311206 Goodbye Pak Beng!

Loading onto the downriver boat:




A guy with a suitcase slipped + fell + slid but fortunately not all the way down into the Mekong. Also a bit of confusion as a few tourists intending to head upriver ended up on the Luang Prabang-bound boat instead.

Today's upriver boat to Huay Xai + a few who boarded it by mistake (thinking it was a second, much emptier boat to Luang Prabang):



Bicycles on the roof belong to two American guys who'd cycled from Oudomxay to Pak Beng - great company of kindred spirits for today's boat ride, as always turns out to be the case with cyclists (& motorbikers) whom the cat meets on the road in Laos.

Goodbye Kiwi & the cat - Mr Kiwi was staying behind to get his 'gong tai huup' from Ms. Phetsokxai Manager later this afternoon:



Quite a few puzzled stares from both locals & foreigners alike during our time in Pak Beng. Apparently the guy is far too young & thin & the bespectacled girl too geek to fit the Falang man-Asian lady couple stereotype. If only they (those who stared) had watched this :P

The boat started to pull away, then reversed back - to pick up the captain of yesterday's Luang Prabang-Pak Beng boat & his family. Smiles of recognition as their former passengers (from yesterday) reached out to help them to load their belongings & board the boat, as they threw their stuff over & jumped across from another boat closer to shore :) Like buses & songthaews, boats follow a rotation system that gives everyone a fair share of business. Having had their turn to be on the river yesterday, their boat was now back in the queue, & it might be weeks before they get to take to the river again. To get to Huay Xai for the New Year holiday, they'd hafta be passengers on someone else's boat.

Goodbye Pak Beng!

311206 Pak Beng - cargo boat landing

Kids at upper right playing the throw-flip-flop game:




小巫见大巫 (xiao1 wu1 jian4 da4 wu1) - little witch meets big witch, slowboat meets BIG FAT cargo boat:



Complete with satellite dish:

311206 Pak Beng - timber

To feed the hungry neighbour upriver?

311206 Pak Beng - river

Downriver view, from above speedboat landing:




Slowboat queue - waiting for their turn:

311206 Pak Beng - day version

First impression of Pak Beng town for those who arrive by boat, after braving the backpack-nappers & Pak Beng guesthouse tout welcome committee:



Beyond the river end of the main road & the greatest concentration of guesthouses in Oudomxay province lies Pak Beng the typical northern Lao town. At 6:00AM, Mr Kiwi & the cat set off for the market:



For the first time both got to see Pak Beng filled with Lao instead of Western faces :P & for the first time Mr Kiwi got to see the 'non-Luang Prabang' version of bindabaat, & a freshly-slaughtered water buffalo with steam rising from a basin of its blood in the cold morning air. Mr Kiwi himself attracted quite a bit of attention from locals in the market.

Like most markets the cat has seen in Laos, there are two parts for the fresh food section - one where people rent stall/table space (usually sheltered), & the other a more informal arrangement where people grab a spot on the ground or along the road & lay their produce out on mats, canvas sheets or banana leaves in the open. The latter can be more interesting in terms of biodiversity. In Pak Beng the two parts are on opposite sides of the road, with the 'informal' part just next to the police 'station'.

Table with bottles marks the foe/pho stall where the cat had noodle soup with greens sold literally behind its back & meat from a few metres further away:



Canard à l'orange Pak Beng style - ducks in lady's hand + pile of mandarin oranges at her feet:



More Pak Beng:






There is a hilltop viewpoint + two temples in Pak Beng (where Monk TYF used to overnight at when travelling between Bokeo & his village), & also the towns of the hinterland (Muang Beng & Muang Houn), but guess all that has to be for a future trip. More info on what to see/do in & around Pak Beng here (including a PDF map of town).

301206 Pak Beng - night version

All guesthouse rooms in Laos have one of various versions of such a notice in Lao-glish pasted on the wall:


Click here for larger version

Endorsed by the village headman (in this case a Mr Saengkham Thamphavong of Ban Pak Beng, according to the red official stamp), it lists prohibitions such as:

• 'Don't bring any...weapon in to Guesthouse'
  
• 'Don't use the guest house as the place for playing ang gambling such as playing card, selling illegal thing, dugs, sexual.'
  
• 'Don't...making noisy when other one are sleeping'.

Local curfew time (time after which the guesthouse will be locked up for the night) & check-out time are also indicated. Many Lao seem to struggle with the foreign concept of 'AM' & 'PM', often mistaking them as the equivalent of 'daytime' & 'night time' - hence the '12:00AM' check-out time for Monsavan Guesthouse.

The notice also alludes to two other aspects of Pak Beng's reputation - the persistence of certain individuals in selling 'dugs' to tourists, & the above average propensity for cash, credit cards, cameras & other valuables to vanish from guesthouse rooms without any trace of forced entry/break-in (i.e. 'insider job'), which explains point #3:

• 'Please saving any valuable thing with your own pbecause we won't be able to respond for any losing or damaging in the room'.

Village-mates of Monk TYF, Reebok cap & 3-day-old Monk have worked in Pak Beng before. Apparently quite a few in the tourist trade there are guys drawn from villages in surrounding districts (e.g. Beng, Houn, Nga) by opportunities that sound far more interesting than planting rice. Day after day up to more than 100 foreigners pour out of downriver boat(s) & flood into the tourist part of town. Even though quite a few of the tourists dress as if they cannot afford cloth & thread back in their home countries, locals know only too well that each of them carries up to a few years' worth of the average Lao farmer's income in valuables & the latest models of tech gizmos with high resale value. Temptation is great, especially when certain tourists appear to have left common sense (e.g. not leaving valuables unattended in rooms, not leaving rooms unlocked even for a short while, not flashing huge amounts of cash around) behind at home.

Laos also seems to be a place where herb-ivores - not the 草食(系)男子 soshoku(kei) danshi type, but the type that consumes weed in singular not plural form - can indulge cheaply. At check-in, Monsavan Guesthouse boy systematically asks all guests except cat if they want weed, opium or methamphetamine HCl - discrimination? Cat no fit customer profile? Puzzled elderly falang couple asks cat - what says the boy? Cat translates 'gan saa', 'yaa fin' & 'yaa baa' - 3 words that make up cat's entire Lao language Organic Chemistry vocabulary :P

During its stay in Pak Beng the cat teamed up with Mr Kiwi. Cat help Kiwi find guesthouse. Kiwi take room next to cat - cat bang on Kiwi door if need help. Cat help Kiwi understand Lao-glish menu & order dinner. Kiwi exits restaurant alone for smoke break - 'dugs' peddlers descend. Cat walks with Kiwi through streets of Pak Beng, 'dugs' peddlers see cat & leave Kiwi alone in peace (why?). Kiwi walks with cat - cat heeds Monk TYF's advice for girl not to wander around town alone after dark. Cat help Kiwi ask Phetsokxai Hotel girl if anyone has seen the 'gong tai huup' (camera) he left behind in his room days ago. Explanation + call to Ms. Phetsokxai Manager (gone to Luang Prabang for New Year holiday) + discussion = yes 'gong tai huup' was found & locked up for safekeeping by only person who holds key to hotel safe (Ms. Phetsokxai Manager). +100 bonus points for Phetsokxai Hotel for showing us the honest side of Pak Beng :)

So that light sleeper cat will be woken up if door is forced open...



...because it left its rubber doorstop behind a few towns ago, most probably in Muang Sing. The night was peaceful save for a couple of tourists who didn't pay attention when guesthouse staff told them that Pak Beng did not have 24h electricity & hot water would be available only between 9-10PM. They spent the whole night out drinking, missed the 'magic hour', then #@!*%&!* took it out on the poor guesthouse staff when they returned to ice cold showers many hours after the generators had fallen silent & the power supply for entire town had gone to bed.

end of day 14 (301206):
noodle soup/pho/feu/khaaw soi eaten to date = 09 bowls

301206 Monsavan Guesthouse

Travel guidebooks, websites & fellow tourists all warned about the unique baggage retrieval system that Pak Beng ground handling services imposes on arriving passengers. On arrival, baggage is grabbed unloaded from boats at a speed that puts 'first bag on belt within 12 minutes' Singapore Airport Terminal Services at Changi to shame. Service is delivered with an efficiency rather uncharacteristic of Laos - passengers often realise that their bags have been taken hostage carried to the top of the boat landing only when they discover them missing as they disembark, & find themselves with no choice but to pay the baggage handlers in order to free claim their hostages bags. In some cases passengers succeed in negotiating discounts on the ransom extorted sum baggage handling fees or even a waiver, by agreeing to stay at the guesthouse that their baggage kidnapper handler touts represents.

As such, the cat realised that we were approaching Pak Beng when the other foreigners on board (a Kiwi who'd travelled downriver 4 days ago, & 3 don't-mess-with-me Korean ladies) went to the front of the boat to retrieve & strap on their backpacks before the boat docked, & told the cat to do likewise.

Arriving at Pak Beng:



ETL (left tower, above) & LaoTel (right tower, above) are the mobile network service providers covering huge swathes of rural Laos far beyond the reach of their rivals.

Guesthouses & restaurants lining the main road leading from the boat landing into town:



Reception was muted - turns out that we'd arrived ahead of the downriver backpacker 'cattle boat', & guesthouse touts waiting at the top of the boat landing didn't seem to be expecting us. Perhaps (1) Pak Beng ground handling services is under contract to cater exclusively to downriver boats, or (2) upriver boats aren't expected to have foreigners + backpacks & manpower is thus reserved for richer pickings from the far more heavily (over)loaded downriver boats, or (3) they simply realised that they'd be pre-empted when they spotted the foreigners already carrying their own backpacks...whatever the reason for their lack of enthusiasm, we were left to carry our stuff up a steep rocky + sandy slope in peace :) The few touts armed with A4 printouts of guesthouse room photos who approached Mr Kiwi - the only Western face among the foreigners - were easily taken care of with smiles & the cat bluffing telling them in Lao that we already had rooms.

Recommended by the French/Thai couple the cat first met in Phongsaly, & then again in Luang Prabang:



Photo taken the next morning as Mr Kiwi (bottom right) had breakfast outside:



Breakfast (not included in room rate) may be ordered in advance when checking in - realised this when Mrs Monsavan Guesthouse asked the cat to help her explain to all guests in English that she had run out of baguettes & new supplies would not arrive in time.

Room #2 on the ground floor - cleanest lodgings on this trip:




Newly rebuilt 4 months ago in August 2006. In its previous incarnation it was a bamboo structure with toilets across the road from the rooms. 2.5 years later the description/review on Travelfish (but not the room rate) has finally been updated.