The tuktuk suddenly stopped and the driver indicated that we were to vacate his vehicle. No problem, I’ve been thrown out of better vehicles than a tuktuk. We piled out, and let me tell you this is something that can’t be done gracefully, and looked around. Typical of India there is no indication of where to go or how to enter. Nada.
First we had to find a little hole in the wall that sells the Holy Grail ticket that lets you into several venues we’re interested in at a discount. Frankly it was time to just start walking and trust your spidey sense to sus out the lay of the land.
Sure it can take some time, but it’s always the last place you look.
Now we have to find out how to get into the palace. Palace may not be the proper name for a place that has a beautiful grand facade that is actually the back of the thing, with no obvious way to enter. Eventually we stumble onto the ticket takers at a humble entrance in the side of the building.
The Hawa Mahal, started in 1778, is the tallest building in the world without a foundation. It’s adjacent to the City Palace and was built to allow the royal ladies to observe the activities of the street below while remaining hidden.
There are five stories, named but not numbered. Five floors but no stairs, only India’s famous ribbed ramps were used throughout. A few steps were added later.
You enter on the level called Sharad Mandir through a doorway that opens onto a large courtyard where celebratory gatherings took place.
Ratan Mandir floor dazzles with colorful glasswork in the walls.
The Vichitra Mandir floor was reserved for the Maharaja, a kind of private temple to worship his personal favorite, Krishna.
Prakash Mandir floor is an open terrace.
The top floor is called Hawa Mahal which gives the palace its name. This is where approximately all 105 of the Maharaja’s harem were kept.
The ladies were never to leave the building or be seen…well I’m thinking except for the Maharaja.
The ladies had hundreds of little peek-a-boo hatches, called jharokas to surreptitiously gaze out at street life far below without being seen.
A lot of thought went into keeping air flowing throughout the building using open courtyards and latticework everywhere. There is a marked difference in temperature from outside.
Secret passageways were everywhere and some of the little jharokas were used to spy on each other and guests.
After a brief intermission Marce sat in with the band.
A small museum of bas relief and sculpture from Amber Palace really sets the party scene.
The Maharaja copied from an early portrait
Then it’s exit in the same weird way you enter.
The back of the Palace of Wind from the front street.
Dicing with death in Agra’s afternoon traffic our tuktuk driver was getting frustrated and aggressive, laying on his horn more or less continuously. Beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep beep beep is his prefered signature honk and that tattoo, with subtle variations, is repeated by hundreds of vehicles in this tangled town.
Every bazaar has a table loaded with replacement horns. Of course some are upgrading to programmed horns that play bits of songs. Have mercy on us.
We’re heading toward the mammoth hulking Agra Fort. A real beast of a fort, although we’re told that there’s also a palace inside. The fort grounds are roughly a mile and a half in circumference, crescent shaped and surrounded by a moat. The walls rise 70 feet from the entrance. Akbar started the fort in 1565 and periodically lived there.
The white marble palace within the fort is a marked contrast to the red walls that protect it. It’s certainly not as finely detailed as the Taj Mahal (and not as well kept) but it looks like it was a nice place to live.
Out on one of the terraces you can see the Taj Mahal in the city.
Every day someone will try to either sneak a selfie or ask for one. I feel like I’m probably stuck on someone’s refrigerator. Marce definitely is. All the women want a photo with her, individually and in groups. Is it the white hair?
I know, I know, with the ink barely dry on rule #4 (No more dawn treks), I go and pull a major violation. I look forward to your comments and messages. Let me make my case. The way I see it there are two technical issues that in my mind mitigate the infraction. Marce can be very charming, in addition to quite persuasive, and while admittedly dark, the trek to the Taj Mahal sunrise was paved, flat, and not all that long.
I’ve noticed that crowds have an energy all to themselves, so faced with feeling the press of more and more people being added to the same vector, and when you consider the sunrise time limit, what could go wrong? You might ask yourself, “are these people stampeders?” Empathetic Marce seemed to absorb the vibe and even on a lazy Sunday stroll, walks like the wind. I could not keep up.
Before long we found ourselves in a long security line where the authorities were confiscating torches, books, cigarettes, and I don’t know what all. I think the country has gone amuck. Clearing that hurdle, we performed the funereal shuffle through the Royal Gate where one finds a peek-a-boo view through a sculptured arch, beautifully softened with an atmospheric dawn mist.
Even hyped to death like a hit song, you can’t deny this place will still leave you breathless with its overwhelming beauty.
Before we came to India we had no great burning desire to see the Taj Mahal. If it came our way, or didn’t require much of a sacrifice we were in. Great white hulking symmetrical buildings, with every square inch covered with busy textures, carvings, and media, usually doesn’t do it for me. However, somehow this works as a cohesive whole with grace and lightness. We really enjoyed exploring the angles that were there if you took the time to find the genius in the work. It’s truly breathtaking.
As far as Yours Truly is concerned everything was S.O.P. until we hit the ground. Let me explain. There was none of this floating down the runway hoping to grease down into a barely felt landing. First there was a proper hard crunch, one of those get-it-down-now landings, after which the beast bounded back up into the air and I knew we were in for another coming together with the tarmac. I haven’t felt anything like that in a long time but then again we were only a half hour late on a flight where they practically promise you to expect an hour or more delay. You know, I recall the plane had painted over logos, no markings, as if it was a rental. Still, the middle of the night is the middle of the night and we still managed to walk up the jetway.
S.O.P. means dealing with India’s strange visa requirements, ATM for a pocket full of Rupiahs, and lastly we play the sim card game and of course India has added a few new wrinkles. It seems one needs the phone number of one of your Indian friends willing to vouch for you, and a photo. We’re tourists, we don’t know anyone in India.
Normally you have to sift through many cleverly worded packages but here they only have one deal. Marce didn’t like the deal but strangely, there were no other phone companies at the airport. I went outside to find better competition but there was none to be found. On my way back in I heard someone shout, but you must never make eye contact with Tuktuk drivers or they glom on to you like a pickpocket in Barcelona. Suddenly someone had my arm firmly in his grasp and I decided to follow. He had a nice purple turban, an upturned mustache, and a well used assault weapon slung over his shoulder. I’m not good with Hindi but I understood that I was not going back inside with Marce.
By this time another flight must have landed and through a large window I could see quite a large crowd had gathered at the beleaguered Airtel booth. It was not going well. I was outside with the luggage watching a keystone cops silent movie featuring a half dozen airtel employees having great difficulty photographing dozens of impatient potential customers, and one pissed off Marce who naturally had my phone. I had to stop her from coming out to get me a couple of times. There are no signs and she didn’t know about the guy with the gun. Finally the manager came out but he didn’t know about the guy with the gun and he had to talk his way back inside. Eventually one of his crew came out to photograph me. First he held the camera up about a foot from my face and wiggled his head side to side like Peter Sellers in “The Party” and said, “blink.” I could not keep a straight face. Apparently it’s an app that triggers the camera shutter after you blink, but there was no amount of blinking that would get the thing to work. Blink…no BLINK. Twenty five minutes and countless blinks later I think they just gave up.
At least now we can call an Uber. There’s only one thing more terrifying than New Delhi traffic, and that’s middle of the night Delhi traffic. Eventually we wound our way through dark back alleyways running into gated streets that blocked our way. Sometimes we had to stop to push aside wires hanging down from somewhere above us all the way to the pavement, just to get past. Our driver would ask us if this was the way but naturally we’d never been here before.
Lit up like Christmas on the darkest of nights, I could see ahead the last building in the narrowest of alleyways and prayed that it would be our hotel. Not exactly S.O.P. but we made it just the same.
We understandably slept in a little but who can sleep when there is all of India to see. Five feet from our front door we ran into this.
I wonder if its purpose might be to keep people out, or is it to keep us in? The hanging wires are not so intimidating in the daylight.
We’re told that the Metro station can’t be missed and all we have to do is cross a dusty abandoned field and Bob’s your uncle.
A fellow field trekker showed us the way and Marce sussed out the ticket machine. We found the Metro clean with reasonably well maintained Metro cars, nuts-to-butts with people of all shapes, sizes, and shades.
It was a long ride and a bit of a hike to the famous Red Fort from the next to last metro stop. Without a clue where we might find the entrance to this massive fort, we headed toward where the most people were coming from. S.O.P. for us Escapees.
After a mile or two, walking along the fort wall, we ran into Deirdre and Rose, two Irish lasses who were touring India.
The consensus on the inside of the fort is meh, the juice is not worth the squeeze. What you want is the Amber Fort! Now that’s a fort!
We walked the wall a bit further and then struck out towards two huge towers that look like I.C.B.M.s.
Turns out it’s a massive mosque with a half kilometer of crazy outdoor market to wade through just to reach the bottom of way too many stairs up to the mosque entrance where I’m pretty sure I’ll have to take off my shoes, walk barefoot, and wrap some anonymous ladies ridiculous moo moo around me. No photos please.
I rarely go inside mosques. They’re basically empty but I’m told this one has a tower where you can climb up a claustrophobic spiral staircase and take photos of Delhi. I’m in. Jama mosque is one of India’s largest and was built in 1644. Let me tell you they did things differently back in 1644. Quite posh with three domes and a courtyard that can hold 25,000 worshippers.
Just as I was about to climb the tower, of all things, they closed it for prayer.
Next up is a long hike to something called a Step Well, built in the 14th century.
Marce says you might consider wearing a hat at this step well. She moved to the side to avoid the sun and a pidgeon hit the target dead on.
Is it just me or does this well look Roman?
After another long slog we made it to the India Gate. I suppose it’s more of a memorial than anything else.
It’s big!
Mercifully the call for an Uber was made and we found a safe place to sit and wait.
We put off repacking for as long as we responsibly could. There’s an unimproved nearly vertical ramp not six feet from our bungalow door where Yours Truly was soon dragging our recalcitrant rolling duffle up to Tuktuk’s ring road. Eventually we realized there are very few cars on this island so we took to the street for smoother rolling. Why is it always uphill? I was assured that our new place couldn’t be much further. We stopped for a breather and asked a local who told us we were standing right in front of the Romlan Guesthouse.
There was no sign. All I could see was a rough patchwork of concrete haphazardly plopped down on an impossibly steep slope. Even being charitable you couldn’t call it a driveway. We began to cautiously edge our way down the slippery gravel surface as our wheeled duffle threatened to run me over. When we reached the bottom it was hard to believe we were in the right place until we noticed a high stone wall up another steep slope with block letters spelling ROMLAN.
I dragged the duffle up the uneven path that lead us behind a busy kitchen and around the corner towards the water.
Suddenly we were at a lakeside paradise and we collapsed at Romlan’s lovely guesthouse restaurant where we would spend almost every mealtime for the next 2-1/2 weeks.
The grounds are a garden oasis and our traditional Batak bungalow was the last on the lakefront with a magnificent view from the balcony.
Virtually everyone arrives via ferry at Romlan’s private pier which explains the rather uninviting landside entrance. We had arrived at the municipal pier down the road because we weren’t booked into Romlan until today.
When I say traditional bungalow I mean this is how you enter. Even getting into our bathroom required the same maneuver. We both had multiple lumps on our heads that first week from nighttime trips to the loo.
Every morning we woke up to this man fishing with a small net.
At our first dinner we met a tiny kitten I called Spanky who we learned was dumped at Romlan just a few days ago, motherless, and had already charmed everyone. Add me to the list.
Nearly every day we took long hikes along the serpentine roads of the peninsula, marveling at the unique Batak architecture and distinctive intricate designs.
Sometimes we walked over the rough mountain roads where we discovered cacao orchards and elaborate tombs.
Cacao pod.Cacao beans drying in the sun.Tomb complex nearly hidden in the forest.
We were often approached by groups of schoolchildren wanting to practice English or who have an assignment to speak to tourists. We were even serenaded by one group.
A few days into our weeklong booking we decided to stay longer but our charming traditional bungalow was already booked. The manager did her best to accommodate us but every few days we had to change rooms. We didn’t mind and she told us we’re now the Romlan nomads. Spanky usually found us regardless of where we were.
The guesthouse definitely has the look of old returnees coming back year after year.
We spent most of our days enjoying the lake, reading, napping, trading travel tales and tips with the other guests.
When it was time to go Spanky helped us pack. I’m going to miss that little kitty.
It’s 0400. Yes, that’s four o’clock AM and we’re meant to be meeting someone named Uncle Mike, the driver, and the ever patient mountain guide, Juan (pronounced Joo-Ahn, “I’m not Spanish”) in a flash new black 4-wheel drive. I wonder why we’d need a 4X4 just to drive up to a parking lot. The map shows that 2,200-meter Mt. Sibayak isn’t far but with the condition of the roads in Berastagi everything takes several times longer than it should. I do know why we’re doing this in total darkness though. It was presented to me as “a quiet walk on a forested mountain path up to a large volcanic caldera for a romantic sunrise with a view over the beautiful village nestled in the valley below.” Sounds nice but my legs have barely stopped shaking from the orangutan jungle trek thing.
It’s 4:30 and we’re off. Do we have flashlights? Oh, of course it’s going to be pitch black the whole way up but all we have is a tiny usb rechargeable. Juan offered us a loaner. In the car bounding over the broken, potholed pavement my head had occasion to intercept Uncle Mike’s doorframe which was on its own crazy random orbit. Shaken and rudely stirred we crept up to the car park and gladly escaped Uncle Mike’s brand new black torture machine which I suspect won’t look so new for long. We’re glad, that is, until we could fully appreciate the steepness of the grade, one lane of crumbling macadam pitched up at 20 degrees or more. I pulled hard till we hit the first switchback, turned, legs quivering, to admire our progress. Really?
So dear reader, picture three faint circles of light, barely illuminating six shoes on the dark side of the moon, accompanied by an unearthly gasping sound. I think that was Marce. Might’ve been me.
We paid money for this.
It got very quiet in between the gasping. There are no photographs for obvious reasons so you’ll just have to imagine us plodding up and up the short steep switchbacks in total darkness. Cue the Volga Boat Song.
That’s when things turned for the worse. Just when I thought this can’t go on much longer Juan stopped and said, “Ok, we’re about half way up” — (met with disbelief) — “and we have to be careful because now we climb the trail.”
Wait a gosh darn minute, this is not as advertised! Sure enough, now we found ourselves doing age-adjusted clambering up and over boulders and rocks with a delightful little stream running over the middle of it making it slippery in spots. Evidence of past attempts to build concrete paths or steps lie in crumbled ruin, making the footing all the more difficult. Sibayak mountain is a volcano, after all.
Finally false dawn began to lighten the frigid thick fog. Juan said he expected the wind to blow the fog off the summit. It didn’t look good.
We sensed a slacking of the relentless climbing and off in the distance we could imagine a foggy smear of color of a few tents. There are people camping here?!
We were suddenly hit with the stench of sulfur and the hiss of hot steam vents. I’m pretty sure I saw Marce glance over at me suspiciously.
We stopped to add our puffy jackets to the mix even though we’re less than three degrees from the equator, then carefully picked our way through the rocky debris field.
Suddenly over a sharp rim we were staring down into the caldera. The wind was fierce, and biting cold.
We took shelter from the wind behind a couple of large boulders to await the dawn which we knew we’d never really see due to the thick clouds scudding over the summit.
Juan, ever patient, lobbied for an assault on the summit which would mean another half hour of stumbling around in the clouds. Given the low visibility we knew there’d be no romantic sunrise view, so we were just not interested. I know we disappointed him.
On a clear day, sure. But this day had a stark bleak beauty all its own, with the wind shredding clouds over the summit peak, hissing yellow sulfur deposits smeared here and there, the moon a faint smear above, and the bubbling caldera just below us. It was otherworldly and almost intimidating.
There was nothing left for it but to start back down.
If anything it was more frightening seeing the terrible terrain we had just traversed in the dark.
By this point my legs were not giving a proportional response which is unfortunate considering the situation.
Gaining the car park Juan pointed out the butcher bill for hiking Sibayak area. It was a list of hikers lost on the mountain. Most found dead.
Sobering. I don’t know, maybe they should show the sign of lost souls before you go up. Uncle Mike informed us that the exit road was so bad that we would have to walk down to a safer place while he inched his now not-so-shiny new car down without the added weight.
Bad timing but at least we spotted this creepy foot long centipede.
I was so exhausted I forgot that we were to enjoy a sulfury hot water spa courtesy of Sibayak Volcano. We spent almost an hour soaking our weary bones in progressively hotter pools in full view of the mountain we’d just climbed until it was time to return to the guesthouse and breakfast.
On the way home I found my head intersecting Uncle Mike’s door frame more often. I can only assume that I lacked the core strength to care.
New Rule. #4: No More Sunrise Treks. This time I mean it.
The early sun rose gently through our old hotel’s shady courtyard trees. If it’s not Sunday morning, it ought to be. Truth is, after a whirlwind of travel to the isolated Plain of Jars, I don’t actually know what day it is, and that’s not far from the way I like it. As I linger over a cup of semi passable coffee, I smile thinking about the years spent locked down during Covid on a tiny island in the Malacca Strait. On a rare outing to Penang I even had a tee shirt emblazoned with my moto “Dolce Far Niente” meaning the sweetness of doing nothing. Too much dolce eventually brought us here, years later, to this lovely morning in Vientiane with nothing particular to do.
Now where was I? Oh yes. I read something about a 16th century stupa, near the center of the old city called That Dam Stupa. Just so happens I find myself in the vicinity of the old city center. The so called “Black Stupa” is said to house a now dormant, multi-headed naga. Legend has it that it was instrumental in helping resist the invading army of Siam. The question is, am I being set up for a possible rule #3 violation? It is heating up a bit now but it’s still very pleasant under the trees. And I’m such a sucker for old bricks.
With Marce on hiatus, I’m off to find the wizard at That Dam Stupa. Soon I was zig-zagging through old town, carefully trying to remember the zags and the zigs. On the way, I came across this supposedly significant French Colonial Mansion, so apparently a few are being restored. This one has a way to go.
Turning another corner I suddenly find myself face to face with the Black Stupa.
No multi headed dragons in evidence.
While trying to find this thing in the maze of streets of old town, I noticed Google was showing a large park beside our old friend the Mekong River and, you know, I’ve already come this far so what’s a few more km? On the way I ran into the president’s palace.
I’ll tell you what. It’s really heating up now and my little blue dot is not making much progress, but like in all stories, I eventually reach the pleasant leafy green park, with sprinklers on full chat, and find a few surprises. Like this non functioning fountain, signifying nothing as far as I can tell.
Not to mention this 8 meter tall bronze statue of King Chao Anougvong who led an armed uprising against the occupying army of Siam. He was captured and eventually died in a cage. Nevertheless, he is revered as a Laotian hero and just like the multi headed naga, at least they tried, which apparently is close enough in Laos.
Just like Buddhists every where, they really seem to enjoy lots and lots of tiny statues, the more the better, or huge examples of basically the same statue, the bigger the better, maybe in different poses, or maybe both at once. I really don’t get it. Can anyone help me here?
The following morning we queued up at the Asia Air gateway and followed the happy traveler ahead of us across the tarmac into a receptive airbus. In seconds we were waving goodbye to the Mekong River under our right wing.
After a four hour lay over in Bangkok we caught a nice highlight glinting off the winglets.
We arranged for a songthaew in the morning to continue our highspeed train journey south to Vientiane. True to form we were dropped well short of the train station but this time we were prepared and Vang Vieng’s parking lot is quite a bit smaller. It was obvious that news of our contraband scissor infraction had not followed us here and hopefully has not been entered in our permanent record.
We’ve found that the trick to traveling in Laos is to avoid anything that has to directly interact with what they refer to as “roads.” It’s not necessarily the distances but it’s the wretched condition of them, the mountainous terrain and lack of safety barriers that lead to so many traumatized travelers. We were closer to our ultimate goal in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, but the famous mountainous circuitous nine hour bus trip has left backpackers with stronger constitutions than ours weak-kneed and shattered. So our overall plan has featured two days of floating down the Mekong River, two one-hour high-speed train runs to finally reach Vientiane and the only flight to XiengKhuang Province, which is where you find (fanfare please) the Plain of Jars. We have a date for a forty minute flight tomorrow and a quick overnight sleep to catch our breath tonight.
We hardly knew how to act when our taxi dropped us right at the front door of the airport terminal. This is a sizable airport and we were in the air right on time after a long hike to the plane which was parked far out on the runway.
On arrival we had to check in with Immigration, a first for us on a domestic flight.
There was a bit of a wait in the terminal for a tractor to pull the luggage cart into a kind of garage where everyone was milling about on a raised platform. We were encouraged to reach in and pull our duffel out of the pile. Think of it as an old school luggage carousel.
We clambered into a minivan and followed a meandering route through a sad and dirty little town where, after turning into what can only be described as an alley, we quickly intersected with another alley and our driver stopped abruptly, pointed at a sign far enough away that I couldn’t read it, and said, “There’s your hotel.”
Marce gave me the you-must-be-joking look, and asked why the driver wasn’t taking us all the way to our lodging. He made some gestures that we interpreted to mean it would be a burden for him to have to turn around again to go back. It wasn’t a one-way street. There was no traffic. We didn’t understand and I wasn’t picking up that friendly Laotian vibe.
One hot 100-meter dusty schlep later we were checked in, shown to our cabin, and handed the key on a bullet fob.
We went for a reconnoiter of the rugged one-street town. We’d had a strong recommendation for a bakery/sandwich shop that was close to us. Always on the lookout for decent cheap food, it was the first place we checked out. Here you are confronted with a large pile of white bread buns with four pots of unidentifiable plop as filling. No English, not a chance.
Then we dodged a stampede of water buffalo down Main Street.
We stopped in for a sobering afternoon with the wonderful MAG people (Mines Advisory Group) an international aid organization dedicated to clearing places of land mines, cluster bombs and unexploded ordnance (UXO.) They are a huge presence in this region of Laos.
Laos was the most heavily bombed country per capita in the history of the world. During the American War (what we Americans call the Vietnam War) more than two million tons of cluster bombs were dropped on Laos — a neutral country — an estimated 30% of which failed to explode, leaving huge swathes of land uninhabitable, unusable for agricultural use or infrastructure development, and more important, dangerous to the inhabitants, particularly children. Five decades later people continue to be killed or maimed by UXO.
We learned that between 1964 and 1973 on average every 8 minutes a B52 crossed Laos, dropping ordnance to the tune of 270,000,000 bombs, some of which were cluster bombs filled with thousands of bomblets the size of a tennis ball, painted a cheerful yellow. Many failed to explode but they’re still ready and waiting for a small child to find.
This map shows the areas bombed and the density of the bombing. The southern region was targeted to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the supply route for the North Vietnamese.
The northern region was bombed because it was the training grounds for Lao Communists. It’s an area referred to as the Plain of Jars, and it’s where we are now.
The legacy of the American bombing is ubiquitous in Laos, and particularly in the Plain of Jars region. It can lead to this conflicting image, American bombs and an American soft drink.
Every night our open air hotel lobby is warmed by a wood fire burning in a cluster bomb casing. But tonight it’s early to bed for the Escapees because tomorrow morning we adventure seekers are off to see the other side of the Plain of Jars.
The tuktuk pulled up a good half kilometer shy of the Chinese built highspeed train station. The driver hopped out, pulled our loyal rolling duffel out and deposited it on the side of the four-lane concrete road, smiled and with a flourish said, “Train.” We got out in the searing Laotian sun and realized that to go any farther he would have to cough up another 10,000 KIP (.50 US) at the guard desk. We turned back to protest but by that time he was already in second gear. Resigned to our sweaty hike, the guards smiled as we slowly trudged by. They’ve seen it before.
The station facade had an austere Chinese take on Laotian architecture. The expansive parking lot was nearly empty.
Barely through the front door we found ourselves queuing up in a pre-security passport check, the kind where they really stare at your picture then your face and then back and forth for some time. This is interesting because the train doesn’t cross a border. After that we were scanned and frisked.
Soon we were off to the X-ray machines where they found a small pair of blunt nosed scissors buried deep in our duffel. Truth be told we were warned they are wizards at finding sharp objects, confiscating them is job #1, and you can kiss them good bye if you bring them. For that reason, we had left every pointy item back in the van in Ireland, and figured these small blunt scissor would make it through. If not they were designated sacrificial. And they were sacrificed.
The security people proceeded to regard everything we had with suspicion but other than having to repack all of our belongings and losing those contraband scissors our record is unblemished on the Chinese highspeed train system. All this for an hour-long ride.
I’m not sure why we were advised to show up three hours before departure but from this moment on time stood still.
It seems the train operators don’t consider the traveler to need constant entertainment or retail sales temptations and experiences as do airports. This huge hall is nothing but business.
Suddenly we sensed a slight commotion, like when hundreds of birds in a tree go silent at the same time and suddenly all of those birds take to wing at the same time in a great whoosh. We found ourselves caught up in an avalanche of pushers and shovers and the lines broke down into more of a scrum gathered around the ticket takers.
Any discipline was enforced by the purple shirts with bullhorns and attitude. Of course we had no idea what they were saying or what they even wanted, but it soon became obvious to us that they would rather everyone line up like adults according to our assigned car number and stop creating impromptu lines. At least we found out what the purple shirts are for.
A young woman in a purple shirt with a bullhorn directly in front of us seemed quite angry. I just hoped she wasn’t yelling at us, but then again how would we know? I couldn’t look at her. Her barking instructions kept everyone in line until the train entered the station and came to a stop. As soon as the doors opened all hell broke loose and we were caught in the crush of fellow passengers with luggage clambering to get settled before the train took off again.
I honestly think they took pity on us as foreigners and soon we found our seat and we settled down for a nice scenic high speed ride.
The shiny pants train imperceptibly pulled out and we were plunged into darkness where we stayed for quite a while then suddenly we were blinded by bright sunlight for three seconds and then plunged back into darkness for a good while. This is the pattern of high speed train travel in this mountainous part of the country as we zoomed in and out of near continuous tunnels. The digital speed readout at the front of the car confidently read 145KPH (90+MPH) but the carriage barely jiggled for over an hour until we glided to a stop outside of Vangvieng.
Leaving the platform we were herded in a reprise of the earlier scrum just to prove to the purple shirts that we were in fact paying customers. Blinding bright sunlight greeted us while we instinctively searched for the taxi controller guy who always seems to have a clipboard. We were packed into a Hiace van jammed with young backpackers for the 30 minute drive into town, dropping off passengers along the way. Our first look at Vang Vieng revealed a rundown dusty town. Honestly, it could have been Tijuana but without the tacos.
Finally with no one left but us, we pulled up to our hotel. After four flights of stairs, schlepping the duffel all the way, we were shown our room with a balcony that had the most incredible mountain view that I could imagine. Score big for Marce, who worked hard to find the best room in town.
Directly in front of us were several dozen narrow long-tail boats moored side to side along the Nam Song River.
A few were sightseeing, running up or down the river and we could see the occasional motor glider lazily putting past our eagle’s nest.
The craggy mountain range filled me with wonder. I see us spending a lot of time absorbing all this incredible beauty.
Marce read about a Kiwi-centric restaurant located across the river not far from us, which is good because I was quite leery of eating at anything I’d seen so far. Sure enough, we found a rickety old bridge a mere two blocks from our hotel. Before stepping past some mementos courtesy of Tricky Dicky and his sidekick Henry the K, a man who deserves no peace, a woman told us, “Just stay straight in the middle, don’t stop, watch out for those damn scooters and pray.”
Turns out the bridge mainly consists of old rotten bits of left over wood and holes.
We didn’t fancy picking our way back across the bridge in the dark but Yours Truly sussed out a steel pedestrian bridge about three hundred meters further down stream. It even has lights and no scooters.
The following morning I broke out our Aeropress coffee works for the first time this trip and got busy. The day’s master plan featured a Jack brewed cuppa tableside out on the balcony and that’s just about the sum total of it. I opened the door to our balcony and almost dropped our carefully crafted coffee.
We knew there were hot air balloon excursions somewhere in the valley but this felt like our own private show.
Turns out Vang Vieng is an adrenaline tourist’s Mecca, from zipline or motor-gliding, to hot air balloons, caving and rock climbing, If you want to risk it, they’ve got it. The large number of bandaged young backpackers we saw around town attest to the willingness of youth.
Every morning after the sky show we make the rounds looking for an edible breakfast, but it’s always the mountains that drew us back.
One morning at our early show, we had a surprise guest drop in due a shift in the breeze.
Unfazed, they dropped lines from the balloon and with six men hanging on they dragged the rogue balloon back to the wharf where they could exchange new paying customers for those whose time was up. A tricky bit of ballon handling.
They turned up the wick and she popped up like, well like a balloon.
Our last night here we spent with slowboat friends Simon and Karen at a place they found tucked away a kilometer from our hotel. They were staying at a cabin on the island in the river so I showed them the steel pedestrian bridge that I discovered. It was dark and they were relieved to not have to negotiate the rickety monster at night.
In the morning we were continuing our journey on the early highspeed train to Vientiane in an effort to accomplish an adventure two years in the making.
I have to say that in retrospect better judgement could have been exercised in choosing transportation to Kong Si falls. The 600,000KIP number ($7.50 US each) was attractive for four people to travel over an hour on Lao’s horrible roads, but a Songthaew, which is always painted red, with a spare tire where your feet would rather be, open to dust and dirt, with a low menacing steel bar as you try to climb in, featuring rock hard bench seats running down both sides of the truck bed, combined with a buggy suspension whose unfortunate use of leaf springs borders on the criminal, may not have been the best option. At least we won’t be roaming around picking up and dropping off backpackers on the way.
In deference to you, dear Escapees I will not attempt to describe the terrible beating we four took, but suffice to say, we’re told the bruising will heal.
On arrival our man motioned that he would pick us up over there in a dusty lot where fellow chauffeurs were hanging their hammocks or already sleeping in their Tuk-Tuks and Songthaews.
The usual carney atmosphere of countless souvenir, Tee shirt, and Satay vendors fills the arrival area, which leads directly to the uniformed authorities at the ticket turnstile. Once through we were faced with a giant tree and a decision.
Turn left and trust that the trail is a loop, turn right for what has become the Escape Velocity paradigm of counter rotation. It seems to work for us. We entered a lush rainforest.
I’m impatient to get to the waterfall but first we will visit a large area devoted to an Asiatic Black Bear Rescue Center. At any given time the center houses 10-20 bears rescued from illegal wildlife trade, and specifically the abusive harvesting of bile, used in Chinese medicine. It’s fair to say they don’t look very happy but presumably life will improve for them.
A bit more hiking and we find ourselves at the first of many pools of milky turquoise water.
It’s a spooky color that seems to glow from within, but kind of magical just the same.
Of course I’ve got that “Is that all there is?” song on the great tape recorder in my head, but we don’t judge, and I can see more and more beautiful curvey pools with a healthy spillover effect.
Not what I’d call a waterfall exactly, but definitely unusual.
Working our way upstream the milky water spread out over more and more small curved pools and the beauty of the falls began to overwhelm us. The view changed with every step along the path.
We plunged into the rain forest for a while.
Regaining the muddy water’s edge we found ourselves in the powerful presence of a beautiful 50 meter tall waterfall.
Simon instinctively scampered up a very steep slippery path that leads up to the top of the falls but it’s been my experience that the view from the top of waterfalls is almost always disappointing. That would make it a rule #3 (is the juice worth the squeeze?) infraction. We found a seat at the bottom of the falls and absorbed the beauty while we attempted to scrape the mud off our shoes.
Heading back we found more spectacular views from the other side.
Simon even found time for a dip in the milky turquoise water.
We grabbed a snack and found our driver sound asleep.
I wish I could say that the way back was not as punishing but in fairness, it was every bit as bad. We repaired to our rooms and if there was ever a day for a long massage this was it.
