Yesterday we left Luang Prabang from the very grand new station, new train and line. It’s all part of the new Laos-China Railway project linking the Laotian capital to China. It is officially the ‘Laos-China Railway’. All of the livery has the LCR branding. Funnily the announcements in English all refer to the China-Laos Railway. You can’t really criticise this new colonialism, that train line is surely a bit better than the opium we brought to China.
We were split across the aisle in a second class compartment that would shame any train I’ve recently ridden at home. I found myself beside a Chinese man who was unusually talkative. He was well travelled and rightly fullsome in his praise of Laos and it’s people. We were just as impressed by the gently laid back atmosphere in Luang Prabang, as he was of all Laos.
He and I got to talking about our trip and the fact that we would be going to China.
We shouldn’t even be thinking too hard about China just yet, we have just over a month left in South East Asia and enough to organise. We need to get to Singapore for the 3rd of April for our flight to Beijing. We’ve had to accept that we won’t be able to go to Indonesia as planned and have abandoned the flight from there to Singapore. Now we’ll fly from Bangkok to Singapore. We aren’t even sure when that will be, with nothing booked in Vietnam except our flight into Hanoi, two nights in a hotel and an overnight train out of Hanoi ten days later. Plenty to think about.
Then this conversation, poor as his English was, it just keeps gnawing.
I always thought China would be difficult, but there was always the rinsing thought that it could turn out to be one of those places that is so fascinating that…difficulties never evaporate, but there are those times, with the right mindset, they just don’t feel as difficult as you expected.
But this conversation…
…had to take a break and sort it out.
I was sitting on a train and talking to a guy who appeared to have nothing positive to say about his own country. He’s often away travelling, but doesn’t seem as if he wants to leave. He had not one single tip, not a place we really need to visit. Unless you count:
“When they see you they’ll just ask for extortionate prices.”
or,
“Beijing is really busy, best thing would be the underground, BUT, how will you know which way to go?”
or,
“People don’t speak English.”
Today I’ve worked it out: He’s just a miserable old man. You meet miserable people young and old all over the world. Usually their really nice people. Unlike many, they’ll talk to you and you’ll come away feeling, firstly that you just met a really nice guy, then just miserable.
‘Man does hand on misery to man’.
Still, I woke up with a cloud that had nothing to do with last night’s drinks at a rooftop bar overlooking the Mekong, it was the shroud from yesterday’s train journey.
We had breakfast and went to the Post Office to send some things home. It was clean and efficient, unlike our last time in India. It didn’t involve any ‘extra payments’, no rounding down or up. We just sent our shit home like you’d send shit home.
After that we stood around outside wondering how we could get to the Buddha Park, when we were approached:
‘Taxi?’
It’s amazing how quickly instincts form and how hard they are to shake. He quoted 300, but let’s try Loca (the local equivalent of Uber). He had Loca and got there first.
‘Look cheaper than you’ as I quickly typed in my own search - over 400. I should mention we’re talking thousands here, we’re multi-millionaires in Laos! Anyway, we. all laughed and slapped each others backs. He had us, but it was a laugh and we all knew where we were going with that.
Had a great day - he took us and waited to bring us back for half the price we would have arranged with Loca. Binned Loca and arranged for him to pick us up and take us to the airport on Saturday - half the price we paid to get from the airport.
Now look!
Not a cloud in the sky!
…29th tomorrow! Wonder what Vanessa has planned?
