Day 73 - Luang Prabang
Muang Ngoy suddenly feels empty. Or emptier. A hot, dry breeze sends baked leaves scuttling along the dirt road. The dogs sleep, unable to rouse themselves to bicker or stare longingly at my lunch. Places like this lull you with the ease of existence, the lack of decisions to make. The simplicity becomes compelling and you are always leaving tomorrow. Mañana. It's an antidote when travel of this sort becomes a grind of decision making. Where to go? What to see? Where to stay? What to eat? Where to go next? Repeat. It's first-world problems 101 but the novelty of infinite possibilities and the freedom to choose them does get tiring. To be teleported back to my flat, my bed, my favourite pub for a night would be as wondrous as a cold beer on a hot beach. Alternatively make me do a hard day's work and I may change my tune. But leave Muang Ngoy I eventually do, trickling down the river to the metropolises beyond.
"Do you recognise me?" I say. "Yeah, yeah...you're..." he says. The blank look contradicts the bluster in the face of a question in which the only correct answer is ever "yes". But there is no particular reason why he should other than the fact he is my cousin. We'd seen each other improbably recently but at that grimly inevitable family gathering of later life, a funeral. His father, my uncle. I don't think we spoke that day and prior to that it had probably been 15 years or so. There's nothing particularly distinctive about the way I look (unless I'm dancing) so I could forgive his fib. However a green mohican and three, count 'em, facial tattoos did make Faron a little more memorable. I had prevaricated for a while when I realised that we were drinking in the same bar in Luang Prabang. We shared blood, that was enough of an intro, but I didn't know the guy and recent familial indictments rang in my ears. But it was too improbable, too fantastic that we were both here in this moment and you never know unless you find out. "It's Ben" "..." "your cousin". Bafflement replaced bullshit and then there was genuine, surprising affection. Blood is thicker than water even in Laos, perhaps especially in Laos.
He propped up this bar most days it seemed and introduced me to the regulars, his makeshift group of friends, and to the manager, Bounme, who ran the place with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. After a few beers we went to his favoured sunset bar on the river and met more of the Luang Prabang expat friendship circle. A curious lot, supremely disinterested in my standard tourist patter. I tried to engage them with questions like how Laos had changed in recent years but nothing really piqued their interest. A faint ennui seemed to be their default. That or utter batshit-ism as one person with whom I did not struggle for conversation was Gunther. He talked at me for a full hour about the coming changes to the etheric plane, which was imaginatively deranged, and some depressingly familiar antisemitic tropes about the Rothschilds and their conspiracies. I was intrigued to be in the presence of a genuine un-sectioned, seemingly harmless lunatic and listened attentively. He came to trust me enough (my silence implying agreement I suppose) to share certain online sources that backed up his claims. From the most recent blog entry of one.
I'm on the 8AM bus out of Luang Prabang. Or at least that's what my plans were. At 8AM I'm actually on a bed in a lightless dorm room. At 10AM I'm on a bed in a lightless dorm room. At 12PM I'm.. you get the idea. This is all the Rothschild's fault. There's one bus a day to my next destination so it'll be another night in Luang Prabang. It's not a chore as this is one of the loveliest places I've yet been. At the confluence of the Khong and Nam Khan rivers its 18th century buildings are well preserved and surround a 150 metre high hill topped by a Buddhist shrine. Supposing you don't get tanked on beerlao the previous evening you can also get up at dawn and go to one of the temples in the shadow of the hill and give monks alms. Or just take pictures of actual Buddhists doing it, your Instagram fed gets the same amount of karma either way. Would the tourists who take part out money in a collection basket in a church? I doubt it. Not photogenic enough. The monks are not permitted to earn money so they rely on these offerings of food. It still feels to me, in my more cynical moments anyway, like begging with a religious veneer. Society in Buddhist countries seems comfortable servicing this permanent debt to people who made what amounts to a personal choice. The endless waste of soft drinks and fresh fruit that gets piled up at the spirit houses outside homes and other buildings and the innumerable golden temples seem like a ludicrous use of resources in poor countries. The shops are piled high with plastic buddhas ranging in size from pocket-sized trinkets to two metre behemoths. But I suppose Buddhism is not so different from other religions in this regard, put up with a shit life now, give us your money, we'll pay it back with interest later. Religious ranting aside I decided to make the best of the rest of the day by getting a bike and driving to a nearby waterfall. It was done because of a lack of other ideas, I thought I would go, say "oh, how lovely" and come back. But what a sight! At Kuang Si waterfall you ascend through several levels, so far so standard, but at the top you are met by a 60 metre waterfall into a wide turquoise pool. A stunning reveal, well done geology.
After I get back I swing by Outback bar to say goodbye to Faron.
I'm on the 8AM bus out of Luang Prabang. Or at least that's what my plans were. I'm a slow learner. I nurse my hangover in a café and try to reconstruct memories of being in an out-of-town bowling alley in the early hours and having, briefly, entertained the idea of driving a scooter there while substantially drunk and with two grown men on the back. It's around 2PM and the streetlights have come on. The sky has been gathering itself up for some time now and drawing a thick veil between us and the sun. The rain eventually comes down with a vengeance. Some customers have left it too late to make a dry escape and scurry down the road, soaked within seconds. The thunder is extravagantly loud. You'd think it was over-the-top if it was in a horror movie. You'd accuse the director of campy theatrics. I've nowhere to be so sit and watch it all with a pleasant detachment. Deciding that going to Outback Bar again to say goodbye is only going to end one way I resolve to make a French exit from Luang Prabang. No, wait, the French were violently ejected from this town by locals, I'll do an Irish exit instead. In a upscale restaurant on the peninsula formed by the rivers I have the best meal of the trip so far, catfish and vegetables in a lemongrass sauce. My extravagance stretches to a carafe of white wine too. I'm sorry to miss a farewell with Faron but this really was the only way. In order to get the aforementioned 8AM bus you need to be at the bus station at 7AM to buy the ticket. Wanting to be certain of my departure I arrive at 6:30. After buying a ticket from the counter I double check the departure time. The ticket seller takes the ticket and writes '10:00' on it, which is three and a half hours away. You can't beat the system if there is no system. Questions about the existence of an 8AM bus are met with stoic incomprehension. Unreconciled to my fate I walk towards a minivan with my destination, Phonsavan, written on it. There's already people aboard, enough to suggest departure isn't far off. "Phonsavan?" I ask, the driver nods. He doesn't check the ticket in my hand and deciding that possession is nine tenths of the law I take a seat. My departure time was only written on the ticket in pencil so I rub it off in case it get checked before we leave. After about 20 minutes of waiting and quietly revelling in my deception there is an animated discussion outside the van. The driver is peering in at the now-full bus and talking to people clutching tickets and hoping to board. Oh hell, is there actually a system after all? I have a valid ticket though and can argue for my place on the bus if it comes to that. Oh hellacious hell, the ticket seller has come over to get involved. She wrote the later departure time on my ticket and will know it's been rubbed off. I no longer feel so cunning and attempt to become invisible by staring absently out of the window. The situation, whatever it was about, seems to get resolved and the door slides shut to my great relief. My criminal mastermind status is restored. The van jerks around steep corners up into the mountains. There's the sobering sight of another van smashed to pieces in the drainage ditch at the side of the road. The new train line is far below us wasting no time with subtlety as it bores in a straight line through the rock. The Laotian girl a seat over from me begins to vomit into a bag after each turn. I feel sympathy as she likely knew this would happen but cannot avoid taking the bus. A French girl next to her captures the larger part of my attention though. She is not notably attractive but she needn't be. The simple essence of her femininity stirs desire. Millions of years have told me to want her. They lean forcefully on my conscious mind insisting that the smooth skin, the long tanned limbs, dark hair and entwining heat of her body are as oxygen to my survival. The deep, girding importance that I capture those things for myself however briefly, in fact necessarily briefly, cannot be overstated. The way she folds her legs under herself, put her hair up in that organised chaotic way, bites her lip are all markers of a purity of design. I rhapsodise and dream. The sex would be symphonic or, better yet, witness my overtures become overture, 1812, cannons at the climax. Trumpets too and angels would sing and the world would realign on its axis, spinning thenceforth with an immaculate smoothness, I wouldn't be a vile body anymore, untouchable by others, but conjoined in fantasy. None of this will happen of course, her partner in the seat behind would likely object. But even the words, the images don't convey the hunger for a fleeting touch. There is such hollowness in the lack of it.
The trucks churn up great clouds of dust from the decayed road. It coats the vegetation and roadside houses. The people up here defy gravity. They claim a few metres at the side of the road and throw their house out over the precipice on a few stilts driven into the mountainside. I'd struggle to sleep at night knowing that all that was between me and a certain but not imminent death was the veracity of wood and earth and their resistance to gravity's unrelenting pull. But soon we are winding down the other side of the mountains. The foothills become grassy, the land greener and the earth a deep, rusty red. Cows become numerous and sun themselves wherever they please, often the road. We reach Phonsavan and I check in at my accommodation. Or try to. They guy at the desk has no English and can't seem to hazard an educated guess at what my intention might be. After a frustrating few minutes a key is produced and I'm free of his uselessness. I'm staying at the Nice Guesthouse. It's not. Maybe it's French. That would certainly explain the standard of service. Bon nuit.
Muang Ngoy suddenly feels empty. Or emptier. A hot, dry breeze sends baked leaves scuttling along the dirt road. The dogs sleep, unable to rouse themselves to bicker or stare longingly at my lunch. Places like this lull you with the ease of existence, the lack of decisions to make. The simplicity becomes compelling and you are always leaving tomorrow. Mañana. It's an antidote when travel of this sort becomes a grind of decision making. Where to go? What to see? Where to stay? What to eat? Where to go next? Repeat. It's first-world problems 101 but the novelty of infinite possibilities and the freedom to choose them does get tiring. To be teleported back to my flat, my bed, my favourite pub for a night would be as wondrous as a cold beer on a hot beach. Alternatively make me do a hard day's work and I may change my tune. But leave Muang Ngoy I eventually do, trickling down the river to the metropolises beyond.
"Do you recognise me?" I say. "Yeah, yeah...you're..." he says. The blank look contradicts the bluster in the face of a question in which the only correct answer is ever "yes". But there is no particular reason why he should other than the fact he is my cousin. We'd seen each other improbably recently but at that grimly inevitable family gathering of later life, a funeral. His father, my uncle. I don't think we spoke that day and prior to that it had probably been 15 years or so. There's nothing particularly distinctive about the way I look (unless I'm dancing) so I could forgive his fib. However a green mohican and three, count 'em, facial tattoos did make Faron a little more memorable. I had prevaricated for a while when I realised that we were drinking in the same bar in Luang Prabang. We shared blood, that was enough of an intro, but I didn't know the guy and recent familial indictments rang in my ears. But it was too improbable, too fantastic that we were both here in this moment and you never know unless you find out. "It's Ben" "..." "your cousin". Bafflement replaced bullshit and then there was genuine, surprising affection. Blood is thicker than water even in Laos, perhaps especially in Laos.
Situation update.So that's good then. Or is it bad? I'm not sure. Gunther would know.
The light forces have made a breakthrough on the etheric plane. They were able to to destroy the chimera/Lords of Karma dark network on the etheric plane with all their technologies, with most of the etheric chimera/Lords of Karma entities captured and taken to the galactic central sun, and a very few of the chimera escaping to the physical plane into closed bodies through the DARPA pit. Thus now the only location under dark control is the physical plane on the surface of this planet.
I'm on the 8AM bus out of Luang Prabang. Or at least that's what my plans were. At 8AM I'm actually on a bed in a lightless dorm room. At 10AM I'm on a bed in a lightless dorm room. At 12PM I'm.. you get the idea. This is all the Rothschild's fault. There's one bus a day to my next destination so it'll be another night in Luang Prabang. It's not a chore as this is one of the loveliest places I've yet been. At the confluence of the Khong and Nam Khan rivers its 18th century buildings are well preserved and surround a 150 metre high hill topped by a Buddhist shrine. Supposing you don't get tanked on beerlao the previous evening you can also get up at dawn and go to one of the temples in the shadow of the hill and give monks alms. Or just take pictures of actual Buddhists doing it, your Instagram fed gets the same amount of karma either way. Would the tourists who take part out money in a collection basket in a church? I doubt it. Not photogenic enough. The monks are not permitted to earn money so they rely on these offerings of food. It still feels to me, in my more cynical moments anyway, like begging with a religious veneer. Society in Buddhist countries seems comfortable servicing this permanent debt to people who made what amounts to a personal choice. The endless waste of soft drinks and fresh fruit that gets piled up at the spirit houses outside homes and other buildings and the innumerable golden temples seem like a ludicrous use of resources in poor countries. The shops are piled high with plastic buddhas ranging in size from pocket-sized trinkets to two metre behemoths. But I suppose Buddhism is not so different from other religions in this regard, put up with a shit life now, give us your money, we'll pay it back with interest later. Religious ranting aside I decided to make the best of the rest of the day by getting a bike and driving to a nearby waterfall. It was done because of a lack of other ideas, I thought I would go, say "oh, how lovely" and come back. But what a sight! At Kuang Si waterfall you ascend through several levels, so far so standard, but at the top you are met by a 60 metre waterfall into a wide turquoise pool. A stunning reveal, well done geology.
I'm on the 8AM bus out of Luang Prabang. Or at least that's what my plans were. I'm a slow learner. I nurse my hangover in a café and try to reconstruct memories of being in an out-of-town bowling alley in the early hours and having, briefly, entertained the idea of driving a scooter there while substantially drunk and with two grown men on the back. It's around 2PM and the streetlights have come on. The sky has been gathering itself up for some time now and drawing a thick veil between us and the sun. The rain eventually comes down with a vengeance. Some customers have left it too late to make a dry escape and scurry down the road, soaked within seconds. The thunder is extravagantly loud. You'd think it was over-the-top if it was in a horror movie. You'd accuse the director of campy theatrics. I've nowhere to be so sit and watch it all with a pleasant detachment. Deciding that going to Outback Bar again to say goodbye is only going to end one way I resolve to make a French exit from Luang Prabang. No, wait, the French were violently ejected from this town by locals, I'll do an Irish exit instead. In a upscale restaurant on the peninsula formed by the rivers I have the best meal of the trip so far, catfish and vegetables in a lemongrass sauce. My extravagance stretches to a carafe of white wine too. I'm sorry to miss a farewell with Faron but this really was the only way. In order to get the aforementioned 8AM bus you need to be at the bus station at 7AM to buy the ticket. Wanting to be certain of my departure I arrive at 6:30. After buying a ticket from the counter I double check the departure time. The ticket seller takes the ticket and writes '10:00' on it, which is three and a half hours away. You can't beat the system if there is no system. Questions about the existence of an 8AM bus are met with stoic incomprehension. Unreconciled to my fate I walk towards a minivan with my destination, Phonsavan, written on it. There's already people aboard, enough to suggest departure isn't far off. "Phonsavan?" I ask, the driver nods. He doesn't check the ticket in my hand and deciding that possession is nine tenths of the law I take a seat. My departure time was only written on the ticket in pencil so I rub it off in case it get checked before we leave. After about 20 minutes of waiting and quietly revelling in my deception there is an animated discussion outside the van. The driver is peering in at the now-full bus and talking to people clutching tickets and hoping to board. Oh hell, is there actually a system after all? I have a valid ticket though and can argue for my place on the bus if it comes to that. Oh hellacious hell, the ticket seller has come over to get involved. She wrote the later departure time on my ticket and will know it's been rubbed off. I no longer feel so cunning and attempt to become invisible by staring absently out of the window. The situation, whatever it was about, seems to get resolved and the door slides shut to my great relief. My criminal mastermind status is restored. The van jerks around steep corners up into the mountains. There's the sobering sight of another van smashed to pieces in the drainage ditch at the side of the road. The new train line is far below us wasting no time with subtlety as it bores in a straight line through the rock. The Laotian girl a seat over from me begins to vomit into a bag after each turn. I feel sympathy as she likely knew this would happen but cannot avoid taking the bus. A French girl next to her captures the larger part of my attention though. She is not notably attractive but she needn't be. The simple essence of her femininity stirs desire. Millions of years have told me to want her. They lean forcefully on my conscious mind insisting that the smooth skin, the long tanned limbs, dark hair and entwining heat of her body are as oxygen to my survival. The deep, girding importance that I capture those things for myself however briefly, in fact necessarily briefly, cannot be overstated. The way she folds her legs under herself, put her hair up in that organised chaotic way, bites her lip are all markers of a purity of design. I rhapsodise and dream. The sex would be symphonic or, better yet, witness my overtures become overture, 1812, cannons at the climax. Trumpets too and angels would sing and the world would realign on its axis, spinning thenceforth with an immaculate smoothness, I wouldn't be a vile body anymore, untouchable by others, but conjoined in fantasy. None of this will happen of course, her partner in the seat behind would likely object. But even the words, the images don't convey the hunger for a fleeting touch. There is such hollowness in the lack of it.
The trucks churn up great clouds of dust from the decayed road. It coats the vegetation and roadside houses. The people up here defy gravity. They claim a few metres at the side of the road and throw their house out over the precipice on a few stilts driven into the mountainside. I'd struggle to sleep at night knowing that all that was between me and a certain but not imminent death was the veracity of wood and earth and their resistance to gravity's unrelenting pull. But soon we are winding down the other side of the mountains. The foothills become grassy, the land greener and the earth a deep, rusty red. Cows become numerous and sun themselves wherever they please, often the road. We reach Phonsavan and I check in at my accommodation. Or try to. They guy at the desk has no English and can't seem to hazard an educated guess at what my intention might be. After a frustrating few minutes a key is produced and I'm free of his uselessness. I'm staying at the Nice Guesthouse. It's not. Maybe it's French. That would certainly explain the standard of service. Bon nuit.
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