Water Slides and Spirit Guides

The quiet clatter of palm fronds in the evening breeze reminded me of Goa for a while, but soon, as the sun disappeared behind the western mountains, the similarities disappeared, the wind kicked up and the temperatures dropped dramatically, hinting perhaps at an impending storm and which is something that never happened in Goa.

The dramatic black karst limestone mountains ringing Ban Na Hin grew darker as the light faded and were it not the dry season it would be easy to believe the monsoon had arrived. I was sitting alone on the back porch of our guesthouse watching the light fade from the bottoms of the clouds and wondering absently how many pages it would take to explain how I came to be in the tiny town of Ban Na Hin, or if there even existed an explanation. Just to consider how many first dates had to work out to even produce the DNA you call home is more or less a complete reconstruction of the history of the world. But then as we walked down to Ralph’s restaurant I realized that kind of detail is best left to William T. Vollman and other prodigious folks with real publishers that deal print on real paper.

My reconstructions are limited to the last several weeks, though at times even such limited recollections feel as though they might grow ever more detailed with every reexamination, another memory daisy-chained to the back of the one that preceded it, an effort that might ultimately require several chapters. Let us start with Ralph, or, as this chapter could be called, The English are Everywhere. On the bus ride from Vientiane to Vieng Kham we met an Englishman named Ralph, or, if I were to tell the story properly I would say, at some point on the bus ride, right near the end as a matter of fact, Matt wandered off for a bathroom break and returned from the bushes with an Englishman, which, as everyone knows, is not really uncommon, in fact I believe it’s more unusual to find bushes lacking Englishman. Were I to ever climb Mt. Everest I would fully expect to arrive at the summit to see an Englishman enjoying an afternoon tea; the English are like that, wherever you go, there they are—Dr. Livingstone I presume? What’s even more curious is that often these English folks are often not tourists but simply ended up wherever they are and apparently decided returning home was more traumatic than staying. So yes, out of the bushes came Ralph who as it turned out owned a restaurant in the Ban Na Hin (its worth pointing out that he had been on our bus the whole time, but see Englishmen don’t meet each other on buses, they have to be out in foreign bushes before they notice each other).

So with Ralph’s help we were able to reach Ban Na Hin with no trouble at all and even better Ralph’s wife Bon helped organize our trip to Tham Lot Kong Lo Cave (which was the real reason we had deviated off the main road in the first place). Bon seemed happy to arrange our transport to and from the cave and also went to the trouble of calling her cousin and arranging for him to make a five hour journey up river to pick us up and take us back down the Hin Bun River to the Mekong where we could continue southward. The Hin Bun River journey was the idyllic way out of the valley, which even the guidebook said could be tricky to arrange; I didn’t have high hopes of finding a boatman, but it all worked out.

The truth is though that it started much earlier than even this. Way back in Vang Vieng. Not unlike Agatha Christie’s mystery novel Ten Little Indians people began to disappear from the group before we even left Vang Vieng. Some went back to Thailand and others on to Cambodia or Vietnam until in the end there remained only five of us, Jackie, Matt, Ofir, Debi and me. As I mentioned previously we were waiting for the Cambodian Embassy to reopen, or rather Matt, Debi and I were waiting since we had plans to head from southern Laos into Cambodia via the Mekong River. Jackie and Ofir wanted to see southern Laos, but were then headed to Vietnam and Thailand respectively.

The five of us set out for Vientiane early one morning several weeks ago. Or possibly it was less than that; time is problematic when you’re traveling. Whatever day it might have been, we reached Vientiane around noon. Vientiane is the largest city and capital of Laos, but it still manages to feel like a small town clustered beside the Mekong and looking peacefully across at the bustling Thai city, Nong Khai, on the opposite shore. Of course Vientiane has the usual amenities like internet and a wide variety of guesthouses and nicer hotels as well as a large selection of international restaurants, but for all intents and purposes it is more or less an oversized villages with houses made of concrete rather than bamboo. It is without a doubt the most laid back and relaxing capital city in the world. The only real reason we stopped for two nights in Vientiane was to renew our Laos visas and get Cambodian visas since the Mekong border in the far south is the one and only Cambodian border crossing that doesn’t offer a visa on entry (I have since heard on good authority that the Cambodian border does now offer visas, but better to be on the safe side).

After dropping our passports at the various agencies Matt and Debi and I went to the Laos National Museum. The National Museum was an interesting mix of natural history and political ideology. The highlight for me was getting to see the largest of the stone Jars that dot the Plain of Jars just outside Phonsavan, an area I originally wanted to go to, but ended up skipping out of sloth. The highlight for Matt and Debi was the signage in the political history area which constantly referred to “the Imperialist Americans and their puppet soldiers.” Naturally I had to travel to the National Museum of the one country that Britain never colonized in the company of two Londoners. But I am winning on the “are-they-yours-or-are-they-mine” game that Matt and I came up with, which consists in finding the silliest looking, idiotic dressed or just generally annoying tourists and finding out whether they are British or American, because they invariably are one or the other. I am happy to report that the score is thus far 3-6, though I am willing to concede that since only 6% of the America population actually holds a passport, I do have a distinct advantage in the game.

Other than the beating I took on the propaganda, the National Museum was surprisingly informative about the history of Laos and maybe the only place in the world where the French and Americans get lumped together as indistinguishable imperialists. The interesting thing is not one Lao person, even those that I knew are old enough to have been alive when American (and possibly even French) bombs were falling seem to care that I am American, which is a distinct contrast to some stories I have heard of both Americans and Canadians being insulted and spit on by the Vietnamese (why the Canadians got such ill treatment is a mystery, maybe they’re guilty by proximate geography or something).

Both nights we ate dinner at the food venders along the banks of the river gorging ourselves on grilled pork ribs and plenty of laap, the national dish of Laos, or at least it should be, though truthfully it may be the only dish of Laos. In either case it’s usually pretty good, mint, basil, chili and lime mixed with either chicken, pork, beef or, when by a river, fish. The second night in Vientiane we said goodbye to Debi whose foot still had not healed and was told by the Australian Clinic to go to Bangkok and seek, as they put it, “proper medical attention.” Laos is not totally backward, though it is fairly primitive in some areas, medicine being one of them. The general consensus among travelers is that if you injure yourself in Laos, you go to Thailand. Or just amputate, whatever you prefer. Debi apparently wanted to keep her foot attached to her leg so she booked an early morning flight to Bangkok while the rest of us caught the bus south with the vague idea that we would get off in a small town named Vieng Kham and then catch a truck to the even smaller town of Ban Na Hin. Ralph and Bon made the journey simpler than we thought and even cooked us up some dinner at their restaurant.

In fact we liked Ban Na Hin so much we decided to stay an extra night and spend an afternoon hiking to a waterfall. Unfortunately as previous mentioned, this is the dry season and in many places Laos looks more like Africa than the jungle you might envision, and the waterfall was no exception, trickling over the cliff with little more power than a gibbon with a full bladder. So it was that I found myself back early, showered and city on the back porch watching the sky, listening to breeze and waiting for the others.

Konglor Cave

Though mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebooks it seemed few people deviated from route 13 on their way from Vientiane to Pakse in the south, indeed in the four days we were in the Ban Ha Hin/Konglor Cave area we saw one other western tourist, Andy from Scotland who was traveling by motorcycle toward Vietnam. I would not say we were off the beaten path, but we were at the very least lucky enough to feel like we off the beaten path.

Our journey began the next morning after knocking back an English breakfast at Ralph’s restaurant. We were picked up by a sawngthaew, piling in with a dozen or so Lao people and a few bags of rice, the odd chicken and duck here and there, all in all a full load. The road, if it may be called that, which heads south from Ban Na Hin to the cave was every bit the torturous, bumpy, dusty experience we all knew it would be, but somehow having travel live up to your worst fears does not make it any easier to bear the bone-jarring, ass-numbing roller coaster ride on wooden planks. The best part was we already knew we would have to repeat the trip the next morning to catch the boat.

Despite the rough ride the scenery was spectacular and there is nothing like careening across a dried up rice paddy with the afternoon light playing across the distant trees and limestone cliffs to make you feel like yes, finally I have made it out there, whatever out there may mean. After roughly four perhaps five hours, we finally made it to the small village of Konglor where we would be spending the night with a host family. But before we had time to do much more than drop off the bags and grab a bowl of noodle soup, we were ushered down to the river and immediately set off for the cave. We were trying to make the trip through to the other side, see the hidden valley and make it back before nightfall so there wasn’t a lot of time it linger.

As would happen for the remainder of the time Matt and I traveled with her, the villagers immediately assumed he was her husband (later, in other places they would variously assume I was her husband); we decided without much debate to just leave it alone, since explaining cultural differences in broken English, French and Laos would be more confusing than just rolling with it. The idea that an unmarried woman would travel with three men is apparently unfathomable for the Lao. So it was that Matt and Jackie piled into one canoe and Ofir and I in the other and we set off down the river toward the cave.

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting the cave to be like, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how absolutely massive it would be inside. According to Lonely Planet it’s about 150 meters at its widest and about as high at its tallest. There were several places where the river was too low and we had to get out and wade while the guides carried the boats over various rapids and rocks, but then at other times my headlamp disappeared into to water that seemed like it may well have been 150 meters deep. When I talked to Ralph about it later he said that no one has any idea how deep it is in some spots and the large cavern where we stopped to look at some stalactites and stalagmites has been extensively explored but no end yet found. If you happen to be into spelunking and such, this is definitely the place for you.

On the far side of the cave from the village is a huge hidden valley ringed on all sides by karst limestone ridges. The water level was not high enough, nor was there enough daylight left, to go very far into the valley, but we did stop at the first village and enjoy some warm sodas and played with the local children. The sodas and everything else that the village gets that isn’t grown by them must come like we did, through the cave. The surrounding ridges are impassible to all but the hardiest of climbers and for all intents and purposes impenetrable. The tribal people that live here came through to escape persecution at various times in their history and so far it has proved entirely successful.

After taking some pictures and sharing them with the local children (the digital camera is a boon to the language barrier the world over, snap, display, laugh, etc), we piled back in the boats and set off. The boat Ofir and I were in was decidedly slower than the other and we were soon alone in the darkness of the cave, this time without the light of the other boat in the distance. But being the slow boat was actually quite nice since when we finally came out the other side of the cave the sunset was in full swing and as we headed upstream the local people were just wading out into the water and beginning to cast their nets looking for tomorrow’s food.

Back at the stilt home where we were staying Ofir and I had dinner with our host family, sticky rice and an omelet with some instant noodles (for whatever reason in Laos, instant ramen noodles are regarded as a delicacy, I think more for the ease with which they can be prepared than for the taste, but many a restaurant proudly advertises “instant noodles here”). The dinner conversation was, well, it was non-existent since our Laos was probably better than their English, but we managed to convey a few ideas through hand gestures and some consolation with the back of the guidebook. After dinner Ofir and I went out to explore the village and maybe stumble across a cold Beer Lao, which we managed to find and again endured the awkwardness of impenetrable language barriers. I have managed to pick up a little Lao, I can count to ten, order food, say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, you’re welcome, how much, and more of these sorts of things, but nothing approaching conversation. But the Laos people seemed quite happy to talk amongst themselves and watch us drink our beer. We already knew it would be an early night; Lao villagers go to bed around eight pm, which was just as well since we had to get back in the truck at six AM.

I lay in bed for a while with my headphones on, listening to music and thinking about life in Lao villages. I was trying to go over our actions of the last few hours and make sure that we had not offended anyone; the majority of villages in central and south Laos are animists and believe in spirits, the most important of which is often the house spirit. Consequently there are a number of things listed in the Lonely Planet book that one ought not to do inside a villager’s house. For instance clapping is big no-no and will likely result in the slaughter of a buffalo to appease the offended spirits, which is something the villagers can’t afford and certainly don’t want to do. I’m not sure how intact these beliefs still are given the prevalence of satellite television in Laos (yes even the smallest villages the first thing they do when the get electricity is not refrigeration, it’s television), but I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of any buffalo.

According to Ralph, and I relate this as purely anecdotal evidence, shortly after the quake that triggered the tsunami there was a residual quake somewhere in the mountains north and here and it would seem that some sort of large fissure opened up and for the better part of the day the river was swallowed by the earth. The villagers were naturally freaked out by having their livelihood disappear and after gathering the stranded, beached fish they promptly sacrificed a buffalo. One hour later the water begin to refill the riverbed and within the week the river was back to normal. So perhaps their faith in the spirits is understandably quite intact.

There is a saying in Southeast Asia that the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow. I’m not exactly sure what this is getting at since I haven’t been to Vietnam or Cambodia, but I think the gist of what it’s saying is that the Lao are very very relaxed. And please don’t confuse relaxed with lazy; when there is work to be done the Lao do it, but they do it at a Lao pace and according to what everyone who visits comes to refer to as “Lao time,” distinctly slower and more relaxed than western time, Lao time accords plenty of the day to having fun. As Ralph said, when the Lao want to build a house they first have a party, when they get done building the house, they have another party. But it isn’t that they don’t want to build the house, they just seem to recognize that life is in some sense, or is for them anyway, much more of a relaxed, fun-filled experience than for many of us in the west with all our so-called modern worries. I don’t know how long it will be before the Lao start to adopt such western worries, or even if they ever will, but let us hope it is no time soon.

Its easy to see why communism is popular here, the Laos are essentially communist without the ideology, which is not to say that the ideology does not get in the way or that there is none of the usual corruption, of course there is that, but it is no worse than the States. For instance several Lao have complained to us that the hill tribes are being driven out of the mountains and down to the river plains so that the government can award illegal contracts to Vietnamese logging companies which then clear-cut the hills. But the people themselves in their everyday actions are close to what Karl Marx wrote about than anything I have ever seen elsewhere. Or perhaps really they are closer to what Rousseau wanted the ideal pre-civilized man to be; except that the Laos are highly civilized and yet they retain a spirit of community that simple does not exist in the west.

And they do so without being tight lipped or exclusive, the Laos are in fact probably friendlier and even more inviting than the Indians. I’m not going to pretend to understand Lao culture, nor pretend I have been a part of it, but if you are walking down the street you will be inundated with calls of sabaai-dii (hello) from small children, babies perched in their parents arms, old women smoking cheroot, school children walking home in uniforms, teenagers on bikes, middle-aged Lao eager to practice their English and always excited to teach you some Lao. Late at night there is always someone willing to break the law, sell you a little Beer Lao and try to communicate through a mixture of all languages including the most universal—excitement. Of all the places I have been Laos would be top of the list for a return trip; perhaps it is after all really just a matter or listening to rice grow.

The next morning we awoke at five and walked down to the river to watch the sunrise as the women gathered water in buckets and the children splashed on the banks. Ofir and I then had a quick breakfast with our host family, after which, despite some harsh sounding words from the sawngthaew driver, our hosts preformed what is know as a Baci ceremony. We held a boiled egg and a bit of sticky rice in our right hand while the host waved their hands over ours, saying prayers and offering the rice to the spirits in exchange for luck. The ceremony ended with a simple pieced of string tied about our wrists. Because he was able to speak some French with the other host family, we later learned from Matt that the string brings the luck and blessing of the spirits with you on your journey. Say what you will of animism or any other primitivism spirituality, we have had extraordinary luck ever since those simple pieces of string were tied around our wrist.

Many thanks to Bon and Ralph as well as Bon’s cousin and all the others who helped us see the Hin Bun River Valley and welcomed us into their homes.