Ah, where to start...
After Vang Vieng we headed to Luang Prabang, which was cool. We then made a long, complicated and ill-advised journey to Phongsaly, the far noerthern province, where we instantly regretted our decision and left the ollowing day. Via boat, bus, sawngthaew and foot we made another long and even more compliocated journey to a north eastern province called Xam Neua. The trip took a thousand times longer than anticipated and partys of it were quite cool. I'll elaborate at a later date.
In the meantime all you really need to know is the following: at about 3:30pm on Wednesday Lewis had a motorcycle accident and broke his collarbone. The hospital here is third world and can't treat it so we were advised by the doctor to fly directly to Thailand for treatment. Our travel insurence company then advised that a) their medical examiner (having made no examination and seen no xrays) recommended flying home to New Zealand, and even felt it would be reasonable for Lewis to undertake a twelve hour bus ride on treacherous, potholed mountain roads with a completely untreated broken collarbone; b) since New Zealand is our home country they are no obligated to pay for treatment there, and since returning to NZ is their recommendation they are not obligated to pay for Lewis to have treatment anywahere else should he ignore their recommendation; and c) since we had no tickets pre-booked for our continued travel they are not obligated to pay for any of the airfares required to get us back to New Zealand. This essentailly means that they consider themselves liable for didley-fucking-squat except for the USD5 we paid forthe consultation, anti-inflammatories, saline drips and night's accomodation at Xam Neua hospital. What this means folks, is that we are coming home, we atre coming home ASAP, and we are coming home for at least three months.
such is life. looking forward to the food and the comfort of family and friends. For the record, and on the record; World Nomads is the wankest travel insurence company ever and if you are considering using them think again. On the positive side, Lewis is doing okay and that is a very very lucky thing. AT this point we are waiting for the next flight to Vientiane (Saturday morning) from where we will try to get a flight to Bangkok the same day, and on to NZ ASAP. Still, we're looking at probably five days or more after the accident before Lewis can get treatment. According to the insurence company this kind of fracture (which they haven't seen) has a grace period of about fifteen days.
Anyway, internet here is crap and slow (we've been trying to use it for three days now with minimal success) and I've got a fair bit of urgent waiting to go and do, so I'll leave it there and sort the sitre out better once I'm back in NZ.
Despite all this we are still in fairly good spirits. A minor setback!
Vang Vien is full of little restaurant/bar places with bamboo platforms covered with pillows on which foreigners recline and watch DVDs for free. I swear every single damn one of them plays nothing but Friends all day. All around town all you can hear is the damn themesong and canned laughter. Evil, evil, nasty evilness!
Tubing down the river was bliss. We almost did it again today just because it was so good. Drifting idly down the river in a tractor tyre inner tube with absolutely no control and not a care in the world. Awesome. Unlike most of the other tourists tubing or kayaking down the river we stopped at only a few riverside bars and had only a few riverside beers. Many start early in the morning and stay on the river all day boozing. All up the trip takes around three hours without stops, so you can imagine how much drinking is required to stretch that out to a good eight hour day. We took it light and cruised and it was lovely: warm weather, cool water, a slow drift, gentle rapids and a limestone mountain backdrop. Ahhhhhhhhhh...
Alas just before setting off on the tubes Lewis managed to lose his much battered specs. Having superglued them bacl together in several different places, including a complicated lighter and pliers melding job the 'Bono specs' disappeared without a trace on the river beach in Vang Vieng. Today Lewis headed back to Vientiane, the only place in Laos where ha can get a replacement pair, leaving Ossie and I bored senseless in Friendsville. We tried walking to a cave but struggled with the directions and in the heat of the day when the path forward seemed to involve wading through a skanky swamp we simply gave up. We returned to the land of the Lotus Eaters, to the restaurant affectionately known as 'The Family Guy Restaurant' (guess why?!) and selected a DVD. Secret Window, a short story by Stephen King turned into a movie starring one of my favourite actors Johnny Depp. What could be better? It was shit, but at least it wasted two hours. Thankfully we're leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for Luang Prabang, hopefully Lewis will make it there tomorrow too.
Across the room from me a nice British girl is talking extremely loudly on the phone to her Dad about how drunk she got yesterday and how she met a nice boy and they're going to CHina. Annoying as she is it makes me miss my family like crazy. I think it's pretty cheap to make toll calls here because they use the internet to make them. Family: expect phone calls soon!
wistfully, deb/debs/debbie
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Ventiane was a lovely city; small enough to walk around, relaxed, gentle. Tuk-tuk drivers ask only once and don't nag, bartering is not really necessary since there is little mark-up, food take between thirty and forty-five minutes to arrive. Vietnam was frantic, Cambodia was slower, Laos is the slowest. In Ventiane we wandered the streets and stopped in at the Black Stupa, home to a seven headed black dragon; the Laos Arc de Triomphe aka the vertical runway built as it was from US funds intended for a airport upgrade; and Wat Si Saket, the wat of over 6500 buddha statues which was enchanting and had the old stone smell of Panom Rung in Thailand. We also visited the National History Museum which had the best, most succint and most accurate paleo-anthropological section of any Asian museum I've visited. This is perhaps because it is sponsored by swedish archaeologists. The section on the Indochina wars and the struggle for communism was predictably propaganda filled. Did you know that the American soldiers used gas-shower chambers on Laos refugees who fled to Thailand to escape communism? Guess they should have stayed here ay. Silly capitalist running dogs!
Vang Vieng is a very popluar tourist destination on account of the Karst hills and caves and the river. GREEN Discovery ecotours do well here and there's trekking, kayaking, spelunking and hill-tribe harrassing to be done. We are here for the river, specifically to drift down the river in a tractor tyre tube quaffing Beer Lao as we go. LAst night we went to a riverside restaurant/bar and sat in a bamboo and thatch open-walled stilt construction. There is the normal menu and the 'special' menu, similar to Cambodia's 'happy' menu. Ganja Lassi, Mary-jane Garlic Bread--you name it, they'll put weed on it. Madness. That place is the epitomy of one kind of south-east asian tourism: idyllic views, hammocks, fat beats and lots of pot. The continuous streeam of good food and bad music was interrupted only by a house fire that resulted in a brief powercut. The poer was off for just ten minutes, the house burned to the ground while dozens of onlookers watched from the upstairs restaurant across the river.
in which the five make their way to the Thai border swearing the whole time to cut down on beer 20060501-20060528
In which the now five, intrepid exlorers drink their way southward through Vietnam to CHau Doc, just short of the Vinh Xuong land border with Cambodia 20060405-20060501.
In which three intrepid exlorers set out upon an overland journey from South Korea to the British Isles and safely reach the Vietnamese border. 20060131-20060405.
...liminil...
