{"id":2065,"date":"2012-03-02T23:01:13","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T16:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/?p=2065"},"modified":"2012-03-02T23:48:18","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T16:48:18","slug":"bye-for-now-as-grandma-used-to-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/2012\/03\/02\/bye-for-now-as-grandma-used-to-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Bye For Now (As Grandma Used To Say)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Admin note: on the weekend, the site is scheduled to be transferred to a new server. Site host says the operation’ll be seamless, but…you know how that goes. So if there’re any access difficulties over the next days, not to worry: I’m paid up ’til 2015. <\/em><\/p>\n

[Written Thursday, March The 1st, Night]<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Toe felt much better this morning that I had guessed it would \u2013 although, still not good enough to support very much walking. Gives me hope for tomorrow, however. I did manage to get up to the market to get some eats.<\/p>\n

Next to it is the bus station, and I thought I should like to purchase my ticket for Nong Khai on Saturday right then and there. Was told to purchase the ticket on the day. Ha! Where have I heard that one before?<\/p>\n

Turning around to leave, was hailed by the Belgian from last week\u2019s Plain Of Jars tour. He too is off to Nong Khai for a few days; then flies out of Bangkok on the 15th headed back to Belgium. Later, I again<\/em> bumped into Martin, the German. It\u2019s quite an incestuous little group, this circuit of Laos travellers.<\/p>\n

Sitting in the park to eat my lunch, was joined by four very<\/em> fine young gentleman hoping to practice their English on me.<\/p>\n

\"laos\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The two in white didn\u2019t speak very much \u2013 indeed, the chap on the far right didn\u2019t speak in English at all. The one giving the peace sign is some manner of geography wizzard. When I\u2019d name off the towns in Laos to which I\u2019d visited, the others would turn to him, and he\u2019d call out the town\u2019s associated province. Provinces, I\u2019ve intuited, rather than towns or cities, are the locus of Laotian geographic identity.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re all third-year students in water resources. They rattled off their names; but it was difficult for me to get them learnt the first time around, let alone to remember them all.<\/p>\n

They were just the nicest young lads! Grilled me with all the usual questions; but also asked me my thoughts about the Global Environment, as well as for advice in re learning English. Told them that I\u2019d be back in Thailand in two days\u2019 time, en route to Cambodia; and they invited me to return to Vientiane for the Lao New Year, which begins April 14th.<\/p>\n

In fact, their invitation did kind of set the gears turning. I\u2019d still like to see Southern Laos, of course (though there aren\u2019t any mountains there). I could perhaps on the way back up pop back in to Luang Prabang (sorry, guys, probably not Vientiane) for the New Year \u2013 I loves those Asian festivals! \u2013 and then all the way back north for, if I can stomach the expense, the Gibbon Experience<\/a> (about which I keep hearing extraordinary raves).<\/p>\n

We shall see.<\/p>\n

Visited a temple right near the hostel, which, it doubles as a school just happening to be in recess when I arrived. Got an enormous kick out of watching the kids run around and play. It\u2019s the same in all<\/em> cultures, I think: not much, if anything, can top kids at play.<\/p>\n

When the bell rang, all the kids took it in turns to come over to this little faucet near which I happened to be sitting to wash up their feet and hands before returning inside. None of \u2018em had noticed me \u2018til then; but when they now did notice me, a few of them said Hello, and pointed at my bare feet, and whatnot.<\/p>\n

\"schoolkids\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Back to the park (also quite near the hostel) during the evening, noticed that what I\u2019d thought was a little area of Naga statuary is in fact a Naga fountain<\/em>! Holy crap!<\/p>\n

\"nagafountain1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And, yes, water shoots out of their mouths as well.<\/p>\n

\"nagafountain2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But, I never saw it running, dammit it all to Hell!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now March, and officially Too Fucking Hot during the day. I guess I\u2019m going to need, from here on out, to be rising at 6:00 in the AM, rather than my customary 8:00 or 9:00 in the AM, so that I may partake of many sights but then seek shelter during the midday. Otherwise, I\u2019m gonna end up affixed to the sidewalk like a goddam iron-on patch.<\/p>\n

But in the evening, it rapidly cools to Wonderfully Comfortable (and, also, Oddly Lacking Of Mosquitoes). The people come out in droves to watch the sun set over the river, and to exercise and aerobicise, and to generally hang out.<\/p>\n

The River Walk area also hosts a kind of satellite Night Market (the main Night Market is located about ten blocks north of there), one of whose stalls is personed by what I suppose to be the\u00a0 inimitable\u2026<\/p>\n

\"wafflequeen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The two Aussie dormmates are cool guys. They went, with yet another<\/em> Aussie, from the next dorm over, to have pizza; and returned having had pizza and<\/em> noodle soup \u2013 and complaining at the symptoms of having \u201cover-indulged like pigs\u201d.<\/p>\n

I asked Brock, the one who\u2019s stuck here for three weeks, whether he planned to stay at this same location for the entire time. He says that, depending on his money supply, he may end up taking his tent out to the beach and sleeping there.<\/p>\n

Led to a quite interesting tale of having lived in a tent for eight months while working in an Iron-ore-mining boomtown in northwestern Australia. It\u2019s (if I\u2019m doing my celsius-to-fahrenheit conversion correctly) 112\u00b0 during the daytime, and 104\u00b0 during the night-time.<\/p>\n

He was making a lot of money; but apparently it\u2019s such<\/em> a boomtown that the rents are the second-highest in the World. So, he lived in a family\u2019s back yard in his tent, paying $200 per month for the honour.<\/p>\n

The jobs there are, he says, kind of general labour \u2013 and anybody who\u2019s not \u201can absolute fool\u201d will be able to just show up and land one. And, in fact, that half the people there are<\/em> absolute fools, and yet they\u2019re still making $50 per hour.<\/p>\n

[Written Friday, March The 2nd, Night]<\/h4>\n

Toe, though better, still not quite well enough for sustained walking. But, it being my last day in Vientiane, I done it anyway.<\/p>\n

I think my verdict remains what it had been: Vientiane is not \u201cshit\u201d; but nor is it the real Laos. In fact, as I say, I don\u2019t think it wants to be the \u201creal Laos\u201d \u2013 I think it wants to be a Thai city. In its aspiration it has lost the je ne sais quoi<\/em> that makes Laos Laos. But yet, it has not gained<\/em> the je ne sais quoi<\/em> which makes Thailand Thailand. As a consequence (or so goes my off-the-cuff analysis) it is a city un-moored. Or, to quote The Minus 5, it\u2019s a town that\u2019s lost its Groove Supply.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I set out to see some sights. This stupa, neglected though right there in the middle of the city, didn\u2019t come with any signage to note its undoubtedly interesting history.<\/p>\n

\"stupa1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"stupa2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Victory Gate\u2026<\/p>\n

\"victory\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2026as the sign notes, is somehow more interesting from afar.<\/p>\n

\"victoryinfo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Note well: no passing grass on the grounds.)<\/p>\n

\"grass\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the Market to fetch some lunch, the ladies were just loading me down with produce. I had some quite good bananas and some super-delicious lettuce and cucumbers yesterday, so thought to return to those same two vendors and repeat the previous day\u2019s trick.<\/p>\n

I assume, having seen me now two days running (after all, just how many barefoot farang visit that Market in any given lifetime?), the both of them kept filling my bag up, even after the money had already changed hands. The lettuce\/cucumber lady even had a friend stop by with a watermelon she\u2019d just purchased and began cutting up, and they insisted upon my having a wedge of it. \u2018twas quite good, too!<\/p>\n

As is true everywhere else in Laos, Vientiane\u2019s got some knockout beautiful trees.<\/p>\n

\"trees\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As far as the temples are concerned, there aren\u2019t very many of them. And about half that there are<\/em> charge admission. Of those that don\u2019t, in most of \u2018em it\u2019s the old story of the grounds being open, but the buildings being closed.<\/p>\n

So I only got to see two Big Buddhas. And do you know? Neither of them were in gold!<\/p>\n

\"buddha1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"buddha2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The temple architecture here is pretty neat, I must say.<\/p>\n

\"templearch1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"templearch2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You can see, in this photograph of a Drum Haus, the two metal stairways allowing one to walk up to the third floor. You know what: one could do a helluva lot worse than to be able to walk up to the third floor of a temple\u2019s Drum Haus.<\/p>\n

\"drum\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the temples has this weird imp thing. Don\u2019t really know what that\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n

\"imp\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lunching in the park, couldn\u2019t believe my eyes when I noticed\u2026fucking Sleepy Grass<\/em>! We had it in spades during Hawaii The Big Island. It\u2019s actually really cool, because\u2026here, I made some footage to show how it\u2019s really cool (and also how it got its name).<\/p>\n

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