Na Toei, Northern Laos

Our first morning in Laos. I awoke in my bed to the sound of someone loudly hawking a loogey--"I thought I was away from this," was my first thought, as Laos had already proved to be much cleaner than China, and we had only barely snuck into the northern part of it. It was almost 7:30 before I was able to pry myself out of bed into the chilly morning air. Although my room was dark, I could see light pushing itself in through the wooden window shutters, and, at various spots where the wall met the roof. I realized that our Natoei Guest House owners must have turned out the electricity to the whole building last night sometime after I fell asleep. Around this area, they seem to only even turn the power on around sun-down. During this time, all the lights in the house remain on--no matter what (people using a room, not using a room, etc), and after this time, you can't turn a light on even if you want to. (I haven't decided if this is better for energy than if one were to only use the light one needs when one needs it.) The night before I had gone to sleep with my bedroom light on, as even standing on the bed, I couldn't jump high enough to reach the toggle switch on the bare light bulb that hung from the center of my ceiling, and have enough "hang time" to actually toggle it, before ripping the whole contraption down from the ceiling.

Now, that it's morning, the town is coming alive. Vehicles (which seem much nicer than one would expect to see (Toyota 4x4s, cruisers, etc) roar to life. I hear the cock-a-doodle do of roosters (and wonder what roosters say in Dai, the Lao language), and kids that look to be about middle/high school age are walking by in groups of 4-5. The girls all have on a mid-calf length grey skirt which has a white stripe across the bottom--the Laotian Sarong style. I hope that they are all headed to school.

Most the houses have stoked up fires out on the front veranda, and the mothers, and young children have begun to gather in a squat around them to help warm off the morning chill.

As we stayed in a guest Hotel on the main street–well let me clarify, the town is made up of 2 main streets, one that goes to Luang Nam Tha (east) and the road that continues down to Luang Prabang (in the center of N. Laos, but South of here)–so this town is located right in the fork in the road. Anyhow, as this is a "main" road–concrete being slowly invaded by the prominent red-clay–a motorcycle, car, or tractor-truck frequently pass.

Today we will try to catch a bus toward Luang Prabang; but, as we don't speak dai, and we haven't necessarily found a "bus station," this may involve hanging out in front of our Hotel, at the ready to flag one down as it drives by, and hope that it has space for 5 people aboard.

Our trip thus far has included:
•Plane from Shanghai, China to Kunming, China [feb 3]

•Kunming - stayed the night in a hostel. Awoke the next morning to catch a "8-9 hour" (it was actually 12.5) bus to Jinghong. [feb 4] Since we were taking a bus during the daytime, we assumed that we would have normal, upright, bus seats. Ones big enough for Chris and Dan's unussually lengthed legs as we pointed out to the ticket how long they really were. :) So we show up to the bus station in the morning, to get taken to our bus and find that we have a sleeper bus! Hmmmmmmm...... the beds look kinda... short--to say the least. The guy is very excited that there are exactly 5 of us... he has JUST the place for us. Stretching across the back of the bus in all it's splendor is where we will spend the next 12.5 hours.... all in a row like sardines. You can't tell, but there's actually one more "seat" to the right of Chris, which is where I spent the journey gazing out the window as the scenery changed from Kunming to closertoLaos, and generally trying to ignore the guys' excited comments about stripping down to their boxers, playing dance music through a boom box, and making it a partay in the back. HA.






























•Jinghong : Stayed the night at College Hostel.
•Jinghong to Mengla : 5 hour bus [feb 5]

•Mengla: looked for a place that could take and print passport sized photos for us to use at the China/Loas boarder. Found a place that took photos. The photographer dressed Dan up in a pretty blue blazer, and helped me to fix my hair and symmetricize my collar–I don't think he understood that we just needed them for our Laos visas, and am rather afraid that if I return to the booth later, we'll be some of the "whiteys" that appear on his display board as a show of his photographic talents.



•Mengla to Boten (China/Laos boarder) : 1.5 hour bus. Most of the way was on a nicely paved, but windy road–except for when the driver decided to take the, still dirt, in-the-process-of-being-constructed, new highway. We slowly lost 1, 3, 4 people at small towns along the way, until it was just us whiteys continuing on to the Laos boarder.

•Boton, Laos : arrive to get our Laos visas. Played wicki ball with a couple of locals for a short time, then caught a taxi-van-open air truck type vehicle down to Na Toei.

•Na Toei, Laos : Already noticeable cleaner than the Southeastern China cities and towns we just left. I think I feel okay about walking around with my sandals and no socks on here. We found a Guest Hotel to stay at: front veranda area with tiled table and benches (reminds me of the good-ole days when people would sit out front and say "howdy" to their neighbors as they walked by), clean rooms with cement floors. House bathroom: squatty and shower in one.... sink outside. You have to flush the squatty by pouring water from a basin down the squatty hole.. and of course.. any toilet paper goes in the waste basket.

Things keep striking me about this place: the openess of the houses–most houses have an open front area which acts as a small store, a restaurant, a Guest House; the friendliness of the people–neighbors go from house to house visiting and helping each other; the fact that every house has a TV and a satellite, and our Guest House owners' phone keeps ringing; you get cell reception out here, and most people seem to have cell phones. In the veranda next to me, a lady is getting a pedicure.