A Look See

I just spent a week 'up island', as someone says, on Vancouver Island, in the town we will be moving to in four months. One of the things I was doing there was practicing living there, trying things on for size. That, and commencing the all important search for a new pilates instructor, hairdresser and nail gal. The important things in life.

Our new home is just up from Parksville on this map. I kind of like that it's not on the map.

I had no luck with the latter, which is a little worrying as even an esthetician and a real estate agent who between them know everybody, were unable to recommend a good hairdresser. What do you think that means? As far as trying things on for size, the place was nothing at all as I had seen it before. It is March and everyone was suffering from an unusual occurence, a spring that fails to come on time. Two weeks ago it even snowed - very rare for this time of year, or so I'm told and it had better be true. I heard that many people go south in the winter, usually some time in January and/or February and indeed I had noticed quite a few tans in town.

For the entire week I was there it rained. It drizzled, it paused, it rained harder. The place I stayed in was in the woods and the glistening cedars with showers pouring from their leaves, reminded me of those rains in the woods at the cottage in Ontario so many years ago, although here the trees are much bigger. The smell from the woods was familiar, though here, on Vancouver Island, there is also that amazing smell in the air from the ocean.

I froze. I was SO cold ALL the time. Nothing I had to wear could begin to warm me up. I had thought that I would walk all the time, exploring on foot, as I do outside of Manila. Well no, not here. I was so cold and it was so rainy that I walked on the boardwalk along the beach only once, during a short break from the rain. Other than that I went from my heated room, to my heated car to a heated cafe or restaurant or store or wherever I was going, huddled against the cold and wet in between. And furthermore, I couldn't get the heat adjusted properly - up and down it went, off and on.

Welcome to the West Coast.

As I think of it, you could say, if you wanted to, that it's much the same as going from air conditioned condo, to car, to different other place in Manila which also means never going outside.

No it is not the same. At all.

This was good for me. Get those rose colored glasses off, not that they were attached all that tightly to begin with.

 However, once I did get inside somewhere, and watched and listened to the few people out and about, I was amazed at the way everyone talks to each other. All the time. Chit chat. Of course, being a small town, many know each other, but not always. Everyone talked to me too, clearly from "away" with my Asian colors and Budget Rent-A-Car sticker. Grocery store check out ladies, gas jockeys (yes, there is a FULL SERVE gas station in town!!! Real Women don't pump gas, to riff off that, OK, old expression),  and fellow shoppers. Today I went in to a restaurant for lunch and was waiting to be seated at the same time another gal was waiting. "Are you alone?" she asked. "Would you like to join me?" Well would I?! You bet I would. Enjoyed a nice hour over lunch picking her brains about what it was like to live here. "Call me when you move here, we'll have lunch again!" A friendlier bunch of people I've never seen before. Unsettling and intriguing. Where does this lead?

I've always lived in big cities. Or, more precisely, for most of the time, in the suburbs of big cities. Never a town of 8500.

I can tell this much. I am going to experience as much culture shock coming back to Canada as I did moving to Asia. And I would suggest, probably more. No surprises there.

Ha ha. Doesn't look like this tonight. This was summer!

I'm back in Victoria now in my favorite place by the water, (click on the video) which of course, this being March, also looks so much different from the times we spend here, mostly in summer, which by my imperfect count must be at least once a year for around six or seven years. Feels like a second home to me now. Today it is all gray and the huge, low clouds settle out over San Juan Island on the States' side. Gorgeous, nonetheless, and within 5 minutes of arriving I saw seal, otter, mergansor birds, gulls and more and more. For the next week I will visit friends, gaze out the window at this amazing view of the Haro Strait and go to The Mall to find a winter coat.

Because it's about to get worse. Next week I go to Ottawa. In March. I haven't seen snow in four years.

Source

Disguised

I'm in Canada right now and was reading "Canada's National Newspaper".

An article about Burma caught my eye. Written by a very Caucasian looking guy, it was about the plight of people with AIDS in Burma, not a particularly unique or interesting article in itself, until I got to the very end and read this, which made me laugh out loud...

Mark MacKinnon recently spent two weeks undercover in Myanmar. More in this series will appear later.

Hmmm. Undercover. Now that would be some trick.

Kawy Hak Muong Laos - I Love Laos

People have asked me why I go back so much. The perfectly logical question is "What is it that you like about it?" I'm always caught at a bit of a loss for a succinct answer - I say that I must get around to creating a "sound bite" answer. After some hesitation the words "quiet" and "peaceful" come out. It feels peaceful, it feels quiet.

Although as Kelly will attest to when we arrived, unknowingly, at the time of the the national festivals last October, the Lao people may be peaceful but they can be very far from quiet.

The view across the river from our hotel in Vang Vieng December 2008 - peace and quiet

The same river bank at the festival October 2010- our hotel room was right at the finish line for the boat races. Lao pop music played all day long and into the night. Two volumes - off and full blast.

Cows wandering in front of the stage, looking completely befuddled. The guy in red ran over to chase them away.

My "mission" on this trip was to figure out why I like it so much and why I keep returning to Laos. especially as there are still so many places in Southeast Asia I haven't been to yet. It is always a question of competition for money and time. Where to go next? Somewhere new? Or return to somewhere known?

“Why” questions are always problematic as answers are elusive. For example, why do I cringe and draw away from churches, yet I visit temples? Why does the sight of poverty in the Philippines drive me crazy yet I walk through it in Laos without the same kind of reaction? Why does lousy service make me nuts elsewhere but here I am ready to let it pass?

Laos is a country of great beauty. A country of lush mountains (and stripped mountains). A country of many many rivers, including the mother of them all, the Me Kong. "Me" is the word for "mother". It is a very wet, nautical, water dependent country despite the fact that it has no border with the sea. It is a country of waterfalls and green rice and vegetable gardens, of plains and karst mountains and stunning views.

But that doesn't explain it. This whole planet is gorgeous; where it is ugly is where people have made it so. Why Laos?

Well speaking of people, that could be a clue. There are none in Laos, relatively speaking of course. This country is the size of the Korean peninsula (73 million people) or Great Britain (62 million) but it has a population of less than 6 million people. This suits me. We've spent quite a bit of time on our travels driving through the countryside where there weren't that many people around. These mountain areas of the north are tough lands, not really conducive to larger groups living together. Rice fields are way up on the steep slopes of the mountains. Only one crop a year and for all the work of growing it in those conditions, the yields are lower than that of the rice grown in the lowlands. Not much has changed in some of these villages for hundreds of years, if not a thousand.

Village along the road to Luang Prabang

In these lands are trees. Lumber. A natural resource eyed by the country's neighbors. Also in these remote lands are minerals  and the potential of building mines to extract them, also eyed by the neighbors. What could China or Viet Nam or Thailand or even further afield, South Korea possibly be wanting? Land and natural resources. Guess where most of the aid that is allowing Laos to develop is coming from?

Laos has a feeling of hope to it. That's the only way I can think of to describe it. Hope. And by that I mean hope for a better future. In the cities the changes are happening so quickly. Even in the few years that we have been going there, we see change always from one visit to another. Change that will ultimately transform the look and feel of these urban places significantly.

One huge project going on in the capital of Vientiane is the shoring up of the riverfront. When we first went there 3 years ago, the riverfront was quite charming in its way, with little barbeque open air eateries and places where you could recline on mats and mattresses and drink Beer Lao and watch the sunset. At Christmas a few years ago we lay on our backs and watched thousands of paper lanterns drift up into the sky. (Even these "fireworks" were Lao peaceful and quiet.) During a daytime stroll along the river we watched kids playing soccer on the sandbank revealed by the low water levels of the Mekong that time of year. Peering down the side of the bank toward the river you could see kitchen gardens along the banks of the river and small fishing boats tied to land's edge. Gorgeous bright red chilies drying in the sun caught the eye. Women cooked sticky rice or barbecued fish along the edge of the riverside road for sale to passersby. Vientiane take-out. It was all really charming.

The Vientiane riverfront in 2008

Charming yes, but the riverbank was eroding and flooding every now and then. The Koreans have donated $30 million worth of equipment and expertise to build up the riverbank and it is now unrecognizable from earlier days.

Double take. Here is the Vientiane riverfront in October, 2010 still under construction.

4 months later. Vientiane riverfront February 2011

 The good news is the riverfront has been developed as parkland not condos. The little barbecue joints are gone but they seem to have relocated to the sidewalks on the other side of the road, including the reclining mattresses, but somehow I don’t think the experience is quite the same when you are lying on the sidewalk beside the road instead of on the banks of a river. Why do they bother, I wonder, passing by I never saw anyone on them. No doubt once the riverside is complete, the shops and buildings across the street will be the next target of change. Now, although really vibrant shops line the street, street food stands, convenience stores, clothing, travel agents, ATM's, and there is a lot of activity, the buildings are kind of run down. That side of the street facing the new waterfront is ripe for development of cafes and boutiques and shops to cater to the growing number of tourists visiting Laos.

There were four months between my visit to Vientiane in October and February and the difference was so apparent. As well as the riverfront development, on the side streets running off the river road, lots of renovations had been completed, new restaurants opened and new construction begun, including our own charming brand new hotel half a block from the river.

I have a Canadian friend who lives in Vientiane with his Lao wife. His house is not far from the river and his neighbors in the village on the river's edge  used to infuriate him with their habit of tossing all their garbage in the river. He tried to get a garbage disposal system going with them, getting the elders on board and even providing waste containers and paying for garbage pickup. It didn’t last long. They started to use the bins for bathing instead and kept tossing the trash in the river. These neighbors are now being relocated as the land by the water has been expropriated for the riverside reconstruction project. Turns out this has actually worked out quite well for my friend as not only are the messy neighbors gone, his own property is now instant waterfront!

For now, you can still walk along the quiet unpaved streets just 10 minutes from the hotel to find local villages along the Mekong, very peaceful. As of now, but likely not for long, there are still places where we can sit by the Mekong and watch the sunset over Thailand from our Vientiane riverside watering hole.

Grumpy

Thai Tour Bus - Pakse

Luang Prabang was very different this February trip,  high season for tourists. My last two trips were in October and July, another story entirely. This time there were lots and lots of tourists, which I expected, but what was even more apparent was that there appear to be a lot more tour groups. People traveling in packs. It was not just in Luang Prabang, we saw the same thing in the south in Pakse and places beyond.

A couple of years ago when I first started visiting, I was very nervous about all the articles coming out in American and European magazines and newspapers about Laos being the "hot new destination". Seems I was right to be concerned.

The old town of Luang Prabang is a World Heritage Site and it's supposedly not possible to build new hotels within the boundaries (although from the look of things some "renovations" may be stretching the term). This part of the town is a peninsula, bounded by 2 rivers, the Mekong and the Khan and accommodation is mostly guesthouses and small hotels. This is where we like to stay, right in the middle of town, in a little hotel has only 8 rooms, therefore not many other guests. $80 a night. On the outskirts of town are where all the new, fancy, expensive hotels are located, so if you like the pool and the space and all, that's where you stay, and that is indeed where most of the tour groups put their customers. It's a hike from there to get in to town, hence the tour buses and vans and tarted up hotel "tuk tuks" that now line the streets. Instead of the single or pair of travelers doing the "Luang Prabang Stroll" along the streets of the town, now there are also the groups of people following their guides in and out of temples and whatever.

One night we walked into a restaurant known for some pretty good Lao food to find that on the first floor there was one long table set for about 22, and upstairs two tables of about the same size. The noise levels from groups that size are intense. Intimate dining anyone? Well, not in February it seems. Lao has become trendy.

Table for...20?

My biggest problem with all the travel I've been doing is with the other travelers. For the most part I have zero interest in them. It brings a chill to my bones to hear that inevitable opening line, “So, where are you folks from?” Oh shit, here it goes.  As far as I’m concerned people just talk too damned much. Endless blah blah blah. When in Laos I’m far more interested in talking to Lao people or at least foreigners who have lived in Lao for awhile, than listening to foreigners natter on about their own lives back home. Sounds of silence are best.

Source

This leads me many times to some pretty anti-social behavior. Don't make eye contact. No smiling allowed (this is a tough one as I usually have a huge grin on my face in Laos). Don't appear approachable. The second best present I ever received was my noise canceling headphones, a must-have for traveling in boats or vans or buses with other tourists. I spent an entire afternoon in the lounge of our Mekong boat, tuned out, listening to Led Zeppelin on my iPod (had almost completely forgotten how great they were). I keep iPod and headphones close. On one horrific bus trip a couple of years ago from Vientiane to Vang Vieng I was forced to listen to a bunch of travelers natter on and on and on about their real estate in California, their probate problems with Mom's estate and, of course, a critique of everywhere they had been so far on their Southeast Asian adventure. Where was my iPod? In my suitcase strapped to the roof of the bus!

The temple across from our hotel in Luang Prabang - Morning Alms

One of the things that Luang Prabang is known for is the monks' morning alms procession. There are more than 30 temples in this small town and the monks are a very visible presence. At 4:00 a.m. the temple drums start up, presumably to wake everybody (!) up to call the monks to early prayer. Then at around 6:30 the gongs start gonging and the monks leave the temple complexes to walk the streets, barefoot, with alms bowl in hand to collect sticky rice from the local people. There is a ritual to it. The women get up very early, wash and dress up in their sinh skirts in preparation for the alms giving, which is a way, in their Buddhist religion, of making merit. Women cannot stand above a monk, so they sit on mats, with feet tucked behind them, reaching up to put an offering into each alms bowl as the monks pass by.

The trip last October was the first time I bothered to get up so early to see the Luang Prabang morning alms. Our new-found hotel was just behind the main street and in front of a few big temples, so the monk walk passed right in front. It was cool from the night air and still pretty dark with only some dim street lighting, and there was a heightened feeling, a sense of anticipation as the few people out on the streets waited for the monks to show. All of a sudden, out of the temple gates they came with a  swishing of those distinctive orange robes, the "sun in the dark", as my new ex-monk friend told me the robes were called (Ock Pok Tok). I can see why. The monks move at quite a brisk pace through the dark streets. It is not slow and stately, not at all. I think I may have an idea why. The monks have a morning meal after the alms. They eat again at noon and then that's it. They don't eat again until the next day - only water, tea or coffee (no milk). My theory is that they are so hungry that they move quickly to get it over with so they can have breakfast. These are, after all, mostly teenage boys.

There were some funny moments. At one point 3 bunny monks came running out, late for alms. Running, trying to adjust their robes on the fly, they came to a screeching halt at the opening of the wall, stepped on to the sidewalk pretending to be decorous, and then power walked their way down the street to catch up with their compadres. If you also look closely, you just might happen to see a bit of boy pushing and shoving. It reminded me of that time in Vientiane when I saw the monk alms for the first time and thought of Halloween (Pak Bat-Morning Alms). On that peaceful morning in Luang Prabang last October there were a few other tourists like me watching the scene from the other side of the road, a respectful distance away.

This past trip to Luang Prabang, in February, I once again got up early (as I was already awake) and went downstairs to the street in front of our hotel to watch. This time the scene was very different.

The monks were still there doing their morning alms walk as they have done for centuries, the Lao people were there, cleaned, showered and shaved, passing out sticky rice. The difference was the tourists. It was a fucking nightmare.

Van loads of tourists are brought into the town from their hotels to view the spectacle. Unfortunately they themselves become the show and not in a good way. The sight was so horrific I turned around and went back to my room. I was so upset I couldn’t even bring myself to take a picture. No worries, others have:

Source Lauren Girardin

Long lines of tourists were taking part in the ceremony as well as observing. Their hotels had provided them with mats and bowls of sticky rice for those who wanted to participate. They were yakking away, you could hear every word from across those dawn streets. Some women were standing up doling out the rice, and of course as western giants were heads and shoulders over the monks heads, a big and I might say well-known no-no. Those who weren’t themselves giving out “alms” were up close, some on the same sidewalk as the monks getting in their way with camera flashes going off in the monks' faces. It was a revolting human circus.

This was not part of a Buddhist ritual, rather it was 'let’s get up early and feed the monks'. No understanding of the ritual, no sensitivity, no manners. After it’s over, pile back into the vans and let’s go off for cappuccino. Or better yet, let’s go visit the morning wet market and gawk at all the yucky things the locals eat. Then when we return home we can tell all our friends about how we experienced the authentic Lao experience.

Wait, a rant is all well and good sometimes but allowing these people to upset me does no good whatsoever. Hell, they have no idea I'm upset! They don't even know I exist! Deep breath.

So, when in Lao…bor pen nyang. It doesn’t matter. No problem. I will let this go and get over it. Release this angry heart.  Perhaps in their next lives these rude clueless people will return as grains of sticky rice, squished in the chunky, grimy fingers of other tasteless, heartless tourists.

"Serenity Now".

Note to self: Stay away from Luang Prabang in high season.