Jan 1st, 2012, Luang Prabang, Sampo

So, the year 2012 is upon us! We had a very interesting new years eve. But let's start from the beginning.

A lot of people do the trip Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang (henceforth LPB) overland. Basically that means sitting one day on a bus and two days on a small boat floating down the Mekong river, with an overnight stay in a little place called Pakbeng. Because we're fancypants, we decided to save time and fly instead. Those who know me know that I despise flying, but even I preferred a one-hour flight to a three-day bus/boat trip.

Our taxi ride from the the LPB airport to our hostel§ provided us with an interesting introduction to Lao culture. Our minivan was slowly crossing an extremely narrow bridge when suddenly its right front tire hit one of the iron bars on the side of the bridge. By a huge coincidence, the bar moved, flipped over and the car's front tire lodged itself very tightly inside it. We were stuck for at least half an hour. Several cars behind us had to back down because the bridge was too narrow for them to pass us, and needless to say, all of this caused a huge traffic jam. Eventually some guys from the taxi company showed up with a second car jack and some planks, with which the car was lifted in the air and the bar fell off. The interesting thing about this whole sequence was that not one person in the line in front and behind us honked or showed any other kind of anger, annoyance or displeasure during all this time. If anything, people were curious to see what was the problem. I can't imagine what the noise level would've been like if something like this happened in, say, southern Europe.



Anyhow, we eventually got to our (very cheap) hostel, where a pretty rowdy new year eve's pre-party was just taking off. Naturally we joined in. Later in the evening almost everyone headed to a club called Utopia, but we stayed a bit longer at the hostel with some other travellers. When we finally took off, we found out that no one really knew where Utopia was. Needless to say, we got a little lost on the way, but this turned out to be a blessing in a disguise. I don't know how it happened, but we accidentally crashed a local family's new years party. I felt a little uncomfortable showing up uninvited like that, so me and Olli left the other guys there and took off quite soon, only to run into a bunch of Lao language students having their own party next door. They welcomed us with open arms and offered us beer and food. Some of them spoke pretty good English too, and before too long they were teaching us the intricate choreography of a Lao group dance. And like this, the year 2011 came to an end without us even noticing it when it happened.

By the way, we did end up in this Utopia place later. It was a huge outdoors club and in all honesty a pretty good one. It was also extremely full and 100% of the people there were westerners. We had a good time there too, but the time we spent with the locals earlier was what made the evening truly unforgettable.



Thanks to our nightly endeavors we have spent today virtually in a coma, but we still managed to walk around LPB quite a bit. Due to its unique history and culture, LPB is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The town is small but has a lot of charm and a nice, relaxed atmosphere. It has a rich history, lots of old temples and french colonialism has also left its marks on the place. I'm under the impression that LPB used to be a little bit isolated and hard to reach, but ever since it became possible to fly here, it has attracted a lot of tourists. This can be seen especially on the main street, which is full of semi-fancypant restaurants filled with western people of all ages. I never expected Laos to be so touristy, but I guess things will be a little different when we start heading south.

Our plan now is to visit some waterfalls tomorrow and some temples on Tuesday, before catching a night bus to Vientiane. I heard that another couple of ugly Finnish guys are heading there as well. Maybe we'll meet them and have a Beer Lao. For the mothers out there: we're in good health and Olli has recovered from his earlier “minor setbacks” very nicely. He's also eating a packet of chocolate cookies every day, which is a sure sign things are back to normal.