Time Locked

Luang Prabang, Laos - Idyllic is often the word use to describe Luang Prabang and while that is certainly true, I am again troubled with what is real and what is a thick layer of tourism topcoat. The houses of Luang Prabang whisper of its royal past and waft of its French colonization but every building's purpose is to cater to tourists. It's English speaking menu after internet cafe after tour vendors. In the evening when

the market is open, all the items sold are souvenirs.  Is it then accurate to describe Luang Prabang as an idyllic village where time stood still? Where the wearied tourist can go to see how life has been for the past hundred years?  Clearly, fifty years ago, the women of Luang Prabang were not selling t-shirts that read "Sabadee" in Lao (hello) and no local were purchasing day tours of the Plains of Jars, lunch included. 

I understand the wealth that visitors can bring to a place like Luang Prabang and to give credit where it's due, every historic town should adapt tourism in the graceful and unassuming manner that Luang Prabang has done, but I don't think its accurate to describe anywhere that I've been in Southeast Asia as a place where time stood still. A cruel oxymoron of tourism is that if you make it into the pages of the guidebooks and the travel articles, you have already lost the luster that brought you there. A more appropriate description is a town that succeeds in preserving the integrity of its identity.  Which to a traveler who's purpose is to observe, is enough.

Floating Down Frat Row

Vang Vieng, Laos - I had been warned about Vang Vieng in all the guide books.  It is the hedonistic paradise of the backpacking crowd.  The main activity in Vang Vieng is river tubing where you go down the Nam Song river and get pulled up to river bars along the way to drink Lao beer and jump from rope swings.  Finding ourselves unable to make it to the Gibbon Experience (trekking and ziplining in the jungles), we decided to fuck it and go revel on the world's only floating frat row.  

Tourist and locals co-habitate on two parallel planes.  They share the same streets and weather the same sun but that is about it.  As a tourist, you have no concept of  time other than feeding, sleeping and checking out.  You have a completely different set of needs. For example, how many times while on vacation have you inadvertently planned an activity only to discover the place is closed because it is Sunday?  Now how many times have you made the same mistake at home? Because you are conscience of the day of the week and the operation time of businesses when you're home.  We take pictures of people going about their daily lives because it is new and interesting.  We pay exorbitant amounts to see what locals see every day.  The two planes rarely meet and when they do, it's only in the tourism industry where by now, all the locals speak passable English.  

Never has my two plane theory been so evident as in Vang Vieng. Backpackers arrive in long distance buses from Vientiene or Luang Prabang and descend on the small river village that is the love child of Animal House and Woodstock. They cram themselves into guesthouses and ride down the Nam Song in river tubes upwards of 3 times a day.  Along the 5 km journey, they get pulled into riverside bars to drink, jump off the rope swings and play muddy games of "volleyball".  By the end of the day, everyone is sloshed, wet, muddy and ready to go at it again the next day. In full disclosure, I loved it and recall drunkenly declaring an extension of stay to go tubing again. The ride was exhilarating, the bars are fun and the view was beautiful.  

It was however, glaringly obvious the distance between local life in Vang Vieng and the playground created for the backpackers.  Just as quickly as we descended, we packed ourselves back on buses and in less than 2 minutes, our floating playground has transformed into the village life of local Lao farmers going about their day.  It was almost like for about 3 miles and 24 hours, a parallel universe opened up, we reveled, and left in the morning with monstrous headaches and list of new facebook friends with whom to share pictures later on.  

You Buy Later, You Buy From Me

Siem Reap, Cambodia.  I will sheepishly admit that I'm a victim of travel porn.  When I see a glossy picture of a place in one of those travel magazines, I get it in my mind that it will look exactly like that when I show up - oblivious to the fact that the photographer spent hours getting the shot just right; photoshopped out all the tourists and peddlers; and mosquitoes and fire ants don't bite through a picture.  The reality is usually a little less idyllic and I am stupidly disappointed.  It's like when you got a toy that doesn't talk, dance or sing like the cartoon on the commercial.  

Angkor Wat is one of those places that is at par in person as with its travel porn. Even with the Taiwanese tourist groups and their fluorescent hats marching like ants through your line of site, Angkor Wat is breathtaking.  You can't help feeling like Angelina Jolie (before she sold out to only weepy, serious movies) standing in Ta Phrom in her daisy dukes, guns ablazing.  I'd probably be swatting mosquitoes rather than trying to turn back time to thwart the evil doings of the Illuminati but that's just the way I roll. Regardless of Hollywood, climbing the ruins of the temples is still mystical.  Unlike some of the other "ruins", the ones in Siem Reap have only felt the destructive forces of nature and man. Huge trees grow amidst piles of fallen stones giving you a timeline of when these temple stood in magnificent glory and when they met their demise from earthquakes, floods, storms and bombings.    

At the gate of each temple are Cambodian children waiting to sell their wares. At first they seem to speak teriffic English but by the time you get to your 5th temple, you realize they just speak 10 phrases really well.  The usual repertoire goes:

"Hello lady, you want cold drink"

"No, thank you"

"You, buy later?"

"Maybe"

"You buy later, you buy from me.  I remember you, you remember me?"

"Sure"

"What is your  name?"

"Christopher Columbus"

"Where are you from?"

"I am commonly and inaccurately accredited to discovering America but really I just got lost,  tired and called it quits on an All-Inclusive resort in Punta Cana"

"America, capital Washington, DC.  You want postcard? 10 for one dollar"

"No thank you"

"You want to hold bracelet?"

Imagine where these kids will be if they could demonstrate that level of tenacity in school.  I guess you can't eat an education.  For a culture that believes strongly in karma, you have to wonder who the heck Cambodia pissed off to be so unfortunate.  Squeezed between two giants in Asia, Cambodia experienced very little peace.  King Jaya-something-or-other must have been so sick of his military briefings.  It's like "oh my Vishnu, who's conquering us this time?" No wonder they built so many temples. I'd triple up on deity protection if I were them too.  

Cambodia didn't fare so well in modern times either, with ongoing border disputes and a civil war that led to the reign of the Pol Pot, the baddest of all the baddies.  Pol Pot is not just a member of the Evil

Dictators Club, he's the president. Our driver told us his harrowing story of being torn apart from his family when he was 14 and forced to guard the boarder under heavy enemy fire and landmines.  He had barely any education but taught himself English through a dictionary which he still kept in his car to read while he waits for his passengers. His English is surprisingly good and he's constantly trying to learn new idioms and vocabulary.  Most shocking is the matter-of-fact, cheerful way he told his story. Tonally, it sounded like he grew up in the suburbs, became an accountant, drove a Honda Odyssey and had a dog named Muffy.  All of Cambodia was like him, cheerful, laughing, going through their day with an exclamation mark rather than an ellipsis.  It's like someone took the smile out of Vietnam and gave it to Cambodia. There is a foci with suffering I guess; after a certain tipping point you just laugh and go on.