LUANG PRABANG, Laos - Zack woke up this morning at 11 a.m. with an announcement.
"I'm too sick to take the bus tonight," he said, and then went right back to sleep.
With an unexpected day in the former capital of Laos, I rented a bicycle and went in search of unseen corners. I found evidence that contradicted my previous blog about Chinese influence in Laos. I started with a destination, but after passing scores of homes with red tin roofs, roadside stands selling baguette sandwiches and school children walking back toward country villages, I saw a sign for the northern bus station. Since that's where I am planning to catch the bus to Kunming, I decided to go for a pedal.
Luang Prabang, like most of Northern Laos, is hilly. The landscape here contours in a way I've yet to see elsewhere, with long, tree-covered hills rising a couple hundred feet in all directions. Sometimes they come to a point, or rise steeply to form a small cliff. It is beautiful year-round, but I think especially lovely now in the height of the rainy season.
My Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring claims that the bus station is four kilometers outside of town. I pedalled steadily for almost an hour before reaching the dirt parking lot, and that was at steady pace. I felt I handled the hills with aplomb, not having to get out and walk my cheap Chinese bike to the top once. But yet, I apparently set a land speed record for slowest pedal through the Laotian countryside.
At the bus station I found a helpful and English-speaking ticket agent. He told me what the travel agents in town had told me about tickets to China was frankly bullshit.
"There's only one bus a week," he said. "And sometimes there's not enough people and it doesn't come."
So much for those improved transportation links between Laos and the Red Giant. Getting to Kunming still requires three bus rides and a taxi ride across the border. In other words, it's a third world border crossing.
I grabbed a bowl of pho, Vietnamese noodle soup, and started back toward town. The wet season is beautiful, but there's the problem of rain. I made it about halfway back, over the largest hill and past a hilltop golden stumpa before the sky cracked open and started ruining my copy of P.J. O'Rourke's "All the Problems in the World." I sought refuge in the nearest roadside building.
It was a non-descript building, a bit larger than most with a parking lot out front and a sign that said, "Bowling Club." In Asia, where English is not always standard, I don't take English signs at face value. Bowling Club could be a nightclub, a cafe, a guesthouse or a place where people played snooker. Here signs don't have to tell the truth. But I knew this place, because it's rather famous around town. It's a bowling alley, the only place that serves alcohol after 11 p.m. Zack went here on a bender a couple nights back after several shots of Lao Lao Whiskey. I retreated home with a nasty case of the hiccups. I missed clandestine drinking at a bowling alley thanks to the hiccups. You can't make this shit up.
I arrived at four o'clock and there were no customers. There were plenty of staff, all getting ready for the night ahead. This involved unloading truckloads of Beer Lao and stacking them behind the bar. Massive quanities of the beer, hundreds and hundreds of bottles.
With nothing to do, I decided to play a game. It's 10,000 kip a game, including shoes and thin legging socks. The shoes were standard red, white and blue American floppers and the balls were also made back at home. But these place was built by Chinese. "Bao Ling Qiu Guang Lin Huan Ying Nin," was written in letters above the eight lanes. Why it was written in pinyin and not characters I'm not sure. Maybe to appeal to foreigners, the Chinese-speaking but not character reading kind. I'm not sure, but it means "Welcome to the Bowling Alley," or "Bowling Welcomes You," in more direct Chinglish.
Chinese-made means cheap in most places, and I suspect the Chinese won the bid to make this place because they cut a couple corners. The electronic scoring machines used only a couple colors, like early Atari game consoles. All the lanes were made with the same cheap wood, and it had all been polished. This means that the bowling lanes were as slippery as the place where the bowling releases the ball. The first set I nearly landed ass on the ground.
It's strange how quickly you finish a game bowling by yourself. I wonder if the author of "Bowling Alone," a seminal work of sociology, ever tried it. It's not bad really, and the best part is no one has to know you bowled a 72, unless you blog it.
"I'm too sick to take the bus tonight," he said, and then went right back to sleep.
With an unexpected day in the former capital of Laos, I rented a bicycle and went in search of unseen corners. I found evidence that contradicted my previous blog about Chinese influence in Laos. I started with a destination, but after passing scores of homes with red tin roofs, roadside stands selling baguette sandwiches and school children walking back toward country villages, I saw a sign for the northern bus station. Since that's where I am planning to catch the bus to Kunming, I decided to go for a pedal.
Luang Prabang, like most of Northern Laos, is hilly. The landscape here contours in a way I've yet to see elsewhere, with long, tree-covered hills rising a couple hundred feet in all directions. Sometimes they come to a point, or rise steeply to form a small cliff. It is beautiful year-round, but I think especially lovely now in the height of the rainy season.
My Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring claims that the bus station is four kilometers outside of town. I pedalled steadily for almost an hour before reaching the dirt parking lot, and that was at steady pace. I felt I handled the hills with aplomb, not having to get out and walk my cheap Chinese bike to the top once. But yet, I apparently set a land speed record for slowest pedal through the Laotian countryside.
At the bus station I found a helpful and English-speaking ticket agent. He told me what the travel agents in town had told me about tickets to China was frankly bullshit.
"There's only one bus a week," he said. "And sometimes there's not enough people and it doesn't come."
So much for those improved transportation links between Laos and the Red Giant. Getting to Kunming still requires three bus rides and a taxi ride across the border. In other words, it's a third world border crossing.
I grabbed a bowl of pho, Vietnamese noodle soup, and started back toward town. The wet season is beautiful, but there's the problem of rain. I made it about halfway back, over the largest hill and past a hilltop golden stumpa before the sky cracked open and started ruining my copy of P.J. O'Rourke's "All the Problems in the World." I sought refuge in the nearest roadside building.
It was a non-descript building, a bit larger than most with a parking lot out front and a sign that said, "Bowling Club." In Asia, where English is not always standard, I don't take English signs at face value. Bowling Club could be a nightclub, a cafe, a guesthouse or a place where people played snooker. Here signs don't have to tell the truth. But I knew this place, because it's rather famous around town. It's a bowling alley, the only place that serves alcohol after 11 p.m. Zack went here on a bender a couple nights back after several shots of Lao Lao Whiskey. I retreated home with a nasty case of the hiccups. I missed clandestine drinking at a bowling alley thanks to the hiccups. You can't make this shit up.
I arrived at four o'clock and there were no customers. There were plenty of staff, all getting ready for the night ahead. This involved unloading truckloads of Beer Lao and stacking them behind the bar. Massive quanities of the beer, hundreds and hundreds of bottles.
With nothing to do, I decided to play a game. It's 10,000 kip a game, including shoes and thin legging socks. The shoes were standard red, white and blue American floppers and the balls were also made back at home. But these place was built by Chinese. "Bao Ling Qiu Guang Lin Huan Ying Nin," was written in letters above the eight lanes. Why it was written in pinyin and not characters I'm not sure. Maybe to appeal to foreigners, the Chinese-speaking but not character reading kind. I'm not sure, but it means "Welcome to the Bowling Alley," or "Bowling Welcomes You," in more direct Chinglish.
Chinese-made means cheap in most places, and I suspect the Chinese won the bid to make this place because they cut a couple corners. The electronic scoring machines used only a couple colors, like early Atari game consoles. All the lanes were made with the same cheap wood, and it had all been polished. This means that the bowling lanes were as slippery as the place where the bowling releases the ball. The first set I nearly landed ass on the ground.
It's strange how quickly you finish a game bowling by yourself. I wonder if the author of "Bowling Alone," a seminal work of sociology, ever tried it. It's not bad really, and the best part is no one has to know you bowled a 72, unless you blog it.
After the game I went over to a table where a older man and two young staff were sitting. From the alley I heard echoes of Chinese, "hao," "wei," "lao" and other syllables. I wanted to practice the language and ask why only the bowling alley is allowed to serve alcohol long into the Mekong night.
"Ni hao."
No response.
"Zenmeyang?"
No response.
"Hello?"
"Hello."
"Chinese?"
No response.
"China?"
No.
My thought about the spread of Chinese in Laos was wrong. I pushed off from the bowling alley without discovering its secrets. Chinese money went into building the place, but whoever coordinated the deal obviously is not working Tuesday afternoons. I made it back into town in time to meet Chris and Veronica, the Australian-New Zealand couple from the tuk-tuk accident a few days back for curry. Delicious curry.
So to summarize my afternoon bicycle ride, getting between China and its neighbors is still rather difficult, and just because something is Made in China, doesn't mean it speaks Chinese.
So to summarize my afternoon bicycle ride, getting between China and its neighbors is still rather difficult, and just because something is Made in China, doesn't mean it speaks Chinese.
