Day 315 - A glimpse of the glistening underbelly of Vientiane

Sometimes you see a lot more than you expect.

There have been places around the world that have revealed themselves a little more than most. Like an Elizabethan peep show, a city lifts her skirt just an inch or two and you are treated to a glimpse of something private underneath. A world not inhabited by outsiders.

It's happened before. In Mexico City. Guatemala. Paraty. Rio was a bit different. She didn't so much show us her ankles, as transplant them onto us for a night so we could see what it felt like to go dancing with Brazilian feet.


Last night, here in Vientiane, it happened again.

Rachel and I were sat in a bar having a drink. The bar - Jazzy Brick - was an impressively decked-out affair. It wouldn't look of place in the debonair company of the Supper Club in Melbourne. Not surprising. The owner is a Laotian, back from doing time in Australia's other great city.

The night was young. Dusk was falling fast. We first sampled the wine list, then a cheeky Gin Martini. Dirty. It was good. Very good. We chatted away for a bit with, before heading to Leo's Cafe for some proper, home cooked Italian.

On the way out, we noticed three things:
1. The bar had gained a number of well-dressed, middle aged men.
2. They were outnumbered by numerous extremely well-dressed younger Laotian women.
3. Numerous expensive looking cars (Mustangs, Lexus, Hummers etc) had begun to congregate outside.

The meal was good, but the bar situation hung in the mind. We finished up and headed back for another cocktail.

On the way back we became aware that the road, normally so respectable and sedate, was lined with numerous members of the third sex. Swarms - is that the collective term? - of ladyboys. Like we were in Bangkok or something.

Arriving back at the Jazzy Brick, it was now rammed. We walked in and made our way to the top floor, with the intent of sitting out on the balcony. Up the stairs we went.

Ever want to know what it is like to be a movie star walking into a room? Go to the Jazzy Brick at 10pm on a Friday. The room went silent. Eyes swivelled in heads, training in on our every move. What was it about us that looked so out of place? Who were these people?

We took Gin Martinis on the terrace for a bit, watching the world pass by outside. More prestige cars turned up and left. All manner of intriguing and interesting encounters went on around us. People seemed to leave together, breaking off briefly, only to head off in thinly-disguised convoy. More beautiful people arrived to take the place of those who had left.

Once the mozzies began to bite, we made our way downstairs to sit at the bar. The precession continued. Then, in bowled two gents. One was Swiss. The other, well, he was just plain weird.

He had a strange accent - not alone a fair reason to label him with weirdness  - but he refused, in an almost melodramatically enigmatic manner, to be drawn on where he was from.

He was a tall man with a deep voice. North American looking. He dropped into conversations with odd comments. He lived in Thailand. Had crossed the border for some unmentionable reason. He wanted to know if the barman's dodgy acquaintance was here or not. He flashed his cash around like a millionaire one minute, and then demanded a round when we went to leave. He warmly held a conversation one minute, only to suddenly drop out, as if we had never met.

Most people in life you can see good in. In even the most flawed, you will find something to be sympathetic to. This insufferable bore was different. For the first time in my life, I had met someone utterly unlikeable.

We fulfilled our obligations. Drank a few more drinks and made conversation with the charming bar owner. Then we left. Ejected ourselves from the strange bar, with it's mysterious denizens, carrying on their intriguingly mysterious business. We walked home past the prestige cars and the ladyboys, trying to attribute meaning to it all.

We went back next day. Mr Charisma-vacuum was there again, but the other denizens of this world were not. The cars were gone. The middle aged men didn't show. The beautiful people were elsewhere. We drank our drinks, enjoyed the martinis again, then went home.

The skirt was down.

Photos from Vientiane can be seen here

Day 313 - Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng (Laos)

The well-worn path from Chiang Mai to the northern Laos city of Luang Prabang is a fearsome one. It is not for the faint-hearted. In the same way that Russell Brand probably wouldn't make a good Dalai Lama.

First, you pile on a bus to the Thai-Laos border. It takes about six hours. Alas, the timing is such that you arrive after the border has shut, meaning a requisite overnight stay. End of Day One.

Day Two involves festering in line(s) to get the necessary stamps and authorisations, before boarding a cramped riverboat for a nine-hour ride down the Mekong. Sometime just after sunset, you arrive at Pak Beng. This fetid slurry-pit of a town is your home for the night. If you're lucky, you might manage to avoid sharing a room with rats the size of beagles. It's the end of Day Two.

Day Three dawns early. It's back onto the boats again. Another long, miserable, noisy nine hours before you finally disembark at the World Heritage-listed city of Luang Prabang. It may take a few days for the ringing in your ears to stop, but you are there! And all for the bargain price of $20 per person!

Of course, there is another option. If you are willing to forgo the sanctity of "the experience", you can grab a direct flight with Lao Airlines. It takes an hour, and costs $160.

Which is exactly what we did. Subject ourselves to three days of that farcical voyage to Hell? Not bloody likely. The smelly backpacker crowd can have it. Daft bastards.

Laos, for the uninitiated, is a country of four million friendly souls. She's  landlocked on high land between Vietnam and Thailand, just above Cambodia. It's a communist country, although you wouldn't really know it. It also has a reputation for being very laid back.

There's a saying in this part of the world. The Thais plant the rice. The Vietnamese sell the rice. The Lao people watch it grow.

Luang Prabang is a good case in point. It's a sleepy town, situated on a peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Kong rivers. It's a bit of a living museum, dominated by numerous conspicuous wats (temples) and the highest-concentration of monks of any city on the planets. More bald ginger blokes than Edinburgh city centre during Hogmanay.

It is entertaining enough. However, once you've had your fill of Beer Lao sat on the banks of the river, and wandered through the markets wondering where on earth so many antiques could possibly have come from, noting all the charmless boutique hotels springing up in the city centre, it all starts to get a bit boring.

So, joined by Briar, fresh off the plane from Sydney, we headed to the hills. Three days of mountain biking, trekking, elephant riding and kayaking. Sore bums. Aching shoulders. Action Jacksons! Much more the pace I've come to know and love.

Just the tonic before our visit to the most notorious of all Laos destinations; the backpacker central and mothersbane that is Vang Vieng.

She's a bit of a controversial venue is the ol' double V. The culture-vulture crowd despise it. "Wanton rape of Laos' cultural heritage", or some such tosh. Like the twentieth century never happened.

Conversely, to your average twenty-something gap-year student it's earnt the reputation of a veritable modern-day Valhalla. Cheap booze, all manner of legally-ambiguous substances to be scoffed and a catalogue of ways to shorten an already short life.

The truth is somewhere in between. Vang Vieng won't make you a better person, but it isn't Satan's pool hall either.

Tubing down the river, stopping in at the various bars that line each side is actually quite a bit of fun (Wet 'n' Wild for adults!). The swings and slides are, in all truth, death traps. But, if you pick carefully, they can also be fun. The bars and clubs on Dhon Khang island are another world. Fun - Never Never Land meets Alex Garland's The Beach - and you'll be doing someone's Mum a favour in making sure someone vaguely sober-ish is there to ensure their totally non-sober son/ daughter doesn't fall to a certain death.

The thing is; for all the criticism, Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang are two sides of the same coin:

Vang Vieng - De-sanitised Laotian chaos accompanied by cheap beer, westernised food and plentiful cut-price drugs, to give twenty-somethings doing it on-the-cheap their gap-year fix.

Luang Prabang - Sanitised Laotian quaintness accompanied by cheap wine, westernised food, and plentiful cut-price antiques, to give middle-incomers doing it on-the-cheap their holiday fix.

And that's about the fairest comparison I can offer.


Click on the links for photos from Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng

Day 294 - A crack team of expert troops deliver a quite unexpected birthday surprise in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai

The scene: Somewhere deep in the thick, lush urban jungle of Chiang Mai, it is night. The air is heavy with the smell of Thai spices. Laughter tinkles forth from a bar on the banks of the River Ping.

Beyond the edge of the light that radiates from the bar is one man, hidden from view. His name is Arnold. He is wearing army camouflage, a flack helmet and heavy boots. His face is plastered with camo paint. In his right hand, he holds a walky-talky. Occasionally, he gestures towards the trees, grass and river all around.

Suddenly, he is joined by a second man; Gerry, also dressed in army fatigues. The second man's arrival startles the first briefly, before he quickly regains his military composure.

Gerry: Wotcha Arnold. All is well, I do 'ope.
Arnold: (in a slight but not easily-identifiable European accent) Gerry, what are you doing here?
Gerry: How do you mean?
Arnold: Gerry, I did not call for you tonight. I thought you were with your dog? Is she not sick? You said she has cancer?
Gerry: Yeh, she was but it's all okay.
Arnold: Really?
Gerry: Yeh, it's not a tumour.
Arnold: Well, that is good, Gerry. But it still doesn't explain to me why you are here.
Gerry: Well, this is a job, innit?
Arnold: Yes.
Gerry: And, I'm a...you know...soldier of fortune, right?
Arnold: Yes
Gerry: Well, that's why I'm here. Anyhoo, what's the job?
Arnold: (sighing slightly in a way akin to really bad acting) It's a birthday job.
Gerry: Surprise or cutting-the-throat type?
Arnold: The first one.
Gerry: Oh, I do prefer the first one. I hate the look on their faces when they realise "oh great! It's my birfday" then "oh shit! Someone's gone and done me". Kinda makes it hard to blow your candles out, if you get what I mean. He he.
Arnold: (slightly annoyed) Gerry, can I be honest with you?
Gerry: Always Arnold, me old mucka. I'm taken aback you should need to ask.
Arnold: You lack focus.
Gerry: (oblivious) Ooo. Look. Is that Daryl Hannah having a drink in that here bar?
Arnold: No Gerry. That's our target. Rachel Bell.
Gerry: Ah well. Regardless, tasty sort right there, if I do say so myself.

Arnold's walky-talky crackles into life briefly, with a message that is incomprehensible to all but the most-highly trained military ear.

Arnold: Go ahead.
Walky talky: Crzzzz hzzzz crckzzzz htzzzz.
Arnold: Thank you, Dolph. (Turning to Gerry) Gerry, wait here a moment. I'll be back.

Arnold is gone for some minutes, during which time Gerry takes the opportunity to scope the target. She is sitting in a bar with a male, drinking a cocktail. They are talking and seem relaxed. Arnold returns.

Arnold: Dolph says to say "hello".
Gerry: Wicked. How is he?
Arnold: Tall. Blonde. Like always.
Gerry: Of course. So, you were telling me the drill for tonight.
Arnold: (thinking for a second before answering) What the hell. You're here now. In about five minutes, that girl's farzzer will...
Gerry: Her what?
Arnold: Her farzzer.
Gerry: Eh?

Arnold: Her farzzer! You know, Gerry. Her Papa?
Gerry: Oh! Her fa-ther.
Arnold: (slightly annoyed) Yes. Exactly. Her...fa-ther...will arrive in about ten minutes. She has no idea he is even in Thailand. She thinks he is in Australia.
Gerry: Aw. That's nice, innit.
Arnold: Yes, it is. He is also carrying many little presents for her.
Gerry: You don't say?
Arnold: Yes. You see, she is Australian...
Gerry: Austrian?
Arnold: No, you ee-diot, Australian
Gerry: Right-ho.
Arnold: ...and he has brought her Vegemite, all the make-up she has been unable to purchase and a pack of Tim Tams.
Gerry: Ooo, I like a Tim Tam.
Arnold: I am also quite partial.
Gerry: Well, that's a lovely surprise, that is.
Arnold: Oh, it doesn't end there. Also, as a surprise, they have been staying at the Rarinjinda Hotel.
Gerry: Sounds a bit swanky...

Arnold: And also tomorrow they're all going to do a special Thai cooking class together at Siam Rice.
Gerry: Is that the one where you get to visit the market?
Arnold: The very same, Gerry. You have been paying attention. That is good.
Gerry: (blushing) Shucks. Thanks Arnold. I try to keep up-to-date on the movers and shakers on tripadvisor.
Arnold: (Looking into his binoculars). Then they will all go for a meal at a restaurant called House; a very impressive establishment.
Gerry: Geez. I had no idea Chiang Mai had so much to offer!
Arnold: Sure, Gerry. It's a very impressive city. It has much to offer for the adventurous traveller.
Gerry: Clearly!
Arnold: (Quickly putting down the binoculars) Look, here he comes. (Talking into the walky-talky) Everyone in position? Commence operation birthday surprise.

Both men sit in silence for a while, watching intently the scene unfolding in front of them. The older man comes up behind the girl and taps her on the shoulder, mouthing the words, "do you mind if I sit here?". The girl jumps up in surprise, hugs the older man and tears begin to flow. There are big smiles on everyone's face as they sit down to share a meal.

Gerry: (Also looking into his own binoculars) Oh, check out the look on her face! She didn't see that coming did she?
Arnold: No, Gerry, but then they never do. I'd say it went like clockwork.
Gerry: Yeh, it sure did. One thing though? Something I've never been able to work out.
Arnold: Yes Gerry?
Gerry: Well, what exactly is our role in all this?
Arnold: How do you mean?
Gerry: Well, we just sat in the grass here whilst a bunch of people met in a bar.
Arnold: That is correct.

Gerry: Well, what exactly did we do to aid this whole charade?
Arnold: (thinking) I'll level with you, Gerry.
Gerry: Please do Arnie.
Arnold: We mainly do it for Sylvester these days.
Gerry: How's the big guy doing?
Arnold: Not so well, Gerry, if truth be told.
Gerry: Bummer.
Arnold; Sure is, Gerry. Sure is.
Gerry: Fancy a drink?
Arnold: Sounds good, Gerry.
Gerry: I have to introduce you to this guy. He wants to shoot a movie in Mexico City!
Arnold: Mexico City? Seriously, who sets a movie in Mexico City?
Gerry: That's what I said, but turns out.....

Fade to black.


All the pics from the birthday week (!) in Chiang Mai are here