Laos might be trying to tell me something. I had another run-in with the weather yesterday. The guest house where I'm staying is an old Chinese shop-house style building overlooking the Mekong with a balcony. There's no glass in the windows, so I keep the shutters shut, and it's dark as a tomb in there. Yesterday I woke up from a nap to the sensation that rain was starting outside. I go out to the balcony to collect my laundry, and I though I had stepped into a hurricane. The flying debris from the trees drove me back inside, and I was watching the action through a crack in the door when the transformer on the pole across from the balcony blew it's circuit breakers and threw off a shower of sparks. Now it's dark in the whole building, and I grope my way downstairs to sit with the hotel staff while they watch from the doors. Once it died down, people got to work picking up the chairs and tables and potted trees that got tossed around the street. I sat down with one of the kids who works at the hotel and watched the clean-up while we swapped life stories. He wanted to know what happens to airplanes when they encounter a storm. He can't imagine they survive, and I explained it the best I knew, though I don't really get it either. When I went out later, the electricity was out all over town, and when it came back on, I assumed it had at my guest house also, but I returned about 8 p.m. to discover our block was still in the dark. Now I'm in a hundred-year-old wooden box full of lit candles. Thankfully it didn't last. I sat on my balcony in the dark for a couple hours listening to the neighbors chatting with each other and watching the electrical crew work on the transformer.
Luang Prabang has atmosphere coming out the wazoo. Because it's a Unesco World Heritage site, all the old quarter is well-preserved, and it does feel like stepping back in time if you squint until you don't see any tourists. It's fun walking around the side streets early in the morning and the evening sampling the food and checking out all the galleries and shops. Yesterday I hiked up to the top of the hill in the center of town for the views of the mountains and the two rivers and then hiked on the old bridge over the Nam Khan to explore the some of the poorer neighborhoods.
Today was a cycling trip -- 33 km in 6 hours. I was paired with an out-of-shape Afrikaaner who never made it to the top of any of the hills without walking. To be fair, it was a pretty tough ride -- that's the second time the "easy" outing was about all I could handle. We visited several rural villages, had lunch in one, visited a silk factory and took a dip in a nice swimming hold in the Nam Khan. At one point I hijacked the itinerary so we could visit the village school and we stood outside the windows of the three small classrooms disrupting the lessons. It was just before lunch break, thankfully, and when the class monitor came out to ring the bell -- an old car wheel that she banged with a rock -- a cheer went up inside, and the children walked home singing songs together and yelling "bye bye" to us.
I am dog tired, but loaded up with calories. I've been eating the most delicious salads and fish and tofu dishes. Tonight I had grilled water buffalo skewers.
Next up, a long day of traveling by bus to Vientiane to spend a few days there.
-Robert
