Anna in Asia

By: adbacheller

Oct 31 2010

Category: October Travels

2 Comments

(pictured above: one of our guesthouse elephants in Hong Sa)

Anna in Asia Part II here we go.  And, action:

October was nuts.

Before I launch myself into travel stories that fall somewhere between October 1 and October 31, I wanted to mention that a broad recap of my October itinerary is available here.  Also I’ve been back and forth on the best way to organize all of my photos and tales from the past month, but I finally decided to just dive in and start from the beginning of the trip.  It’ll take a while to recount everything that way but eh! So here it goes.  Let the stories begin.

*

Hong Sa, Laos
October 1 2010

In the morning we are delivered to the bus station by Ajaan Prakop, who had, in typical fairy godmother style, packed us a lunch to send us on our way.  Each of us has one backpack for the entire month, and, thanks to Prakop, each of us has several sausages and sticky rice for the ride to Hong Sa that afternoon.

We walk inside the bus station and buy our tickets for the van ride to the Thailand-Laos border.  Our luggage is piled on the roof of the van and the seating arrangements begin: mom and baby here, four farang girls in the back (that’s us), man with baseball cap there, oh wait actually mom and baby you’re over there, grandma take that seat that’s fine, small children running around the parking lot where are your parents come in here quickly you need to sit in between these seats can you squat down like that?  Good, just like that.  Okay, now the other nine passengers climb in and, oh, of course we almost forgot the monk.  Mr. monk you’re up front in the passenger seat.  Everyone in?  All good?  Let’s go.

A few hours later we’re at the border.  The van drops us off outside of Thai immigration where our passports are checked and we are sent on our way.  We walk the kilometer between the Thailand and Laos borders and then stop into the Laos immigration office to organize our Laos visas.  Paperwork squared away and visas in hand, we approach the boarder guards to present our passports:

“You come from America.”

“Yes.”

“You speak Laos?”

“No.”

“You speak Thai?”

“Nit noy.”  {a little}

“Nit noy.”  {a laugh}

“Okay.” {he gestures that I may pass}

And yes, I have the feeling that if we had any overlap in language abilities whatsoever there would have been more questions before I was allowed to pass.  I’m standing with my passport and walking toward the Laos border feeling like I’m five years old, watching a cartoon with only music and no words.  This is the kind of cartoon that, when you’re five years old, you decide is ripe for inventing lines for the characters and speaking your lines in sync with the cartoon as it blares from the television.  This situation is so comical to me as I’m walking walking walking right into Laos (here I come!) that it may as well be one of those silent cartoons.  I find myself wanting to make up lines for the border guard.  “No bother, miss!  You look harmless enough.  No tip-top security here, just a good old flip through the passport and a survey of your general comportment– yep, visa’s in order and I suppose you’re smiling enough.  Welcome to Laos!”

Transportation recap:
1. van ride from Nan bus station to border
2. 1 kilometer walk between Thailand and Laos borders

Now we arrange transportation to Hong Sa.  A songthaew driver offers to take us, 1000 baht for the four of us.  Probably too expensive, but there are only two songthaews at the border right now and who knows when the next will arrive.  (The other songthaew is packed with people and lettuce and chickens).  We hop in and I make a mental note that, unlike Thailand, in Laos the driver-side is the left side of the car and the traffic pattern is the same as it is in the U.S.  After four months in Thailand, this arrangement seems backwards.

The songthaew ride lasts about an hour.  We are dropped off in front of our guesthouse, the Jumbo Guesthouse, on a dusty dirt road in Hong Sa. The town is small, the buildings are short, and there is little traffic.  Although it’s not a prize destination, this is as far as we can go toward Luang Prabang, the city we are trying to reach.  Travel in Laos is not particularly fast-paced.  There is only one boat per day that leaves for Luang Prabang, and it leaves at 11 a.m.  We are in Hong Sa now and we will have to wait for Luang Prabang until tomorrow.

The Jumbo has a little picket fence and a bamboo walkway that creaks as we walk up to the front door.  A woman greets us and shows us to our rooms.  We chuck our packs onto our beds and go back outside for coffee on the porch.  We sit and chat with the woman who greeted us, Monica, who also happens to own The Jumbo.  Actually, we have been cautioned by some friends in Nan (and some guidebooks) about Monica and her “extras.”  She is very hospitable.  Her coffee is quite wonderful.  However we have this sneaking suspicion that everything this fine hostess offers will crop up later on our final tab.  Even so, Hong Sa is a small place and what else can we actually do here besides drink not free coffee on the porch of the Jumbo?

At the bottom of the first cup of coffee elephants walk down the street and through a back gate at The Jumbo.  Apparently Monica has elephant connections.  The elephants and their guides are passing through and have decided to make a stop in to see Monica.  There are five elephants standing on the front lawn and one of them is eating Monica’s landscaping.

We feed the elephants bananas and stroke their wrinkly skin.  I find myself offering an open palm to the end of an elephant’s trunk like I would to an unfamiliar dog’s nose when I want to give it a chance to smell me and trust me a little bit more before I reach out to touch it.  The first time I reach out toward the elephant it recoils its trunk.  But then I extend my palm and I swear it smells me and thinks, “Okay, sure,” and this time it stays put when my hand reaches for its trunk.  It’s hairy and leathery.  It’s a beautiful creature.

The elephants are not the last of Monica’s surprises that evening.  For dinner Monica offers us spaghetti carbonara, made with real cheese.  (We cannot get cheese in Nan.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  We can get processed slices of Kraft cheddar, cream cheese and processed shredded mozzarella.  But none of that is really, actually cheese if you ask me.)  We sit around a big table on the porch of the Jumbo and twirl spaghetti strands around our forks.  We pour Bia Laos (a tasty Laos beer!) into our cups and exchange travel plans with the other guests at the Jumbo.  It is nighttime and I’m full of cheese and beer and pasta and this little dusty town has so few lights that it feels very late.  I cannot keep my eyelids open at an embarrassingly early hour and so I thank Monica for the meal, say goodnight to the table, and crawl under my bed’s mosquito netting.  I start to think about songthaews and elephants.  And then I fall asleep.

Transportation recap:
1. van to Thailand border
2. 1 kilometer walk to Laos border
3. songthaew to The Jumbo in Hong Sa