After not hearing from my son in a week on his travel blog... heres what he finally writes ...........oh brother.. :\ My trip down the Mekong defied many of my expectations. I expected the Mekong to be a narrow river through the heart of the rain forest. Instead it was a wide river lined with small beaches, rocky shores, and large forested hills. The boat was packed with mostly tourists and for the second leg there weren’t enough seats so I ended up sitting on the floor. The seat actually turned out to be pretty good because it was next to a wide open door so for the whole trip I got an excellent view and a fresh foresf breeze. Some of my friends found seats in the back of the boat next to the engine but after breathing engine fumes and listening to the racket for a few hours decided it would be better to sit up front near me on the floor. One extremely special moment was seeing a couple locals bathing a pair of elephants on the shore. I only wish I had been quick enough to snap a picture. Overall the trip was not too excruciating. We travelled for five hours the first day and six or seven the next day, stopping for a night in a small town named Pacbang. The towns only source of income seemed to be tourists stopping for the night which was sad because everywhere we went we were greeted less with warm smiles and more with desperation for our business. After another night on the boat we arrived in Luang Prabang which is a unesco world heritage site. My first impression of the city was at night and its beauty is staggering. Everywhere kids are playing and people are riding through the streets on bicycles and motorbikes. One thing that I’ve noticed about cities in Laos is that children seem to run around freely without supervision even at night. The city seemed safe and clean except for the occasional petty drug dealer trying to sell Marijuanna and opium. One thing I’ve learned is that guesthouse attendants and tuk tuk drivers often make their only profits from drug sales to backpackers. At one point in Luang Prabang I visited a crape shop for breakfast near my guesthouse. While I was eating an attractive Laotian women who looked about my age walked up and sat down at the table next to me. The two of us ended up talking and it turned out she spoke pretty good English. She told me she was from Pacbang, where my friends and I had previously stopped on our slow boat trip, and she had come to Luang Prabang for a short holiday. Her name was Nina. She was exceptionally sharp, but the attractive way she was dressed and the ease with which the two of us came together gave me pause because I thought she could have been a working girl recognizing an opportunity to make some money. I even considered the possibility that she had seen me walk to the crepe shop alone and followed behind me a few minutes later, especially because some drug dealers had used a similar tactic on me and my friends the night before. I kept a healthy skepticism about her intentions the whole time I was with her but the more I was around her the more her story seemed to hold water. During our first conversation she told me that she had no money and when I asked her the insensitive question of whether or not she liked to shop it made her eyes tear up. The way she removed her sunglasses so I could see her wipe them made me think it was a ploy, but I offered to pay for her meal out of sympathy nonetheless. She told me her mother had been trying to transfer her money but that it hadn’t come through yet. We walked back to my guesthouse and it turned out she was staying in another guest house only a few minutes away. She told me her room number with the intention that we would meet up later although the details of the plan were still unclear. The next morning my friends and I rented bikes and were on our way to breakfast when I happened to see her on the sidewalk outside of her guesthouse. I stopped and invited her to breakfast with us. She agreed to come and told me to go ahead and that she would catch up in a few minutes. We ate breakfast and made a tentative plan to meet up later but again the details of the plan we’re left unclear. My friends and I spent most of the day at the pool, but eventually I got hungry and started to wonder about Nina so I left the group and travelled back to see if I could find her. It was late in the afternoon and I didn’t expect to find her in her room. I had already gathered that she knew some people in town so I figured she would be out with friends. But when I got there she answered the door and told me that she was glad I came and that she hadn’t left her room all day. This is when my perspective started to change. Even if she was trying to work me for some money it was hard to blame her. While my friends and I had been blowing money drinking and partying at the tourist pool, she had been trying to entertain herself by watching television all day in her $3 a night guest house. (Running short on time… To be continued)
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 02:51:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015