letter from Vientiane

If I say that Vientiane has lost some of its charm, I can already hear some of you saying, 'what charm?'  Contrary to most opinions, I have quite grown to like VTE in smallish doses. However, say, 18 months ago there used to be about 60 or 70 informal riverside cafes, but when I was here in September that number was down to 3....mostly staffed by ladyboys and midgets, and the haunt of peddlers of dodgy Viagra and curious marital aids.  Now they have all been swept away to be replaced by a Stalinist Riverside Park, the plans for which were clearly found in a dingy archive in Moscow about 30 years ago and have now been dusted down and brought into being. I live in hopes that gradually, one by one, the restaurants, if that is not too grand a word for temporary, often fly-blown structures will resurface and bring some life back to the riverside.

(Written later;
in fact, once the evening arrives, so do the restaurants !  However, they are strictly illegal.but very busy.  One of the owners advised  me that the police had told them that if they opened the next night, then they would be arrested. I wondered how the police would deal with 400 angry and hungry tourists. I made sure to be there.  But  clearly the police had no stomach (no pun intended ) for the fight and were noticeable by their absence. If your computer has steam coming out if it, it is only  the curry that I just tried to eat. I think that in the general noise and hubbub, my request for it to be  "a little bit spicy"..must have been heard as "spicy" with the result that dinner tonight was steamed rice and beer.  I might be feeling peckish later.)

One irritant here is the beggars. You cannot sit down at an outside table without being plagued by them Some are limbless, probably victims of UX0s left from the war while others seem merely to have taken up begging as a career opportunity. But, as ever withe beggars one never knows the real story.

I came down on the night bus...a first, and last experience. It was not the fault of the bus company that the old man behind me puked his way down to VTE. The smell of vomit does little to enhance the traveller's experience, and having it adjacent  to me for 10 hours, was not wholly enjoyable. While  I try to put such thoughts out of my mind, when one is travelling in developing countries there is always a slight fear that the illness might be more than travel sickness.  In my roll of honour the Incredible Puking Man now stands along side of  The Opinionated German. Even apart from that it was a long, hard, uncomfortable and boring night, and I shall not be repeating the experience for a while.

The one saving grace was the night sky. It was a cool, night, in fact very chilly up in the mountains, and with a clear sky and no lighting pollution from below, the heavens really did put on a great show.

I had been offered  lift on a motorbike by (another) Hmong friend who was going almost to VTE to spend Hmong New year with his family. I got as far as accepting a lift from town to my home, and the 125cc bike could, with great strain just about make the climb to my house. I decided that his plan to complete the journey at night in 6 hours had some rather obvious flaws, and declined his kind offer.

VTE has a new bus station.....half way back to Luang Prabang it seemed. But  it still had few tuk tuk drivers with any knowledge of local geography. At first they all claim to know your hotel,  but when you dig a little deeper they are clearly just going to head into town and hope for the best. I decided to walk onto the main road and try my luck there. Within 30 seconds a 3 seater tuk tuk arrived and  the driver asked me where I was bound, I told him and was met with the reply," 30,000 kip." As is my automatic response I said 20, 000 kip, at which he pointed to his existing passengers saying "Even Lao people are paying 30,000". Observing that the 3 seater already had 4 passengers and a large bag of rice, I was about to thank him kindly and get on my way. But he was not going to lose 20,000 kip, so he said, "OK, get in". Getting in meant occupying half of the driver's seat, balancing my luggage on my knee and hanging on to the roof. I was sure he didn't know my hotel either.....and he didn't...but I liked his style, so paid him 25,000 when I judged myself close enough to walk. I noticed that the Lao passengers  paid 20,000, not the 30,000 he had declared.

VTE has more tourists than I can recall previously, although it may be that I have not been here in high season before. Yesterday the highlight was the following conversation, "Oh, yah, tomorrow, we are going on homestay near Paxse, it's really cool, you can get a massage and there is a really great bar".....really? on a home stay? My hotel tends to have small time Asian businessmen as guests rather than young tourists but we have a few of the latter. This morning an English youth stood totally transfixed and confused by the sight of tea bags, sachets of instant coffee and a thermos jug. It seemed that he was intellectually incapable of working out the relationship between these items, and had to call for hotel staff to assist him in the challenging business of making himself some coffee. Somehow I think he is going to find Asia quite hard work at times. To add to my pleasure, as the youth sat down with his coffee, he managed to spill it steaming hot onto his rather skimpy shorts; an excellent start to the day !

A few days ago I spoke to some English people for I think the first time in 3 months. Oh how re-assuring it was that my my first conversation with my own people  in a quarter of a year should be in the form of  a complaint.  "It's very expensive here"....oh, I thought, how so?  "Last night we had to pay $8 for dinner".  "Had to? where did you go?". "Oh-we- went-to-a-French-restaurant-and-had-a pizza" . No further questions My Lord, this witness is clearly insane.

You may possibly have noticed the comments added to my last Letter, from which you can see that my observation that there were no fatalities arising from the accident at the wedding, was sadly over optimistic. Khamphone is now back in LPB, and I in VTE, so again no photos. I hope that normal service will be resumed next week. In fact, next week, or failing that, the following week we shall have the novelty of a guest editor; yes I am sure you are all jumping up and down with excitement: all this and Christmas too.

Last week I received 3 generous offers from locals in LPB. Firstly a kindly gentleman on a motorbike offered me the chance to buy 'weed'....You want to buy weed, Mister, is best quality. I asked to see, and so far as my untrained eye could see I was being invited to pay $10 for a packet of Tesco's mixed herbs. Then, a quite respectable looking lady was clearly heading my way. I assumed that she  had a message about the meeting that I was waiting to attend. But no; rather strangely she pushed a crude (in both senses) drawing in my hand and said "You want Mister ?'  Even I, an innocent abroad, soon realised that it was not the drawing that was on offer, so much much as what it depicted. Another refusal. But when a driver comes alongside and says 'You want something good mister?'. well what kind of a question is that?   Don't we all want something good (like that Melton Mowbray pie that haunts my dreams)?  But somehow I felt that he might not be selling pies or even cheese and pickle, nor even a virgin copy of the Daily Telegraph, and so possibly foolishly declined his offer without finding out what it was that was so good. But I have a feeling that another opportunity might just come along.

I hope that by the time I get back to my village the collective madness effecting the local  dogs will have subsided. I don't know if it is the weather and the absence of rain  that has caused it, but if not, then it will be all do to with a puppy having just discovered the joys of sex. He seems to imagine that even the old male dogs want to indulge him, and this leads to a constant fights on the one hand,  and on the other a reminder to the older dogs that sex used to be fun, with the result that they  are all at it all the time. I try to keep this blog suitable for the under 40s, whom I know need to be protected from any vulgarity, but  I did look on Google for an explanation of why and how sometimes dogs seem to have sex back to back  Now, all I will say is that if you Google sex and dogs, then you will soon wish you had not.

As for the weather itself, no change. No rain, cool mornings and evenings and hot in the day.

In fact am now back in LPB and later today will be attending a Hmong New Year party. Details of that, news of the goat, water, sex crazed dogs, mushy peas  and much, much more will be here next week if you care to join me.

Alan