Laos is a seriously laid back country

..................I keep on losing days. I get up ever so busy for 15 minutes and then the day is over. 

Many of you, if not all will be relieved to see that this week’s update is blissfully short, compared to the rambling epistles of the last couple of weeks. I try to keep them to less than a page but it’s very hard. Rambling and babbling.

In any case, this week I have a problem well two really. I know I know I‘m turning into one of those needy friends who only comes calling when there is a problem.

We have all been to Blackpool or Benidorm and even Southwold. We have all seen what happens when a wonderful place gets a great reputation as a holiday destination. Floods of people turn up. Family-run places are swept away, replaced by big tour operators who will build multi-storey hotels with air-con and TVs in every room. The golden arches and Starbucks arrive. The only food on the menu in the restaurants will be egg and chips and pizza. The only spicy sauce available will be tangy Heinz ketchup. Then it’s the rocky road to stag and hen weekends. I’m only half  joking, read some of the stats on the south of Thailand. Apparently, we leave something like 50,000 tonnes of rubbish a day.

Problem number one: Should I lie and tell you that the place described below is a ghastly place? Alternatively, tell you the truth then come home and bump you off one by one like professor Plum in the library?  When I take the stand at the Old Bailey, I could say I did it as part of a radical new conservation plan.  Ala big brother  - You decide… read on and be done away with or skip the next three paragraphs.

This place, Nong Khiew, is almost too out of the ordinary to describe. I am writing this to you as I sit on my balcony looking out across a river at a handful of ramshackle huts on the opposite bank. I can hear cockerels chatting to each other up and down the valley. The sun is just coming up over the mountain behind me, lighting up the tree-covered valleys and mountains in front of me. It is a very tight little valley so as the sun rises the early morning mist is just beginning to float away. Exit the morning mist to reveal the limestone cliff-face tinged with iron ore so the mountains have a reddish hue to them. The air is cool and fresh, I can just about make out a charcoal smoky smell as people light their fires to start cooking. Add the soft sound of small motor boats going up the river and you’re just about there.

Our accommodation is a bamboo hut on stilts costing the princely sum of £3.20 a night. When you turn the lights out you think you’re sleeping under the stars cos the bamboo weave allows so much light in. Yesterday we woke up to see elephants marching past our window. Laos cuisine is much the same as Thai cuisine, so we’re in heaven on that score too. The average meal with beer is costing about £2.75 each.

Problem number two is: How the hell, are we ever going to leave? John and Lesley have already decided to extend their visas so that they can enjoy a little more time here. I am supposed to be off to Cambodia in a couple of weeks and so far the rest of Laos is just as beautiful and chilled. What am I gonna do? 

Let me know which option of the options you choose so I can start a list.

Ta ta.

By Ali Gordon

The Tyranny of Pedantry ....by Ali Gordon (Oh, You have angered Ali now. Especially you Jim Gilbey)

Week 9 

The tyranny of pedantry 

Or 

Retractions and corrections 

This week’s update is dedicated to the pedants (you know who you are), out there who want to take issue with the artistic license I have used over the past 9 weeks. 

It has been brought to my attention that The Great Wall of China may not actually be visible from space, see blog entry on 'Walls and Warriors'. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that I incorrectly used the word illicit when I should have used the word elicit, see email border control. 

I would like to offer my apologies for what appears to have been some irresponsible and reckless reporting of the not so great wall of China, and it’s proportions. Had I known that Mr Picky Pants & Mrs Pinickety Knickers were going to show such a keen interest in my writing I would certainly have asked Faber & Faber to proof read all my submissions. As it is you will need to accept my ‘umble [sic] apology for any psychological trauma that may have been caused.  

I would like to withdraw both articles and resubmit them so that they now read as follows:-  

Walls and warriors 

The Great Wall of China is very big.  

Border Control 

The Chinese border control police looked at my passport for a long time. 

I hope this set of retractions and corrections is satisfactory and meets with your approval. You may also want to consider getting out a little bit more. On the other hand it’s flattering to think that someone out there is actually reading this stuff. 

To all other readers, normal service will be resumed next week complete with exaggerations, hyperbole and embellishments. 

I’m off to Cambodia next. I’ll be traveling alone so I just can’t wait to see how I get on with my passport at that border crossing. 

Take care folks.

An English woman, a Scotsman and a black woman......by Ali Gordon

So as I was saying:-

An english woman
A scotsman
and a black person hand their passports in at border control....................

Border control Chinese style

I’ll admit that after 10 hours on a sleeper bus then 3 hours waiting for the next bus then 2 hours on another bus to the actual border I probably didn’t look my best. However I looked no worse than my two shipmates Lesley and John who handed their passports over and had them returned within seconds. Both of them were waved through with the sort of happy gay abandon one normally sees at the entrance to a village fete.

My passport however seemed to illicit a different response. I can’t imagine why. I was immediately ushered into a room and directed to sit down. I could see was that my passport was being held up next to a computer screen and compared to lots of photo fits. The pages were being thoroughly examined and the visa stamps checked and checked again. 5 Guys gathered around the screen to look at the photo fits and occasionally one of them would glance over his shoulder and look at me. It was about this time that I noticed how loudly the clock was ticking and started to recall scenes from Midnight express.

The chap holding my passport came over to ask if I had my driving license. No. Goodness me he seemed very muscular and what was that unsightly bruise on the back of his left hand? My passport left the room and came back in the hands of a chap who had obviously done very well at scouts because he had a lot of badges on his chest. He didn’t look much older than 15 either.

Just as I was considering how Tim Robbins got out of that prison in The Shawshank Redemption, I heard a commotion going on outside involving familiar voices. Those of you who know Lesley will know that she can get a little feisty at times. Those of you who know John know not to make him angry. The Tibetans could learn a thing or two from John. Eventually the border control police came to plead with me to ask them to calm down and leave the building. They had two hopes with that; Bob hope and no Hope. Now they had an angry Scotsman and a fiery Cornish woman on their hands. I wanted to tell them that they had brought this on themselves. British winters didn’t seem so bad by this point.

In the end, it looked as though they decided amongst themselves that the only way to get Lesley and John out of their faces was to let me go. After another brusque exchange of words it seemed to me that they were in rather a rush see the back of me and so without further ado, they let me go.

Week 7 - Help I am a Westerner....Get me out of here!! By Ali Gordon

My God it's hot in Asia right now. I must apologise for being a little late with this update. But shock horror!! We went into an area without internet connections.

Anyway enough of my troubles I hear that we are all off to hell in and handcart in the UK with students rioting this week. Anyway I'm sure the lovely autumn weather climate is doing much to cheer your mood.
 

This was the last week before our Chinese Visa ran out so into the deep south we go. We picked out a mountain village called Yuanyang. This place is described in ‘The Lonely Planet’ as: “A grubby but friendly place ideally located in the mountains for exploring the terraced rice fields known locally as the dragon’s backbone”

Ooooh, sounds good, we envisaged sweeping views across the valleys and a restful stopping place before the long complicated slog down to the border. “Grubby” well  yes Yuanyang certainly was a wee bit tatty and scruffy. The keep China tidy campaign hasn’t really taken hold of China yet. But I don’t mind a bit of grubbiness me............ leave it, just leave it. OK?

“Friendly” yes we met some very personable young students who wanted to practise their English and spent a couple of hours chatting with them. “Mountains” now this is where it starts to get a bit trickier. Mountains of course, mean altitude, cloud, very low temperatures, rain, fog and low to no visibility. In this relatively remote part of China the torrential rain meant potential landslides and treacherous roads. At one stage, the town square turned into a Norwegian fjord.

I would love to be able to confirm that Yuanyang is “ideally situated to explore the terraced rice fields” indeed every restaurant and shop we went into had stunning pictures of these rice fields. I have to admit they did look impressive. However, the truth is that for most of the time we were there I could barely see my hand in front of my face.  Add to that one hotel room that smelt of raw sewage and another with a busted bed and well things were looking a bit ...... Well, Help!! I’m a westerner get me out of here!!

After 2 and a half days of continual rain, we gave up and boarded a bus 8 hours back to where we’d come from to catch another bus for 10 hours to get us to the border. A round trip of approximately 30 plus hours, if you include all the little stops and border control. Don’t worry folks one of the buses was a sleeper bus. Passengers pay a premium to get a nice comfy bed to “sleep” in. Only thing is the driver and his co-pilot keep themselves awake by chatting loudly all through the night. They also have sole control of the air horn. Air horns a piece of modern technology that I personally feel should be referred to the United Nations to be discussed alongside cluster bombs and mustard gas.

Nevertheless, after all of that we arrive neatly and in good time at the border crossing. What could possibly go wrong now. Well, I’ve got a good one for you this week. It goes like this, an English woman, a Scotsman and a black woman hand in their passports at border control…….

I’m sure you can imagine but if you want to see the punch line read the attachment. Same shit just a different country.  (This story in the next installment!)

In any case Goodbye China, Hello Laos.

Cleaver Ideas from China (NOT) by Ali Gordon

My, my what a busy time we’ve been having here on the other side of the planet. Well first off I need to thank everyone for their utterly unhelpful words of support which were of no consolation after our hairdressing/sheep shearing adventure.

Anyway we managed to get out of  lovely Pingyao  by the  a hairs on our chinney chin chin cos that was all we had left. Time to head south. Right then first quiz question of the day. Any of you (except Chris Horner) ever heard of a chap called Qin Shi Huang? That’s Emperor Qin Shi Huang to you of the Qin dynasty- no, didn’t think so. Well this fella is responsible for the start of The Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Warriors; possibly two of the three most hair-brained ideas known to humanity. I’ll come on to the third a little later. In any case, you’d think you’d remember a bloke responsible for the only man made structure visible from space. Not to mention the fact that he got it done over 2000 years ago.

Personally, I think Mr Qin had some self-image and confidence issues. Let’s start with the wall; I won’t lie to you the Great Wall of China is exactly that, Great. It’s a magnificent sight up hill and down dale, round will’s mother then all the way up hill and down dale again for several thousand miles.  Back before Christ zipped up his sandals and started spreading peace love and eternal damnation in the holy land, people round these parts tended to be a bit grumpy with each other. Consequently, if you didn’t want your head in your hands to play with, a good sturdy wall was often the best way to keep out unwanted visitors. The  aforementioned Pingyao is a wonderful case in point, however that lovely city is too closely associated with the trauma of my last trip to the barbers (see email Houston we have a problem), for me to spend time talking about it here. Let’s move on. Anyway after all that effort, stone me if the first marauding warlord who rocked up didn’t have a quick whip round and bribe a guard to get in, how rubbish is that?

Not content with building the world’s most useless defensive wall EQ, as I like to call him, decides that he wants some toy soldiers to play with after he’s pegged it. What is it with you boys eh? He don’t build just one or two. Oh no he’s got to have  8000 give or take a few, all set out like a big kid’s model army, complete with weapons, horses, chariots the lot. EQ wasn’t big on sharing so he had the whole ensemble buried with him. See what I mean? Issues. He didn’t have much luck with his toy soldiers either, first the tombs were flooded then burnt then robbed a bit rubbish all round really.

This brings me neatly to the third most hair-brained idea ever and the second quiz question of the day. In a country where the staple diet is either noodles or rice mixed in with finely chopped vegetables all swimming about in a very fine broth or black bean sauce WTF are chopsticks all about? Have you seen the size of the average grain of rice recently? And now I come to think of it how helpful is a chopstick going to be with a spare rib or a pork chop? Surely someone somewhere is having a giraffe.   Fuck knows how they feed 1.4 billion (yes you read it right 1.4billion) people everyday with chopsticks. If this lot were using a knife and fork they would be half the world’s population rather than a quarter. In answer to your question yes Chinese people really do eat anything dog, eyeballs, testicles,  intestines, maggots, toads, snakes  intestines anything. The last 3 items are available live in your local market- Nice. 

We’ve had to  keep an eye on John and make sure he doesn’t nod off unexpectedly and end up in a pot somewhere served up as steamed Scotsman in chilli sauce.

Loads more to tell you but have to save it for another email. I’ll let you get back to work now ha ha.

Come to think of it where is John??……..John??.......John??

A Right Pair a Honeys!

The spayed cat look is all the rage - says Ali Gordon

I suppose the truth of it was that things were going too well.

Trans-Siberian - wonderful
Beijing - busy but great
Great Wall of China - delightful
Journey down to ancient walled city of Pingyao - tricky but mission accomplished
Pingyao itself charming

Everything was more or less going to plan.  I blame Lesley and John.  Well, when you consider on previous trips they have racked up the following calamities:-

1 stroke (2004)
2 near misses with rabies (2003)
A very nasty incident with a happy pizza (2004)
An unsolicited visit to a poor Vietnamese family who only wanted to have their Sunday lunch in peace (2004)
Infected leg and foot (2006)
Smashed face and glasses (2009)

I won't go on but you can see that these people have got previous in terms of catastrophes and disasters.  Nevertheless, as I said, things had gone to plan.  To be frank with you I was therefore off my guard.

We'd been having such a lovely day exploring this idyllic 800 year old walled city.  But we'd had enough of temples and ancient family homes so we thought we'd break the day up with some of the more mundane aspects of life.

As you know I like to run a tidy ship and I am very particular about my appearance.  I've been away now for one month and after a very lovely but not overly hygienic stay on the Trans-Siberian railway it was time to get my hair cut so that I could face the rest of China looking my ravishing best.

What could be simpler?  For me a trip to the hairdresser does not involve a six hour visit with complex treatments.  Furthermore you really cannot go wrong with a set of clippers and a No. 1 all over. Can you?

When we entered the shop a group of local youths came in too - to have a gawk at the 3 Westerners. I sat down pointed to the clippers made the sign (I thought) for number 1 all over.  The young man with the clippers in his hand started off at a quick lick.  Before I could shout "Shear me a sheep Bruce" I had been shaved completely bald down one side of my head.  I looked around for some commiserations from my companions.  Pah!!  All I could detect from the back of the shop was vulgar laughter and unsupportive sniggering.  Come to think of it, all the staff in the shop and their mates were having a good laugh too.

Many photos were taken.

What to do now?  Shave the whole lot and be bald for 3 - 4 weeks or go around looking like I'd had a serious operation on my brain - not too far from the truth really.  I went for the latter hoping for the sympathy vote.  Before the haircut a lot of people were staring, now they are staring and laughing.

Lesley was next under the knife..... er, I mean clippers. Oh dear he did not know when to stop cuttung. Strange she hasn't taken her hat off all day today.  John sat down last and came out with a perfectly normal haircut.

Consequently, whilst Lesley's is a tad short and John's perfectly normal, I have been left looking like the last sheep at the end of the shearing contest!!

And you can keep your comments to yourself about what I look like thank you very much!