Laos 1999: Dinosaurs, BBQ and Off the Lonely Planet Trail!

Stories of a Backpacking Addict

Subject: Real Live Laotians

Had the nicest weekend, one of my classes took me to dinner and then wouldn’t let me pay for it. We went to a little bar first where you can sit by the lake and watch the sunset and then to a place that serves Lao BBQ which is a mixture of Korean BBQ and Chinese hot pot. You sit on a table with a bucket of coal in the middle and this metal dish with a rim for water on top. It was yum!

On Sunday the boss organized for the other class to take out the van and drove me to all these places. It was a “thank you” present for my leaving. But to my that’s crazy. I didn’t do anything except catch the wrong plane and sorta went along in the cheery way I do!! I think I was the first foreigner that’s happenned to that didn’t scream at everyone for an hour, for that I get a free flight back to Vietnam, made friends with real Laotians and had a “real” lao weekend thats not on the Lonely Flipping Planet! Yes.

First we went to Buddah park which is a strange place. It is full of concrete statues of Buddhist and Hindu
figures, some are like 60-70 feet tall, and this representative of heaven and hell that is three storey high. It was so trippy!! You can climb inside it, and there are all these other sculptures in there.

There was this other altar that has stairs to the top. I saw some men climb halfway up and went down, and since I can leave no ladder and stairs unclimbed I thought I would give it a go. As I got higher I
realized the steps got smaller and smaller as you walked up, but I MADE IT!!! I climbed into the platform, turned around and realized the whole place was staring at me and these complete strangers were taking my photo.

I guess not many people make it up there, and when I looked down I realised why. It was like two to three storeys high.. I was like… “Hmm… I think I am shaking..” But I didn’t have much choice in the
matter, and unless I wanted to spend the night, I had to make it down. I seriously had to take deep breaths to calm myself before I made it down there again and was I glad when I made it. It wasn’t difficult.. but quite scary once you have an idea how far you were off the ground.

Then we went to this park/zoo thing. There were these strange looking bears in far too small cages. Although I don’t like zoos I have to say I was fascinated by these odd looking animals and hung out with them for quite a while. And there were these concrete dinosaurs, and one of them about 20 ft tall had blood spewing out of it next to the 60 ft tyraneous*** rex. Cool.. Everyone thought I was mad liking the dinosaurs so much.. But, hey, they thought I was mad when I climbed the temple.. Then again half of you think I am mad.. so it’s quite a cross cultural phenomenon..

I also ate all kinds of street food that I have never tasted before. Some were a little odd and I didn’t like them much, but my favorite was coconut sticky rice, with sweet potatoes, stuffed in a bamboo stem, and grilled on an open fire. You have to open up the bamboo to get to the rice. Very good.

Then I went to the market and bought material to make Lao style skirts which are so beautiful, and then to a friend of my students to get it made.

Last we went waay out of town to this picnic spot where there are small bamboo and wooden platforms with thatched roofs over this artificial pond full of pink water lillies. Lo and behold while I was sitting on a
swing, who comes up to say hello, but the dude that drove me home the night I went to the club!!

There you purchase grilled fish and wrap the flesh in lettuce and other veg and dip it in a sauce. I was wondering what all the lettuce and buckets of beer and coke were for. That was amazing, and all my mild mannered students who were all older than me consumed large ammounts of beer. I just watched. I mean Mr Vannaly who is usually in a bun and looks like she is a really strict librarian and is like 45 years old, is in a baseball cap, hair down, and jeans out drinking everyone. I nearly fainted from shock!!

Then they drove everyone home. It was interesting to see the houses of people, how they lived, what it looked like etc etc. I enjoyed that a lot, but I don’t think they understood why I was so fascinated by their
houses at all.

Anyway that is about it. I am off now. It’s been fun writing to all of you again.

Take care.

See you soon.

Love Yan

All Laos 1999-2000 Entries