Vacation Land

Most of us in western society are more than familiar with the term "Vacation". We have the summer vacation, when you go abroad or spend weeks at the summer house somewhere in the archipelago, or the winter vacation when the entire family with friend go either up north to the Swedish mountains or south down to the alps. What all vacations have in common however is that when we go, we enter some kind of a Vacation Land state and we behave in a fashion we would never do at home. Vacation often go hand in hand with traveling, and the change is especially clear when we are away from the security of home. The most prominent example is how you speak to strangers in different way. At home, we tend to stick to our own private group of friends and not very often we expand that group. On vacation however, you start talking with someone random during a bur ride and you end up spending the following days with each other. You also tend to forget your own dress code while you're away. Good bye white button downs, black suits, tight jeans, high heals or whatever you prefer, and hello tacky BeerLao T-shirts and In the Tubing-tanks. Hello fluffy harem 2-dollars pants looking as if you just stepped out of a Hippies Conference. Hello flip-flops and trekking-sandals. And, I am starting to do it as well. Last week I bought a pair of shorts from the Night Market which looked like Aladdin's yellow pants. The Pre-Prince Aladdin. But mine are reddish brown instead. I am also seriously considering buying a white BeerLao T-shirt.

Vikings Unite

After Peter the Dane left Luang Prabang I have been by myself a couple of days. Yesterday however, a girl from Hildur contacted me through Couchsurfing and asked if I wanted to hang out. During the day I had a Lao Massage and in the evening I had a dinner with Hildur who us from Iceland. It turned out in we had the same taste in literature, both being big nerds and huge fans of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Mr Darc.. Ehm I mean Pride and Prejudice. We then had a beer at the new popular hangout place in Luang Prabang called Utopia, a very relaxed bar who's customers are mainly backpackers. We also spent Tuesday together. By bike we went to the Phousy Market, a big market outside the center. This is were many of the Laotians go to do their shopping. You find anything from non-refrigerated meat to veggies to shoes to alive fish in large buckets. As we walked around in the meat area we tried to guess that actually were for sale. We found several piles of pig feet, bags with blood, plates with what we believed was liver and buckets of intestines. Yum. After biking around for a while and looking in bookstores we had a lunch at a Korean-BBQ inspired little place by the Nam Khan River, where we saw the cutest and smallest puppies I've seen since I got to Luang Prabang. They couldn't have been more than a couple of days old. Right by the street, by themselves. I seriously considered adopting them. Sadly they disappeared while we weren't looking, and so did the box they were next to. Very mysterious indeed. And heartbreaking at the same time.

Possible Drop-down

When my family and I were to move to a New York suburb in 2008 my mom and her husband they took course in Intercultural Training. They spoke about the different stages you go though when you move into a new culture. First is the Honeymoon-stage in which everything is perfect and beautiful. Then, after 1-2 months you start to go into a drop down, which can lead to tiredness and sometimes even depression. After having spent more than a month in Laos, I have realized that I am entering my drop-down and it takes its shape of an huge ball of homesickness. Even though I'm living in a charmingly beautiful little town and I just got back from an amazing adventure on the road, I miss Home, Stockholm, Sweden. I miss my friends, and miss my family and I miss a decent internet connection. Being the only non-lao nineteen-year-old in a town is quite lonely. Even though all the guys from the hotel are very nice, I don't really hang out with them. Especially since they're working during the days and I am not. Most of the Laotian girls have an almost non-existant English or are very shy, so its hard to connect with them. As the café is still not finished I have a lot of free time which is quite hard to spend when you don't have anyone to spend it with. Luckily I can always do some writing on my NaNo. But when nothing really happens during your day you don't get really inspired. To get out of this rot I have decided do something fun next week, I just have to figure out what. Possibly Elephant-riding. Or cruising on the mekong. Or kayaking. Or trekking the the mountains. The choices are really so many, one might wonder why I complain I got nothing to do.

Kuang Si

Kuang Si Falls is one out of two waterfall outside Luang Prabang, and among the most popular attraction among tourists. Since neither my new friend Peter nor I had been there we decided that the waterfall would be our destination for the day. The Kuang Si waterfall is about 35 km away which might not seem as much in the western world but by Lao road it is much longer. We rent a scooter and bring some sandwiches for lunch and start our journey. The first part of the trip the road is paved but after a couple of kilometers the road consist mostly of hard dirt. The road is beautiful however. We are surrounded by green forests and hills and fields. Sometimes we pass through a little village were the locals are sitting in the shade and smile at us when we pass by. After almost an hour we arrive to the waterfall where we park our scooter and enter the area. First we pass an exhibit with Lao bears. We agree that even if they're adorably cute we feel bad for them as they don't have very much space. Finally we get to the waterfall. Kuang Si is one big fall at the top which then go into several small pools where one can take a swim. We walk our way up to the mighty major fall and then visit several of the pools and their blue, clear, cold water. We have a perfect time, arriving an hour before the rush hour start and have the falls for ourselves for while, only sharing it with some few others. After 2-3 hours we decide that we're done for the day and start to head back. After been driving for only 5-10 minutes the gas runs out. Luckily we just passed one of those small villages and we walk back, asking if any one sells gas. Every village has a little stash with bottles of gas which you can buy for just couple of dollars. We fill her up (because our scooter is definitely a she) and return back to Luang Prabang. One of the best moments of our trip was when we turned off the engine and just rolled down a hill, just absorbing a stunning setting without the noise from the scooter ruining it.

Hanoi Part 3: The Bus Ride

I get picked up just after 5 pm by one of Hanoi's infamous motorcycle taxis. He drives me to another Hotel where a bunch of other people are waiting for the pick up. There he leaves me and I start a conversation with a woman who says she was dumped here as well, which probably means that a larger vehicle is coming here to pick us up. This is very understandable as I cannot see a bus or minivan drive around in Hanoi's Old Quarter picking up people from their hotel without it taking a couple of hours. We wait and after much longer time than we would have wanted a bus finally stops in front us and we are allowed to enter. I sit down next to a boy my age and we soon realize we are both heading for the same destination, namely Luang Prabang. The van drives out to the Bus Station and when we get off we see a Vietnamese man waving his hands saying "Laos! Luang Prabang, Vientiane!" and we follow him through the bus station and he gives us our tickets. He then points us in the right direction. We find our bus, but now we starting to feel that something isn't as it supposed to be. My new travel partner Peter says that this is not the kind of bus he traveled with on his way to Hanoi. We are also not allowed to enter the bus, even though we see that a there is a lot of passengers on it already. Another odd thing we realize is that all other passengers are Vietnamese, not a single tourist except us. After about 20 minutes we are finally allowed to enter the bus, and as soon we enter the door closes behind us and the bus starts to move. We see now that there is no seats for us, but one of the workers are building seats in the aisle. We tell them that we cannot possibly sit one those seats for 24 hours and he then moves on two other passengers and gives us their seats. We feel little bad about it, but are glad we have somewhere to sit. Lastly, we realize that these are no normal locals going on a bus ride, but a group of old war veterans. One of them stands in the aisle speaking while everyone else are listening carefully and they then applaud him before he return to his seat. We assume that they're sharing old war stories. Sadly, no one speaks a single word of English and we spend the first hour of our bus ride listening to probably amazing stories told in Vietnamese. Then it goes pretty smoothly for a while. I manage to sleep for several hours and don't wake up until we arrive at the border. Also this goes without any problems and when we continue to drive I manage fall asleep again. By noon we arrive to Phonsavanh, the city where you find the Plain of Jars. We believe this is just a lunch stop, but starts again to worry when we realize the old Vietnamese soldiers take their bags with them when they leave the bus. However, the driver says somethings that sounds like "Lunch Stop" and we go to grab some food, always keeping an eye on the bus. We then ask the driver if he will continue to Luang Prabang and he positively nods. The other who works at the bus starts to laugh and say "only two" and we figure out that yes, the bus will continue but we will be the only passengers. Suddenly very delighted with our situation we claim the best seats in the bus and the last ten hours are surprisingly pleasant.

Hanoi Part 2: Couchsurfing

I spent one night at a guesthouse in Hanoi's Old Quarter and I then again packed my bags. Through Couchsurfing I have gotten into contact with a girl who lives a 10 minutes drive from my guesthouse. I am to stay at her place for 3 nights in Hanoi before I catch the bus back to Luang Prabang. 10 am I stand waiting outside a French bakery and when Kelly get there she recognizes me easily, since a 19 years old blonde girl with a large backpack and lost look on her face pretty much stands out from the rest of the surrounding. We have som coffee before we return to her house where I leave my things, we then drive around town a little and grab some lunch before she is off to work and I cover all the tourist attraction in Hanoi. Sadly Uncle Ho's Mausoleum is closed for repair and I could only see the outside. However, I checked off the Ho Chi Min Museum, the Mausoleum, the One Pillar Pagoda and the Temple of Literature off the to do-list. In the evening I met up with Kelly and her work mates for dinner at Hanoi Social Club, an expat haven I would think and had an excellent dinner and a Dr Who conversation who actually have seen the old ones but totally approve of the new. We both agreed that David Tenant is the greatest thing that ever happened to the show. The second day was filled with rain from the beginning to end. I walked around in the french quarters and looked in some bookstores, grabbed a hot chocolate at Highlander Coffee and had sushi in the neighborhood I stayed. Over all a good day. Day three was great. I spent the entire day rereading Eat, Pray Love, and at night me and Kelly set out to celebrate Halloween. First a local bar where we met a lot of people and I had a beer that was not BeerLao. From there we moved on to a house party that was filled to the edge of expats. I even met a Swedish guy there. From the houseparty we went to the only after-midnight open club in Hanoi, a pretty sketchy place with a Eastern Europe feeling over it. Over all a pretty awesome night.

Hanoi Part 1

Hanoi: - The is no system in the traffic at all - If you cross the street, walk in a pretty slowly steady pace. The scooters will just drive around you, it is not until you stop or run accidents happen - I could not possibly live here - I miss Luang Prabang Well, to go back in time a bit, I'll tell you about this joke of a coincidence that happened today. The Englishman I met in Vang Vieng went to Vientiane one day earlier than me, but we decide to have dinner the night I arrive and I meet him and his friends outside their guesthouse and we eat dinner and have an over all good time. We discover that me and the Englishman are going to catch the same flight to Hanoi the next day and we loosely decide to meet up and go together. Sadly, we fail to meet up the following morning but when I am on my way to meet up with my cab I run into him by accident when he his leaving a café. Its a small world. The trip to Hanoi goes very smoothly. The flight goes well. Our bags arrive as they should. The pick-up driver from my hotel are waiting for us when we get out. My room is prepared when I get to the hotel and me and Ian (the Englishman) enjoy some traditional Vietnamese beef noodles for dinner. Then, overwhelmed by the massiveness of Hanoi there is nothing we can do but to go to bed. We conclude that we would not have wanted to have gone through the trouble of finding a cab and then find a guesthouse, and that we re very happy that I already had taken care of it before I left home.