Tales of Valor!! ( part 1 of my Valor Wonder and Might Trilogy)

Well what can be said, what with so much adventure on the wind, plenty to keep my sails full. And you, dear friends, no doubt have been full of festivities, and so it goes. We've been dreadful out of touch, Life and Laos bein what they be, so let us sit a while and I'll try not to bore you to death with a three parted tale of valor, wonderment and mysteries only the Orient at dusk may hold

After I rounded that corner from being solidly lodged in my twenties to mounting to some higher peak I set off at 6am with my trusted driver, hired for the journey at $22. With ropes and fancy knots by pack is lashed to the back of the Minsk and me, clinging to the remainder of my treasured affects settle onto the thrumming motorcycle to climb mountains and wind through softly shaded dales. The mist leaves the mountains with reluctance and curls like prayers into the new light of dawn. The voyage was not a comfortable one, not by any stretch, or for any stretch for that matter but the road that we rode for 140 miles was a glory.

Herds of buffalo we nearly careened into; approx 7

Peanut sized insects that struck my face at high velocity; 3

Pee stops; mercifully plentiful

Ranges climbed, descended; 4

Kilometers traveled; 189

Hours; 5.5

Temporary reduction in sperm count; 37%

The country I traveled was lush and brilliant. I was told three times in Hanoi by knuckle dragging bilge rats in the guise of helpfully concerned travel agents that the border I sought was out of the question, furthermore I would wise to purchase a ticket from their desk; Hanoi, Vietnam-Vientiane, Laos:$17. Very comfortable, sardine in with the other canned and labeled tourists, if the sons of dogs would lie about one thing they lie about all manner.

I heard that buss ride is a nightmare, 27 hours and with smuggled goods taking precedence over passengers for seat space. I've been a sucker, and surely will be once more, but not this day! Wipe your horses arse with your fraudulent claims!

The border guards were friendly and performed the most lackadaisical of bag searches. The border station was far too large for these two lonely men, who posed shy questions and seemed a little sorry to see me go. I was the 2nd traveler to pass through in over a week. I'm a spectacle trundling under the weight of my bags.

Welcome to Laos, stamp, stamp, sign here, nothing to declare or admit, there ain't no bus from here to nowhere, good luck.

I like Laos already.

At the noodle shack that sits back along the weeds the help has to be cajoled out of their slothfulness to feed a hungry soul. The chicken is gutted, true enough, but hacked in haste and without thought to my discerning palate. Tendons clung to neck bones and grizzled fat eclipsed what little meat the bowl held. These cheerless, tooth picking country folk, seemed my only hope for food, shelter and transport to Vang Xei. 

The country to Vang Xei is Heaven/Avalon/Paradise/Valhalla and more, never has a more beautiful land passed beneath me. I didn't even begrudge being overcharged the last 55 miles of my voyage June 28th.

And so the westering sun saw me safely to Vang Xei, where the rice is heaped and steaming and locals are quick to smile. The karsk mountains rise straight from the ground like melting, mossed gravestones and catch the light as it fades.

*

From the very first, well noodle shack aside, let's say everything after the noodle shack on-the people of Laos have been the easiest going, relaxed folk you could ever ask for.  I've been greeted warmly and openly, which as I learn about America's action in Laos, surprises me to the goodness of these people even further. 

I took an easy holiday and just wandered around down dusty foot beaten lanes and waved at people, feeling the newness of it all. This is Laos; these are the mountains and the lakes, the naked children. Flowers hang heavily, heavenly. Things are made of wood, and sometimes a kind of concrete. The beer taste nice. Everything is a tad slower in Laos cause suddenly you're a lot slower too, and that's a very good thing with so much beauty surrounding you.

Vieng Xei-Sam Neaug

In Sam Neau, wandering around in the usual manner I was chanced upon and glad to meet an English speaking, broad smiled girl named Any. That's pronounced Ah-nee. She was the first person in Laos that could construct full sentences in English, though she was always adding words to her vocabulary using your humble narrator as a dictionary. We agreed to meet ad she was to take me to the full moon ceremony at the temple, but she had convened her friends and they were already warming up with some Lao Lao, Laos rice whisky and simmering a huge pot of buffalo soup. The dwelling were concrete as this was in town, but the sparseness of furniture and decor made it seem more primitive than the thatched homes on the road in and deep in the valleys. The pot bubbled and girls fed it handfuls of greens, and ropes of noodle and dripping red buffalo meat. The boys kept the small but incendiary shots of whiskey flowing.

Afterward we hit the humming carnival streets f the full moon night. And this one was special, for this day marks a period of devotion for the monks which lasts for three months. Adults threw darts at balloons to win cigarettes, I'm not sure what the children won, probably cigarettes. With incense and flowers and candles we circled the temple three times new people bringing their feeble, unsteady light to the swirling procession. Kneel, now, candle here and wish.

The following day I visited the meat market and other markets besides but the grisly scene of jolly apron women, idly shooing flies off unidentifiable heaps of gore. She swung the pendulous ox balls in my face and smiling, laughing pointed to m own, very un-ox like nuts and bellowed, the apron chorus hooted and the balls swung on glistening cords. Women work. Good god, the women here are strong, the kind of strong that's pulls you through, that keeps things going, the kind of strong that if the backbone of humanity. Their hair is luxuriant and ebony and they smile and they work, boy they work. And the work with spirit and they work with dignity.

Baskets are slung unto backs and hoisted by a rope of strap around her fore head; she will walk for miles with the burden attached to her head. She is 12. She is 71.

From Sam Neua to Phansavan.

Now this, my confidants, proved to be a perilous journey even for someone of my stalwartness. The scenery never considers compromising her beauty in Northern Laos and so the small roads swim around vistas and sky for miles, but on this particular day the mist hugged the mountains close and the rain made red rivers that ran with the bus, down the mountain. Goats bleated and the driver honked at the soaked sullen cattle. Form the clouded sides of the precipice the crowns of trees reached up like phantom fingers. The hills are feminine and the road must run her curves, so always the driver is hard over, letting the wheel spin in his hands.

We pull aside in a little clearing of the weather and the men stepped out to piss and smoke. Squatting on my hams, I saw the barrel of the machine gun protrude about four inches from his coat, a fact which he seemed to try to casually conceal. His jean jacket was lumpy with the big gun. He wasn't old enough to shave, but that's not fair cause facial hair is a little slow in the coming to Asian men, so probably the saying is culturally out of context, shall we say he simply looked far to young to be hiding a machine gun the bus I occupy.hmmm.

Know I didn't fancy killing him in stealth straight away before his plot thickens. But I've done it before. Actually I was scared shitless, I'm carrying cash in the quadruple digits (though no one here knows that, keep mum.)

What we have here is a stagecoach robbery, but he sits back in his seat adjusts his cargo and looks out the window. We are more than halfway into our journey of 7 hours when we stop at a string of box stall diners waiting for us, I take a hearty looking Canadian lad in confidence.

Yeah, right there, twelve o clock.

holy shit, holy shit what do we do.

Well if you have any dough on you, I'm goin to the bath room and getting creative. I hide some in a book, I tear my travel pillow and stuff a few hundred in. Underpants crunched with bills, and finally a very average to middling sensible sum in my wallet and another twenty for show in my money belt.

The gun man was sitting alone, when he stood up and walked into the dining room, and sat with the driver and the couple attendants that are always on these rides. Havoc is wreaked on my poor imagination. This thing is a damned catastrophe!  God's Bones! An entire orchestrated machine of banditry and I walked right into it. Strip search on a forsaken side road, the whole ball of shit. It then that I discovered the cold truth that I had suspected and feared all along, I am not Bruce Willis. You never can tell until you're ripping your travel pillow to pieces.

The next two hours were torture, oh sure he looks relaxed enough, I peek for each moment through my sunglasses, but he is poised, what else could it be? I couldn't say I wasn't warned. each turn off is the designated spot, the other tourists, nap like so many lambs to the slaughter, the Canadian fingers a serrated plastic knife, and the twenties crinkle into my gunny sack.

But he hopped off the bus? Why are we safe and in town, I felt a queer disappointment the big Canadian and I exchanged knowing looks. I have a plastic picnic knife. You're a better man than I, for I only have twenties chaffing my naughties. Oh, me too, of course.