Oh that’s what stage 4 rapids look like… July 7, 2008

04.July.08

Happy 4th of July! Unfortunately we did not encounter one explosion all day, even a land mine going off would have made a great independence day celebration (especially the irony that it would be an American placed land mine left from the Vietnam war)! We woke up and lugged our bags to a waiting tuk tuk which Dale, Lee, Sue, Tisso, Howard, Jess, and I jumped into and headed down river for an hour. We arrived and unloaded the kayaks atop the tuk tuk, snapped on life vests and strapped our helmets??? Wait…why helmets? Oh, stage 3 and 4 rapids you say?…well it can’t be that bad as you didn’t ask if anyone has ever ridden a kayak…so…level 6 is the highest stage?…and that is impossible to kayak, so that leaves us only stage 5 as a buffer…oh well HERE WE GO!!! About 15 pleasant minutes of kayaking later we came to a rock funnel, creating massive waves and torrential currents. Teeth chattering and legs shaking we followed our trusty guides through the chaos. Half the kayaks tipped their terrified inhabitants into the waters, but with few rocks to do much damage, everyone came out unscathed and were back in their boats without a problem. Jess and I spent the next 10 minutes screaming in triumph and pumped with adrenaline from barely keeping our kayak afloat. Jessie was especially glad to be afloat as she’d only kayaked a handful of times, but we both ROCKED that rapid. A few close calls, but it is all smooth riding from here on…what’s that? Oh that was only a stage 3? There’s still a stage 4 ahead…OH SHIT, THAT’S A STAGE 4 RAPID?!?! After our kayak being smashed by massive waves a few times and nearly submerged underwater once or twice we were almost through the new torrent, just a few feet to the end and…PLOP! Tipped! Game Over! We came to the surface laughing hysterically and floated atop our overturned kayak which we hopped right back into. No scary rocks to rip us to pieces so it was all in good fun anyway.

When everyone was back in their kayaks we headed down a bit more and found a bunch of rocks where the guides cooked us delicious pineapple chicken kebabs and rice. We laughed about our adventure and were soon riding another two hours of smooth water where I and others jumped off the kayaks and swam the river. We landed on a muddy bank by a small village and loaded in a tuk tuk again for an hour and a half of discomfort to Vientiane.

We checked into hostels and met at an English pub for absolutely incredible steaks, lamb chops, bangers, mash, peas, and draught Laos and Tiger beer! Absolutely NOTHING American about our fourth of July; we even ate at the enemies bar!

5.July.08

The Aussies were getting ready for their 24 hour trip to Ha Noi, Vietnam, so they were really lazy, while Jess and I walked to the presidents former palace and saw his old art collection, after to the only Vat (temple) to survive the many Vientiane sacks performed by the Burmese, Kmer, and Thais. Then we strolled up the main street to the “Arc de Triumph,” or “Vertical Runway” (called so because the Americans gave the concrete used in its construction as war retribution to build an airport, but instead Lao built this monstrosity commemorating the “victory”). On a sign outside it even admitted that this monolith was prettier from afar (how true) as it was never finished being built. We climbed to the top and got a great view of the mediocre city. So those were ALL the highlights of this sleepy city. It was all nice enough, but nothing extraordinary, probably just as boring as the Australian capitol. The only saving grace to this city is the EXCELLENT food. The western food is not just delicious for Asia, but delicious for the west and awesome value. French and Dutch imperialism here did something good!

We met the Aussies to say goodbye, then went for some dinner with Su and used internet for the rest of the night. And that’s where this and the former blogs came from.

06.July.08

Ate again at our new favorite bakery/cafe Joma. Su, Jess, and I hopped on a bus to Buddha Park; a collection of concrete statues seemingly assembled and placed by a complete lunatic. It was really an eerie place with tombs of concrete skeletons like right out of a Tim Burton movie. A mix of Hindu, Chinese, and Buddhist myth mixed with all sorts of odd concrete scenes. So we had a good time then went back hung out, ate, read, interneted (should be a real verb), napped; just killing time until tomorrow when we can get our Cambodia visas.

07.July.08

We figured it would be cheaper to bike all the way to the Cambodia embassy to get visas ourselves than have our guest house do it for us (like most tourists do). We expected to save a couple bucks, but ended up that all the tourist centers and guest houses charge double what it actually costs for a visa so we saved $20, got some exercise, and got to see more of the city! We then biked back, ate terrific bagels and pastries at a Scandinavian bakery, used more internet to research travel stuff, then met Su again for the absolute worst museum we have ever been to.

Here’s the rundown of walking through the museum: A minute or two of pre-history with dino bones, etc, about 10 minutes of ancient Lao people and artifacts, 15 minutes of Dutch influence, then the entire last potential 2 hours (unless you just fly through it like we did) of communist propaganda. Here is comrade so-and-so’s pistol, here is a piece of comrade so-and-so’s bed post, here is a picture of a limbless child from the evil imperialist American’s bombs, here’s a painting of some French capitalist beating children and throwing them in a well, here are pictures of COMPLETELY RANDOM PEOPLE wearing medals with no explanation what they did (the lack of explanation was a common theme)! Ah, the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos…how far you have yet to come. It reminded us less of a political awareness campaign and more of some religious brainwashing center: here is a concrete footprint and a hair from Muhammad, here is a towel used to wipe off Jesus’ face, here’s a tree Buddha sat under…still not convinced to believe? Here’s a gun and a handgrenade…YOU WILL BELIEVE NOW, HA HA HA! Oh, good times had by all. We actually left more confused about the history and events of Lao than before we entered (though after seeing Laos constantly spelled Lao, now I don’t know what to type…so I’ll just do both intermittently though it is pronounced without the S, I think it was a French addition).

We returned to embassy discussing and laughing about the museum and were rewarded with our golden ticket into Cambodia! We’ll be there in a few weeks after seeing some more authentic Laos to the south. From here on it gets a lot less touristy and that means it will be hard to find internet. No blogs or calls for awhile.

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