There has not been a great deal of adventure or news to
write about lately, and I’ve found myself being somewhat disinclined to write
much anyway – hence the dearth of postings of late. However, I just returned on
Thursday from a trip to Laos to extend my visa and thought that the trip was
worthy of a few words at least.
Visas are a big thing for travellers over here and the “visa
run” is a something that everyone staying here for more than a couple of months
has to get used to. In order to get an extension you have to leave the country,
pay for a new visa and then come back again. This means going across the
nearest border, hanging out for a couple of days, spending time waiting in
lines at the consulate, and things like that. There’s also a whole service
business built up around it, I discovered.
In my usual way of not doing a lot of planning beforehand, I
looked up (or actually Che Ning looked up for me) some traveler’s posts about
visa runs and got the basic outline, as explained above. Thus armed with a
minimal idea of where I was going and what I was doing, I caught a lift most of
the way to Nhong Kai (Thai city on the Thai side of the Maekong river) and took
a bus the rest of the way. I stayed the night in Nhong Kai and had quite a
pleasant time walking along the river at dusk and hanging out in a restaurant
catering to westerners, eating French fries and listening to “soft rock oldy”
sorts of music.
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| Nhong Kai side of the river, looking at Laos |
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| A very slow triple wide boat, labouring up the river |
I decided I wouldn’t get in too much of a hurry, so I had a
relaxing morning and a leisurely breakfast of toast and eggs (what a treat!)
and then found a tuk tuk to take me to the border. Tuk tuk drivers pretty much
always take you where they think you ought to go, rather than where you
actually requested, and my driver stopped off at a visa service place that
helps people with their visa runs. I got fixed up with some passport pictures,
an application for a Laos visa (which I’m not sure I actually needed) a lift to
the border, someone to walk through with me and make sure everything went the
way it was supposed to, and a minivan ride to the Thai consulate. All for about
3000 baht, or about $120. So the trip
across the border was pretty simple. I think it would have been fairly simple
even without the help (and less expensive), but I wouldn’t have had a picture
and it would have been a lot slower. As it was, I breezed through and was at
the Thai consulate in no time.
On stepping out of the minivan I was immediately accosted by
several people wishing to help me with the Visa application. I went with one of
them and for another 3000 baht had an application put together in a jiffy. I
was a bit uncertain when he said he’d take my passport and I could come back
for it in two days. He was just this guy with a tent and a photocopier on the
sidewalk after all. But he gave me his phone number and seemed sincere, so I
decided why not. If I lose my passport then it will just be a bit longer
adventure, with a few extra twists thrown in.
A tuk tuk driver deposited me at a nearby hotel, which I
didn’t like very much as there wasn’t much of interest nearby and it didn’t
seem overly clean. I stayed anyway though, as there wasn’t anything else
immediately apparent. It was hot and so I spent the afternoon in my room
watching TV (kind of a habit in motel rooms I’m afraid), but went for a long
walk in the evening. The next day I went
down to the touristy area of Vientiane, which probably covers 10 or 15 square
blocks near a wide walking area along the river. The hotel that I decided on
here was pretty basic, but much cleaner, and there were many more things to see
and do within easy walking distance.
It’s a busy tourist time and there were lots of Europeans
around – German and French mostly it seemed, with a few Australians and various
others thrown in. I met one Canadian woman from Sqaumish who was there with her
husband. He was working on an environmental review project having to do with
some thoughts of putting hydro electric dams on the Maekong apparently.
I didn’t talk to many people actually. I found it so easy to
meet people when I was travelling in my early twenties, but it seems harder
now. There are lots of “older” guys wandering around Thailand and Laos, often
with a younger Thai or Laos woman with them, and so I feel kind of like I’m
lumped into that general demographic. I don’t really fit in with the youth
hostel crowd anymore, and I’m not quite in the “rich and retired” group either,
so I didn’t quite know how to fit in. The lady from Squamish had some good
advice though – she said you just have to say something immediately when you go
into a room, or when you see someone. If you say something right away you can
often get a conversation going. If not, it’s like a wall goes up and it’s a lot
harder. She’s right actually…
I didn’t really mind the quiet though. I did a lot of
walking around looking at shops and restaurants and temples, watching people,
walking along the river, watching the sunset, walking through the very large
number of booths set up in the evenings on the river walk to sell clothes and
paintings, watches and toys and doodads of all sorts, and just practicing
enjoying my own company. It seemed to go OK and I got along with myself
reasonably well most of the time. J
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| Part of the river park and walk area, Laos side |
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| Riverside park area |
I also treated myself to a few really good meals. I splurged
and went to exclusive, expensive, touristy restaurants – something which I
don’t normally do. Splurging in Laos means spending $10.00 for a meal instead
of $1 or $2, but it all adds up you know. Anyway, my two favorites were the
Balsamic chicken at “Sticky Fingers” – served artistically with mashed
potatotoes, vegetables, marinated eggplant and capers and very very good, and a
“Salade peasan” with a foundation of soft buttercrunch type lettuce, two softly
poached eggs, shredded red cabbage, soft sundried tomatoes, bacon pieces, marinated
mushrooms and a dressing that tied it all together. Really tasty! J
I went for a long walk along in the sand on the river flood
plain the morning of the day I was to pick up my passport and found a place
where I could get to the water and stick a foot in it. (I seem to have been
rewarded for this with a slightly infected toe however – or maybe it was from
something else. It’s presently bandaged with antiseptic ointment and getting better
I think). Then it was back to the consulate to find William (my passport guy)
waiting with the visa all done and a driver to take me back to the border. So,
off I went, zoomed through the border, picked up some coffee at the duty free
for some people at the temple and was just about to get on the bus to go across
the bridge back to the Thai side of the river when someone called out “Todd??”.
It turns out some people from the temple had gone over to shop at the duty free
store, so I got a ride back to the temple with them. It all went pretty
smoothly. Not planning, when done trustingly and flexibly, can work out pretty
well!
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| Sandy cut-bank - Laos side |
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| Small boat, and looking across at Thailand |
That’s about it for now. I’ve been doing some minor leaf
raking and helping Che Ning work on an English FAQ for the temple website
(haven’t gotten very far yet) and enjoying the cooler temperatures. The
afternoons are still a bit uncomfortable, but much more bearable and the
mornings and evenings are wonderful. December is a great time to be in Thailand
actually!
For learning lately, I think a movie I watched the other day
kind of sums it up nicely. The movie was “Bolt” – the Walt Disney cartoon about
a dog who plays a TV superhero dog and thinks he has all these super powers. He
ends up getting lost and finds out he doesn’t actually have the super powers he
thought he did, and has to find his way across the country back home again with
a reluctant cat. Along the way he discovers it’s kind of fun just being a dog
and learns how to do “dog stuff”, like sticking his head out of a car window
with his tongue hanging out, chasing sticks, burying bones and things like
that. It was kind of a fun message in the ongoing repeated message to myself
that it’s really OK to just be who and what I am, how I am. Also, the message –
from a couple of rather different sources – that “enlightenment” just is, and
it is already. As David Hawkins says, “All you have to do to be enlightened is
to stop being unenlightened”. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcOW6-dHPtc takes you to the short David Hawkins video from which this quote cameth. This one about "surrender" is kind of interesting too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjyVBG3WvdE ) Or, as a
person here at the temple said, enlightenment comes before the “path”. First,
know you’re already there. Then live as if you were.
Sounds pretty good I guess…
I probably won’t get another post out before Christmas, but
I believe I will be spending Christmas camping at the top of Phu Kra deung, a
nearby mountain and wildlife reserve area – so I’ll probably have something to
tell about when I get back.
Until then, have a wonderful holiday season. Wishing you
lightness and ease and being OK with whatever is with you…
Have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Todd
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