back in China
I ultimately figured out why the people in Lao small villages did not understand my request for vegetarian food as rendered in Lao. The phrasebook indicated a particular way to say this, which I was finally able to determine uses a word that they didn't even know. They thought I was requesting some strange foreign food they'd never heard of. Furthermore, the Lao language has a sound which is between B and P. The word for fish is something like "ba." The word for vegetable is something like "pa(k)." So they thought I was saying I don't eat meat or vegetables and then really had no idea what to give me. This explains why they offered only rice initially.
Anyhoo, I'm back in China. I left my hotel in Oudomxai, Laos around 8am or so and made it to the bus station just nearby in search of the first bus to the border. They informed me that there was only one other person so far. What time then? Maybe 10, maybe 11, maybe 12. I see. Guess I'll sit over there then and be stared at like a zoo animal for a few hours. About 11ish enough people had gathered and we were off. Sort of. We stopped a few more times in the vicinity to pick up more people and fill up empty seats. This is like an 8-seat minibus. There's a big argument which as far as I can tell has something to do with the number of people on the bus and the amount each person has been charged. This gets very heated but in what seems to be a sort-of good natured way. It's hard to tell, everybody in Asia likes to yell.
So we hit the road and I was thinking as we go that in the US, there are several factors that determine how long it will take to get somewhere, but if you are going somewhere that is many hours away, seldom is the condition of the road really a factor. More often it is the speed limit on the highway, or how fast your car will go. On the road from Oudomxai to the China border, the situation is different, given that the road is to my estimation 50% unpaved. The parts that are unpaved are not so much dirt as they are lots and lots of rocks and ditches. This means that at times a passenger is bounced 3-4 inches off his seat. Often. I was wondering if that was my spine I felt compressing, or if I'm just getting old. I'm sure somebody will laugh when they read that.
Hours and hours later, we made it to the border of Laos and China. Get off the bus, go through Lao immigration and get my stamp. Then we take a tuk-tuk for like 1-2km between countries and I go through Chinese immigration on the other side uneventfully. A minibus waits to take people to Mengla, the next actual town which is ostensibly 1.5 hours away but takes far longer because we stop and drive in circles in basically every village on the way looking for more people which we eventually find.
I don't think I mentioned this, or perhaps I only did in passing, but on several buses in Laos and on one the other day from Mengla to Jinghong (about 5 hrs) there are small plastic bags available for everyone should they feel carsick. On that last busride, at least 3-4 people were puking for substantial portions of the trip. The amazing thing is nobody even appears to notice or consider it to be out of the ordinary, or asks anyone if they're ok or anything like that. I suppose it's obvious they are not ok, but still. So the woman next to me throws up mightily into the bag, then chucks it out the window and gets another. The willingness of people to throw things out of the window of a moving vehicle in Asia is impressive. Nobody appears to think twice about throwing absolutely anything on the ground. Empty cigarette containers, drink bottles, plastic bags filled with puke, tissues and napkins, etc. Anything goes right out. On that latter ride we were driving through a nature preserve at the time. Not that I particularly wanted to sit next to 15 bags of puke, but c'mon.
So I am thankful that I do not get carsick. We all have our problems I suppose and this is one of which I have been gratefully spared. So I stayed in Mengla for one night which was totally nondescript, then came here to Jinghong which is also a somewhat typical Chinese city. These places from a tourist perspective are generally leaping points into the surrounding villages populated by numerous ethnic minorities for so-called treks. I have to say, I don't know why, but I hate that word and I'm really sick of hearing it. Perhaps it is just because it makes walking sound a lot more grandiose than it should.
I'm not a big fan of walking around and taking pictures of people in these places. It already seems a little too zoo-like that these tourists are wandering through places and not talking to anybody and just kind of looking around and pointing. Perhaps I'm doing exactly the same thing, but I feel like at least I'm making some effort to communicate and connect with the people and learn a bit of the language and to be respectful and aware of the fact that this is their home. To just walk around and take close-up shots of people going about their day without saying much except thank you just seems a bit invasive.
Ok, so those are my random thoughts for the day. I'm in Jinghong now and spending a few nights here before flying to Lijiang on Friday in northern Yunnan. I'll have more to write in the next few days about other random things I've experienced. Hope all are well.
Anyhoo, I'm back in China. I left my hotel in Oudomxai, Laos around 8am or so and made it to the bus station just nearby in search of the first bus to the border. They informed me that there was only one other person so far. What time then? Maybe 10, maybe 11, maybe 12. I see. Guess I'll sit over there then and be stared at like a zoo animal for a few hours. About 11ish enough people had gathered and we were off. Sort of. We stopped a few more times in the vicinity to pick up more people and fill up empty seats. This is like an 8-seat minibus. There's a big argument which as far as I can tell has something to do with the number of people on the bus and the amount each person has been charged. This gets very heated but in what seems to be a sort-of good natured way. It's hard to tell, everybody in Asia likes to yell.
So we hit the road and I was thinking as we go that in the US, there are several factors that determine how long it will take to get somewhere, but if you are going somewhere that is many hours away, seldom is the condition of the road really a factor. More often it is the speed limit on the highway, or how fast your car will go. On the road from Oudomxai to the China border, the situation is different, given that the road is to my estimation 50% unpaved. The parts that are unpaved are not so much dirt as they are lots and lots of rocks and ditches. This means that at times a passenger is bounced 3-4 inches off his seat. Often. I was wondering if that was my spine I felt compressing, or if I'm just getting old. I'm sure somebody will laugh when they read that.
Hours and hours later, we made it to the border of Laos and China. Get off the bus, go through Lao immigration and get my stamp. Then we take a tuk-tuk for like 1-2km between countries and I go through Chinese immigration on the other side uneventfully. A minibus waits to take people to Mengla, the next actual town which is ostensibly 1.5 hours away but takes far longer because we stop and drive in circles in basically every village on the way looking for more people which we eventually find.
I don't think I mentioned this, or perhaps I only did in passing, but on several buses in Laos and on one the other day from Mengla to Jinghong (about 5 hrs) there are small plastic bags available for everyone should they feel carsick. On that last busride, at least 3-4 people were puking for substantial portions of the trip. The amazing thing is nobody even appears to notice or consider it to be out of the ordinary, or asks anyone if they're ok or anything like that. I suppose it's obvious they are not ok, but still. So the woman next to me throws up mightily into the bag, then chucks it out the window and gets another. The willingness of people to throw things out of the window of a moving vehicle in Asia is impressive. Nobody appears to think twice about throwing absolutely anything on the ground. Empty cigarette containers, drink bottles, plastic bags filled with puke, tissues and napkins, etc. Anything goes right out. On that latter ride we were driving through a nature preserve at the time. Not that I particularly wanted to sit next to 15 bags of puke, but c'mon.
So I am thankful that I do not get carsick. We all have our problems I suppose and this is one of which I have been gratefully spared. So I stayed in Mengla for one night which was totally nondescript, then came here to Jinghong which is also a somewhat typical Chinese city. These places from a tourist perspective are generally leaping points into the surrounding villages populated by numerous ethnic minorities for so-called treks. I have to say, I don't know why, but I hate that word and I'm really sick of hearing it. Perhaps it is just because it makes walking sound a lot more grandiose than it should.
I'm not a big fan of walking around and taking pictures of people in these places. It already seems a little too zoo-like that these tourists are wandering through places and not talking to anybody and just kind of looking around and pointing. Perhaps I'm doing exactly the same thing, but I feel like at least I'm making some effort to communicate and connect with the people and learn a bit of the language and to be respectful and aware of the fact that this is their home. To just walk around and take close-up shots of people going about their day without saying much except thank you just seems a bit invasive.
Ok, so those are my random thoughts for the day. I'm in Jinghong now and spending a few nights here before flying to Lijiang on Friday in northern Yunnan. I'll have more to write in the next few days about other random things I've experienced. Hope all are well.
posted by Dan at 6:05 AM
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