Thailand

Bangkok is quickly approaching full sticky season. I am coated with a film moments after leaving the range of my oscillating fan. A few hours after my last midterm exam I was on a bus to Laos. Not because I thought it wouldn’t be hot in Laos, I just needed to get out of Bangkok. I was in severe need of some nature. I needed to roam around in the jungle and swim in a lagoon!

I arrived in Vien Tiene, the capitol of Laos and found a bookstore. At the bookstore I looked at postcards. Based on the photos on the postcards I chose a destination and went in search of a bus station. At the bus station Natalya and I decided that our original choice was too far away for the length of time we had and went with our second post card based choice: Vang Viene.

Prior to the trip I didn’t have a working knowledge of the fact that Laos was colonized by the French. I had read that Thailand was the only country in SE Asia to have never been colonized and I had also read that the French had colonized Laos, but I didn’t really know what any of that meant. To be honest I still only have a rough idea of the political implications but I can tell you this with certainty: Laos has good bread and wine, Thailand doesn’t.

Vang Viene is a growing town in the Vien Tiene province. It is known for it’s scenery. Vertical Limestone Karsts jut straight up from the rice paddies. The headwaters of the Mekong divide the town into the tourist side and the local side. The bus dropped us off on the touristy side. Natalya and I fixed our gaze on the limestone rock formations and promptly left the pizza shops and Internet cafes behind us. We found a cheap room right away and then crossed the Mekong. Then we stopped. We looked up….and around us….we were surrounded. We stood in a dried rice field, limestone giants with trees and grasses along their spines and shoulders looked down at us. The giants loomed. They lurked. They beckoned. They laughed at how small we are. The sun went down and we hadn’t moved much. We made plans, more like, we picked directions that we would explore the next day when we were more prepared with time and water. What else do you need really?

The next day we crossed the bridge again. With lots of water, a flashlight, a little first-aid kit, bug spray, and some sun screen. We got mountain bikes and rode off over the cracked mud, past the cows and chickens and naked little kids to the caves. There are little wooden signs pointing to caves, we just rode around to the ones that sounded most promising. During World War II the Lao took refuge in some of these caves. They left behind shrines to Buddha.

Natalya and I rode our bikes up a dried river bed to the turn off for the cave. We payed the man 10,000 kip and climbed into the mouth of the cave. At the mouth cold air rushed out to welcome us. We slipped down the wet tongue. Beads of water covered every surface. The light of my headlamp bounced back to me from the droplets. Last summer I slept with an Ice axe for a couple days after watching a movie about girls getting eaten by humanoid troglodytes during a caving expedition. My adrenaline peaked with every echoing drip. The stalactites and stalagmites casted moving shadows as I scanned the cavern. I tiptoed slowly into a place that many many people had seen before, but I was scared anyways. My headlamp landed on something bright white. Oh, that is definitely not part of the cave…I inched around the stalactites and came face to face with Buddha. Hmm. I found him. What now?

Natalya found an arrow that pointed down a narrow hallway. This sort of thing would never exist in the U.S. today. We were in the middle of nowhere. Only the dude down the river bed smoking cigarettes knew we where we were and here was an arrow pointed us into the darkness. There were bottomless holes with no ropes around them to block off tourists from leaning too far over the edge. I love it. This is a place where survival of the fittest can still happen. We crossed one of the bottomless holes on a bridge made of two soft pieces of wood. I thought about my parents and how they would never know what happened to me if I fell in. Oh Darwin, don’t let me down.

We saw six caves total. Khan Cave and the Blue Lagoon Cave were by far the best. The Blue Lagoon cave was dry so we were able to walk all the way to the back. It is HUGE! There is a reclining Buddha shrine in the main cavern. This site also has a rope swing and a dive platform into a stream that has water the color of Frost Gatorade in it even during the dry season.

Getting back to Bangkok was a process. Our bus broke down four times. This allowed us to observe more closely the lifestyles of the people in the villages we were crawling by. It was refreshing to see that there are still people who just live for a living. At one point we had to push the bus to jump start it. Eventually not even pouring water in it or jump starting the poor bus could revive it. So we got on a songtaw. A songtaw is a pick-up truck with two benches in the bed. 12 people can ride comfortably, we had 19. The dirt from the road worked its way into my eyes and ears. In this fashion we made it to the border. We had to pay some ridiculous taxes to re-enter Thailand because we were so late. But once we were on the bus that was to take us the rest of the way from the border back into Bangkok our driver put on a French jam band and only stopped clapping along to the music to quickly divert the bus away from the edges of the Lao-Thailand friendship bridge. After a long hot day in the company of some very ornery travelers this was perfect. Survival of the fittest indeed!