Thursday, August 23, 2001
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Litang Horse Festival Photos
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We did an overnight trek on Tiger Leaping Gorge, which must be China's single most touristed gorge -- it's actually pretty nice to look at, but calling it a trek is a little exotic for a flat road with guest houses every few hours.
The local people in Qiaotou where the trek finishes are traditionally a matriarchal society -- one of the few cultures in the world where the women wear the pants in the family. Actually they wear dresses, but more interesting are their giant hats -- huge flat squares looming over the backs of their heads, fabric draping over the sides. They're quite amazing, both because of the regal image they project and because they manage to get anything done with those extra-large pizza boxes on their heads. Unfortunately so many tourists come through town that you can't even lift your camera without being asked for money, so I didn't get any pictures.
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If before Lijiang we'd been traveling with turbo, afterwards we were red-lining. We expected to have some downtime in Kunming, but splurging on an express Laos visa allowed us to leave the same day we arrived, knocking three days off our schedule. One day later we arrived at the Laos border, and the next morning we said goodbye to China. Or China said goodbye to us -- the customs officials were in a good mood for some reason: "You look cool," the man told me in a thick Chinese accent (at first I thought he'd said "You look old."), and the woman clarified, "Beautiful." How nice! But I couldn't figure out what Juliette was laughing so hard about.
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Speaking of money, Laos money is hilarious. The currency is called "kip," and due to some bizarre uncontrolled inflation, there are about a thousand kip to a dollar. So prices there are enormous -- noodle soup is 3,000 kip. The largest bill they have is 5,000 kip, so even the poorest people have a pocket full of money, and rich people must use a wheelbarrow. Fortunately for us, the exchange rate between Chinese yuan (street name "kwai," though officially they're RMB -- Renmin Bi, the people's money!) and Laos kip is pretty close to 1:1,000, so it was easy to think in kip -- except for Juliette who, being even cheaper than I am, couldn't quite feel comfortable spending thousands of kip, no matter what the rate was.
Some quick images from Laos: Jungle. Bamboo houses on stilts. Banana trees. Rice paddies. Jungle. Old women going topless. "Bus" actually means "back of a pickup truck." Jungle. Every woman wears the same skirt (actually they come in different patterns and colors, a fact I was confused about when Juliette told me about ubiquitous Laos skirts until I actually saw them). Red dirt. And finally, jungle.
As usual, we decided on the more adventurous route through Laos rather than the easy one. Normally people go south along a paved road, through Louangprabang and Ventianne, entering central Thailand. We went west along a muddy road, through Luang Nam Tha to Huay Xay, entering Thailand at its northernmost border crossing. Driving on a muddy mountain road during monsoon is asking for trouble, so what we thought was an eight hour "bus" ride turned into a 24 hour "back of a pickup truck" ride. We got stuck in the mud, waited for a landslide to be cleared by local men with shovels and saws, had our "lunch" stop at 8:00pm, and finally broke down for good a few hours from our destination.
We were so tired we slept on our little bench in the back of the truck. Every half hour or so I would wake up and stumble outside to stare at the driver and his buddy while they disassembled and reassembled something that looked to me like the alternator. Finally they gave up and had us sleep on the floor of a villager's house -- surprisingly comfortable even with no blanket.
I woke up in the morning after about four hours' sleep -- maybe it wasn't so comfortable after all -- just in time to flag down the morning "bus" to Huayxay.
But don't stop now, the fun's not over yet. Refreshed from our luxurious rest on the floor, we crossed the Mekhong River on a longtail boat into Thailand. Providence really wanted us to keep on moving, because even after lollygagging around town, we arrived at the bus station a few minutes before the last bus to Chiang Mai. Thailand is really the easiest place in the world to travel -- even the regular bus was air-conditioned and had reclining seats. Six hours later, again we weren't allowed a break -- a billion buses leave for Bangkok every hour. These are super-deluxe VIP buses with bathrooms, and so much leg room you can't even reach the foot rest. They're so posh they refuse to turn down the air-conditioning, so everybody freezes all night, and as an extra bonus they serve a microscopic dinner with a chicken leg and two desserts. We asked for a vegetarian meal, so she took away the chicken -- voila, now it's vegetarian!
Morning arrived, bringing us to Bangkok. We'd been traveling nearly non-stop for a week, only two nights of which were stationary, and it had been two weeks since we'd spent an entire day in one place. We were exhausted, but we'd finally arrived. It was the 18th, a week earlier than planned, and ten days before Juliette's ticket home expired. As for me, I hadn't even booked a flight.
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The first night she left for the airport we were sure she'd get the flight. We said a teary goodbye -- well, everyone knows I'm not able to actually cry, but let's just pretend, okay? -- and off she went. The second night it seemed 50-50, and the third night they said don't bother coming at all. By the time my day to fly arrived, we were pretty good at saying goodbye, but practice didn't make it any easier. Even after three months, before which time we'd hardly knwn each other, we both felt we would love to continue traveling together if we could. We had learned so much from each other, and shared some of the most amazing adventures of our lives. Letting go of each other was difficult enough, but it also meant letting go of the stories, the lessons, the laughter, and the support -- relegating it all from the present to the past. On top of all that, we were both headed home -- almost a dirty word to a traveler; a word that carries with it connotations of comfort and security, but comfort and security always have a price. As I boarded the plane I felt like I was losing both my amazing traveling companion and my freedom.
Everything has a reason, Juliette says -- we just don't know it yet.