1. Transportation.
Definitely not the highlight of our trip, but an experience nonetheless. We spent around 24 hours total time on 2nd-class (read: noisy, rickety and stuffed to capacity... think: live chickens in the storage compartments below) Thai buses this weekend, making a giant L-shape across nothern Thailand from Nan to Phitsanulok, Phitsanulok to Nong Khai, up over the Thai-Laos border into Vientiane, and back again. All in all, not so bad -- but a lot of that had to do with luck. We were able to grab seats for each of the 6-7 hour legs of the trip, barely made some tight connections between cities, and managed not to get left behind by impatient bus drivers during bathroom stops (although there was one close call with Nicole). We got pretty friendly with the other passengers, sharing our armrests with passengers who didn't have seats. One Thai girl pretty much slept on my lap for the overnight bus ride. Welcome to Asian mass transit.
2. Sunsets on the Mekong.
People in Laos are even more laid-back than in Thailand. The language is very similar to Thai, but there are less formalities in the language (at least in the little I could understand) - no polite "kah" and "korp" endings to greetings, fewer "waii"s from restaurant workers and vendors. Even Lao script looks like Thai script after a few too many beers -- loopier, wavier. There apparently isn't a national haircut for kids aged 7 to 13 in Laos like there is for kids in Thailand: school-age boys walk around with shaggy shoulder-length hair, and young girls wear their hair in long braids - not like kids in Thailand, who all sport a standard buzz cut and bob. Everyone wears flip-flops to work, from construction workers to bus drivers. And Vientiane, despite being the country's capital city, is a very lazy, quiet, slow-paced place. Restaurants closed up around 10pm, and we quickly found that there wasn't much nightlife to be seen.... so, the highlight of our evenings became drinking a cold Beerlao at the various riverside bars and restaurants that overlook the Mekong River. Watching the sun set over fishing boats and green marshes was a pretty stellar way to end a day of sightseeing.
3. EATING.
Generally my favorite activity in any city, dining was particularly delicious in Vientiane. In 3 days we ate Lao, Thai, Indian, Mexican, French, Japanese and American food, plus some bomb banana smoothies. Luckily we inadvertently fasted during our day of bus journeying over (having not packed any snacks), so there was plenty of room in my stomach.
4. Close Call at the Sauna.
Nicole had read about a "spa" located at a wat (temple) just outside the city. Intrigued by the notion of monks and massuesses on the same premises, we decided to forego the many massage places near our guesthouse and take a tuk-tuk to the wat. Sure enough, just outside the temple gates was a hand-painted sign reading, "Traditional Lao herbal sauna and massage" with an arrow. We followed the signs down a dirt path, dodging roosters and chickens crossing the road (ha), into what was basically a forest back behind the temple. Literally from up in the trees, a woman shouted at us, "Sabai dee! Massage! Sauna! This way please." We followed her voice up some wooden stairs into what was essentially a giant treehouse - an open-air construction on stilts, shrouded in leafy greenery from the surrounding trees. In the front of the room there was a changing stall and a table set up with tin mugs and a tea kettle, and in the back of the room there were 6 mattresses - 3 on each side. A man handed us thin lengths of fabric to wrap ourselves in, and we were directed to the "sauna" - a dark enclosed room with benches and a hole cut into the floor, up from which steam piped from a pot of boiling herbal water. The sauna was pretty legit, and we sat in it for as long as our pores could handle it. Afterwards we were told to lie down for our massages.
The massage was relaxing, but not so private. Towards the end of our massage, a group of Lao men had arrived at the spa, changed into sarongs, and sat down on benches near the edge of our beds - about 2 feet away from where I was being twisted and pulled in various directions, still wearing a loosely fitted piece of fabric, which wasn't really secured in any way, just tucked around like a towel. The men chatted away with our masseuses - apparently they were old friends... This was pretty awkward in itself, but became significantly worse during the final segment of my massage: the headlock move. My masseuse sat behind me and had me interlock my fingers behind my head while he pulled me backwards over his knees to crack my back... meanwhile I felt the fabric slipping.....
I narrowly escaped some seriously indecent exposure. But hey, for a spa day that cost less than my breakfast, it was pretty awesome.
