Monday 7 February 2011

Chatted Up by a Monk

so.... now here i am in Laos... :) my mind is too here to really get into writing about the past week but i will give you an overview ..and pictures will follow sometime.

There was a shift with the sunshine and and the mountains rose up green so did my heart and hopes it seems.

Tiger leaping gorge was breath taking and in heindsight too short a stay..i hope to return to hike it properly one day for sure.

Dali was a great rest up place. i spent a week at a hostel called the Hump drawing a mural on the main wall in the bar in return for my stay. there was adventures around the town, up the mountain, music was played and white russians were drunk.

At the end of the week i bid farewell to my friends (and the owners of the hostel who had sworn i was not alowed to leave and have shackles on my feet) and with a freidn who i had met on the bus from tiger leaping gorge i headed south towards laos.

We boarded the night bus to Jinghong and swapped places with a man so we could share the giant bed space in the back rather then being opposite ends of the bus. It was myself, Chris (my friend, who as a side note had just spent a week in a budhist monistary with child monks learning kung fu! no messing with him! hhiiiiya!) and a belgian guy called fransoiurs who was on the bus. As it got darker and the raods became less of a road we lay back for outr long 16 hour ride. Most of this time was spent moving in the space between the bed and the ceiling up and down as the road was un tarmacked and pretty much made of pot holes linked together with a series of bumps. Still it was a nice ride and to have a friend to cuddle up with was nice as it gets lonely on these long journeys sometimes.

We arrived in jinghong and as we got off the bus Fransouir found his wallet on the end of the bed minus 100 euros :( another victim of the night bus experience unfortunatly. We bid him farewell and good luck and got on our next bus, a little mini van which would takes us down and over the laos boarder. During the night something remarkable had happened. The harsh mountains which backed onto the Himalayas had given way to lush jutting rock mountains covered in banana plantations and bamboo forests. Beautiful children played by the dusty road and waved as we passed, and when i lent across and opened the window i could smell nature. I could litterally smell the life and vibrancy which i had been lacking since leaving yakushima all those months ago. WE arrived in Luang Nam Tha and found ourselves a guesthouse. Here hostels dont exist, but many people can share a room in a guesthouse to cut down costs so we got a two bed room and settled down to being in Laos. We went out with a couple we had met in Dali at the hostel there who also had arrived that day on a different bus and ate the best indian food i have had in a loooong time. Then after sharing a bottle of beer lao Chris and I bought some chocolate, another beer and headed back to the room to finally get some sleep after our 2 days of traveling. We lay on my bed and put on some Laos TV to fill the air, and i rolled over to eat a bit of Chocky and gave chris a satisfied hug.... "comfy?" he asked.... "i could be more comfy" i responded about 3 seconds before falling asleep. :)

Wow real sleep...all night... i woke up half way through the night to turn of the blabbering TV and to snuggle under my covers but wow, a bed that wasn't moving was like a blessing.

The next day i bid farewell to chris as he headed off to the bus station to head to Thai Land and meet his girlfriend and i met an american couple outside this lady's roadside snack bar.
My plan was to head to a small village, and from there get a boat along the river to a smaller village to meet a friend of mine called Lilly. I met her 4/5 years ago in South Spain and traveling into portugal with her and rosie. Now she is teaching english in a tiny village in laos, and its school holidays starting this week so we are going to adventure together though Laos.
As i told my new american chums about this they decided to come along with me to see if they could find nice places to hike... i guess its impossible to be alone when traveling. As they got their bags ready the lady who owns the snak spot jived with me across the dirt floor space around the picnic table.

At the bus station (which we reached via tuk tuk) I saw Chris again for a proper goodbye as his leaving earlier had been a rushed wave as he shot off to catch a bus (which he missed) on a tuk tuk. Soon anough i was rolling my way through Northern Laos, heading EAst towards Vietnam. Chickens, cows, children all running around the road side and women in traditional laos dress.

We spend the night in a village called Pak Mon in the "alone guesthouse" ...ironically as there was now three of us in a double bed.

The next morning we boarded the tuk tuk to mong kieu.

A woman roasting a rat on a stick over a little fire, tail and all.

Chickens.

Waving faces.

Beautiful Laos waving faces.

As we get on the low wooden thin boat alongside the other Farang (foreigners) and locals a woman (i can only suppose to be his mother) shouted at the boat man and a situation ensued which appeared to be "you can not! go on that boat, get back here" "awww but muuuum, look at all the people on the boat" "no get back here, if you go your not comming back" "sorry mum, got all these people" and off we whooshed....

Swimming buffalo.

Bamboo.

Huge root systems on trees line the bank.

The water in the boat rises.

Fishermen.

A girl pales water laughing nervously.

Swimming naked children on the bank.

Our feet get wet.

...oh shit... suddenly we are banking up and rescueing swiftly dampening bags and guitars from the back of the boat and piling out onto a sand bank island.


eventually they bail out enough water and where as i thought the sensible idea was to put half the amount of people back on the boat and do a double run it seemed this was not the plan. On we all piled again and this time as the water bailing girls stop was the next stop i took up the challange of keeping the water levels low enough so as not to sink. So under the humm of the motor i pailed and pailed and sang to myself a little song of "pailing out the water, pailing out the water, pailing out a pailing out a pailing out the water, gunna keep this boat afloat untill we get to the other siiiide" and eventually we did get to the "other side" to the little village of Mong Ngoi where i was due to meet Lilly.

Mong Ngoi is an interesting place, touristised enough to have a steady tourist trade (a constant flow of new farang arriving ever day on the two little boats that roll in) with a few bars and buffet places. However being unacessable by road, only by boat it keeps a real traditional charm, most of the buildings being wooden and bambo weave walls and the electricity only comiong on for 3 hours a day in the evening. As we walked down the one "street" of the village i hear a cry of "i found you!" as Lilly ran up to me. Not only was i a day late to meet her but she had been postponed by a day also comming from the little village 2 hours up river by a day. She had sat with her stuff on the boat for 5 hours the day before while they told her the boat would be leaving soon... inevitably the boat never left and the mother of her host family had to come down to the river bank and tell her to give up and come home :) however as is always the way the timing was perfect and we both arrived on the same day.


My two friendlings headed off to a near by village to find some trecking and lilly and i settled into our little wooden hut we rented for a few days. Luxury. Later that day we sat in a "cafe" (i ordered a pancake which it turned out was a lot more litteral than i imagines, litterally a sponge cake made in a frying pan) and did some catch up and near by sat a belgian lad with a guitar. We invited him over. His name was conrad and after a bit of song sharing and chit chat we all decided to go visit a cave that lilly knew of where you could swim in the uber fresh clean waters in the darkness of the cavern where sunlight never reaches.
The lush entrance to the cave, bamboo and ferns.
We stiped bare by the light of the head torch and swan in the cold fresh waters singing with the ancient echos of the past, still quietly bouncing off the rocks.
The cold air which lives withing the mountain.
The cool cold waters.
My hand hovers in the space between a hanging rock and its reflection in the water.
We left the cave and let the soft sunlight dazzle our eyes, the leaves acting like lanterns in the sunlight, glowing. We walked for half an hour or so more across a bamboo bridge and the fields, now dry and harvested. Broccoli mountains paying no attention to our story.eventually we arrive at a little village, less touristy than mong ngoibut still home to the odd "guesthouse"and "guide". Families sit weaving from grasses and kids run past us, wide eyed from the strangers. Old women point and laugh at lillys Sin (tradtional Laos skirt) saying "laos, laos" over and over. we pass out the other side of the village and back into the dry fields, each patch lined with a thin raised mound to walk on.

We sat.

We watched the mountains. In the distance a curious local boy watches us, sling shot in hand. Slowly he draws closer, curious and careful. As lilly pulls out her tobbaco pouch and begins to roll he perches down beside her, the ripped shorts of an adventurous boy. He stares at the tobbaco and her face. She opens the pouch and lets him sniff at which he smiles nodding and saying "yeeeah" She rolls forhim and i watch him smoke his first cigarrette (or so it seemed) puffing on the dead fire cross eyed untill lilly pulls her lighter outand relights it. He says he's 16 but the young laos face could be a 10 year old all we know. he watches me draw so i hand him my pen. holding it awkwardly he writes something on my pages in scrawled laotian. Soon the guitar is the centre of attentiuon and i hand it to him, afraid of doing it wrong at first but eventually smiling mile wide and strumming gently on the strings. Eventually the sun begin to fall and we headed back through the village bidding our young friend fare well nd walked back to mong ngoi and our little hut. barefeet sore. dinner, music, jamming.

That night lilly and i lay in bad and a knock comes on the door, conrad comes in and listens to my russian folk song, we play by torchlight as the electricity has gone. then he bids us goodnight as he wonders off to his tent. Lilly and i snuggle down under the mosquito net, our big princess bed.


At about 12:30 we were woken by a knock on the door there was conrad topless and tend tdraped over our balcony. He had been attacked in the middle of the night, as he had drifted off to sleep he heared someone kicking sand onto his tent, he put his head out and under the light of the almost full moon he saw someone looming over him, arms raised with a plank in their hands. The plank soon found its way to conrads face and dazed he screamed to draw attention but no one came, the attacker fled. We think now they had wanted to rob him but hadn't done so.
Now he stood in our door way, shaken up, swolen head and what was soon to turn out to be blindr or a black eye which formed over the next few days. He slept in our hut with us and the next morning the police were called, though there was little thye could do as he didnt remember anything about the attacker. It was the first incident like this they had ever had.

However aside fromthis the area was idilic but soon it was time to head off, lilly only had a few weeks holiday time and we wanted to explore south of laos together before she had to be back in her village. We bid farewell to our friend Conrad who promised to come meet us in the south and headed off.

I drempt i was making love to God all night, a divine being caressing my heart and soul, he reenacted the creation of everything and we pointed out his mistakes during the three witches "Fair is fowl" speach...i awoke to the banana leaf rustle in the wind along the nam ou. That night a thousand tiny bunnies walked under a thin layer of snow through my dreams carrying me along.

In Luang Prabang we visited a Watt (temple) and some monks asked me to play my guitar, the conversation:
young monk: "is that a guitar?"
me: "yes"
young monk: "can you play?"
me: "yes..... would you like me to?"
young monk: "yes"
i sat down with my guitar upon my lap and plucked upon the strings

young monk: "are you single?" ....

me: .... "no".... "are you a monk?"

young monk: "yes....no.... a novice...."



young monk: "....can you play westlife?"

me: "...no"



So now i am in the capital of Laos, the Me Kong seperates laos from thai land and the sun rises into the window of our hostel room. Thai Embasy getting visas for the future and then tomorrow night we head to the south.

My heart feels light and free, the sun is warm, the air humid, the mosquitos....annoying.


I hope where ever you are your feeling just as at peace with every moment. As Green says "a moment can seem like eternity, so i choose to use this moment wisely"
Much love to all of you.

Fleassy

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