Thinking inside a box

Thursday April 21, London

I lived in London for a while five years ago, and didn't like it at all; but today, for some reason, I find myself liking it much better. Arriving yesterday afternoon, I followed written directions to a squat near Brixton, where Daniel (a friend from Melbourne) had told me I would be able to sleep the night. Perhaps this put London in a better light because I was on the south side (souf London), which may have retained a more earthy culture then other areas where I have lived before. The streets of Brixton are enlivened with the beautiful tones of Carribean patois - a music so different to other versions of the English language - and there are more authentic cockneys too. The squat also made a great impression on me, as one of my gripes with London has always been the terrible expense of the place, while here I came upon a dozen young people managing to get by on almost nothing: they simply take their housing, water and power from under the noses of the over-endowed system, and get the majority of their food from skips outside supermarkets, where entire boxes of slightly past-date groceries can be gathered. Public transport is arranged by a simple method of forgery, which it would be better not to elaborate upon here. There are people living in this squat who literally have no money, and are living quite comfortably, even with a dash of panache, in the very heart of the transnational industrial complex.

Having come here with the memory of Bangkok so fresh, the comparison is poignant. The two cities are of similar size (both about 15 million inhabitants, I think), but London is so much cleaner and more orderly. In part, this must be put down to the Westerner's love of rules and their observance. But I think the historical trajectories of development must also be a factor. London has had the benefit of developing gradually, since the very beginning of the industrial era; this seems to have resulted in better planning and infrastructure, whereas Bangkok is like the rushed creation of a disheveled but prolific capitalist visionary. The clearest evidence of this is in the transport problem, where Bangkok is plagued by a choking stream of cars and motorbikes, while London is spared such ugly extremes by its large network of underground trains. Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine how Bangkok could install an adequate rail system now that everything is already so cramped.

 

Wednesday April 20th, Amman

This morning I arrived at Queen Alia Airport, Amman, Jordan, at 5am local time. Along with the usual groundspeed, altitude, time to destination, etc., monitors on the Royal Jordanian plane also showed a gradually turning arrow, which indicated the current direction of Mecca, if anyone wanted to pray. Various passengers from the plane were using this airport just as a place of transit to either Tel Aviv or London, so when we arrived at immigration, we were given the choice of either applying to enter the country, or instead accepting a transit card. No matter how much I tried to explain that I wanted to leave the airport and spend the day in Amman, the officials just gave me a transit card anyway, and I didn't realise until too late that I had not secured legal entry into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

As it turned out, 'transit' status involved being taken out of the airport and herded onto a bus, then compulsorarily checked in gratis at a nearby hotel, where we were expected to wait for the 8 or 12 hours before our connecting flights. Though the hotel was nice enough, and pleasantly full of men with long flowing robes and amazing moustaches, there was no way I would be satisfied with this. In a word, I absconded.

I hung around the hotel lobby for a while before walking inconspicuously out the front doors when no-one was looking. I felt a thrill of risk and adventure as I stepped out into Jordan, an illegal 8-hour alien.

A taxi took me in to the old city, the driver giving me a cheap price on condition that I spend the whole trip refusing continuous offers to take a day-tour with him. Having made it all the way without accepting anything, my driver Shareef was satisfied, and let me go in the heart of Amman. Though I had lost some hours in farting around at the airport and the hotel, it was still 7:30am, with a lingering desert-night-chill, though many dissatisfied-looking Jordanian men were already lurking on the pavements, congregating in large clusters that suggested they were expecting a day of unemployment. I read in a newspaper on the plane that this is a chronic problem in the middle east; certainly it was so when I visited Morocco a few years ago. Just as in Morocco, a certain proportion of the lingering men looked at me with definite dislike, as if I, Westerner, might personally be the cause of their woes.

Central Amman soon became noisy and smoggy, demonstrating why all the sandstone buildings wore such a layer of grime. Although it is a hilly, ancient town, and therefore potentially beautiful, lack of care has rendered it rather ugly to my eye. Apart from the haters, people were really quite nice, though linguistic communication was minimal. I was ushered into a well-preserved Roman amphitheatre for free, because the people at the gate weren't able to decide how much it was. I had a delicious meal of beans, pita bread, olives, and green salsa, and the man refused to accept any money for it, apparently because he thought I was a 'nice' Westerner. (Mostly using gestures, he had asked me if I were a Mulsim. No. He asked then if I like George Bush. No. He was well pleased with this, and made a suggestive gesture, saying 'Bush and Sharon'.)

With the potential hazards of the hotel and immigration ahead of me, I didn't have long in Amman. On the strength of the free meal of beans I had this morning, I will almost certainly return to Jordan on my way back to Australia - though I doubt I would spend too long in Amman, and the convoluted streets and lack of English speakers make it rather hard work.

I made it back into the hotel the same way I got out, without a hitch. Now in the departure lounge, I realise I have made it in and out of this country without ever having had my passport inspected properly. I have been asked to show it about three times, but each time the official has been satisfied just by my reaching for something that looks like passport; which I think gives Jordon the loosest borders I have ever encountered. Arabs seem to like doing things on intuition, based on the look in your eye more than anything else.

A couple of gates along, there is a flight boarding for Baghdad. If I could I would love to visit that departure lounge, just to see what kind of people are going there. It is easy to imagine that everyone would be carrying guns.

 

Wednesday April 20, Bangkok

On an overnight train from Chiang Mai, I was forced to buy a first-class ticket, since all the cheaper tickets had already been bought in the rush to get back to work after Songkran. I read in the Bangkok Post that there have been eight-hour delays on all roads leading in to Bangkok for the last three days, and that the Songkran road toll is down this year to just 362 deaths over the five days.

I really didn't enjoy my first-class status in the train; all it meant was that I had to sit in my own little cabin, instead of sharing a carriage with the other passengers. Actually I felt a bit like a naughty child who has been forced to sit alone, especially after I sat in the second-class carriage for a while, only to be escorted back to first-class by a pair of policemen.

We arrived in Bangkok central station at exactly two minutes to seven, and I immediately began looking for Saman. He was nowhere. 7:10. 7:15. No sign of Saman. Unable to take the suspense, I left the station and plunged myself into the alleys near the station where Saman had previously led me and Sophie back to his one-room residence.

It took me a while, but I think I've found the place. Unfortunately, the gate at the bottom of the stairs is locked, so I can't be sure. I have positioned myself at a nearby noodle seller, where from the darkness of the hole-in-the-wall eating area, I can see out, but it would be difficult to see in. From here I will maintain a stake-out, waiting for Saman to return or emerge. He will have to come home some time - unless he's already left town?

It's so hot and sticky here, I'd love to change into a singlet. But I cannot, as long as I am on this mission to recover my computer; I must try to look like a serious person.

* * *

8 a.m., I give up on my stake-out, and head back to the railway station. I ask everybody at all the different information desks if they know Saman. They either say they don't, or don't know where he is. I fix them with my most impressive gaze, because I need them to know that I am a serious person, a person who might be inspired to use deadly force if his computer were trifled with.

Eventually, someone says he knows Saman, and can call him for me, which he does. After a brief conversation in Thai, he tells me that Saman will now meet me at the station at 10 a.m.

* * *

10 a.m. No Saman. 10:30, ditto - he is now three and half hours late. Is that lateness, or is that not-comingness? But then, I see him, Saman has come! My computer is delivered from the jaws of death: Saman apologises for his lateness, and shows me (by way of explanation) the hugely swollen, glowing red foot on which he walks - a result of the interaction between a small cut and bacteria in the Bangkok water. Nice.

Later, I go to a boxing match with Saman; this is the first time I have witnessed bloodsport live. It is messy, unimpressive, and not very skillful. Afterwards I have dinner with Saman and he tells me that he used to be a monk, and thought he would remain a monk forever (as opposed to some, who take up the robe just as a temporary discipline). Then one day, he tells me, 'the big problem': he started to have feelings for a girl. One day he saw a plane fly over the temple and he imagined that the plane was bringing the girl to him - it was then that he decided he could no longer be a monk.

Ten years later, and Saman is in limbo, because he had never planned on not being a monk. Things didn't work out with the girl, because she said he was still 'half-monk' - Saman laughs about this, and indeed, he still keeps a shaved head, prays regularly, and rejects all violence and selfishness (though boxing for sport is OK). He says that people often encourage him to be more selfish, in the interests of his career - but he refuses to act selfishly, for any reason. So my first impressions had been correct all along; he was in fact the perfect person to look after my computer, which I hold in my lap again now.

 

Tuesday April 19, Chiang Mai

Arriving in Chiang Mai at midday today, and my God how modern Thailand seems after Laos. Paved roads! Cars! Advertising! People have expectations here that they do not have in Laos, people have ennui, chic, haircuts, and there is sex in the air.

There are many many falangs here, so don't come to Chiang Mai expecting to 'get away' from anything. Admittedly, I have probably gravitated to the most tourist part of town, but in the street where I now sit there as many white faces as brown.

After many failed attempts, this afternoon I finally managed to get a telephone connection with the information service where my computer's custodian works. (see entry for Monday April 4). I asked to speak with Saman, which is what he told me his name is, and after a long wait, a male voice came on the other end of the line. He said yes he still has my computer, and yes he can meet me at Bangkok railway station tomorrow morning.

 

Monday April 18, Luang Prabang

My last day in Laos, I travelled by boat and truck from Muang Ngoi back to Luang Prabang. The pickup-truck driver was a bastard, cramming twenty-seven passengers into the tray of his truck (five of them standing on the back bumper, for bumpy a four-hour trip). This brought to mind generalisations about Asians being resilient and uncomplaining, as I felt completely indignant at the way he kept picking up new passengers, while everyone else seemed to take this as given. We were basically piled on top of each other, limbs entangled, like a truckload of innocents being hauled off to Auschwitz - and then he would pick up another person. Crammed so tightly against other bodies, at least I felt there wouldn't be too much room to move if we crashed (which is always a very real possibility in Laos). However, I did not appreciate this snugness no much when two people near me vomited profusely, thanks to the continuous swerving and bumping of the truck.

Back in Luang Prabang, I like it at least as much as I did last time (see entry for April 8). There are so many beautiful temples packed into this narrow strip of land between rivers, in this one afternoon I have discovered many awesome works of architectural art that I has bipassed on my previous visit. On the temple walls, every panel is an intricately carved depiction of scenes from Buddhist mythology. I only wish I knew more of the stories behind these (and that there were fewer ridiculous French tourists wandering around).

I was dragged into another Laos party this evening, where a blind man sang pop-songs to an electric keyboard accompaniment. After I had been barraged with the usual doses of beer and Lao-Lao, a plate of fried insects was brought out, some sort of fat brown reticulated grubs, with crunchy exoskeletons, bulging black eyes and hideous mandibles. I was expected to partake of these also, and my hosts obviously didn't realise how strange this would be to a Westerner. Squeezing one between thumb and forefinger, then pulling the head from the abdomen to show the white goo inside, my neighbour attempted to convince me of how delectable these bugs were. But I really couldn't do it - I could already feel my stomach mounting a rebellion, and memory of last week's bee larvae lingered on my tongue. I firmly refused the offered morsels, and effected a quick exit from the party.

I spent another few hours wandering the streets and lanes of Luang Prabang, listening to the chants eminating from the temples, smelling the incense that lingers in the tropical air, watching a Buddha be washed in water and saffron as a final ceremony for Songkran. Tomorrow, with the deepest regret, I must fly out to Thailand.

 

Some general points:

1) Laos has no supermarkets;

2) Laos has almost no Western products, with the exception of Coca-Cola, and other soft drinks manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company (all rights reserved);

3) Laos has no McDonalds;

4) Laos is a total failure as a Communist state. As I understand it, the development of state-organised and state-owned industrial production is crucial to Communist ideology; my search for souvenirs on the eve of my departure has led me to the conclusion that Laos produces very few commodities apart from fresh food (the instrinsic freshness of which would defeat the purpose of a souvenir - a memory). The small range of manufactured commodities available here are mostly Chinese, with the notable exceptions of the local Qionghua cigarettes, and the local Beerlao, both of which are excellent.

5) In Laos you can get about four brands of cigarettes, one brand of beer, one brand of drinking water, about five different types of packaged lollies. Any given shop will generally stock the same range of items. I can't decide if I miss the sense of consumer choice or not. (The Marxist Theodor Adorno calls this 'semblance of choice', which was my suggested name for the band that has become known as 'Because of Ghosts'. Could they have handled the irony?)

6) I have never visited a country where the government is less visible. I suspect that the state apparatus is fundamentally bereft, decayed, enfeebled. One week ago a soldier flagged down the pickup truck I was riding in. He had no shoes, a ragged uniform, a large bag of black-market tobacco. He smiled at me gently, between his three remaining teeth.

7) I love Laos. As I sit here writing on my last night in the country, I am intensely regretting my departure.

8) 'Ponce', used as a derogatory term for a homosexual person, may in fact derive from a perceived connection between homosexuality and intellectuality - i.e. the French penser, 'to think'. This is worth looking into.

9) You occasionally see white men coupled with Thai or Lao women. The man is always older. Sometimes an older white guy with a younger Thai boy. But never a Thai man with a white woman. Why is this? The gendering of colonialism? The economics of sex?

10) A backpacker can be a radical, a cultural escapee; but a backpacker can also be an agent of imperialism, buying out a culture's dignity, capturing its soul on camera, turning economic superiority into subtle exploitation.

11) In a country like Laos, Lonely Planet probably has more influence than the government. Does either party realise this?

 

Saturday April 16 (Songkran, Lao New Year), Muang Ngoi

Since writing last I have continued with the 'boat syndicate' down the Nam Ou. We spent most of yesterday getting ourselves as far as Muang Khoa, where we stayed the night, then chartering another boat to Muang Ngoi today. So I have now come around in a circle back to where I parted from Sophie six days ago (see entry for Saturday April 9).

* * *

It is mid-afternoon, and already today has been quite gruelling. Finally, we seem to have reached the Lao New Year's Day - each of the last four days we have been told it will be 'tomorrow', and now finally tomorrow has come.

Immediately when I got up, about 7:30am, I was accosted by Joi the hostelier, asking me to come to a party. I resisted, saying I wanted to go and drink coffee first. Barely five minutes had I been sat with my coffee in the Sengdala restaurant before Joi's younger brother Kao approached, and speaking very quietly in a mixture of Lao and English, asked me to please come to the pasi (I think this is actually Lao for party). This routine would be repeated at five minute intervals, with me each time pleading for twenty minutes' respite, until after three or four requests I conceded. Led by Kao, I headed back to the vicinity of the Sunset Guesthouse, finding my Belgian accomplice Natalie along the way, and convincing her to lend moral support.

Kao led us all the way back to my bungalow at Sunset, where we found that Joi's family had set up an elaborate Lao dining ritual right in front of my door, on the precarious bamboo deck overlooking the river. The setting centred upon a conical construction of flowers and palm leaves, surrounded by a few small dishes of food (in fact the comestibles were quite meagre, as poverty dictates), and the all-important bottle of Lao-Lao. To introduce this latter concoction, a brief digression is necessary.

For about the last five days, we travellers have been frequently encouraged to drink Lao-Lao. It is a fiendish rice whiskey, like sake but with twice the strength and half the delicacy. Simply walking past shops and houses in Lao at this time of year, it is very common to be offered a glass of Lao-Lao; these offers are made with a certain emotional intensity, and can be refused only with a slight shade of offense. Thus, by carefully balancing etiquette against self-preservation, I have managed to drink just two or three shots a day. Today, however, there would be no such escape.

Joi's extended family were gathered cross-legged around the table; in fact they were all there, and may have even been waiting for us falang. (Perhaps this was the reason for the importunate invitations?) We were asked to join the circle, had decorative sashes draped around our shoulders, and then the ceremony began. Everyone placed their right hands on the table in the centre, and the grandmother began speaking in a somewhat incantational fashion. However, this was clearly not a hush-hush sacred moment, as others in the circle occasionally laughed at what she said, while grandpa could not be prevented from interjecting with words of his own.  When grandma finished speaking, she drew a large bunch of white cotton threads from out of the middle of the floral ornament, and she and grandpa commenced to tie these upon our falang wrists, while muttering words which, one hopes, might be taken as auspicious. Soon everyone was doing likewise, and we were allowed to make our own textiled blessings upon our hosts (by the end of this my wrists were tied with twenty-two heartfelt charms). Next we were instructed in most imperative tones to eat from the food on the table, and as soon as our hands and mouths were full, the Lao-Lao drinking began, with Joi first drinking a shot himself, then serving a shot to everyone in the circle, then the next person to his right doing likewise, all around the circle. Thus everyone must drink at least as many shots as there are people in the circle, which can be pretty heavy going at an extended-family meal. Invigorating, all the same.

At the morning meal, Joi's brother-in-law spoke of going up the river in the afternoon, hoping to buy some buffalo meat for the evening feast, if it wasn't too expensive. Hoping to subtly contribute by helping with this cost, me and Natalie asked if we could come along, and were told this would be fine. Two more meals, and much Lao-Lao later, Joi's brother-in-law declared it was time to go shopping, so we clambered down drunkenly to the river, along with his wife (also drunk) and young daughter (not so drunk - at least someone was there to be responsible). As we motored slowly up the river in his rather feeble little boat, our leader stunned a passing snake with his bamboo staff, then hooked it in with the same, and gave it to his daughter to look after as it began to recover. He explained that the snake's blood would be used in the next brew of Lao-Lao, 'for good health'. His daughter tied a cord around its neck, and played with it rather cruelly for the rest of the trip.

We reached an out-of-the-way little village about an hour up the river, disembarking here to try and buy meat. It was here in the village, asking around for buffalo, that I finally found my Kurtz (all non-Heart-of-Darkness-readers may wish to skip this section). I tend to judge the contact-with-the-outside-world level of villages by the intensity of staring which I inspire as a whitey. The level in this particular place was extremely high, probably because no outsider (except for the odd meat trader from further along the river) would ever find a reason to visit such a place. There was nothing there but grubby children and animals playing in the mud beneath bamboo huts, stopping their play to give us a good staring, while adults stared in their own less awe-struck fashion from the hut windows. It was outlandishly hot, by this point in the afternoon. Thus, with the stare factor at an all-time high, I was deeply surprised to be greeted by a drunken Englishman emerging from a hut at the end of the village. He and his girlfriend were somewhere in their twenties, from somewhere in the north of England, and obviously very glad to speak English with somebody, though somehow they didn't really say much. They didn't know the name of the place they were in, were unclear as to how they had arrived there, and kept referring to the 'chief', who didn't, as it turned out, have any buffalo. At this point, confronted by these implausible drunken falangs, the leader of our expedition felt it was time to give in and just buy a chicken. Me and Natalie chipped in by buying a duck. I carried him back to the boat trying to soothe his obvious fear (he was, after all, tied by the feet and being carried away on what even a duck must have recognised as a feast-day), knowing all the while that I would later be tearing at his poor shaking limbs with my horrible, sharp white teeth. In some drunken way, at that moment, I loved that duck.

 

Some character sketches

Amit is an Israeli man, about thirty years old, who has part share in a software business. Along with his associates, he writes software that somehow takes advantage of the intercommunicability between mobile phones and the internet - I can't remember the details. Though he didn't comment on how the business is coming along, he has enough money to travel for a whole year on a budget of US$40 a day (i.e. $14,600 total cost), and he is well equipped with high-end digital camera, MP3 player, sophisticated backpack and anorak, etc. He is tall, dark and handsome - about a foot taller than any local in Laos - and his ancestry is half-Morrocan. He travels with his girlfriend Sharon, who is also a beautiful, dark-eyed Israeli.

I first met Amit at the bus-station in Oudomxai, where he strode up to me and demanded, 'Hey, where are you going?'

'Phongsali,' I said.

'OK, see over there?' He pointed to a small gaggle of falangs. 'The bus is full. We're trying to get another one. You should go wait with them.'

Amit is very proactive, energetic, and quite comfortable in unfamiliar environments. I can imagine he must be a formidable businessman. He can also be a little arrogant - he tells the Laos people exactly what he wants in remorseless English (their problem if they don't understand), and he obviously sees it as just to put his own interests first. He accidentally broke the strap on my backpack when he was lashing it to the roof of a truck, and rather than apologise he simply told me: 'that thing was crap - it was bad quality'. He is also a very hard bargainer, refusing to let Lao people pay a smaller share than us in a boat we had chartered, exclaiming righteosly: 'I'm not their fucking National Insurance!'

I knew that many Israeli backpackers are recently out of their compulsory military service, and with all the water-pistol fights we have been engaged in as part of Songkran, I kept wondering how this might have been for Amit. One day, it came up in conversation, and everybody went quiet, waiting to hear what Amit would say. He said: 'I fucking hated it - I used to do anything to get out of it. I'm a pacifist, and they expect me to shoot weapons! It's fucking ridiculous, it's like asking a vegetarian to work in an abattoir, you know?' Indignation is an emotion he displays with great aplomb.

On the long bus-ride up to Phongsali, every time the bus stops (which is often), Amit will get off and calmly smoke a joint. On encountering any cute children or traditionally dressed tribal people, he will photograph them without asking, and despite their embarrassment - betraying a certain greed in his collection of exotic images. I want to tell him just to buy the fucking postcards, but I do not think I could argue with him successfully.

 

Natalie is a Belgian, also about thirty. But I was about to write 'girl', rather than 'woman', because to me she looks as if she were in her early twenties. She has dreadlocks and facial piercings, and sparkly blue eyes, and she is an accountant. 'It's weird - I know,' she says as soon as she tells me. She is sick of her job, not because she doesn't like accounting, but because she is sick of not fitting in, being an outsider in the company where she works. Apparently in Belgium, having worked for the company for a few years, she receives a sort of government pension that allows her to travel for a year on an allowance which is ample for south-east Asia. Not only that, she says that she can almost certainly get this allowance renewed for another year. She has a boyfriend in Belgium, and when I asks if their relationship will survive her travelling for a year, she replies with an unhesitating affirmative. Then she says, 'But if I go for another year, I don't know.' On saying this she looks very sad.

Natalie mentions, 'At home I never sleep, but here in Asia I sleep all the time. It's great.' She is relaxed and spontaneous, though she has a certain cigarette-smoking edge to her. One day in a restaurant, she begins to tell me, 'Back home, I have a problem...'

Not needing her to explain, I say, 'You take speed, right?'

She thinks I'm a mind-reader. When she is trying to explain why she started taking speed, years ago, she becomes lost for words. I ask, 'Is it because you didn't like yourself?' Now she exclaims that I must be a psychologist; but it was just a lucky guess, maybe a little intuition. I ask her if she likes herself better these days and she says yes, she likes herself now. But she is still not sure how she can go home without going back to speed. She says maybe motherhood would do it, but she doesn't want to have a child because of that.

Natalie has travelled extensively in India, and has taken up Ganesh as her personal deity, keeping a statue of him wherever she sleeps, offering him prayers and incense. Ganesh is the problem-solver, clearer of obstacles.

 

Thursday April 14 (Songkran), Nam Ou River

This morning I left Phongsali, now as part of a 'travelling syndicate' consisting of myself, 1 Belgian, 2 Israelis, 1 English and 1 Thai. By moving together in these unserviced parts of the country, we can share the costs of chartering trucks and boats. It also helps that we all get along well.

The lack of regular services or set prices has also necessitated more earnest haggling, though we are somewhat at the mercy of the sellers, in places so remote that there can be no competition. From Phongsali we arranged an old Soviet truck to take us, along with a few Lao folk, to the tiny village of Hat Sa, back on the Nam Ou river. From here we set out to arrange a boat downstream, and accepted the boatman's opening offer of $60 U.S. to take us to the next town. Unfortunately he was so pleased at our accepting his first offer that he immediately lifted the price to $70. We tried to argue, but in such a small village we really had no choice, and he knew it.

Now that we are out on the river, I am glad we went to the expense of getting here. The Nam Ou is wide, fast-flowing and lined with steep jungled slopes. Every few kilometres we see little clusters of bamboo shacks clinging to the hillside, and sometimes people fishing or washing themselves. The weather is humid and heavy with mist.

 

Wednesday April 13, Phongsali

Phongsali is small, backward, provincial, and very much not-in-Kansas-any-more, Toto. People stare at me everywhere as if I had two heads, and openly discuss this strange falang who is walking down the street (I know that I'm being talked about because I recognise this word, which means 'foreigner'). I communicate very little with the locals, not just because no-one speaks English (to which I have no objection), but also because people here are so unused to outsiders that they cannot accept that I don't speak Lao, and seem unwilling to make the comprosise of using gestures. This situation makes Phongsali frustrating, and a little bit alienating. A lot of people still smile at me, though.

We are also quite beyond the bounds of any sort of hygiene out here, and my insides are already the worse for it. Details of the general ickiness here are too numerous and too hideous to go into, suffice to say that the shower in my hotel has a turd in it (not a smear of shit, mind you, but a fully formed stool that has been there for at least twelve hours.

I visited the Phongsali market yesterday, and struggled to find anything I would willingly ingest. There was a dead dog lying on a table with flies buzzing around it, another dead animal that looked something like a raccoon, some large bowls of gizzards, and many unidentified comestibles. I saw a Frenchman and his Thai girlfriend eating one such mysterious substance and asked what it was; bee-larvae, they said. They invited me to sample. For some reason I felt that I should. The feeling of each individual unformed bee bursting in my mouth, and the surrounding wax getting caught in my throat, was incomparably unpleasant.

Later, I saw a pig being slaughtered in the street. I deliberately went up close and watched its throat being slit, the blood gurgling out of the wound, the death-spasms. This was partly just morbid curiosity, but was also motivated by my theory that, as a meat-eater, I should do whatever I can to make myself aware of the processes, and in particular the suffering involved in meat production. If you are going to eat a pork chop, I reckon, far better to face up to what this really entails, than pretend it has just popped out of a machine like everything else in the supermaket.

 

Monday April 11, Phongsali

Today I travelled from Oudomxai to Phongsali. That was all I did, really, because the entire ordeal took from 7:30 in the morning until 8:00 at night: that is the challenge that separates Phongsali from the rest of the world.

The only human settlements along the way from Oudomxai to Phongsali are thatched-hut villages, the most developed of which have a few goods on display in shop-houses. There are lots of domestic animals and naked children. In one of the simpler villages we passed through, two dogs were playing on the road in front of the bus. Partly because the dogs had no road sense, and partly because the driver did not make much effort to avoid them, we hit one with a loud thunk. The driver drove on a little, but the villagers were protesting as their dog lay still on the ground, only its tail wagging feebly. Within a few seconds it had stopped. The driver eventually stopped also, and one of the villagers came running up the road, carrying the dead dog by its paws, until he caught up with the bus. He laid it on the road in front of the driver's window. Then the driver got out and began explaining why his running over the dog had been quite beyond his control. A group of villagers stood looking at him, not saying a word.

The dead dog lay between the villagers and the driver; the bus had caught it right on the side of its head, half of which was now crushed into a meaty pulp. For a while I couldn't stop thinking about how it kept wagging its tail, and how keenly the Israelis in front of me had photographed its minced-meat head.

 

Sunday April 10, Oudomxai

This morning I climbed a very steep mountain, led by the hostelier, Joi. When we got to the top, neither of us knew how to say anything un-obvious in the others' language, so Joi just gave a sweeping gesture towards Muang Ngoi below, then cheered, throwing his hands in the air. The best I could do was to say the Lao word for 'beautiful'.

When we were nearly back down to the town, we still hadn't said anything about a fee for his guiding services. Perhaps because he was anxious that I might think this was just a personal favour, and perhaps because he was embarrassed to demand a fee outright, Joi stopped and explained to me that he would like me to give him some money, because he doesn't have a house, and wants to build one for his wife and child. He seemed quite uncomfortable in broaching this topic, so I quickly assured him that I intended to lay on some dough.

I have noticed instances of meanness among some of the Western backpackers in Laos. I have seen an English girl rudely shouting (in English of course) at a tuk-tuk driver that his fee of 50c was outrageous; I later ran into her at the night-market, where she told me that she had eventually got him down to 40c. When I told a Californian backpacker that I had paid Joi Australian $18 for hiking with me in extremely difficult terrain for about two hours, she exclaimed 'Oh my God, that's so much money!' I asked her how much she would want to provide the same service - $50? $100? 'No way!' she said. I didn't ask her if this meant she was worth more than him.

I don't deny that Westerners are sometimes charged more for things in Laos than the locals are. But even with a substantial tourism surcharge, everything is still ridiculously cheap for a Westerner.

* * *

After hiking this morning, I parted from Sophie, because I want to spend some time alone. I hope she will be okay on her own - in fact, I hope she relishes total independence as much as I do.

While Sophie stayed in Muang Ngoi, I tried to keep going north up the Nam Ou river, only to be told by the ticket man that there were no boats going that way today, and he didn't know when there would be another one. No Apocalypse Now for me, then.

Instead, I caught a bus north-west to Oudomxai, which turns out to be quite an ugly truck-stop on the main route to China. Street stalls here carry all the bounty of the Chinese 'economic miracle' (if that's what they call it). I had my fortune told by a monk at the temple; he translated the auspicious text, going through each aspect of my life, saying how fantastic everything will be. He said I will have no enemies. Then he said that if I do have enemires, we will 'love each other again'.

 

Saturday April 9, Muang Ngoi

We are gradually getting further now from the 'developed' world. Muang Ngoi is perhaps the frontier between the two worlds: there are quite a few backpackers here, though I suspect they have only started arriving in such numbers recently; on the other hand there is no power grid, only a few generators, and I don't think the town can be easily reached by road. The main connection between here and the rest of the world is by boat, an hour's travel down the river to Nong Khiaw, near which there is a sealed road. Muang Ngoi is clearly in transition, with the dirt main street (the only street) ripped to shreds, possibly with amibitions to install some sort of drainage. Like everywhere we've been in Laos, the town stretches along a river bank, and its new business is based on shoddy bamboo huts that have been built along the edge of this river, looking out on huge mountains. All the locals seem to know each other, and live a fairly traditional village life - apart from their new tourism enterprises, which are conducted with a certain naivety.

We are staying in one of the bamboo huts, which the owner, Joi, has offered to us for $1 a night. He has also offered to lead us up the mountain in the morning. I asked Joi if he has ever been up the river to the next town, Muang Khoa; he said he hasn't becaus he doesn't have the money for the fare (about $3, I think). Sophie said it doesn't matter, since Muang Ngoi itself if so beautiful. Perhaps we should pay him more than $1 for the room.

Joi asked each of us how old we are, and was very pleased when I told him that I am twenty-five. He shook both my hands together. Though he is a very outgoing guy, and his huts are very nice (though flimsy), Joi doesn't seem to get many guests here; I suspect this is because he speaks almost no English, and this is required to lure customers.

* * *

The usual way of bathing here is in the river. At dusk the people go down, together with their friends or family, or sometimes alone, and wash themselves and their clothes. Bathing here is social, while in the West it is usually very solitary. Would this make people more relaxed about their body image, or more anxious? When I told Joi that I was about to go down and wash, he quickly got his soap and towel, then showed me the path down to the favoured bathing spot. The river was neither warm nor cold: baw hawn, baw nao.

In the evening, the only light in Muang Ngoi comes from shop-houses and restaurants. Regarding the former, this is a term I picked up from a guide book, and it derives from the fact that all shops here are conducted from the front room of the vendor's house. (I write this from a restaurant which is also a living room, with about a dozen locals sitting on the floor watching TV.) As the businesses close their doors, the main and only street in Muang Ngoi therefore gets very dark, which is particularly exciting because there are so many open ditches of 1-2 metres' depth. In this obscured street I bought a torch for $1, and had dinner, together with fresh mango juice and Lao coffee (for $1). The middle-aged lady who sold me the torch shielded her mouth with some papers, and whispered 'ganja' to me. I told her I already had some, which I do.

From a menu in a Muang Ngoi restaurant, item number 6 offers: 'Fried Pumkin to Fly in Fat'.

 

Friday April 8, Luang Prabang

I find myself this morning in the cultural capital, the spiritual and historical heart of Laos, Luang Prabang. It is the chief tourist destination in the country (actually, this is the only seriously touristy place, though it is not as far-gone as places in other countries), thanks to a combination of ancient temples, French colonial villas, and the natural beauty of its location, wedged between two rivers, with mountains looking on beyond. It is a small city, of low density, and low intensity.

Although the entrepreneurial and industrial development of Luang Prabang seems minimal, the people here do seem to be more educated, and more familiar with Western ways. When I have wandered in to investigate temples, I have more than once been greeted by young monks who are keen to practice their English, and glad to teach a bit of Lao in exchange. In fact, Sophie and me (sadly, we parted with Campbell in Viang Vieng) have made a loose arrangement with one such monk, Vieng Say, to meet him again after prayers this evening, and continue our language exchange. Vieng is a very worldly, highly educated fellow (I have to admit I was a bit surprised at how much so, given how out-of-the-way Laos feels); he speaks Lao, Thai, Cantonese, French, and quite good English, and likes to ask our opinion on global issues (for example, he is fascinated by the concept of same-sex marriage, which makes no sense to him, though he has obviously read about it extensively - he hoped we might be able to explain it better). As a monk, Vieng does not have any physical contact with people - he told us that he has touched his father twice, though - he gets up at four o'clock every morning, and he cannot eat or drink alcohol after midday, althoug Pepsi is acceptable at any time. Monks have a lot of rules to live by, though I don't think they are too fatuous in their observance; for instance, our elbows touched when I was sitting in conversation with Vieng, and he didn't seem to notice. Also, I have read that the other important mark of respect for monks is that your feet should not point at them, or be held to close to them , since the feet are the lowest part of the body in Lao culture. In a dim-witted moment, when trying to explain the danger of the Cassowary to Vieng, I made the outrageous error of physically demonstrating how the Cassowary's hugely clawed toe can be used to garrot an enemy. However, he didn't seem to notice this either, or was too polite to show it. So don't take everything you read in Lonely Planet too seriously.

 

Wednesday April 6, Viang Vieng

Yesterday, me and Sophie caught a but from Vientiane up to Viang Vieng, bringing us to rendez-vous with an old Adelaide friend of mine, Campbell. I will not go into detail on the roughness of the bus-trip, as countless other reports can be found on this topic (for example, find the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree site online), suffice to say that this country is poor, it is extremely mountainous, and has the typical technological advancement of a Communist nation (full title: The People's Democratic Republic of Laos). This is the perfect recipe for extremely bumpy, and slightly harrowing rides.

This morning I went walking on my own; curiously, this was the first time I have really done so on this trip. I extended my attempts to speak the local jive, though I didn't get very far - mostly smiles and confusion. I have re-discovered my perennial travel-lingo problem: I become too proficient in stating that I do not speak the local language, in response to which people nod and spew forth a torrent of Lao conversation, leaving me feeling stupid and just repeating my previous statement - 'Khoi wao pasaa Lao dai noi neung' ('I speak only a little Lao').

I also used this morning's walk to make a minor shopping spree. I acquired: 1) a pair of sandals; 2) a notebook in a plastic sleeve, the front cover displaying the text 'Private Note - However, we would like to express our gratitude to everyone of you who has contributed your effort to save our earth for the younger generations. You may start now or never for the power is in your hand.'; 3) two small brass figures, one of whom is a 'Khama Hahn' Buddha, the other of being known as 'Lucie'; the shopkeeper kindly wrote down their names for me, though I remain otherwise ignorant.

On my way back to the guesthouse, I was accosted by two very small children, probably brother and sister. The boy was holding a small blunt knife and began to wave it at me threateningly, while his sister cackled like a hardened thug. They approached me very close, and very fearlessly, at which point I managed to disarm my assailant with a swift grabbing motion. He then hugged my leg somewhat irrationally, his sister doing likewise to my other leg. Then their mother came out and spanked them, which didn't seem to bother them particularly. Perhaps the mother should fashion a switch for this purpose.

One further, more dangerous incident. Going down a steep hill, which had been churned to mud by the overnight rain, I came upon two young Lao men trying to get a feeble tractor to haul a cartload of rocks up the hill. This 'tractor' was an example of the staple rural vehicle here: a small motor attacjed to two wheels (no seat, it's more like a kind of motorise trolley), with long metal bars attached, which can be connected to various carts for transporting goods or people. Anyway, the tractor was slipping a sliding horribly in the mud, with one man revving the motor, the other pushing the cart from behind. They didn't have enough combined Lao-power to get the thing up the hill, and there seemed to be a serious danger that the whole apparatus might slide back down the hill, probably taking at least one person with it. What I found most amazing was the lack of concern showed by the participants; indeed, I can detect no sense of self-preservation in this country.

Of course, your heroic narrator dropped his belongings (dropped his bundle, if you will), and got behind the cart as well. I wanted to show my solidarity with the Lao people in risking my life for a cartload of rocks. Actually, as we groaned away at the load, making little progress, and the tractor sliding more extravagantly on the steepest part of the slope, I seriously considered leaving them politely to their ill-considered fate. Thankfully, after a good ten minutes' travail, two other backpackers appeared, and the task was accomplished. In my first outburst of (fairly light-hearted) cultural criticism, I assured the Lao fellows that I considered them to be 'fucking crazy'. They smiled and nodded.

 

Monday April 4, Vientiane, Laos

Yesterday, I spent the first day of my travels in the seething metropolis of Bangkok. Together with Sophie, who is accompanying me on the south-east Asian part of my travels, I got off the plane to be greeted by a sticky tropical morning, heavy air and outrageous pollution.

I wanted to get rid of my laptop computer, since it's quite heavy, and I don't want to carry it all the way up and down through Thailand and Laos. A man at the train station told me I could leave it with him, and he would keep it at his house which was nearby. I said this sounded OK, and left it with him. Perhaps this was one of my stupider moments, but I felt compelled to have a go at trusting a total stranger. I was later advised that my computer would be worth about three months' wages for this man. So at least if he sells it, I will have done him a big favour. He told me he has always wanted to go to Laos, but cannot save enough of his wage to be able to travel.

For the first few hours, we were surprised to find the streets somewhat deserted, and many of the shops shut up. We were advised that this was due to a Buddhist festival of some sort, though we later found out that it was also because we had started out in a quieter part of town. After much walking, and a few half-hearted attempts by various hucksters and shysters to take us on ill-omened 'tours', we eventually found our way to the Chinatown district, and now any aspect of quietness of desertedness was left behind. Bangkok Chinatown is a swarming maze of alleys lines with vendors of every sort, and carved into blocks by wider streets, through which the motorised traffic pours at an alarming pace and volume.

The traffic seems to be seriously dangerous in Bangkok. Later in the day we had a taxi driver who approached intersections as if he were gathering speed to try and vault over the whole tangled mess. In response to our frightened giggles, he seemd to drive even faster, and was definitely enjoying himself. He also beeped and flashed his lights at any vehicle in front of him, for no obvious reason.

The most touristy part of Bangkok is Khao San Road (though in fact it seemed quite tranquil after Chinatown). This is not a very remarkable place, because it is too internationalised, and thus homogenised. Good for buying fake stuff though. In fact, we couldn't work out why so many of the overseas visitors to Bangkok were gathering in this tiny portion, when it seemd to be the least 'Bangkoky' part of Bangkok. My theory is that many backpackers are motivated by sex, so they need to find convenient gathering points, like moths around the streetlight. So travellers go to Khao San Road basically because it is known that other travellers will be at Khao San Road. Not that I have anything against sex.

* * *

We only gave one day of our precious lives to Bangkok, then caught an overnight train up to the Laos border. This was the first time I had ever ridden in a train that provided me with a bed, since I have never been able to afford this in the West. It was a delectable experience. I was given fresh linen, and a curtain to shield me from the rest of the carriage, then curled up in my little cocoon, along the legth of an outside window. I hadn't had a good horizontal sleep for many days, so I plunged into a delicious slumber, occasionally resurfacing to watch the darkness of Thailand passing by, then quickly falling back into the darkness of my mind.

Morning brought us across the border into Laos, and to the capital, Vientiane. Everything is noticeably more laid-back here: there are less people, less cars, more trees, fresher air. We ate baked bananas and delicious rice-paper rolls - our lodging only costs a few bucks. Still getting a feel for this new place, but I think I am going to really like it.

I hope the computer subplot has added some useful suspense to this blog.

 

Saturday April 2, Melbourne

Today I am preparing for departure. In particular, I am preparing by commencing this 'blog'. What an obscene sounding word.

I am catching a plane at midnight tonight. Already I have not slept properly for three days, so I look forward to arriving in Thailand at 7am tomorrow in a state of tender madness. I will go to the markets and buy a chicken, and take him on the road with me as a travelling companion, who may indeed have some valuable contributions to make to this blog. I will call him Henry. You will be hearing more from him later on.

Looking forward to the international airport limbo... better than this godawful grievious place. I am in a state of grief, because in my head I have already left, and now I just need my body to follow. I already miss Australia, and my nearest and dearest of course. I already miss Sydney Road, Brunswick, even though I can hear its horrible traffic noise coming over my shoulder as I write.

In A Dream Play, August Strindberg wrote this melancholy little dialogue which I cannot quite remember by heart, but at least the main point:

A: Why is the sea salty?

B: Because the sailors are always crying.

A: Why do they cry?

B: Because they are always going away.

* * *

I would like to leave Melbourne with the following assurance: Total Cardboard Publications is not being 'left behind' - in fact it is not even 'on hold'. With this laptop on which I now write, the tyrrany of distance has been overthrown; and so there is really nothing to stop TC from continuing as a fully operational thing. Maybe this here blog will end up becoming part of the next venture? In any case, please keep submissions and ideas flowing for issue 7, which may happen sooner than you think.

Thanks to Alex Scott for encouraging me to commence this blog, and for his inspiration and ideas in general.