Currently
Rocket Boat
Last week, I took a 100kmph rocket boat down the Mekong. I rode in that thing with a crash helmet and a life jacket for 6 hours, hugging my knees and all the while thinking we were going to crash.
It was a sampan with a fast engine and 6 crazy foreigners (myself included), and the scenery was beautiful. I couldn’t see much of the scenery, though: the boat was moving so fast I couldn’t open my eyes. My ear plugs flew out of my ear, and my hair styled itself quite naturally. The engine pounded mercilessly at (possibly) 130 decibels.
I was the only person who managed to fall asleep on that thing (I swear I’m not narcoleptic: he drone of the engines, however loud, was still monotonous).
I love Luang Prabang, but a short stint in Vang Vieng scared me shitless. It was Khao San Road with a river (which is my worst nightmare). So touristy that I might as well have gone to Phuket or Koh Samui (never over my dead body). Everybody sold the same mediocre and expensive food tailored for the Western palate. Everybody played the same music. You’d have 3 ‘bars’ in a row, on the little ‘island’ by the banks of the Nam Song, each of them with their sundecks and hammocks. Quaint, but it’s the same everywhere. I ran away in terror, and unfortunately ran out of Laos. I couldn’t even bring myself to stay long enough to go tubing. (It really was the food that got me: my tastebuds were protesting every US$2 plate of tasteless, unspicy, bland noodles.) After a quick overnight train ride from Nong Khai, I’m back in Bangkok, happily shopping at Pantip Plaza (the Thai Sim Lim Square), waiting for my motley crew of friends to assemble here in the city of angels over the next couple of days.
The rocket boat is, for me at least, one of those things you have to do before you get old and fat, and once you do, you wonder: what the hell was I thinking? I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
16 Comments
You have to understand that you come to the third world country!
So don’t expect much from us.
Um, i believe you got it wrong. My beef is not with laos- it’s with the falangs and the entire falang-oriented industry that many countries, not just laos, have to deal with. Some places just have it worse than others- vang vieng, for example. The rest of the country is lovely.
besides, strictly speaking, it’s not like i’m from the First World or anything.
hey, i remembered reading from your blog ages ago that you had korean relatives and you visited korea before. that was south korea right? not north? do you then have any plan on visiting the north?
Hey,Today’s Strait Times has a travel artical to Laos.(Luang Prabang!)How come it came in after your appeared. Any connection??
Hey hey if you are in Bangkok now….
And you prefer Johnny to do the walking,
go to
RCA, route 66 or slim - to drink
State Tower, Distil - to drink
Sukhumvit Soi 11, bed supper - to drink
Laotian: poppy didn’t mean it that way. Trust me she’s the last person on earth who’d travel the preppish way even if u pay her a million dollars (maybe she’ll reconsider). She’d gladly dive into tunnels, take a 59hr bus trip, then a snail boat, be in the slums of India anytime than taking a day trip in an a/c mega shopping mall.
Hey hey godbaby! So happy to see that you survived the boat ride! Wish I was enroute to BKK and thai food!
Woah a rocket boat! I’d love to give that a try, it sounds like a heck load of fun!
Damn, so I guess that rocket boat is nothing for me ;)
First of all, to say that u don’t come from a first world country would be an insult not to singapore, but to someone who doesn’t even have proper sanitation, security, or the knowledge that he will even be alive a few decades later. So I think u have to choose ur words, in front of someone who comes the west, u can downplay ur country’s standards, but this wouldn’t be appropriate to a developing country citizen.
Secondly, the mark of a true first world citizen is that they expect every poor country to be quaint, untouched by tackiness and modernization, and consider it a disappointment when some place has “sold out”. Those repetitive souvenirs probably come from the same factories unlike in the west where they probably have a variety of specially made quaint things that give a truly authentic feel. In this day and age, it is the rich nations that have the luxury of preserving certain places and their own history, while most poor nations have to modernise in stages, thus appearing very unromantic and commercial to foreigners.
First of all. First world, third world. Loose those terms- the cold war’s over (who’s the non aligned third world if the Soviet Union’s gone? Or am i too much of a history nerd?). Semantics aside. Romanticizing “third world” travel is very popular in the west, yes. I see it in many western backpackers and all the save the world types.
You seem to believe that the developing world is doomed to pursue development in that path, necessarily impaired by their lack in resources. You also unfairly extrapolate my comments regarding one town which did not find my favour, into an argument about the whole country-and, it seems, all of the developing world.
now. You either are a random, casual reader, or you have only read this site for one or two posts (i.e. This one). As somebody who travels almost exclusively in the developing world, and spends a substantial amount of scholarship labouring over the developing world, believe me when i say i have no romantic notions about the so called third world. I had a problem with a town. One town. It happens to be Lao. I love the rest of the country. The rest of the country does not seem to have a problem pursuing tourist development, and certainly hasn’t slid into the path of uniform Lonely Planet style development. In fact, i went there despite hearing about its commercialization - knowingly. I thought it was yet another instance of romantic backpacker lament. I was wrong - just as you will be, if you’d actually been to that town for yourself.
by all means, if that path suits Vang vieng, great. They just shouldn’t expect anyone other than the topless white hippie 2 dollar a day backpacker to come to this town, if they don’t have much else to offer other than the same pizza and 24 hour Friends reruns. Or is it that I feel this put off because my Asian-ness makes me distinctly unable to enjoy unspicy food and American sitcoms?
it doesn’t have to be about selling out or losing out-it never was. But by all means, please don’t distort what i’ve said in passing to one single town, and make sweeping accusations. I live as much in the “third world” as you do, and maybe that is why i care for it the way i do.
Adri,
You are little bud of an international writer now, soon a beautiful flower. Drop-in readers have begun their stampede. I imagine you know this.
On the one hand, I wouldn’t spend too much time engaging them in your blog, because, in this blossoming stage, the amount of times you are going to be taken out of the context of your blog might soon overwhelm and divert you from moving on.
On the other hand, it’s good shit. I hate to see it buried in the comments of a blog. Very few drop-ins are going to get that far. People comment without reading comments, so you end up battling the ad nauseum factor …. Yikes!
Use it as foddder for a professionally written piece. Publish it, or at least move it to ‘Entry’ level.
I’m just sayin’
;)
Eh who’s that handsome guy sitting beside you ah? Lol.
on a slightly different note…
hmm. why don’t they have the rocket boat run thru’ the 6 countries at any one time like an adventure ride…all four thousand km of it? So I can say I was there, there, there, there, there and here!
Ok, so I didn’t study the run of the Mekong River in details to verify the possibility of materialising such a fantasy…
…but I do know. the part of the Mekong River where I was? Didn’t have no motor boat. arrf.
love the color of the River tho’. for some weird, unspeakable reason(s).
u’re a history nerd? I’m nowhere near but rather fascinated. even more after getting mildly claustrophobic inside the Cu Chi tunnel after barely 30m!
I can relate to your feelings on Vang Vieng - the place was surreal, artificial and soulless. The surrounding scenery was amazing though and i did stay for the tubing and caving.
I have some posts on my blog about it if anyone wants to check them out (www.planetranger.com/legon)
Where did you arrive in Vang Vieng from? The journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng had some stunning scenery.
Keep up the good work Popagandhi.
Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Laos: Touristy Vang Vieng