The 50,000 kip question
We layed low in Luang Prabang for 3 days, sampling its various restaurants and poking around a few Wats in town and across the river.
It's a pleasant enough place, but on its fringes you notice the glaring gap between those who are benefitting from the tourist economy and those that are not.
Laos doesn't feel like a communist country so far - more like a remote province of Thailand. On the street, free-enterprise appears to be alive and well. In fact you can pay for anything in Thai baht (or dollars) in addition to the local currency which is kip. There are over 10,000 kip to the dollar, and the largest bill we have seen is the 20,000 kip note - the largest note is 50,000 kip, but these are practically non-existent. When I cashed $60 in travelers checks at the bank the other day I was handed a 1-inch wad of 120 5,000 notes wrapped in a rubber band.
To make matters worse the 1,000, 2,000 and 10,000 notes look very similar and you end up with so many notes in your wallet that it quickly becomes impossible to figure out how much you really have left short of removing it all and counting it out carefully.
We caught a minibus out of Luang Prabang and drove through the mountains to Vang Vieng, a dusty little collection of dirt roads and wooden buildings by the side of the river, seemingly entirely populated by young backpackers.
The streets are filled with guest-houses, internet cafes and rustic restaurants with raised seating platforms with pillows and low tables usually with one or more large televisions.
Walking down the street you see dozens of westerners reclining by tables watching back-to-back episodes of Friends or various blockbuster movies while sipping away on a Lao beer and munching pizza. It's an incongruous sight having just passed through villages 50km away that were full of thatch and bamboo huts and children running around in dirty rags.
Each restaurant also offers most of their dishes in a 'special' or 'happy' version which means prepared with pot or in some cases opium. There's even a little disco. It's the quintissential backpacker party town - cheap, convenient, with all the backpacker amenities, and a beautiful setting.
Vang Vieng is surrounded by craggy mountains with crumbly, sheer limestone cliffs clothed in a tangle of jungle. During the day you can take your book down to the river and plonk yourself down on a bamboo platform by the water and sunbathe for as long as you want so long as you buy a drink or two.
Alternatively you can rent an inner tube and have a tuk-tuk drop you off up-river and spend the day floating back to town, stopping periodically at makeshift bars to buy another beer.
Many of these have constructed elaborate swings or jumping platforms out of bamboo (some 10m high) to increase business.
Of course, I had a lot of fun on these.
It's a pleasant enough place, but on its fringes you notice the glaring gap between those who are benefitting from the tourist economy and those that are not.
Laos doesn't feel like a communist country so far - more like a remote province of Thailand. On the street, free-enterprise appears to be alive and well. In fact you can pay for anything in Thai baht (or dollars) in addition to the local currency which is kip. There are over 10,000 kip to the dollar, and the largest bill we have seen is the 20,000 kip note - the largest note is 50,000 kip, but these are practically non-existent. When I cashed $60 in travelers checks at the bank the other day I was handed a 1-inch wad of 120 5,000 notes wrapped in a rubber band.
To make matters worse the 1,000, 2,000 and 10,000 notes look very similar and you end up with so many notes in your wallet that it quickly becomes impossible to figure out how much you really have left short of removing it all and counting it out carefully.
We caught a minibus out of Luang Prabang and drove through the mountains to Vang Vieng, a dusty little collection of dirt roads and wooden buildings by the side of the river, seemingly entirely populated by young backpackers.
The streets are filled with guest-houses, internet cafes and rustic restaurants with raised seating platforms with pillows and low tables usually with one or more large televisions.
Walking down the street you see dozens of westerners reclining by tables watching back-to-back episodes of Friends or various blockbuster movies while sipping away on a Lao beer and munching pizza. It's an incongruous sight having just passed through villages 50km away that were full of thatch and bamboo huts and children running around in dirty rags.
Each restaurant also offers most of their dishes in a 'special' or 'happy' version which means prepared with pot or in some cases opium. There's even a little disco. It's the quintissential backpacker party town - cheap, convenient, with all the backpacker amenities, and a beautiful setting.
Vang Vieng is surrounded by craggy mountains with crumbly, sheer limestone cliffs clothed in a tangle of jungle. During the day you can take your book down to the river and plonk yourself down on a bamboo platform by the water and sunbathe for as long as you want so long as you buy a drink or two.
Alternatively you can rent an inner tube and have a tuk-tuk drop you off up-river and spend the day floating back to town, stopping periodically at makeshift bars to buy another beer.
Many of these have constructed elaborate swings or jumping platforms out of bamboo (some 10m high) to increase business.
Of course, I had a lot of fun on these.
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