What Lorna Did Next

The Rough Introduction

For those of you who are unaware, I am currently working as a researcher and writer on the new Rough Guide to South East Asia on a Budget.  By some miracle I managed to time sending off some things I had written in Africa during my journalism spree at the precise moment Rough Guides were looking for applicants for the job.  After an interview and two weeks of nail biting, I was on a plane heading for Laos after only 12 weeks of being back in the UK.

I have two months to tour the length and breadth of the country, updating prices, accommodation, restaurants, bars and travel practicalities.  When I get home I have two weeks to draft the chapter, presenting information that will appeal to the budget traveller.  In eight months time the book will be published and I will finally be able to see my name in print.

This isn’t your usual job.  When I set out on my quest to become a writer I didn’t expect to be paid to travel, write and be published in the first job I got.  I certainly landed on my feet so you can imagine the nerves I had on the plane.  Pillaging the drinks trolley in an attempt to sedate myself with alcohol and catch some sleep on the long haul flight had no effect.  I was kept wide awake with toe tapping apprehension about my performance.

When I finally stumbled off the flight in Vientiane looking like a zombie that had popped a couple of E’s, stayed up partying at a grave rave and was then back at work doing a shoddy job of spooking mortals, I still mustered a small amount of excitement when I saw the word “WRITER” in the occupation box of my visa form.

I’m a writer already?  What happened to working as a dish cleaner in Paris like George Orwell or selling my hair to buy stationary, writing on napkins in cafes because I can’t afford paper?  O.K, I’m not exactly Dickens, and I wouldn’t rule out the hair selling quite yet, but after four years at university, delaying finding a job, I am finally realising that there is life after the student’s union.

 “The Rough Guide?  Oh I use The Lonely Planet”

If I had a pound for every time I heard this comment I could probably afford to start up my own guide book and call it The Guide to Inane Comments Made by Travellers.

I don’t have anything personal against The Lonely Planet, they produce guide books, as do The Rough Guide, I get what they’re about, but sometimes when I glance upon the tables in traveller’s café’s and see the two books at either end amongst all the soft pack cigarettes, Beer Lao bottles and screwed up bus tickets, I can almost feel the tension between them as if they are about to leap up and flare their pages like two territorial cockerels having a stare off in the yard, occasionally batting each other with their shiny illustrated book covers.

Naturally my money is on The Rough Guide and more often than not, perhaps for my benefit, people will follow up this comment by complaining about how The Lonely Planet is inaccurate, outdated, has poor maps and an offensive use of subtitles.  And at this point in my imagined literary cockfight, The Rough Guide flexes its spine and with one hearty blow with its glossy paged centre piece on festivals in Laos, sends the Lonely Planet flying off the table, falling open with its offensive font laid bare on the floor for all to see.

Other times The Rough Guide will come under scrutiny and I will have to listen to disgruntled travellers who see me as the cause for a bad choice they made having followed a recommendation.  I then have to act as the book’s lawyer trying to defend the accused in front of an unconvinced jury and a stuffy wigged judge whose daughter probably writes for The Lonely Planet.

Other people, having sensed that my local knowledge is superior then proceed to use me as some sort of tourist bureau.  On one tiresome journey up North I had to suffer the constant poke in the back from a German man sat behind me who, having caught wind of the fact that I was a Rough Guide writer expected me to cheerily answer every single question he had on Laos.  He wanted to be briefed on prices, dates, timetables, chronological history, cultural etiquette, birdlife on every town in the country.  For me it was a bus man’s holiday, made worse by the fact that I was actually on a bus trying to stifle the bout of vomit that was gradually rising within me, with my legs around my ears because of all the rice bags and trying not to think about how the yelping dog that had been stowed underneath my seat tied up in a sack was soon going to be someone’s dinner.

So what about the country? I think I drew the long straw when it came to choosing a somewhere in South East Asia to work on.  Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, Laos is a place that often exceeds traveller’s expectations.  People come to Laos as an afterthought on their way to Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand and often end up staying here a month.

Although one of the most economically disadvantaged countries in the world, Laos has such an alluring charm about it and there has not been on instance where I have felt under threat as the single traveller.  This is obviously a welcome change to West Africa where I would constantly have my guard up whether against theft, abduction or simply falling down a man hole.

Visually the place is stunning.  The landscape never fails to throw me with its varied terrain.  The life line of the country is the Mekong River that starts in China and ends in Vietnam providing many river travel opportunities.  The Mekong based villages are surrounded by huge mountains and karsts which create such a dramatic back drop with their many waterfalls and caves that you could be forgiven for thinking you had just walked into the fantastical setting of a fairy tale.

And that is just the natural visual.  When you get into the ancient capital, Luang Phabang, the art and architecture plays a big part in blowing your mind.  You feel like an ant in comparison to the ornate Buddhas that sit peacefully wearing their serene expressions that could extinguish the rage of the most stressed.  They manifest such a sense of power in that simple cross-legged position that, although not threatening, can make you feel rather intimidated nonetheless.  Juxtaposed with the calming Buddhas are the chilling multi-headed nagas that snake down the staircases or hover over the head of the Buddha with their monstrous serpentine faces and crude forked tongues gesticulating to all those who walk past; creatures that allegedly still rule the Mekong.

But alongside all the grandiose temples and imposing scenery, the real attraction for me has been the Laotian way of life.  Such a warm hearted, relaxed community that is so welcoming and positive towards the foreigners who have shown  an interest in their country.  Providing you take the basic measures to respect their traditions such as covering up, removing your shoes and using you camera unobtrusively, there is very little chance of you being ill treated by these people.

Of course you are still considered a walking ATM but I have met with none of the constant hassling for money that I grew all too accustomed to dealing with in West Africa.  The Laotian awareness of personal space is something that I have gratefully received after being prodded and poked incessantly by Ghanaian street vendors or even the arse slapping constituent that worked in the office at The Chronicle.

The stiff upper lip and aversion to human contact that is stereotypically associated with the English manner slips right into the Laotian sense of propriety when it comes to public displays of affection.  That is not to say that they are cold or indifferent, quite the contrary, only instead of a grab or a grope you will receive a bashful smile and a shy giggle.

A testimony to the Laotian personality is how they have overcome their troubled history during the Vietnam War.  For Laos it was a “secret war” as not many people are aware that it is the most heavily bombed country in the world.  Areas in the North East especially suffered an onslaught of aerial bombings, flattening the landscape and causing irreparable damage to many villages and families.  The aftermath still prevails as unexploded ordnance remains a problem with dormant bombs embedded in the countryside just waiting to be disturbed.

The Laotian strength of character is such that if they are in the least bit resentful, they carry it off with such dignity.  They have adopted a resourceful attitude to the hoards of scattered metal and cluster bomb shells by converting them into everyday items like ashtrays, BBQ’s and flower pots.  Still, the extra metal left by the Americans is a small silver lining to a very thunderous cloud.  Yet they have taken this attack on their country in their stride.

Of course the country isn’t perfect and it doesn’t take long for the disguised dangers and corruptions to reveal themselves.  Along with the aforementioned unexploded ordnance that are waiting to blow people up, there is also a lack of health care and emergency service which I unfortunately witnessed first hand.  My bus was travelling South quite late at night on hair pinned roads when it came across an overturned vehicle not dissimilar to the one I was in.  Having a strong aversion to rubber necking, I put my head down but it was pretty hard not to gather from the commotion that 7 bodies lay dead and mangled beneath the bus and the sole survivor, a woman in her forties was bundled onto our bus, bloodied and shaking.  I’m sure that in the West, most of these passengers could have been saved.

Obviously the casualties in this accident exceed the anxieties regarding the damage to material wealth but just consider the economic loss to the families whose hard graft was all of a sudden scattered across this road in the form of rice grain and fresh fruit and vegetables.  It is a set back that Laotian people literally cannot afford to incur.

In Great Britain the poppy is a symbol of war remembrance.  In Laos the poppy is the symbol of the opium trade that is still rife and causing problems.  For me to buy opium is an all too easy transaction.  Not only do the dealers pop up everywhere imaginable and offer it to me, you can also choose opium products from menus in some restaurants.  The strange loop hole to the drug scene in this country is that you can ingest marijuana, opium, mushrooms and other things in the form of “happy drinks” but if you want to smoke it you have to really watch your back.  In a jovial backpacker haunt called Vang Viang where I spent Christmas, tourists will often indulge in a joint by the river only to then be threatened with arrest by conveniently plain clothed police officers unless they each pay a $500 cash fine.  When you are already half baked and paranoid from the drugs, this can be a harrowing ordeal and most people succumb to the fine because the penalty for contesting this alleged police officer could deliver you a far worse fate.  With no British embassy in Laos should they get into trouble, many British still include this kind of trip in their schedule.

There is one last Laotian habit far worse than the drug scene and the corrupt police force.

Spitting.

Yes, it is quite disturbing to see men and women gathering flem at the back of their throat and spitting it out inches away from your feet.  I just don’t understand the constant need to get rid of all the saliva in your mouth.  It must be so dry in there.  God forbid you are downwind of a tuk tuk because you will get gob in the eye for sure.  It is a strange thing that a practise deemed so rude and anti-social in our society, is as commonplace as a polite sneeze.  I had better watch out that I don’t get used to it and find myself sitting on the tube in a few weeks, projecting my oral bacteria across a carriage causing people to shield themselves with their London Lite from the airborne mucus that is headed their way.

The White Haired Man’s Burden

          It has been strange, spending most of this year looking totally out of place.  In London I blend right in, slotting in on the tube amongst the other fair haired, shoulder length cut, gold pump and skinny jeans wearers.  Here and of course in Africa, I get more attention than a streaker running through a royal ceremony.  But despite my colourings causing a stir amongst the locals of these far and foreign lands, I’ve had a surprising amount of comments from my fellow Western community, particularly in relation to the colour of my hair.

          “So how is it travelling as a blonde?” they ask me.  Well, actually it’s probably the same as travelling with a shaved head and a big nose.  We get ripped off as much as you do.  We are Western, that is all it takes to become a beacon of interest in these countries.

          I wonder how they expect me to answer the question.  Perhaps like this:

“Well until about 10 years ago it was pretty hard to travel as a blonde, as you can only imagine.  But in around 1995, the U.K, having followed Scandinavia’s lead issued a health act called The Protection of Blondes Abroad and Safety From Being Impaled to Death By Tribal Spears Act (TPBASFBIDTSA) which made it compulsory for all blondes who intend to go abroad to wear a special hat provided by the National Health Service.”

They have a point, we are fairly indiscreet, particularly as the sun bounces off our hair causing a ray of light that reflects back up to the atmosphere, further enlarging the hole in the ozone layer thus accelerating the global warming dilemma.  But still, is it really considered that dangerous for a blonde in a dark community?

On The Road Again

          Before I dropped it in the river and watched as the cheap, Thai photocopied binding fell apart, I was halfway through a book by Jack Kerouac called On The Road.  It is a story, largely autobiographical about a man’s trip across the United States and the beginning parts I read spoke very true words about the lone traveller.

          Being an ex literature geek, I wrote down one passage before the book met its watery end which describes a recurring feeling I have had this year whilst on the road:

I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside and the creek of the old wood of the hotel, and the footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.  I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to analyse the passage like some A Level English paper but I just want to draw from it how Kerouac describes his position as the traveller. 

The amount of times I have checked into a grotty hotel room and just flopped onto the bed, looking up at the lethargic fan as it circulates with flaying cobwebs falling down onto my face, having just shared a ride with a goat, sat on top of a propane tank eating raw sugar cane, I recollect my day and for about “fifteen strange seconds”, I too don’t know who the hell I am.

 The reason I feel like a stranger is because when you travel alone there is no one familiar to remind you of where you are from and you forget how you act when you are in your own surroundings.  You are a stranger because you catch your reflection in a window dressed in clothes you don’t usually wear and set against a landscape that you don’t recognise.

          It’s the same when you meet people on the road.  Conversations don’t start from where you left off, they start from the beginning: what is your name?  Where are you from?  What do you do?  What is your favourite colour?  And sometimes such basic fundamental questions throw me.  What is my favourite colour?  What are my top 5 films?  How many brothers and sisters do I have?  You never talk about the obvious at home and yet when you travel these basic questions are what people use to make their minds up about you.

          So naturally I tell them that I am a sex offender on the run from the beat in Blighty, managed to get through customs and ended up in South East Asia which is perfect of course because prostitutes are so cheap here.

          Actually I don’t really, I tell them I work for Rough Guides but given some of the reactions I’ve had, I might as well have told them I was a sex tourist.

There is a saying here in South East Asia that is well known to travellers.  The contradictory phrase “same same but different” is thrown into the haggling process to indicate that one person’s price is the same as the other but is also of course “different”, because it costs more!  I however, despite being biased, have attributed the meaning to Laos.

 It is kind of “same same” as its South East Asian neighbours in terms of religion, some traditions and parts of their cuisine, but also different, having a certain je ne sais quoi that draws people in and wins them over.