wang babang: wassup dude?
Laos:Luang Prabang:PlaNet Computers
well, been in wang babang as my buddy vernor calls it for a few days now. what a chill place. there isn’t much to see or do and thats precisely the charm, besides the more than charming simple and colorful french architecture and cafes (coffee here rules). motored up to the buddha caves 1.5 hrs up the mekong and wasn’t so impressed. wished the boat here had stopped for a few minutes on the way in, its hardly worth the journey. on the way we stopped at a little village, or rather, hill tribe consumer mall if you will, to be presented with ethnic trinkets and junklets that no one wanted…they do make whiskey lao-lao here however, which the swedish dudes and i were compelled to taste at 9:30am…and its not surprising to report that it was the nastiest of goat dung smelling satanic swills ever imbibed by yours truly, is somewhere in the alcoholic realm of golden grain i imagine and literally sent prickly sparks to my finger-tips for five sustained and derelict morning minutes. that was just a sip… i passed, but the swedes couldn’t let the bargain be passed by at 5000 kip per bottle (roughly over 50 cents). money here is drug dealer type hilarious, 8000 kip per dollar, the largest bills are 5000 kip so you exchange 50usd and get a giant miami vice wad of cash. so all the falang westerners have these bags of money toting around… on the way back from the caves a jamacian colored speedboat comes from nowhere and splays us from just few feet away, it was humourous, all of us getting soaked by this lao jokester, but our boat driver was pissed and in this very asian-style subdued way cussed the guy out when we later passed him. good laughs.
later on i climbed the transylvania mountain in the middle of the city where some wats are and met a bunch of chatty novice monks, they spoke good english, and when i told them i was from america the ringleader reflexively responded, “wasssup, dude”. it made my day and had us all in tears…we talked for a good bit and i inquired about the monk boot camp and all that was required, they are theraveda buddhists as opposed to tibetan mahayana, which is more literal and strict to the scripture and disciplined. they cant eat after 12pm, no marriage, etc. i play them hill tribe music from thailand that i recorded on the minidisc and they like it very much ( the minidisc recorder i think is what they really dug )
in the afternoon i rented a bicycle glued together entirely and only with bad karma…made it to some far end of the outskirts when both the seat broke and pedal fell off at the same time, perhaps i am the karmic debtor, dont really know or care, its irrelevant, im on vacation after all and cant be bothered, managed to bang things back into place just enough to make it back to the guesthouse and dump it off for repairs that could only possibly give it another few days…hey it was of italian make come to think of it…all fancy looking and shiny but a technical nightmare…whats up italy???
anyway its all good, as the proverbial dave medders echoes transcendently and practically and i stumble upon some kids performance going on at the wat down the street. turns out a french performance art ensemble with freaky brown treelike masks and elephant faced costumes miming to well known classical music…it was obvious they were french after a few moments, no one else is capable of such goofy politically tinged entertainment made for kids and adults alike. brilliant, in a pink floyd “the-wall-for-children” type way.
dinner comes along and i declare it is pizza night despite the fact that it is a tourist luxury everyone is so sick of rice that the few extra dollars is not even considered. nathan from israel and i have great conversation about philosophy and cognitive science, the limits of academia, the nature of consciousness, bohemian rapture, etc. so good to meet someone equally addicted to the analytical compulsions of philosophy… everyone drinks plenty of beerlao, we talk about Lord of the Rings and suggest a “lonely planet guide to middle earth”.
and this is wang babang…a haven for lazy, free spirits with no specific agenda or destiny…