Lao Again

Last week we made our ante-penultimate visa run to Vientiane. We arrived on a Saturday during a boat race festival on the Mae Kong. I think it was something like the Lao version of Loy Krathong, because the river was full of krathongs, and longboats made of bamboo and banana trunks were set up in front of people's houses and businesses.

The trip was plenty boring, primarily since we don't drink. At least that's how it was explained to us afterwards when we were complaining to friends that there's nothing to do there, and wondering why there seem to be so many tourists regardless of the fact. The highlight, as usual, was the food. Chiang Mai doesn't have any decent Vietnamese food, so that's about all we eat in Lao, that and baguettes with salami.

Since we got back the weather has changed dramatically. It's cool and unseasonably rainy, a bit like Texas in the fall, making us feel muito saudade. We're enjoying the cool weather while it lasts, and chuckling as the Thai run around in quilted coats, sweaters, worrying about their health.

Etlaoephantcatagarwood

We made a visa run to Lao this week. Again. The process was much smoother this time since we actually had the paperwork we needed, and we knew how to get places. We also lucked out at the morning market in Vientiane and found a 14 inch piece of agarwood. It's not top quality, but it is streaked with resin throughout. The gal who sold it to us even lit it so we could see how it smelled before we bought it. Delicious. Just around the corner, however, my favorite little bronze elephant had gone up in price from 100 to 150 dollars. At least I got a picture.


On our way back, at about 4 am, somewhere in the mountains east of Chiang Mai our bus rear ended another bus. Jami saw it happening, but I was asleep, and bruised my kneecaps on the seat in front of me. As usual our bus driver was following too close. For some reason bus drivers seem to imagine that they only need four feet of clearance if the vehicle in front of them is another bus, as thought there were some psychic connection that would prevent one bus driver from actually hitting another. Our bus was fine, aside from the broken windshield, but the other one had metal and plastic pushed into the belts, so we had to hold their hands while they waited for another bus to pick up the passengers. We were worried about getting home in time to pick Tien up from the kennel at the small animal hospital.



He'd had surgery the previous Thursday to remove three dog-bite related abscesses. One went into his spine, and the surgeon told us how difficult it was to remove when we picked him up. It took him about twelve hours to get back on his feet. Literally. Every time he tried to stand up he would flip over, so instead of walking he would roll across the floor, howling, until he hit something and had to stop, or roll back the other way. I put him in a box and gave him water and half a raw egg with a syringe. The next morning his bandages had loosened enough that he could walk, and we found him out of the box, sitting on the bathroom rug when we woke up. This morning they took his stitches out, and he looks like a regular Frankenstein's Monster in his shaved, scarred, and iodine-speckled glory. Poor T.


Finally, we have a house to move into, and just in the nick of time since we have to be out of this place on Tuesday. It's south of downtown, a concrete and wooden combo, with a workspace underneath, and plenty of room for visitors if we ever get any. We're going over tomorrow to sign the contract and give it a top to bottom scrubbing. I'll post some pictures before we're sans internet.

One Way Ticket to Vientiane

The trip to Lao was harder on us then we would have liked it to be; so rather than complain about the pointlessness and cruelty of a certain country's bureaucracy, and the ineptness of said country's own citizens at successfully negotiating that bureaucracy, I present you with many many pretty pictures instead:

We took a Lao Airlines prop plane. A first for J.

We were lucky enough to notice that we were flying over our neighborhood, upper center, below the construction site.

J reaps the fruits of French colonialism: watercress soup, frites, and steak à point. Serendipitously, I had just read Roland Barthes nice little essay "Steak and Chips" the day before.

Patuxai, a concrete monster built for PDR Lao by PDR China.

A nifty, and extensive, herbal "pharmacy" at the morning market.

Extensive. This is half of it. We looked for agarwood, but no luck.

While there was no agarwood, there were plenty of rhinoceros horns. Poor rhinos.

That Dam, called the Black Stupa, is allegedly the home of of the Seven Headed Naga, which protects Vientiane. It is just down the street from the US Embassy.

Vat Sisaket, the oldest vat (wat/temple) in Lao.

When Siam invaded in the 1800s Vat Sisaket was sacked. Afterwards the monks went around and gathered up all the melted and beheaded Buddhas and stored them together.

4/7ths of a seven headed naga.

Just a nice looking Buddha.

Vat Sisaket has over 6000 niches in both the temple and the cloisters.

Messy murals. Always a favorite.

Pha That Luang, the national symbol of Lao.

The Seven Headed Naga, all in one piece.

Grrrrrrrr, singha!

Therianthropic singhas wrestling.

Fishes are naga food.

The ubiquity of marigolds reminds us of Central America and Mexico. The other day I read a kooky article that postulates the existence of a proto-Kemi(Egyptian)-Mesoamerican language. Perhaps more compelling are theories that treat the entire Pacific rim as a single cultural continuum. Anyhow, that's what the marigolds remind me of.

After all theses lovely sites, and loads of fun running back and forth between the Thai Consulate and the fax machine, we got to travel back to Chiang Mai. Seventeen hours by three, four, and six wheeled conveyance. The plane took less than two hours, and that was with a 30 minute layover in Luang Prabang. And J still doesn't have the right visa, so we'll get to do it all again in three months.