Well, today we have fallen four weeks and many thousand kilometers behind on our blogging responsibilities. Let’s pick up where we left off: Laos. After the beating we took from Cambodia, we were eager to leave that country and our anxieties behind. So as our plane swooped low over the Mekong and the city of Luang Prabang we forced ourselves to be cautiously optimistic about the next leg of our trip. We had our near death experience (apparently a must-have for any real traveler), now we could get down to the fun part of traveling.

Luang Prabang

We know we are not the first people to say it, but Laos makes Cambodia look like a fully industrialized nation. While both countries are classified by the UN Development Index as “least developed nations,” Laos is clearly lagging behind with barely a handful of ATMs and not a single fast-food restaurant (as if the number of KFCs is an important indicator of economic progress). We found a more potent example of growth and development in the houses across Southeast Asia. The homes in Cambodia were ramshackle affairs, but most had metal roofs and televisions (powered by car battery), but in Laos we saw very little evidence of the slow rise of modernity outside the cities. Instead we found stilt houses with thatched roofs and not a hint of indoor plumbing or satellite dish.

Even the steady and inevitable encroachment of tourism is happening at a slower pace in Laos (their ancient capital doesn’t yet draw the same crowds as Siem Reap or Phnom Penh), although you wouldn’t know it walking the streets of Luang Prabang. It is a beautiful little town, but we kind of felt like it has turned into a UNESCO Disney version of what it probably once was. Perhaps it was how every house had a fresh coat of paint or how the streets were so clean and the gardens so well tended, we just felt altogether too comfortable there, like we had stepped onto the set of a French Colonial period film. Even the monks’ saffron robes seemed excessively bright and well laundered as they walked barefoot through the town collecting their morning alms.

That isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy Luang Prabang. It really does have some of the most beautiful and interesting architecture we’ve seen: vibrant tile mosaics, brightly painted elephants, golden nagas, and swooping eaves. The town also has one of the highest concentrations of working Wats anywhere in Southeast Asia and the number of monks wandering the streets nearly outnumber the number of tourists and locals.

We only had a few days in Northern Laos—not nearly enough—but we tried to make the best of it and soak in this country that often seems forgotten by the rest of the world. We wandered through Wats and floated down the Mekong. We watched the monks from our hotel balcony as they collected clumps of rice for their only meal early every morning. We pondered the legacy of the French as we ate baguettes and chocolate crepes at sidewalk stalls, and we watched the world drift by as we drank a toast to better luck in Laos. Beer Lao, of course.

Vientiane

A few days after our arrival in Laos, a tiny prop plane brought us down to Vientiane, the modern capital, for a quick stopover on our way down South. Vientiane, in contrast to everything else we’ve seen in this country, was a strong testament to the fact that, however slow change comes, no sleepy backwater, no quiet corner of the earth can resist it, not even in Laos. The oldest temple in town, Wat Si Saket, is less than 200 years old, a flash in the pan for a region that embraces the world’s oldest religions.

One side note: until now, we’d never met a city willing to disparage its own [not-quite-historical] landmarks so strongly; but a sign at the Victory Gate (Laos’ Arc de Triomphe) reads “From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete.” Well, fair enough. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we enjoyed the view of the city, and especially liked watching the young monks climb over each other to get a better look. It was a good day.

By nightfall however, we were on a sleeper bus headed for the southern province of Champasak. And when I say, “sleeper bus” I don’t just mean it runs at night. In place of seats, this bus was filled with about 12 sets of bunk beds. Think the night bus in Harry Potter, and the driver kind of drove like Stan Shunpike, too. This trip was to be a test of our nerve after our recent bad luck with buses and lets just say we failed miserably. Sharing a top bunk we could feel every small twist, turn and tiny bump in the road. Tears were shed, prayers were said and after many sleepless hours we finally arrived in Pakse.

Pakse and Champasak

We stumbled off the bus, groggy but relieved, and were met with the usual crowd of touts and scammers as well as gray skies and a light drizzle. Our plan had us continuing on to the tiny town of Champasak, even further down the Mekong, and so we began the long and arduous process of haggling for information. The thing with these communist-cum-capitalist countries is that sometimes it is difficult to get directions without the person expecting something in return. Generally, nobody knows which way is north or whether you should turn right or left to get where you are going, but they are always willing to take you there for ten times the fair price. In Asia, there is no such thing as free information. Finally after spending about three hours standing in the rain trying to figure out where we were, where we were going, what time we would get there, and how much it would cost, we gave up.

And its a good thing we did because about 12 hours later, the weakened-but-not-beaten remnants of Typhoon Ketsana made landfall in Da Nang almost directly to our east. A few hours after that it was in southern Laos. We spent the next 36 hours holed up in our hotel room, eating junk food and watching old episodes of The West Wing. Kind of like a vacation from our vacation. I guess we could have done the same thing in Champasak, but at least in Pakse we had air conditioning and CNN.

When there was finally a break in the rain, we were able to do a little sightseeing, taking a songthaew out to see a local tea plantation and walking perilously close to the edge of Tad Yeung waterfall. We did eventually make to Champasak, but we’re glad we only stayed one night at the $3 hotel we found. It was fun, though, to get back on a motorcycle for a ride out to see the pre-Angkor ruins at Wat Phu, although my feet and some giant red spider-ants would have been happier if we’d stuck around town. Ah, the curse of the Khmers strikes again.

For his birthday, Greg decided that all he wanted was a return to semi-civilization so we took off early for Thailand. The border city of UBON Ratchatani greeted us with a warm bed and plenty of 7-11 franchises before our flight into Bangkok.

Bangkok

Back at Christmas, we spent a wonderful week with my family on the beaches of Southern Thailand. This time our itinerary had us visiting two cities in the north: Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Somehow, we managed to miss Bangkok entirely on our first foray into Siam, but now we were ready to tackle it’s noisy, smoggy, crowded modern streets and maybe see a few palaces and wats for good measure.

On our first night there, we decided to take advantage of the mostly-developed world and took a taxi out to Siam Square to catch a movie. Siam Plaza felt much less like being back home than being back in Korea, with it’s multileveled movie theatres, expensive designer stores, and vast gourmet food court in the basement, but we had a good night sitting in a dark theater, watching the latest from Hollywood and sipping on a jumbo-sized diet coke.

And just in case you don’t believe catching a flick in a shopping mall is a cultural experience, consider this: in place of the usual “no cell phones, no talking” PSA before every movie, theaters in Thailand play the King’s anthem while everyone stands in tribute. This of course comes after all the previews for Thai horror movies and gory action flicks, and while our initial impulse was to scoff, it was actually a very moving piece. Images of smiling Thais harvesting rice, teaching children, tending to the sick, or carrying sandbags to the beaches of the Andaman flashed across the screen while a children’s choir sang the official hymn “We Love the King”. Propaganda perhaps, but beautifully executed, terribly effective propaganda.

The next day we did the grand tour of Bangkok’s major sites. First up was the impressive Wat Phraew Kaew with its emerald Buddha (stolen from the eponymous temple in Vientiane), and miniature scale Angkor Wat. Looking like someone dumped a gargantuan bag of sequins all over its walls, it was definitely one of the most colorful temples we’ve seen and while it shares similarities with other temples in Laos and Cambodia we appreciate the subtle stylistic differences between Wats across southeast Asia.

Next, we made our way through the Royal Palace, humming songs from “The King and I” and then ran down the road to Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. We’ve seen some big Buddhas before, but this one beats them all.

Heading for the water, we decided to take one of the river taxis to our next destination. We ended up getting off at the wrong stop, but everything turned out alright. We wandered through an amulet market where local taxi drivers buy good-luck charms to display in their windows and picked out one for ourselves (we need all the help we can get). Then we grabbed some food from a local stall (noodles with pork and a waffle sandwich) before making a beeline for the hotel pool.

Having had our fill of Wats and palaces, our second day in Bangkok was all about the modern city. Our first visit was to Jim Thompson’s house. To be honest, neither of us had any idea who Jim Thompson was before coming to Bangkok, but after learning of his interesting and tragic life, we were intrigued. Also, his traditional Thai house has one of the best collections of Thai art in the city.

After taking the official tour, we walked around the peaceful gardens for a bit, pondering what this place must have been like in the 1960s. Today, the urban jungle engulfs the little house in noise and smog, but forty years ago there was only forest and slow moving canals. It must have been a wonderful place.

The rest of our day was spent wandering rather aimlessly around the city. We visited a college campus and watched the uniformed students go to and from class. We rode the skytrain for an hour without any destination in mind. We ate ice cream and kebabs from whatever food stall we found along the way. We kept our eyes down and our pace brisk through the night market in the red light district and then walked down the famous (or infamous) Khao San Road on our way home. In the morning we had a plane to catch.

Chiang Mai

Almost unbelievable, we had made it to our last destination in Southeast Asia: Chiang Mai. After this there would be no more lazy river boat trips, no more colorful wats, no more nagas, no more coconut curries, fresh squeezed lemon juice, banana pancakes, juicy mangoes, tuk-tuks or motorbikes. We were particularly sad about this last fact, as the motorbike had become our preferred mode of transportation in Southeast Asia (it just felt safer than a bus). So after taking yet another day off to nurse a head cold, we jumped back on the bike and headed for the hills.

Of of the things left on our Southeast Asia to-do list was to swim beneath a waterfall; check. After that, we headed deeper into the jungle where the road quickly became narrow, uneven and unpaved. It was quite a test for Greg’s new motorcycle skills, but he did wonderfully until it started raining and the drive suddenly became a slow and messy mud fight. To get out of the rain, we stopped at a local coffee plantation for a quick pick me up and an even better view. It was absolutely stunning, perched on the hill side overlooking swaths of green jungle and rows of coffee plants.

The drive was worth it, though, because when the rain let up and we finally made it to the out-of-the-way Hmong village at the end of the road, it seemed like we were the only foreign visitors they had seen in weeks.

And with that, our six weeks in Southeast Asia were over and we were on our way back to the Middle Kingdom. But we did have one last bit of bad kharma before taking off: we missed our flight! Au revoir, Indochine!