The chapter in which I run a little and begin to love Laos

The above title is a bit of a plagiarism, not in content but in style. The style would be called "Sufjan."

After much discussion about timetables, our budget, our time-budget, our willingness to spend dozens of hours in buses, and so on, Vanya and I decided to fly from Cambodia to Laos. The flight -- from Siem Reap to Pakse (Laos) to Vientiane (Laos) -- was on Lao Airlines and painless. If you care to visit laoairlines.com, you will be looking at our aircraft. Nope, not a triple-7, folks, we flew as the Soviets did. Which is to say that it was not a stylish aircraft, but utilitarian. It also leads me to wonder who, exactly, is repairing these things. Soviet ex-pats? Didn't the USSR go out of business?

Vientiane is the quietest capital city I have ever set foot in. Hardly any motos, few cars, nobody asking us to buy anything. There are a decent amount of tuk-tuks, though, the ubiquitous southeast Asian taxi: 50 cc motorbikes with varying contraptions on the back to hold between one and ten people. The style of tuk-tuk differs in each country; if you were to drop me blind-folded into a tuk-tuk, I would know where I was. When Vanya and I take them around town there are usually two of us in the tuk-tuks, and when Laotians take them they are packed with humanity.

Like us, everyone else we met enjoyed Vientiane, but there is not a whole to do in the city. Vientiane is, without a doubt, a three-day city. By state mandate, everything is closed my 11:30, and that includes the doors to our hotel. In some ways I suppose this is kind of nice, and it is not often that we stay out later than that, anyway. Unlike western Europe, there is no bustling hostel scene in southeast Asia to speak of. It was a nice capital city, though. And I will always remember Vientiane distinctly, because it was there that Vanya and I had our first run with... The Hash House Harriers (the italics should imply importance).

I am not sure how to describe the Hash House Harriers. Part of this you will understand later, but I also wonder if more people know about this group than I thought, that I am just a newbie and think that nobody knows about them. But I don't think so. At times I am a serious runner, and I had never heard of them.

Hash House Harriers is a group that describes itself as "beer-drinkers with a running problem." This could describe a lot of runners; it also describes Vanya and me. It is a popular activity with the ex-pat (ex-patriot) community in southeast Asia, and the group generally runs once a week. Vanya and I had tried unsuccessfully to meet up with the Hash House Harrier chapters in Hanoi, Saigon, and Phnom Penh, failing each time for a variety of reasons. Anyway, from what Vanya and I understood it was a group that went running together and then drank together afterwards in a bar or pub. We were right about this, but not very right about this.

Much about the group is cloaked in affected secrecy, and Vanya and I were loaded up with the other 60 or so "Hashers" into tuk-tuks and taken to an unknown destination. The destination, it turned out, was America. Or at least sovereign, American territory. We were all dropped off at a neo-colonial mansion with an immaculate pool, all inside of a security-gate with guards. This mansion that has something to do with the U.S. department of state. We heard conflicting explanations as to who, exactly, lives there -- the U.S. Ambassador, a guy from the U.S. navy, groups doing MIA research and exploration in Laos -- but we never actually found this out. But the grounds were grand and they were American... grand enough to make me start thinking about where our federal withholding taxes end up. Apparently some of them are in Laos. (Actually, I am just kidding when I say "our" tax dollars. They aren't my tax dollars, they're yours! Mine come back in the mail. While the advantages are few, there actually are advantages to making hardly any money at all -- you cannot find a lower tax bracket than mine).

It was now 5 P.M. and off we went. Sort of. Vanya and I quickly found out that this was very different from "running" -- it is more like running/treasure hunting in a large group. The running course is pre-set by someone called the "hare," but no one in the group of runners actually knows where the course goes. You can imagine the confusion at the beginning, everyone running different directions trying to find the trail. The course is ascertained by finding interspersed chalk-signs made on the ground by the "hare;" the running trail is a series of "clues" made on the ground that runners must follow. There are a variety of symbols -- I won't go into them here -- but part of the fun is intentionally misleading the entire group to a dead end, only to have to turn around and double back. People whoop and holler when they have found the right path, and away we go. If you are confused, it is not because you are stupid, but because it is confusing.

Doing this sort of activity would be odd enough through a public park in the U.S., but it is very, very strange to do this in the suburbs of Vientiane, Laos. The course took us through a rice field that had recently been cleared and was muddy enough to bog down the entire group. It felt like trespassing -- it really felt like trespassing -- but then again, isn't the Laos P.D.R. communist? Wouldn't that also make the fields... mine? At one point we ran past some cows that were tethered to stakes in the ground, scaring them badly enough that they pulled the stakes out and took off running. Goodbye cows!

I should digress a bit and explain the demographic of the group. It was a motley crew. Almost all of these "Hashers" were age 50+ and have decent bellies. Which is to say most of them are not too serious about running, but quite a few surprised me. A disproportionate amount were English, but there were a few other Americans and quite a few Australians. All of the Hash House Harriers -- literally all of them -- have "Hashing" names that never vary from sexual innuendo or double entendre. An example is that the undisputed "Hashing" legend in Laos is an Englishman whose name is a reference to the most popular form of male contraceptive on the market. Vanya and I, of course, did not have nicknames, so everyone immediately knew that we were "virgins" to the sport. The Hash House Harriers is nothing short of a fraternity (in the general sense).

They are also really, really into the sport. When a new part of the trail had been discovered, they would yell -- loudly yell -- for everyone to follow. The sun set just as we were leaving the rice-fields, and as we went deeper in the Vientiane's dirt-road suburbs we were causing more and more of a scene. It was dinner-time, and families eating outdoors or at restaurants watched us with confusion. Some laughed, some waved, but most stared, uncomprehending. This run, I think, really increased the cultural gap between us and the people of Laos. Not believing their luck, five little Lao boys began chasing me and the group, and were extremely entertained when I pretended to be desperately trying to shake them. Two of them collapsed in an exhausted heap, laughing.

On and on we went, through back-streets and Buddhist wats. At various pre-ordained stopping points some of the group turned to go back, and, by the end of it, there were only about a dozen of us left. We were running, by this point, in the dark, and I was not confident that we would find the chalk-marks to make it back. Amazingly, we did -- these "Hashers" are good. At one point I spotted a firefly and, mesmerized, tripped and almost hit the ground. All in all I would say we covered about 5 miles. It was beautiful and warm, and for the first time in my life I saw a pink moon (Nick Drake?), one of the few benefits from dust and pollution.

Given that this is a "beer-drinking group with a running problem," the fun didn't actually begin until the whole group made it back to the State Department mansion. Drinking beer after a southeast Asian run is a recipe for an excellent time and a fantastic headache, but most were concerned only with the former. Delicious, Lao food was abundant. There is a tremendous amount of ritual that goes into the post-run party, and Vanya and I were promptly initiated as "virgins" to the Hash House Harriers. It was a rite of passage, so I won't describe it. Many of these men are professional drinkers, and while this worried both of us, Vanya and I made it out relatively unscathed (the U.S. Navy guy who had organized the race, however, ended up completely soaked in Beer Lao and was then pushed into the pool, fully clothed). As for the other "Hashers..." it was good that there were tuk-tuks waiting for them. One guy was drinking from the horn of a long-gone water-buffalo.

The point is that, if given the opportunity, you should try a run with them. There are chapters in every major city in the world. Earlier I referred to an apparently legendary English "Hasher" in Laos, a man who has been living in Laos for 40 years and has been arrested twice -- once for being a communist and once for being a conservative. "I am neither," he said. "I am a 'Hasher.'" He went on to explain to us that the proceeds from the run (it was $7 per person) were given to charity, NGOs, or governmental organizations. Hoarse from all the yelling, staring off God-knows-where into the Vientiane night, he philosophically summed up the Hash House Harriers in a heavy English accent. "We are shit. But we are not shit."

This is all on the Hash House Harriers for now.

From Vientiane we caught a bus to Vang Vieng, a town that is a guilty pleasure for most backpackers heading through Laos. Or maybe not guilty, for some. But Vanya and I both felt a little bit guilty. This town is not Laos, that is, Vang Vieng is a town that is built for the modern-day backpacker, and is not historical, or cultural, or anything in any sense. But it is stunningly beautiful. Outdoor recreation activities are abundant: rock-climbing, river-rafting, inner tubing, kayaking, bicycling, and so on. Also abundant are drugs (not the Advil type). Some of the bars in Vang Vieng have two menus: one for food, the other for "marijuana milkshakes," "mushroom pizzas," "opium whatever," etc. The drug use in Vang Vieng has actually distorted the local economy. Many of the restaurants have platform-couches rather than chairs, and have televisions inside that play Friends (loudly) all day long. Drugged and weary travelers spend all day in these chairs, slowly -- but surely -- losing the battle with gravity. It's sort of funny to watch, but only sort of. There is also an abundance of crepe stands that sell crepe combinations that contain: chocolate, coconut, honey, sweetened-and-condensed milk, sugar, and butter.

That said, the drug culture is still somewhat of a sub-culture even in Vang Vieng. Vanya and I did the outdoorsy stuff by day, watched the scene unfold by night. On day one we did a popular inner tube ride down the first clear, blue water that I have seen in all of southeast Asia. The inner tube trip combines inner tubing with zip-lining, rope-swinging, bamboo river-bars, and Beer Lao. "Drinking and inner tubing?" One asks oneself. "Isn't that dangerous?" The answer is yes, it is somewhat dangerous, but not too dangerous. We heard that one backpacker dies each year, but my conservative estimate is that approximately 15,000 people inner tube each year. But an indicator of the danger was that prior to inner tubing in Vang Vieng, I had to actually sign a waiver. I had not previously signed a waiver in all of southeast Asia.

The scene, itself, is absurd. Sun burnt backpackers, some of them drunk, float down the river cradling 22 oz. bottles of Beer Lao, while employees of the river-side bamboo bars actually fish them in. They throw bamboo sticks attached to lines into the water -- imagine a fishing pole in reverse -- near the floating inner tubers... grab on and they pull you up to the bar. Cue Bob Marley (or Jack Johnson, or the Cure, or Bob Dylan, or horrible pop music). The massive platform rope-swings (which are free and are merely good advertisement for the bars) were so... much... fun. I love rope swings, and have grown up with them. And these were amazing rope swings. They were built to perfection in a way that natural rope swings cannot compare. Vanya and I went "doubles" a few times, and I worked on perfecting my back-flip (again, always thinking of my resume). The back-drop to all of this were huge, limestone mountains, completely under-appreciated given the circumstances.

Day two took Vanya and I on a 20 mile round-trip bicycle ride on uncomfortable bicycles to some of the caves north of town. A guide, Mai, took us around to the entrance of one of the caves, gave us head-lamps, and proceeded to take us 1.25 miles into the cave. That is deep. That is really, really, quite deep. At about 3/4 of a mile in, the river appeared and we spent the next 1/2 mile or so wading and swimming through it. There was quite a bit of ducking, scraping, squeezing. Throughout the trip, Mai killed four bats, either jumping and grabbing them or splashing them with water, so that they were too heavy to fly and would flutter to the ground. He broke their necks with a quick jerk of his thumb. Smiling at me, he explained that they were "for barbecue." 1.25 miles into the cave, we finally turned around at a spot where, at some point in the recent past, a Spaniard's head lamp had gone out and he had died there. At one point we all turned out our headlamps as a test, and it was not pitch-black or jet-black. It was just black. I could not stop thinking about the Spaniard. Dying is one thing, dying over the course of weeks is another. There was plenty of clean, potable water down there -- there was a river running through the cave -- enough water to stay alive for much too long. I think it was at this point that I resolved to finally buy an REI membership card.

The third and fourth days were spent kayaking and inner tubing, respectively. Yes, we inner tubed again. It was a guilty indulgence.

Now we are in Luang Prabang, an indisputably beautiful city. I will write more about it at a later date.

As a forewarning to anyone else considering travel in Laos, an unusual concern in Laos is "having enough cash." There is one international ATM in Laos. One. And it is Vientiane, not Luang Prabang. The maximum withdrawal at this ATM is $70 at a time in the equivalent of $2 bills (this is the highest denomination possible in Laotian 'kip'). It is possible to get cash in Luang Prabang, but expensive -- there is a burgeoning credit-card withdrawal business in Luang Prabang. I would think that the government of Laos would want me to dump my cash in their cities, would want to make it easy for me to withdraw big, stinking heaps of it (the money actually does stink a little bit). But they do not. Oddly, it was much easier to withdraw money in Cambodia. More oddly, in Cambodia the unofficial-official currency is the U.S. dollar, and international ATMs dispense nothing but beautiful -- albeit old -- greenbacks. America!

Cambodia

Surprisingly, even to Vanya and I, we have already entered and left Cambodia. It was a very good week, but it was only a week. Cambodia treated us kindly.

We entered Cambodia from Chau Doc, Vietnam, a city that owes its existence largely to the fact that it is one of few border crossings into Cambodia. The attraction of this particular border crossing is that it is along the Mekong river, and there are daily 6 hour boat trips up the Mekong to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was a pleasant boat ride, and Cambodia looked green.

Phnom Penh appeared to Vanya and I to be the quietest capital city either of us had ever visited (it lost this title a week later to Ventiane, Laos, but at the time it owned the superlative). We were very appreciative of the lack of motor-scooters and cars, as well as the generally lackadaisical attempts by Cambodian entrepreneurs to reign in our business. This laid-back attitude seems to pervade the entire city, and Phnom Penh is a mecca of drugs and prostitution. There is a lot to the city -- we both really enjoyed it -- but the seedier aspects are all around. The only time I have ever been offered more drugs, I think, was in Jamaica, and all hotels in Phnom Penh prominently display signs stating the illegality of child-prostitution. There were a lot of bleary-eyed foreigners in this city. I am sure the embassies in Phnom Penh have heard it all, and these embassies probably make for interesting posts.

If there was anything that disappointed me about the city, it was the fact that I left it without ever having shot a grenade launcher. According to the guidebook, up to five years ago it was possible to book a tour to a shooting range and shoot any weapon available. This includes grenade launchers. While these institutions have largely been banned, I was determined to keep an open ear and eye to find one. I never did. I challenge you to find a man on this planet who, if given the opportunity, would opt not to blow something up with a grenade launcher. We all do. Had I actually shot a grenade launcher I would have put it on my resume under the heading "other experience."

Our first full day in Phnom Penh we did a walking tour of the city and saw the things that made it feel like every other city I have ever been in: we visited the National Museum, the Royal Palace, ate local food, and so on. The second and third days, we visited the Tuol Slong prison and Choeng Uk fields, where approximately 17,000 Khmers were tortured and killed, respectively. I have never been to Auschwitz, but I would there to be a universal human reaction to societal graveyards. I knew little about the Khmer Rouge -- I had not even seen The Killing Fields -- prior to arriving in Cambodia. I still know little. What astounds me is that as opposed to, say, visiting Germany, in Cambodia the generations that survived these years are still alive, still wandering around. You survived a four year genocide, I think, and there they are, sitting there, sipping iced coffee. Nobody really talks about it.

From Phnom Penh we took the bus to Siem Reap, gateway to the Temples of Angkor. Part of me is tempted to skip over this part, due to the fact that to try to describe them would be like trying to describe the Egyptian Pyramids or Machu Pichu or a Roman ruin. "I'm telling you... THEY'RE JUST AMAZING!" Of course they're amazing, they're ancient ruins. The reason I bring up Angkor, however, is because, unlike the pyramids of Egypt, few people I talk to seems to know about them. Did you? I certainly never learned about them. Somehow these temples do not make into history textbooks, do not make two-page glossy spreads once a year in National Geographic, do not fit in between the Discovery Channel's Shark Week and Myth-Busters.

The difference, though, is that these temples are still (mis)managed in a way that is indicative of a developing economy. You cannot physically climb on the outside of the Egyptian pyramids, whereas I could physically climb (and did physically climb) on the outside of these temples. You cannot pick up pieces of a Roman ruin and take them home, whereas I could have done exactly that had I been so inclined at Angkor (theft is a major problem); the pieces are laying all over the place. Nor could you find an intricately carved piece of 9th century sandstone and use it as a sitting stool, as everyone does at Angkor. The point is hardly anything there is roped off -- when in the future it surely will be roped off, it has to be -- so it is incredible to explore. This is not to say that there aren't a lot of tourists, as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean tourist-buses abound. Angkor is too big to make it feel like it is busy, though.

Siem Reap, as I alluded to before, is the rapidly-growing gateway town to these temples. I bring up this city because inside this wonderful town is a street called "Pub Street." The reason I bring up this street is because it serves well to explain how I felt about Cambodia at large; it is my microcosm. Pub Street is universally liked (as a side note, it is here that I had a cocktail called the "Seattle Sunset." I have never heard of this drink. It had rum, pineapple, lime, and sugar, which leads me to believe that the creator has never visited Seattle. If there is a "Seattle" drink, I have no doubt in my mind that the base liquor is vodka. It has to be vodka.) Anyway, Pub Street is filled with pubs, has cheap drinks, delicious/international fare, good lighting, decent international music, and is closed off to all but pedestrian foot-traffic. It is also (de facto) closed off to Cambodians. You will see virtually no one but foreigners on this street, and Cambodian police make sure that it stays this way. You are in, or you are out -- you are on Pub Street or you are outside of Pub Street. Cambodians, of course, are on the outside. Most of this is economic -- even a .50 cent beer is outrageously expensive for Cambodians -- but the police presence also ensures this.

Everyone knows that corruption is rife in Cambodia, and Vanya and I knew this going in. An example would be that, of the $40 Vanya and I each paid to go to the temples of Angkor -- and they were well worth $40, in fact they were worth more than this -- $10 went toward the restoration of the temples and $30 went to the ministry of finance; said otherwise, $30 dollars makes it into somebody's pocket. Apparently it used to be all $40 that used to make it into somebody's pocket, and it used to be one man receiving all of it, so I guess things are gradually moving in the right direction. On top of this, we paid $22 to enter the country and $25 to leave, all in one sweet week.

This is not a lot of money, but it hits backpackers especially hard. Put most simply, the Cambodian government takes my money, gives none of it back to its citizens, leaves me feeling as if I have been bled dry, and then I am confronted with the aftermath: humiliating poverty. It was upsetting. Vanya and I actually had fights about what to do in this situation, and I cannot say that I ever held a reasonably sound position. It was either I cannot help all of you or I can help one of you, but mostly it was I cannot help all of you. It feels miserable.

Inside Angkor Wat, the mother of all Angkor temples and the largest religious building in the world, Vanya and I had about a 1 1/2 hour conversation with a 20 year old orphan named Saapon. Saapon's head was recently shaved and looked strong, as he had just finished his Buddhist education, a rite of passage for most Cambodian males. He wants to attend university so that he can become a tour guide, which he cannot reasonably afford -- there is no such thing as a student loan in Cambodia. He hopes for a good job in order to save up for university but cannot pay the bribes to get a good job. "Do you know anyone that could maybe help me in Siem Reap?" he asked more than once, and explained that he currently makes $30 per month at a restaurant. It is a trait particular to asian cultures that asians have a tendency to smile when they are upset. As I understand it, it is meant to save face, to not reveal that one is actually upset. Saapon did this a lot. There were a few times that, in explaining the depths of government corruption -- "They do not build anything, they have not built a single road!" -- his hands began to shake and his eyes began to tear up slightly, yet he continued smiling. More than anything else in the world, he wants to live in the US. "Maybe I will go there, but it is just a dream," again, teary-eyed. "You never know," we replied, maintaining the fiction. But all three knew. Vanya had a nearly identical conversation five days earlier in Phnom Penh with another Cambodian of about the same age.

I might continue, to try to end this on a lighter note, but I am about to be locked out of my hotel.