lao'd enough for you?

laos, days 6-8...

"one good thing about music: when it hits, you feel no pain." - bob marley.

apparently, bob never had to listen to thai pop music before. more specifically, thai pop music being blasted on speakers that go up to eleven on a crowded, decrepit bus bouncing its way through the winding hills of laos. a bus which was built for tiny people who have no need for leg room. holy crap, i've actually found a situation right on par with chili-infused 'rhea served over a squat toilet.

what was i doing listening to thai music in laos? doesn't laos have their own crappy music i could suffer through? not really. laos' only cultural contribution to date is beerlao; all other forms of entertainment are imported from thailand. consequently, most lao have learned the thai language, not for social or economic gain, but as a means to better appreciate television and radio. as far as i'm concerned, there isn't a way to appreciate the latter. in trying to think of a term to describe thai music, all i could come up was "sappy." well, there was also "unbearable," god-awful" and "downright shitty," but those aren't exactly categories that are charted in billboard magazine.

for some reason, all speakers in laos have only one setting: LOUD. earth-shakingly loud. i really don't know why this is, but whether you're at a bar, temple, restaurant or sadly, on a crowded bus, your ears are gonna hurt. i'd be sitting there listening to my ipod at full volume, forcing each tiny earpiece directly up against my eardrum, with every bass and kick drum note causing my eyes to involuntarily blink, and i STILL couldn't drown out the thai music. unfortunately, the bus driver calls the shots when it comes to controlling the dials, and i had no intentions of complaining to a guy whose one distraction could send us careening off a cliff into hazy oblivion. besides, he wouldn't even hear me if i tried.*

think this situation sounds bad? imagine doing it three trips this way, for 10+ hours each time, with your knees forced into the plastic seat in front of you, your head bouncing off the window every few seconds due to all the twists, turns and bumps in the road, the driver honking every 5 seconds either to warn potential approaching cars around the next turn, or to alert the truck in front of us that, somehow, we're going to try to pass it, the guy next to you eating a bag of fried crickets and dropping hairy, little jointed legs all over the place, because apparently, he finds the legs to be too gross to eat, the guy in front of you carrying a large machine gun despite NOT having a military uniform or any identifying aspect to suggest he isn't a total nutcase in plain clothes, and and yes, the horrible music, which thankfully drowns out the sound of the guy behind you puking his brains out into a doggie bag.** lao buses keep a healthy stock of these bags on hand, and i haven't taken a ride yet where someone hasn't used one. in fact, on one bus trip, nadja personally filled 10. i am very glad we traveled separately that day.

and it gets worse. imagine everything the same as mentioned above, but instead of listening to abortion-inducing thai pop music blasted through speakers, substitute it for abortion-inducing thai pop music blasted through speakers while simultaneously playing on a tv screen, karaoke style. great, now i don't just have to listen to idiots whining, i have to watch them, too. and if i thought thai music was bad and lacked variety, the videos are even worse. actually, there are three types of videos that thai pop singers prefer, each more shitty than the last:

1. a flamboyant guy singing, while 4 sexy, identical-looking women in matching outfits gyrate in the background, in front of a green screen showing various images of bangkok's skyline at night.***
2. a woman singing mournfully as she slowly walks through a market/shopping mall/cemetery, with flashbacks to her on romantic walks with a flamboyant guy,**** shot in soft focus.
3. a flamboyant guy singing in front of a green screen, as stock images of bangkok's skyline pass behind him.*****

and i thought rap videos lacked variety! jesus.

so yeah, you get the point: buses in laos suck. they suck so much, you'd eventually be willing to throw down any amount of money just to get outta the country in a manner not befitting of a thai pop soundtrack. for me, that amount of money was $190, which i will forever consider a bargain.

before i go on to tales of woe and "whoa!" in cambodia, i should explain where and why i went on those horrible bus rides:

bus 1 - vang vieng to luang prabang. i'd heard great things about this city, but once i arrived, everything was a disappointment, other than the food. hotel owners changed their rates on me, cab drivers changed their fees on my friends, and the first 5 shops i went to either short-changed me, created their own exchange rate that was highly advantageous to themselves, or downright "didn't have change" for whatever bill i used. sure, i coulda avoided some of this trouble by only using lao money, but since lao, thai and u.s. currency are all accepted there, it made sense to stick with what i know and love and already had in my pocket. plus, referring to the picture i posted previously of me fanning out the money: the largest bill they use is 20,000 kip,****** worth about half a cup of starbucks back home. carrying around giant stacks of money is only really useful for photo ops and music videos. rap music videos, that is.

that being said, these experiences, along with a few others i may or may not explain later, really rubbed me the wrong way. i lost a lot of faith in the people there, and it tarnished my image not just of luang prabang, but the entire country. it's a shame, 'cause every smiling face i saw on the street, every person who approached me just for an opportunity to practice english was someone who i felt like i had to watch out for. this is no way to enjoy yourself when traveling. it's too bad that it only took a few people to alter my entire experience.

bus 2 - luang prabang to phonsavanh. due to a lack of reliable/existing roads, getting from point a to point b here involved backtracking through previous point a's and b's. needless to say, the roads were just as miserable to traverse the second time around. at least the final hours of this ride were somewhat better once the bus was finally out of the hills and back to good ol' potholed tarmac. still, choosing phonsavanh as a destination was a tough choice. due to time constraints, i was either going to check out the gibbon experience further north in laos, or pass it up for the plain of jars, located just outside of p-town. the former is is a chance to see adorable little monkeys, sleep in treehouses and swing from ziplines, and the latter was a chance to see a bunch of jars in a field*******. knowing how much i love monkeys and ziplines, it would seem like a no-brainer, right?

why i went with the jars, i'll never know. i was a little concerned about time constraints for the gibbons, as it was a 2 night/3 day program that took a day of travel to get there and back. it's not like the jars were easily accessible, but at least they were located closer to the other destinations i wanted to see. don't get me wrong, the jars were interesting, but i couldn't find a single one that was capable of swinging from trees, doing cute little human things, or throwing its poo. in fact, all they did was sit there and look mysterious. to this date, no one knows what these 3,000 year old giant jars were used for. theories are either food storage, alcohol fermentation or as burial/cremation bins. sure, that gives them a stonhenge-esque mystique, but still, no monkeys. next time i'm in laos, i'm heading north. oh, and to make matters worse, my sandal strap tore in phonsavanh, and while the town had scores of shops selling footwear, i couldn't find anything larger than doll size. good thing i had a ratty pair of tennis shoes tucked into my backpack.

bus 3 - phonsavanh to vientiane. this trip did nothing but confirm my hatred for all things bus. i couldn't get on a plane fast enough. well, i could, actually, thanks to lao airlines "losing" my reservation for the 6:30 a.m. flight to siem reap, cambodia. lucky for me, the busy vientiane airport has more than just one flight a day: they have five! willing to go anywhere beyond laos at that point, i jumped the next flight available, which at least put me in the right country********.

phew, i'm finally caught up with laos and ready to reveal the wonders and worries of cambodia. but sadly, i have already moved on to the next country. the next two countries, if you count brief layovers in airports. where am i now? only time will tell. stay tuned in a few weeks to find out.

-sg

* or understand me, either.
** hooray for run-on sentences!
*** robert palmer must be spinning in his grave. at least he had the courtesy to use dozens of sexy women in his videos.
**** possibly the same flamboyant guy from the 1st type of music videos.
***** or maybe it's just that all guys in thai videos are flamboyant.
****** okay, i did see a 50,000 kip note, but only on 2 occasions. banks + atms sure as hell didn't give them out.
******* or a plain, if you will.
******** you can never have too many asterisks.