Luang Prabang, 2015-02-16 19:30:32 +0700
Day 4 in Laos
I left China for the first time since August. I wasn’t entirely sure if I should go there when I saw the price of the bus ticket (398 kuai!) but in the end I chose to go for it and now I’m here, in Luang Prabang. It’s the second biggest city in Laos and the former capital. I don’t know when the touristic boom actually started, but right now the city is absolutely full of white (and slightly yellow) tourists from all around the world, mostly England, Germany, Canada (all of them from Québec,) France and Korea.

On Saturday I went to the local library with a Chinese woman I met on the bus. (She is originally from Chengdu, and so old she didn’t want to tell me her age.) I’ve read about the library before on TripAdvisor, and it was really a pleasant experience. After several months in China, where all that matters for most people is money and not losing one’s face in front of your friends/enemies/family/society, I finally came to a place where people are actually nice to each other. In the library reading room, there was a group of young people around my age who were sitting and making flowers from plasticine. No Chinese child would ever have time to do something like this, not to mention a teenager. I donated a few dollars to charity, helping buy a book and supporting the building of a toilet somewhere deep in the country.

Then happened something that changed my view on compassion and helping others. We found a kitten lying in the shadow

Yesterday I went out to the night market and met some Norwegians. They were absolutely delighted to meet a Polish person who never even went to Norway, and yet could speak some, however broken, Norwegian. They interviewed me in Norwegian, asking questions like “Have you ever been to Norway?” (Nope, way too expensive.) or “Have you watched any Norwegian TV shows?” (Only Ylvis, but with English subtitles.) Then they moved on to their hotel and sat there, drinking cold Beerlao, talking loudly and happily in their majestic language. There were also some Swedes, and even I could understand a few words from their language. I realized I often feel inferior when I’m with Nordic people. They sat there, tall, strong and beautiful, like half-gods. They were probably also much richer than me, so they could probably afford getting drunk with cold Beerlao, lao whisky or lao lao at least ten times a day and then bringing two hookers to their private rooms in expensive hotels. At the same time, I’m staying in the cheapest backpacker hostel in town, sharing a dorm with nine other backpackers. The mattresses are barely softer than wood, there is no AC (not that we need any AC in winter,) and for the whole hostel there is just one or two showers. I sometimes wish I were born Norwegian, but then again, I had enough good karma to meet the Dharma—isn’t it worth way more than a cosy life in Norway?

2015-02-17 02:03:10 +0700
Day 5 in Laos
Another random meeting that sort of changed my life. I went to Utopia, a popular bar for foreigners in Luang Prabang, where I sat with a Malaysian, a Korean and a Filipina. I told everyone that animal scientists can make good money on insemination of cows. I described the process of insemination. It’s pretty disgusting, because you have to put your hand up to the armpit in the cow’s anus, and it of course ends in putting semen inside the cow’s vagina. Then the Korean asked: “But if you put cement in the cow’s vagina, doesn’t it die? Don’t you have mercy for the animals???”

After that lovely one beer in Utopia, I went to the bowling alley with some Chinese. One of them actually spoke better English than Chinese, as he was born and raised in Canada, while another one spoke with a slight Beijing accent, which I don’t really understand too well. When the bowling alley filled up with people (human-mountain, human-sea) I moved to some random table where there were some local people. Then one of them spoke to me and it turned out he could speak Polish. He had studied construction engineering in Łódź and now owns a big construction company in Vientiane, and invited me to come and visit him.

2015-02-20 21:50:41 +0700
Day 8 in Laos
Vientiane. It takes 12 hours by bus from Luang Prabang to get here, which is more or less riding from sunrise till sunset. Considering road conditions in Lao PDR, it’s not a very pleasant journey. In regions where they managed to put some sort of asphalt on the roads, at least you don’t have to fly up and down with every turbulence, but the roads are still curvy (even curvier than the curviest girls I’ve met in my life,) so every ten seconds you get thrown left and right, and so on. This is hardly made more pleasant by the scorching heat, but I do admit our coach was air-conditioned, so I only started sweating like crazy when I got off. After arriving at the bus station in Vientiane, I had to get to the city centre by tuk-tuk. My Laotian friend sent me the name of the place I had to go, but I don’t think the tuk-tuk driver really knew where it was. He just let me get off somewhere, took 20,000 kip from me and said “Yes, yes, Mercure Hotel.”

Then I got off and tried to walk my way, but I didn’t really know which way to go. Then, when I was walking next to a very expensive and extravagant car parked in the street, some foreigner asked me if I knew what the make of the car was. I told him I didn’t have an idea. The foreigner was there with two blondes, and they looked so Slavic that I asked them in Polish if they were from Poland. They did understand, but they turned out to be Russian. They all live in Thailand and only came to Vientiane to get a new visa. They checked the way to Mercure Hotel for me, and after about 40 minutes of wandering, with my overweight backpack on my back and my winter jacket in my hand, I somehow managed to get to our destination. On the way there we found another Russian guy, and we also found out we were walking in the opposite direction for quite a while.

My Laotian friend turned out to be sitting in a sushi restaurant next to Mekhong river with his friends, but my Russians didn’t want to join them, so I went to sit with the Russians in the dry riverbed of Mekhong. Thailand turned out to be on the other side of the river. It was probably my first ever picnic in February, and definitely never before could I just sit outside in a winter night wearing just summer clothes. Laos is known for its Beerlao, and sooner or later every way you walk takes you to a nice bar or at least a shop selling cool Beerlao for 10,000 kip. Therefore the Russians and I ended up drinking cold Beerlao. Around eleven we said goodbye and I went to some local bar with my Laotian friend. The bar was full of people, a band was playing live music in Lao and English, and the stage was decorated with New Year wishes in Chinese (春聯 chun1lian2.)

There were a few Laotian girls dressed in red, speaking English and drinking Sex on the Beach, and there were also some Laotian girls dressed in other colors, not drinking Sex on the Beach and not speaking any English at all. I ended up riding a motorbike with two Laotians (one dressed in red and the other just drunk) in search of accomodation at 4 a.m. I saw ladyboys for the first time in my life, and the girl were just asking them for directions. In the bar, my shorts tore, so now I can only wear those Laotian traditional trousers that don’t even have any pockets.

Once you come to Asia, you realize English could never be, and will never be, a means of global communication. However, I think they could do quite well with some Esperanto.

In the next semester I'm planning to get a legal library card, so that I can go to the library every day and study. For the upcoming months, I've scheduled a lot of Korean and Esperanto. I had some tough time with the Koreans in Chengdu, but here in Laos I also met dozens of Koreans who were very nice and spoke either very good English, very good Chinese, or both. I think it might be pretty easy to get Korean practice in the dorms, but with Esperanto it may be a bit more tricky. So I'm also going to buy a microphone and Skype with Esperantists. And maybe the best way would be to find Esperantists from Korea… &

When I go back, I will also start cooking some meals by myself. It may not necessarily be cheaper than eating out in Chengdu, but then again—aren’t the advantages of cooking by oneself obvious?

2015-02-21 23:48:47 +0700
Day 9 in Laos
I’m actually pretty tired after walking all day, but I also feel quite happy about something. Today in a café I met two Koreans who could barely speak any English and no Chinese at all. That was a big change, because all of the Koreans I’ve met in China can speak at least understandable Chinese, and some are also quite good at English. But with these, I had no other way out of communication problems than checking the dictionary or trying to explain stuff in my broken Korean. The one I remember better is called Jiyeong, she’s twenty-eight in Western years (and looks twenty-two,) and she’s really cute. Unfortunately, she only came to Laos for 6 days, and she’s probably already home by now.

There were times in Chengdu when I could have a brief conversation, but it was always about some trivial topics, like eating rice, and most of these were also a bit forced. If I couldn’t express my thoughts in Korean, I always switched to Chinese. Also, in China I didn’t really get to talk to Koreans for too long. The only time I managed to hold a conversation for longer than half an hour was when I went to WOW and met that girl called Yena, but then everyone was very drunk, and then the contact somehow broke. *** link ***

I now really want to go to Seoul. The girls told me if I went to Seoul, we could drink alcohol every day. During the three hours that I spent with them, Jiyeong drank two small bottles of Beerlao, and that was by daytime. How much could she drink in one night? One bottle of soju, she said. But then her friend corrected her, saying in English “liar”. She can drink two bottles of soju, then black out (BTW. in German it’s called Absturz, and in Austria you can also say Meier gehen, and that refers to some ski jumper) and go on drinking when she wakes up.

Watching my mind: Yesterday I was feeling homesick and wanted to go to back to China and go on living my ordinary life. Then I meditated and didn’t feel homesick anymore. Today I don’t feel homesick at all, instead I don’t want to go back to China, and I’d rather stay in Laos for a bit longer and try to practise my spoken Korean as often as possible. I’m not going to change any further plans right now. I’d better wait with that.

2015-02-23 12:45:17 +0800
Day 11 in Laos
Vang Vieng. I heard there is some TV programme in Korea about this town, and due to this fact, there are more Koreans here than in Korea. I heard many stories about an activity in VV called tubing. It’s more or less like this: you take an inner tube (the inner part of a car tire or whatever,) which you can rent for 55,000 kip (+60,000 deposit) in the town. Then a tuk-tuk takes you to the river where you get on the water. There are four bigger bars along the river and one place that also sells beer. It’s pretty obvious that most fans of tubing are Westerners. There were also some Koreans floating on the river, but not a single Asian in any of the bars, and all Chinese people preferred kayaking or even motor boats. I didn’t really fancy getting drunk by daylight in a bar where there weren’t even any Koreans, so I only went ashore a few times to take pictures.

I never actually expected I would end up swimming in a river, and especially not during winter holiday, not to mention in Laos. The current was quite slow, so most of the time I had to paddle with my arms, and in some parts there were rocks on the bottom, but otherwise it was quite a lot of fun. Near the end I joined a group of Koreans (one of them being actually undercover Aussie) and when we got back to town, we went for Korean BBQ (불고기).

In the evening I decided to go to Sakura Bar (Motto: Drink Triple • See Double • Act Single.) My plan was to chat up some Koreans. I originally wanted to find some pretty Korean girls walking in more or less the same direction as me, and then ask them: 실례합니다, 사쿠라 술집에 가는 길 좀 가르쳐 주시겠어요? However, before I found any suitable Koreans, I already saw the bar, so it would be a bit fishy if I asked for directions. In Sakura there were of course numerous Westerners, but there were also a few groups of pretty Koreans. One girl from near Seoul that I met in Vientiane told me that the Korean holidays are already over, so everyone will soon be going back. That means I probably came here in the last days of the Korean invasion, just in time to learn that some Koreans actually consider me to be quite handsome (sic) and to have my clothes soaked in Laotian beer by some Korean dickhead. Then all the Koreans went home, riding rented bicycles, and I set off for my guesthouse. After half an hour of walking some roads that I didn’t even recognize I ended up at the entrance to the forest. Then I went back, and I found some small Buddhist temple. I took a ground mat and slept for maybe two hours, then I went to find my guesthouse again.

Tomorrow I’m going back to Luang Prabang, and then I’ll have to survive another journey on Laotian mountain roads to go back to China.