"CIVILIZATION" JUNKIES

If any of you read the previous very detailed post about our trekking in Laos near Luang Prabang, I applaud you. Because I know for myself that I would probably stop halfway just because it is so hard to read it on computer screen and it just takes a long time. But if you did read it to the end, which ended rather abruptly (that's because we didn't have time and we had to leave), I hope you vicariously enjoyed the trekking and experiences that we did. Perhaps the pictures will help but right now the internet is not the fastest, so, I will do upload pictures later. I'll try to make this post not as long but no less interesting.

Anyways, after trekking we left Luang Prabang for what turned out to be 18 (Katy thinks it was 19) hours of journey on the local bus on very much windy Lao roads for Vieng Xai. I pride myself of being never ever having succumbed to any sort of motion sickness (another thing is I have no known allergies.. ha!). However these roads almost got me. The road winds up in all possible letters of English, and not only, alphabet. There are U turns, P turns, S Turns, ..... With a bit of imagination I think you could create a simple Chinese character looking on the roads from above.
Anyways, we arrived in Vieng Xai about 5 Pm, and though we knew that this town is least visited by the tourists (because of its remoteness) I was a bit surprised to actually find it true. But the town itself is lovely. My mother in law would be very proud of how people take care of their gardens. Although inside their gardens are mostly fruits (plums and peaches) and vegetables, on the outside along the see-through bamboo fence they planted very pretty plants of different colors, which altogether made some sort of pattern. Later we found out that this landscaping actually was sponsored by some Dutch organization. Anyhow the town is tiny, has one major street and beautiful scenery around it, with big ponds (lakes) surrounded by rock formations, which have about 500 caves where the communist leaders hid during the bombing by the US troops in 1970s. The only touristy thing to do in this town is go on the caves tour and most tourists spend only one night there, or even just a day. We, however, spent 3 nights there... We figured that because it took us 18-19 hours to get here, we can at least spend here longer time. The tour of the caves was quite interesting. At this moment they've opened only 5 caves to the tourists, which we all visited. Three of them were man-made using dynamite and housed the leaders of the Communist party back then. The last two were natural and very spacious and big. These ones served as a theater and a huge meeting room. The theater could accomodate 2,000 people and the cave itself was about 300 meters long. During the tour we met one Australian lady who was with the AUSAID, the Australian Aid Organization, and she was in Laos, in and out, for the last 2 or 3 years helping and training local people. It was very nice to chat with her in the evening at dinner. I'm sure her company to us was as enjoyable as ours to her, because there's not much to do in Vieng Xai once it is dark, with no TV, no Internet...
The only thing that spoiled my time in Vieng Xai is that I got sick. Katy got sick the day before and the next day I got sick. We think it was food that we ate late at night on one of the stops on the way to Vieng Xai. The hygiene aspect of that dish left to desire better. (Does the last part of that sentence make sense?. Oh, well. we say that in Russian.. ha-). Fortunately enough the sickness was gone in exactly one day and a half for us both, with the help of the panadol and stomach pills. I think we were sort of fortunate in Vieng Xai as well, because the last night we stayed there, they had a concert there, where all locals go. Because you had to pay to get in we didn't go, but we still could hear everything, since it was held in the open stadium, and the sounds and types of songs and MCs didn't particularly make us willing to pay money. Last time I remember, the concert with winy songs and occasional talk and laughter, which reminded me more of the karaoke rooms in Korea, where Korean sallary-men would go after a round of eating and drinking, was still going on at half past 10 at night before I fell asleep.
The next day, which is today, we took another bus to our next destination Phonsavan. The trip took another 10 hours on the same-same but different windy road up high in the mountains. The bus this time was smaller and hence more cramped and uncomfortable. On our stop for lunch we went to just look at the hardware store and it turned out that the people of that store are all Chinese from the province in China on the border with Laos. Katy quickly established relations with them. They were rather happy to see a white girl speaking Chinese with the Chinese looking guy speaking none. I was proud for Katy's excellent command of Chinese, and it actually made wanting to get to China so that we could do it more.
Surprisingly enough, Lao buses depart and arrive quite precisely on schedule. So, as we were told after 10 hours of bus journey we arrived in Phonsavan. Having the Internet back at the tips of our fingers feels very good along with the lights in the streets, cars passing by constantly, TVs and other perks of a "civilized" world that most of us take so easily for granted.
I've just admitted to Katy and Katinka (our German friend and travel-mate) that perhaps I wouldn't want to do a year of backpacking... because I just want to go home and be around the things I like...
We're only staying here for one night and then take of for yet another 7 hours on the bus (again local and perhaps small and uncomfortable) for Vang Vieng, before taking off for the capital, Vientiane. So, more is coming on this page from either of us or both...
Later.