The Beach is one of those books you read when you are travelling to South East Asia. I think I read it on my last trip, or maybe when I went to Malaysia. Anyway, it's a pretty good read on holiday, got lots of violence, but somewhat unrealistic.
Anyway, so this trip I've taken the obligatory reading of The Beach one step further, today I watched the movie version! Lying on my double bed, in my air conditioned room, with my tv (obviously) and its selection of cable stations, and my fridge, and my pineapple, and my mangos, and my french bread, and the salad baugette Chang Peng made for me for lunch, waiting for my clothes to be washed (again by Chang Peng). Now this is travelling!
My long hot nights in Vientiene are spent mostly on the toilet. The main side effect of the antibiotics I'm on, which are slowly clearing up my infected chest, is diarohea. Severe diarohea. Anyway, it was the night before last that was the worst, up every 20 minutes, but last night I was woken by something else entirely.
At about 4am (I checked my phone) the dogs started barking and there were people in the courtyard, and a motorbike pulled up. Evidently the guy directly downstairs from me had brought home a lady of the night. The walls are thin, and the floor is even thinner, so I had a good reception of them having sex. Fuck, I thought it was going to go on all night, so I quickly popped one of my strong pain killers (with muscle relaxant, it's all good), but the noises only lasted 90 seconds. Then there was some negotiating with money and she stole away back into the night.
Of course, all their activity got the chicken (ok, ok, rooster) all excited, so it started crowing and wouldn't shut the fuck up. But by then my pill had kicked in, and I drifted into sleep dreaming of leaning out of my window with a rifle and shooting the chicken (ok, rooster).
There's been a few changes here in Vientiene since I was last here. Notably most of the riverside outdoor restaurants (along the dirt track part of Vientiene on the Mekong) have been, or are in the process of being dismantled. There are plans for a redevelopment, all due to the flooding last year caused by the Chinese up river.
The other change is the banning of tuk tuks from the city centre. Supposedly. They are still there of course. Banned, it is rumoured, because the government doesn't like the look of them. Slowly being replaced by small pickup trucks with a metal frame and roof. Sound suspiciously similar to a tuk tuk? Just not quite as gaudy.
Yesterday after returning from a bike ride on one of those lovely girls bikes that you wouldn't be seen dead on in Australia, I was standing up on the landing (my room is on the first floor). The grandmother signalled to me...not sure what she wanted, so I just smiled and nodded, then she picked up a long stick with small basket on the end, swung it up into the mango tree, whipped off a mango and swung the basket up to me, from where I just plucked out my lovely, delicious, totally unripe and green mango!
Later that night I had dinner in Cathy's room, and Chang Peng brought us sticky rice and a Lao curry to have with our bread and cheese. Her daughter, Nom Phong, came by to visit and watch tv, and sort of play around. I think she has ADD. She is seven years old and speaks pretty good English. Then after dinner there is a knock on the door and little Pon Pachon is there. He is three and doesn't speak any English at all. To begin with he was very shy.
You know there's this thing with Lao kids where it's a great insult to touch them on the head. I guess it's true, but when you are told you are not allowed to do anything, all you want to do is walk around slapping kids on the head. Hmmm. Probably better not. Anyway, I was sitting on the floor at the end of the bed, with Nom Phong and Pon Pachong sitting up on the bed, when suddenly I feel this little touch to my head. Little Pon Pachong had kicked me in the head! It wasn't hard, but what the hell happened to no head touching? Obviously this only applies to Laos and they can do whatever they want to whities. I made a funny face at him and it was like a signal. The two kids then totally lost it, and started running and yelling and laughing and hiding all over the room. With a lot of effort put into hitting me in the head. It was quite fun but very tiring.
Although Pon Pachong doesn't know any English, he was looking at a dinosaur book yesterday and has picked up the word "humongasaur", and was standing on the bed, roaring and yelling "humongasaur!!". Kids are kids.
At night on the concrete slab by the guest house, under the flourescent lamps hanging in the trees (put there to ward off spirits, Cathy tells me) miniature frogs jump around, heading for the darkness. And the lizards scurry on the wall. At the Pakistani restaurant last night, it felt like the walls were alive, insects kept falling off the ceiling onto the meal and the walls crawled with lizards.
I'm in this Internet cafe, slow connection of course, and they keyboard is very stiff. It's slowing down my typing, and now I'm wondering if they have deliberately installed these stiff keyboards to slow people down and make you buy more time. Is that possible? Am I too paranoid?
I watched a film the other night, "Control" about Ian Curtis (Joy Division). I didn't know much about him except I knew he killed himself (by hanging it turns out). It was one of those ex-pat nights. Everyone there was a whitie. I always said I hate ex-pat scenes and want nothing to do with them (hardly saw any whities during my time in Malaysia), but at least you get to have decent conversations in English with them - even the little frogs speak good English! (And as you can imagine, there are a lot of little frogs in Vientiene.)
Cathy told me about her dentist's (the butcher of Vientiene, I could hear his drilling through the wall as I waited for the doctor) grandmother who "gave up on life" and hanged herself in the closet. She was 104.
They have quanrantined me in Laos because they think I might have the swine flu. Bummer.
When I arrived here the other night, I went in the queue for people with a visa, and I was quite upset when they rejected my visa and said go buy another one. But I had just bought one only a few days earlier, and it lasts 30 days! Yeah, it lasts 30 days if you don't leave the country! It's a single entry visa. Fuck I'm dumb. So my 18 hours in Laos cost me $30US on top of the rest of it. Anyway, when buying the new visa, they asked for a passport photo. All my photos were in my checked luggage, so I didn't have one. Therefore they charged me an extra $1US for the photo...um, but they didn't take another photo of me, so really, they charged $1US for ignoring the fact I didn't have a photo. Hmmm.
Anyway, I got a room in the guesthouse where Cathy lives. It's quite nice. Except for the chicken (well, rooster) who crows to let everyone know its three hours before dawn. Fucking chicken. The neighbours are going to wake up to find a dead chicken (rooster) one of these days. They'll probably think it's died of SARS or Avian Bird Flu, or even Pig Flu, unless they look closely at the big fat strangle marks around its neck.
I had a banana/coffee smoothie. It was fucking disgusting. I feel like vomiting now. Don't ever have a banana/coffee smoothie.