Do you know what its like to have your bamboo shack firebombed...three times? Neither do I, but an uncanny amount of Laotians do.
Laos ("LA-O") is the most bombed country in the world (blue ribbon for the #1 man-made-crater-state). During the "Secret War" that the American government waged on the Communist forces of SE Asia during the Vietnam era, Laos was target for heavy bombardment due to its use as a supply route for VC forces. There are still dangerous amounts of UXO (unexploded ordinance - bombs and landmines) that still cause casualties when accidentally perturbed by a child, wanderer, off road vehicle or trekker.
Despite this, and, in a sick way, possible because of this, it is an absolutely pristine and beautiful country.
The population density is one of the lowest in the world. Picturesque villages line narrow mountain highways; indigenous peoples go about their business (...poppy seed muffin anyone?); karst landscape pocked with caves and jutting marble towers divide remote villages; 8 hour boat rides are necessary to reach some of the furthest villages. However, things are changing away from this eco-paradise; the Lao government is taking initiative (with pressure from China) to modernize infrastructure and serve as a "crossroads state" (reminds me of home...). The Chinese need to get resources out of Laos, mainly timber, and to get their goods to markets in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
From approximately four years ago there was one ATM in the entire country. Now there are...well, slightly more than one. When I first arrived from Vietnam, and the bus dumped me on a river bank with the town on the other side, I knew I was unprepared and inexperienced in the challenges this country would offer. After ferrying the river I intended to stay in the small river-harbor town and take a boat upstream to the Chinese border the next day. The only problem was there was no ATM so it was necessary to travel onwards to a town "just down the road..." four hours to use theirs.
The Chinese trade town of Udomxai has an ATM! It was thrilling at the time. It has an ATM (did I mention it works 24hr?) and... a lot of Chinese people and Chinese inns, Chinese restaurants...you get the picture.
The next day, after a roach-party in my hotel room (301...there is a picture of the inviting door in my Picasa album), I returned to the river town to take the boat North. An ebony skinned Asiatic with a pot-belly an iron kettle would envy informed me "No boat...Tomorrow you come 9o'clock". Life trickles along in this small world. A sense of overwhelming privilege and the sense of freedom filled me as I lay by the crawling banks - it was a golden joy - when I realized I could leave; when I realized my life is so much larger. The joy was accompanied swiftly with empathetic despair on behalf of the people who would make these doldrums home from their first infant cries until the anticlimactic gasp of death.
I felt like an Eagle in a warbler's nest. A whale in a frog pond.
This was a sentiment that lingered throughout my time in Laos.
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Five hours up the river in a longboat, passing village shanties, dropping off local Laotians in the jungle so they could continue home on foot through the bush, checking the boatman's fish traps as we went along, I began to slip into the fabled "Lao-time";It's related to Einstein's Relativity.
Finally, after docking and taking a 'tuk-tuk' (a flatbed truck converted into a snazzy taxi) up the mountain, I entered my Shangri-la...and began to uncover a truth about myself and my travels.
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