a perfect monsoon holiday

Phet and Ji headed off to Laos last Saturday and I followed along on Wednesday. I had booked a veddy early morning flight departing Bangkok at 6:35 and was a bit bleary getting to the airport. Three cheers, though, for Bangkok when there are no cars on the road. It's such a pleasant place to be; taxis just zip around in the absence of the usual colonic blockage of buses, motorcycles, and 4-Runners. I like the ride to (or from) the airport just fine when the roads are clear. There's lots to see. Big roadside ads, folks waiting for buses, construction workers sardined into trucks on their way to work, and best of all non-smoggy air.

It was a treat taking a domestic flight. No irritating airport tax - and it's damn steep here at 500 baht per person per departure, especially given that the average salary is probably something like 10 000 baht per month. I went and tanked up with a big iced coffee and then boarded. Thai Airways gets an ongoing salute from me for their service. They're consistently pleasant and have been especially helpful when I've travelled with Ji. I like their tidy and classy-looking hosts. While I'm all for equality in the workplace and letting people work till they drop dead, I am not a big fan of the torpid grumps who make up 85% of a certain canadian airline's workforce. There are a few smart young hotties working for that airline (and y'all know who y'all are) but the ferocity of their surly fellows lasers down their efforts.

The Thai flight was only an hour long but it did make me panic a bit because I kept thinking about how in only a week and a half I'd be in a similar space but for TWENTY HOURS instead. The thought alone is enough to make anyone want to pick up the barf bag and fill it. With barf.

When I got off the plane in Ubon Rattchathani it was dead easy to find the car-for-hire to take me to the border. Exit gate, booth is on your left. Just in case you want to re-trace my steps. A very quiet, burly driver escorted me to an immaculately clean car, and he zipped us out of town, past the rice fields, and alongside the lake until we got to the border. As soon as I stepped out of the car and had lifted my bags up, I saw Phet's Mum, his brother Long, and our nephew Suki. Ji and Phet were right behind and after a nice hug we walked over to the visa office, filled in a couple of forms, coughed up thirty bucks, and huzzah I was in Laos.

The first time that Phet and I went to see his family (after his 17 year absence, that is) it was considerably more of a challenge getting to Pakse. This was back in the year, oh, nineteen hundred and ninety five. First, we took the train across Canada from Toronto. Then we flew to Hong Kong via LA. We stayed in Hong Kong for a month, flew to KL, travelled all around Malaysia and then flew to Bangkok. As described previously on this very website we stayed at a cheap guesthouse that I nearly burned down with an errant mosquito coil. In Bangkok, we walked around hunting for the Lao embassy for two days. This was back in a time when visitors absolutely had to have a visa prior to arrival, and were often confined to travelling only on government-approved tours. Crappily enough for us, the Lao embassay had recently moved and the Lonely Planet (ah yes, remember how I said I was following its advice relentlessly?) hadn't yet updated its address. So in the end we actually never found the embassy, and finally went to a travel agent on Wireless Road and got them to arrange the visas for us. Then we took a looong train ride from Bangkok to Ubon. This whole time, throughout the whole trip, we were carrying (get this) enormous boxes of chocolate to give to Phet's family when we got to Pakse. Yeah, that was me: the one following the Lonely Planet, the one insisting that we keep carrying the chocolate rather than eat it back in Hong Kong like Phet suggested.

So, we took the train with our packs full of chocolate and got off in Ubon. We stayed at a fairly decent hotel and called Phet's Dad. I had kind of thought that he might even be in Ubon, and we were both getting super excited to meet the fam. But it turned out he was in Pakse and would meet us at the border. Then we hired a car with some nutty Thai ladies and headed to the crossing at Chong Mek / Vung Tao. Glommed across the border was a sprawling, tarp-roofed muddy mess of a market. We got through immigration, and there was Phet's half-brother, Douy and his wife. They bought a stack of disposable diapers, tucked us into Phet's Dad's BMW, and drove us to Pakse. Phew.

Here's us at the begining of that epic journey (chocolate-filled knapsacks close at hand but not in the photo):

You can see how the easy-peasiness of our current mode of travel is rather enjoyable...but sometimes the drama is muted in comparison to our past adventures!

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN PAKSE FOR FUN (also see 'entertainment' photos)

1. Make jokes with the fam. Our favourite sing-a-long-song is Phet's oldie-but-goodie "Pun jai boh dai, kee min" (roughly translated as 'I can't breathe, poop stinks') which is even extra funnier if you pronounce the last word, "min" ('stinky') like "Ming" (Phet's brother's name), making the song sound something like 'I can't breathe, poopy Ming'. Heh heh heh.

2. Drink Beer Lao. Lather, rinse, repeat.

3. Sleep. And we had some sweet sleeping weather gracing our visit. Every night there were monsoon storms crashing on Meh's tin roof. They were the kind of rainstorms I've only ever experienced in Laos, where the sound of the rain on the roof actually drowns out (ha) any other noise. I kept drifting in and out of sleep dreaming that I was either behind the curtain of water at Niagra Falls, or that I was a tree-dwelling australopithecus who had only recently learned how to craft a thatch roof to protect myself and my wee son from the elements. Cool.

4. Eat. We had the pleasure of being cooked-for and catered-to at every meal. Ling whipped up a lovely meal of stir-fry, spicy fish and cucumber salad, beef in salty sauce, and sour fish soup for dinner one night. Another evening we went out to chow down on Lao-style sukiyaki at a new beergarden. We call it sukiyaki, but it's actually called "siin daat" ('sliced meat' as far as I understand). The deal is that you have red-hot charcoal in a bucket that sits just below a hole in your table. Then, the waiter places a circular metal thingy into the hole. The top of the metal thingy is domed and has thin cuts in it. You grill your meat up here. Then, there is a moat around the bottom of the contraption. You put broth in the moat. So, the meat grills nicely on the top and little smidgens of meat-flavour drip into the moat and the broth. Then, you fill up your moat with fresh veggies, herbs, vermicelli, and eggs. The moat simmers away while the dome grills. You nibble on your meat, sip from the soup, pluck out veggies and dip them in your peanut sauce. Yum!

We also went out for Pakse's world famous bring-your-own-herbs grilled fish. At the fish restaurant at Kilometre 4, the deal is that you bring your own lettuce and basil and mint and sour herbs in a big basket, and you bring your own rice paper wrappers, and you bring your own spicy dipping sauce, and set yourself down on a bench at their lake-side restaurant. Then, the fish man nets out a bunch of fish, the cook tosses them with salt and throws them on the grill, and then about 20 minutes later, the serving boy brings your table a big basket of piping hot fish, and a dozen or so big bottles of Beer Lao. Mm!

Of course we also made the trek out to Kilometre 14 to get durian. We ate noodles and congee. And we sucked back the ginormous bags of iced Lao coffee and condensed milk. Ahh...

5. Play cards.

6. Feed and groom roosters; take roosters to rooster fights; bet on rooster fights; console family and friends on their monetary losses at the rooster fights. I'd really like to be able to call the roosters 'co-ks' but I'm afraid people who google that word are going to get sent to my site and then send me nasty emails when they find out that there aren't any naughty pictures here, just nicely feathered, red-necked roosters. Anyways, Ming's latest poultry-related enterprise is rearing fighting roosters. There are about 12 out back at the house. He and Phet's Dad carefully wash and groom the birds everyday. On the Saturday that we were there, they took one of their roosters to the rooster ring, and Phet and Ji went to check out the action. Ji was pretty impressed, and although he lost 2000 baht, Phet enjoyed the scene too. Unfortunately, Ming's rooster wasn't quite tough or fast enough, and the Sayo team had to throw in the towel after only 5 of 8 rounds.

7. Watch the cow get dismantled. Emma loved that one, and I got to enjoy it once again. 'Hm,' I thought. 'Why is that small cow tethered alone beside aunt's house out in the rain.' Then I went and read 800 more pages of my book. When I came downstairs, it was an ex-cow. I watched the gutting man dismantle most of body and head, checked out our cousin preparing the meat for the market, and enjoyed the sight of our next door neighbour carrying off the hooves down the street. And I ate beef for dinner. Live on the same street in Vietnam where I did, and where they butchered squealing pigs daily at 4 am, and you'll either get an iron gut like me or become a vegetarian like my Mum. It could go either way.

THE LATEST ON THE FAM

We're happy to report that the Sayos are all well and prospering. Phet's Mum, despite some high blood pressure trouble earlier this year, is in good health. Phet's Dad is skinny as usual and was in great spirits throughout our visit. Long and Kwan now have three sons: Suki (8), Yaki (4), and Fuji (6 months). They are all gorgeous and fine-mannered boys. Like, not too-fine-mannered, but just very nice. They listened to me, listened to their grandmother, took showers when they were supposed to, and played cheerfully with Ji. Kwan is still selling beef at the nearby market, and they are building a house out at Kilometre 10. We went to check the house out, and it's in a beautiful location with views of mountains on two sides. It's right next to paddy fields, blooming lotuses, and is tucked beside a thicket of bamboo and banana trees. Ling is volunteering at a government office and says she's getting lots of opportunities for training although she doesn't get a salary and doesn't expect to get one for several years to come. Ming is teaching English, and Ing is teaching Accounting at the Pakse Technical-Vocational School. Ling recently broke up with her fiancee (who is already married and whose wife is already pregnant!), Ming has a cute steady girlfriend, and Meh told us that Ing has a 30-year-old boyfriend, but we couldn't get Ing to fess up about that one.

COMING BACK

After a placid week of extended sleeping and feeding, we had to return to Bangkok. We made sure to go and buy a stack of Beer Lao shirts for all my colleagues, and some Lao Cotton goodies for Phet's office friends. Ji had his last little bit of fun watching the Cartoon Network in Thai, dug up the sand a bit more in the backyard, and rassled with his cousins. Then we loaded the truck during a tremendous, torrential downpour. Everyone got soaked to the skin except me (heh heh, I went and brushed my teeth. I'm shure no one noticed). Then we all piled into the truck and headed for the border. The crossing was as smooth as can be, we waved good bye and went to Ubon. After a big dinner I took Ji to walk around the soccer field next to the airport and Phet got a foot massage. Then we hopped on our plane and flew home to enjoy the dubious pleasures of air con and an empty house.

Here are the photo albums from the trip: around town, the fam, entertainment.

Now we're back at work. Only three days left and we'll be on holiday again, this time kicking back Toronto style. Aw, yeah... [Laos-26-July-2005]