Monday, April 03, 2006

I'm Censored! -- Laos to Southwest China

Hello!

I'm now in Guizhou province in the southwest of China with Ashley and her good friend Sarah Norton. Tomorrow we will head to the Miao village Xijiang (not pronounced like you'd expect) to spend a little less than three weeks there. I've been in China five or six days now, and spent about 8 in Laos before that. Briefly:

Laos was a nice place to visit, though I passed through in something of a rush. More or less every other day was spent in transit, though the two of these days my means of transport were a boat were quite enjoyable . . . passed through some beautiful country. I started in Vientiene, the capital-- one of the more relaxed, pleasant capital cities I've seen, as it's not a very large city. Laos only has about 6 million people, so nowhere is very crowded . . . Next stop was Pak Lai, a smallish town that never sees tourists. The ability to to get away from the more trodden path that I developed in India served me well here-- perhaps a little too well since I didn't have any sense of the culture or any knowledge of the language, especially given that very few speak English in Laos. The other problem is that town also turned out to have very little for me to do . . . a hot, dusty town by the river, whereas in the mountains there is always exploring to be done. Luang Prabang, a charming town with its fair share of Europeans there for the town's terrific mix of French and Buddhist architecture, was my next stop. Some places can handle loads of tourists and remain appealing, and this is very much the case here; I could have happily spent several more days there. By this point I was getting far enough north for things to be cooling off a little. After that it was to Nong Kiaow, a nice, quiet town, also riverside (like every place I stayed in Laos, actually). There are a group of caves here where the people from the village lived on and off for about ten years during what is called the Secret War, kind of the Laos arm of the Vietnam War that the US government refused to acknowledge for years. The caves were beautiful, but the history is appalling. I don't have time to go into detail now, but there's no doubt in my mind that for what the US military/CIA did in Laos during that time not to have gone down in history as warcrimes is a grotesque double-standard. From there it was up to a provincial capital called Udom Xai. The town is mostly just a transport hub as far as travelers are usually concerned, and same went for me-- I just ended up with an afternoon to spend until I headed to the Chinese border the next morning. However, I encountered a few monks about my age (in Laos monks are only ever young men-- it's a popular means to get an education) who were studying English. I spent the evening chatting, first at stupa (Buddhist monument) and then at their English class. It was great!

Then it was into China, which I'm enjoying a lot but I'm out of time! Oh yeah, and about being sensored-- I can't open the blog in China. I can open the bit where I write, but if you type joshstrip.blogspot.com, you get an error message. Someone must have told them what a dangerous man I am!!

Okay, Bye!
--Josh

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home