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Vang Vieng Trip!

I finally had my I-love-Laos moment this weekend when the group finished the 5-week orientation and left for a weekend trip to Vang Vieng. While I seriously hate travelling in large groups (I’m the person that gets impatient and leaves without people), the fact that there were so many of us meant that it ended up being really easy to split into groups and get things done.

Vang Vieng is a little town nestled in a valley between the iconic green limestone cliffs that you often see pictures of in Vietnam and Thailand. The Nam Song River runs right through it and people can kayak, tube, and whitewater raft. While it definitely has a bit of a touristy young white people vibe that can be a little obnoxious, it’s the off-season for tourism so it was pretty empty. Additionally, Laos is no Thailand for tourism (yet), so you just simply don’t get the masses of young bro-y tourists that you get in places like Bangkok and the islands down south.

On the first day WE DID A HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE FOR SUNRISE that was a really amazing experience. When we got there, the balloon guys were super running on Lao time, meaning that when we got there we got to actually watch them set it up which made NO ONE feel good about getting in it. We watched them get out an old wooden basket with, I kid you not, an old metal stretcher (like you carry an injured person on) attached to the top. We got to watch them roll out the balloon and hold a giant old fan at the opening to blow the thing up.

When we got in however, it was a really smooth, really beautiful ride. Vang Vieng is stunning from above, and it was quiet, peaceful, and cool that early in the morning. One of the coolest parts was that there was a meter attached to the basket that showed us elevation and time. At one point, we saw that we were actually descending at 7 feet per second, which it definitely didn’t feel like.

The way down was HYSTERICAL. As we descended, a group of men all sitting in the bed of a truck chased us around from the ground on different roads, ready to snag us when we were ready to land. It became clear that we were just going to touch down wherever – not on the runway that we left off from. When the men saw that we weren’t going to land somewhere, they all jumped back in the truck and sped off at full speed looking up at us and following. When we finally cruised in for a landing, the balloon guy dropped a rope down to the men who grabbed onto it like tug-of-war and dug in their heels to pull us down. Unfortunately, they weren’t quite strong enough to stop our momentum, and we legit cruised down DIRECTLY towards a small river/creek while everyone was like uhhhhh this is happening, and Kyle yelled – DUDE IF WE LAND IN THIS RIVER I’M BAILING! We landed tipped on the bank with one side of the balloon dipped into the water. Immediately the fire blew and we lifted back off the ground and settled next to it, but we all were dying with laughter and saying DUDE WTF JUST HAPPENED. Southeast Asia, I love you.

After a nap we rented dune buggies and zoomed around the jungle on SUPER muddy roads, flooring it through deep puddles so that the water washed up, completely submerging the ENTIRE buggy and COVERING you head to toe with red mud. It was SO fun. We cruised around to three different blue lagoons, which were big swimming holes with platforms and trees to jump off of. We did that all day, swimming in each hole, having a beer, and then jumping back in the buggies to get covered in mud again. I have NEVER been more covered in mud in my life. We also hiked around a huge cave at one of the lagoons! Check out all the pics below!

The next day, Kyle, Claire, Lauren, Rachel, Joe and I went to the river and rented kayaks. It was really relaxing and really, really beautiful – a nice follow up to a high-adrenaline day zooming around the jungle. The Southeast Asia vibe of low accountability and safety standards meant that a guy pulled out kayaks, said, “Here is your pole, paddle with it. Watch out for rocks because they are there, if you fall in put your feet down river. Okay have fun!”. No waiver, no practice, no real safety tips, just a nudge out the door. Which, of course, suits me perfectly. I don’t like a lot of instruction, I just wanna jump in and learn by doing. The kayaking was amazing.

Near the end we asked the dude if we could go back up and float the river again on tubes, which he agreed to. At the end, we got out of the kayaks, jumped back in the truck, and he drove us back up to the put-in spot at the top of the river again.

This turned out to be a bit of a mistake. I definitely a moment of understanding about my own mortality while tubing when we realized that the water was just too high and too fast for tubes. Within the first minute, we had been pushed off towards the river bank by the current where I was knocked off my tube by a low-hanging branch. Because we were all just holding onto a rope to keep us together (our tubes weren’t physically tied together), my tube was no longer attached to anything, and got washed away in a different direction meaning that I had no way to get out of the water. I was wearing a life jacket, but the water was really, really fast, so I grabbed onto one of there tubes to make sure I stayed with the group. I was calm and didn’t panic, and was actually laughing and finding the situation pretty funny until all of the sudden, I felt my left leg nail a huge rock underwater that was completely hidden. My whole left leg up to my high inner thigh got hit really hard, which was pretty painful. I immediately tried to pull my leg out of the water and saw that I had three scratches all down my inner leg basically from my groin to my knee, one of which was big and bleeding. All of this was taking place while I was hanging onto the edge of a tube and fully submerged in the rushing water. At this point, it immediately became not funny and I felt really scared. I couldn’t see anything underwater (it was brown), and we were rushing along a really fast rate with no tube for me to climb back into, and no way to get out of the water. As we zoomed along, I was terrified about what else was underwater and where there may be rocks. Also, I knew there were rapids coming up ahead of us because we had just kayaked it. It sucked. After about 2 full minutes of hanging onto the edge of Kyle’s tube (and trying to climb into it with him multiple times and failing), the guide in the kayak and had paddled up stream, retrieved my tube which was stuck in some branches and rushed it back down to me to climb into. I managed to get back in before we hit any rapids. My leg was bleeding and I was a little worried about the bacteria in the water, but there was really nothing I could do about it at the time. The whole thing is now a bit of a blur, but the experience definitely made me understand how people die or get seriously injured while tubing, which I don’t think I’d fully understood before. It’s not the water itself, it’s the force of the water that puts at risk for things UNDER the water.

The experience became weirder and weirder, as a little further downstream we came across a man whose cow had drowned in the river. He was standing on the bank looking really upset and yelled something in Lao to our guide, who then pointed over to the opposite bank. Sure enough, there was, no kidding, a dead cow caught in place by a tree in the water. We knew it had happened within the last hour, because the cow wasn’t there the first time we kayaked down the river. Kyle immediately was like, dude…I feel really bad for that guy, but I also feel really not good about us floating in dead cow water….This definitely made us all laugh and made light of the situation, even though we felt really bad for the dude.

At the next bar that came up on the shore, the guide instructed us to pull over and get out. This also ended up being pretty scary, as the water was moving so fast that it was really hard for us to get to the bank. We finally got near it, but were running out of shoreline and rushing towards trees again. The guide basically yelled for us to bail and we all jumped out of our tubes. We grabbed onto the cement platform thing that was on the shore to try to pull ourselves out, but it was really difficult to climb onto. I didn’t have any water shoes and the cement block was made of pointed jagged rocks (WHY I DON’T KNOW), meaning that as I was trying to get traction to pull myself out, I was slipping and cutting the bottom of my feet on the rocks while still being pulled downstream. The guide, who had gotten out of the water, came over and gave me a hand to pull me out. However, now I was also bleeding from my knee and the bottoms of my feet. Yuck. The tubing was supposed to last an hour and a half but at this bar, after about a half an hour, the guide told us that the tubing was done and we weren’t going to get back in. He made a really good call and we were super okay with it.

Mama and Pops, don’t worry, I am super alive and super okay with only a scratch and a bruise on my inner thigh! All’s well that ends well – I’m okay! Only the falling in part and the getting out part was scary, the rest of the ride was really fun. When we were in our tubes in the calmer sections of the river, it was smooth, relaxing, and super super chill. Loved it.

The whole tubing experience was pretty ridiculous overall, particularly the absurdity of floating past a dead cow in the river. It was so strange. We laughed about the whole thing after – but were definitely feeling pretty bad for the guy and his cow.

After this, we went back to the hotel, changed, grabbed some food, checked out a night market, and got back in the van to go home.

It was an AWESOME weekend. (Remember, the scary dramatic part about was only two 1-2 minute-moments in 2 days of fun!). I had a moment while we kayaking down the river in which I had a strong feeling of THIS is why I love travelling. The exploration and exciting adventures are absolutely what I live for. I felt immediately attached to Laos for the first time and so, so content with what was going on. I love it.

Novel finished - enjoy all the pictures below!!

Miss you all dearly.

xoxoxo Mags

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Pics from the Vang Vieng trip 1!

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Souk

In the month since we moved out of the hotel, we have been staying in a small set of apartments owned by a little old lady named Souk. Souk is an absolutely ridiculous, crazy, adorable, old, and very Southeast-Asiany landlord. She is very, very much in our business about everything in a curious and enthusiastic way – strongly reminding me of the familiar Southeast Asian habit I’ve caught onto of regularly imposing oneself on strangers’ daily lives. Whether this is walking up to your table at dinner and standing over you making small talk with you for the entire duration of your meal or asking you weird personal details about your life, it’s very strange as a Westerner – but very innocent.

Souk has the habit of coming outside of her room every time one of us returns to the apartment complex and enthusiastically saying hello, asking questions, inquiring about where we’ve been (again, not suspiciously, just genuinely curiously), reminding us for the 14th time that we’re welcome to hang our laundry on the lines outside, etc. Sweet, sweet Souk. She kills me. She is SO cute, and really an excellent and attentive landlord, but it is just SO weird to have a landlord that is basically a parent. It’s hilarious.

The video below is Kyle’s PERFECT impression of her absolutely hillaaarious little voice. It’s so awesome. All of these impressions are direct quotes…even the one where she told Kyle to “look after” his room. She came into our apartment to fix our air conditioning, took one look at Kyle’s room (which was very messy), and flat out instructed him to clean his room, just like a parent would do. We died laughing.

(Side note – the first quote isn’t ACTUALLY a direct quote, but a mixture of quotes. He first mimics the way Souk says my name, which is hilarious, and then quotes the time that all 10 of us ETAs returned to the apartment from the movie theatre very late, and were greeted by an excited Souk exclaiming: “Ohhh! Where you been? Are you drunk?!”)

Kyle’s imitation of her kills me. Enjoy! :)

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The infamous Souk imitation, courtesy of Kyle. It is SPOT on. HAHA

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Smoothie Mishap

Excellent travelling, what-the-fuck, failed communication story I forgot to post about last week:

We were scheduled a few weeks back for homestays over the weekend and were each supposed to bring our host some sort of gift (we were told to get a basket of fruit). My friends Kyle and Mitchell and I decided to hit up a fruit stand on the side of the road that we walk by all the time to get some fruit. My friend Kyle volunteered to go first, and said/mimed that he wanted 3 mangos, 2 apples, and a dragon fruit. The lady stared for a second, and then went back through it with him pointing at the fruit and double checking that he really wanted what he’d asked for – specifically the amount (saam? song? nung?). When Kyle said yes, the woman turned around, pulled out a blender, and then immediately went to work making SIX fruit smoothies. Kyle, Mitchell and I realized very early on what was happening but had NO clue how to stop it from happening. We all looked at each other thinking UG GUYS STOP THEM WHAT DO WE DO, but really we were somewhat powerless to stop them, simply because we had NO clue how to rectify the situation, even if we waved them down to stop. We had no clue how to say what we really wanted. Finally, Kyle turns around to Mitchell and I and says, “Welp, this is happening. Hope you guys want a smoothie.”

We died laughing and we ended up bringing boxes of cookies to our hosts like fatty Americans :)

Mags

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Watch out for KHOI!!

One quick comment - I CANNOT stop speaking Vietnamese. It’s killing me. I pop out with, “vang!” all the time instead of “doi!” or “jao!” (yes), “khong”, instead of “bor” (no), “mot” and “hai”, instead of “nung” and “song,” (1 and 2). “Cam on” instead of “khawp jai” (thank you). I can’t seem to shake it, and it means absolutely squat to them.

Also, “I” and “penis” are both, “khoi”, with different tonal patterns, meaning that there’s a good chance that half the time I am referring to myself as a penis and not even knowing it. A cruel trick....well played, Lao, well played.

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It turns out, Laos is not Vietnam

So far, Laos has not culturally been what I expected. I am constantly comparing Laos to Vietnam in my head, and quickly finding that there are in fact TONS of differences. Some of these are nice differences, but some of them, honestly, make me really miss Vietnam. Below is a list, complete with explanations. Enjoy!

1. Food. In Vietnam we would sit at the little plastic tables that families had set out in front of their houses, and were then served the ONE thing that that family made. There was the bang da cua place, the pho place, the pho xao place, the bun cha place, etc. (SHOUTOUT TO BUN CHA MILF we miss you!!!). Laos similarly has the plastic tables and chairs, (although I SWEAR they are not anywhere near as small as they were in Vietnam…), but they function more as restaurants. There are always menus, and almost everywhere sells Thai food and pho. At first, it wasn’t clear to me exactly what was considered Lao food and what was Thai, because everywhere served everything. This is cool for the sake of having lots of options, but it made me miss the simple – you-get-what-you-get – vibe, and the assurance that what you were eating was an authentic mom and pop-cooked meal, like it was in Vietnam.

2. Traffic. I like to think of the differences in traffic in Vietnam and Laos like this: if Vietnam is me when I am sad, mad, or frustrated (we all know what this means - full freak out), Lao traffic is me dead asleep. I will forever remember Vietnam by the absurdity of the traffic – non-stop honking, swerving, passing on the wrong side of the road, driving up onto sidewalks to get ahead of others, blowing through red lights like they are suggestions, etc. Lao traffic is on the other end of the spectrum – ridiculously calm.

There is one similarity to traffic in Vietnam - it is more than normal and totally okay to drive on the wrong side of the road if you need to go somewhere for a short distance. I do this all the time, and it’s pretty convenient - it just takes some care.

By contract, ETAs cannot ride or drive anything that is motorized and has two wheels, meaning that we are confined to bicycles. Riding a bicycle in Vietnamese traffic is terrifying, and I was not looking forward to the prospect of doing it here, but Lao people are surprisingly respectful, patient, and careful with bicyclists. Due to the substantially smaller population of Vientiane in comparison to any other city I was ever in in Vietnam, the roads simply aren’t very crowded. If you go out in the morning or in the evening when everyone is going to and from work, you may have to wait at a light. Other than that, the roads are pretty clear. Traffic is usually split 50/50 with cars and motorbikes (which I thought was a bit odd), and cars yield to everyone – not because they are forced to (like in Vietnam), but because they chose to. If I am biking along slowly in the middle of one of the lanes and there is a car behind me, it will creep along behind me patiently for as long as it needs to, no honking, no tailgating, no perceived annoyance. Cars ALWAYS yield to bicyclists – always. Whether this is merging, passing, or turning, cars are very careful. So that’s nice. Don’t worry mum and pop.

While this makes riding around really easy, it also means that I have become less and less scared and more and more aggressive. Oops.

3. Time. The embassy joked with us when we got here that Lao PDR doesn’t mean “Lao People’s Democratic Republic,” but instead, “Lao People Don’t Rush”. This is a fact. They don’t rush for anything. They wouldn’t rush to put out their house if it was on fire. Meeting times are suggestions – Lao people may show up 30 minutes late, or not at all. If classes start at 9:00 am, plan on getting going around 9:30 am. Not because the students show up late – because the teachers show up late, or the security guard shows up late to unlock the building. I am convinced that the general pace of the country is the reason that Lao traffic is the way that it is, in contrast to Vietnam where people always seem to be on a mission, to have somewhere to go, and to be on the move. While Vietnamese drivers are saying to themselves in their heads, “EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF ASSHOLES!!!”, Lao drivers are probably thinking about what they are going to eat for lunch. Bless them.

xoxoxo to all of you!

Mags

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The Baci Ceremony

Hello everyone!

Last night was SUPER rad. The ETAs all attended a party/traditional Lao baci (bah-see) ceremony at the house of a State Department employee. Laotians hold this ceremony for any momentous or important occasion, such as weddings, new endeavors, important birthdays, and in our case, significant beginnings and ends in life. The beginning of this new life in Laos and the mission of cultural immersion and cooperation between two countries meant it was time for a baci.

The baci is performed based on the belief that the human body has 32 organs and that there is a spirit within each one that may come and go, and escape us. The baci ceremony takes place to call all of the spirits back to their respective organs in order to restore peace, balance and harmony to the person. It really is a beautiful idea! (Although we all know me – not sure I can get on board with the idea of spirits in my organs coming and going as they please). Still, this is the kind of cultural experience that I absolutely LIVE for. I appreciate and indulge in every moment of it and relish the opportunity to try to immerse my mind in something strange and unknown.

For the ceremony, we were given BEAUTIFUL traditional scarfs (?) to wear. Men and women traditionally wear different styles. We were instructed to sit around a beautiful arrangement of flowers, foods, gifts, etc. that was arranged on a tall silver platter on the floor. There were tons of thin, white strings attached to the top of the flowers that we held onto between our hands at our hearts. Check out the pictures of this below!

A monk then performed a sort of song/chant with his string between his hands and we all sat in silence. At the end, everyone was given white strings and an offering from the arrangement – mostly eggs, but I also was handed an apple 😊 You held the apple or egg or whatever you were given in your hand while somebody tied a white string around your wrist and said some words to wish good fortune upon you. Anyone could do it to anyone else, so it was fun to have everyone come up and say lovely, personalized things to you – and vice versa.

The white strings tied around our wrists must stay on for at least 3 days. After that, they may come off, but only on odd days (3, 5, 7, 9 days, etc., after the ceremony). I am not sure what is behind this part of the tradition, but I’m going to look it up!

It turns out that this get together was also arranged so that we could meet members of the State Department – a sort of a networking thing. This was SUPER intimidating.  It was a little strange to see a while bunch of State Department representatives walking around in cargo shorts, tee-shirts, and bare feet, but it really hit home the position we have been placed in - as insiders. It felt pretty cool.

I was sitting with Dana (the director of the American Cultural Center), when a man walked up, sat next to me, and introduced himself. He said he was the consul for the Laos political/economic division of the State Department. I spoke with him for a while which was REALLY cool because I got to ask him lots of questions about trade and political relations between China and Laos and all the other Southeast Asian countries, which he was more than willing to talk about in detail.

xoxoMags