French, and so there’s an extra layer of decoding I need to do as an English speaker if I want to attempt Lao. In French, the letter J and the combination Ch are pronounced very softly (zzh and sh), and there is no equivalent to the English “W” sound, so Vientiane, for example, is actually pronounced “Wien-Chan”.

Proper Lao pronunciation, however, doesn’t seem like something I’ll have to worry about. Eeveryone I’ve run into so far speaks very good English, and there are tourists everywhere, so I’m not anticipating much of a language barrier. The cars here are left-hand drive (like Europe and the US), and the predominant vehicle is the pickup truck, so I’m not anticipating much of a culture shock either.

All in all, Vientiane seems much more familiar – and easier – than Bangkok was, which is surprising, and somewhat bittersweet. The only challenge will be money. The local currency is the kip, but the Thai baht and the US dollar are equally, if not more, popular. When I bought a little laundry detergent in a local shop, the price was marked in kip and I paid in baht – all the while trying to calculate the value in US dollars. Now my brain hurts.