George the Worm

STATS: Day count=270; theft count=1; rip-off count=1; tourist screw-up count=5.5; Chris’ photo count=2246; Emma’s photo count=120; touch-typing char/min=247; Poi skills mastered since last post: None

Our last two weeks at the bear rescue centre were busy, but  relatively uneventful. Our regular tuk-tuk ride continued to arrive 30 minutes late every day, we spent the days painting, making impressive contraptions, supposedly as ‘bear enrichment’ though it certainly contributed to ‘volunteer enrichment’, hiding food for bears to find - usually a lot quicker than it took us to hide it in the first place, mounting posters and generally looking at, and looking after, the bears. A cut bear paw caused a stir, a lunchtime spent searching an enclosure for any offending nails or glass, and two weeks confined inside for Deng, a rather large male bear, while his paw healed.

Emma reinforced the opinion that she is drawn to those less fortunate by forming a bond with the blind and hydrocephalic bear cub, Champa, but it was very rewarding to see her far more active, alert and curious at the end of our stay than at the start (Champa that is, not Emma) for which we, especially Emma, can take a little credit, I believe.

Having spent 20 minutes wandering round the Laos equivalent of a garden centre to pick up some pretty potted flowers to make the rescue centre look a little more attractive to potential passing donors, Emma and Jane (one of the rescue centre managers) proudly returned to the tuk-tuk bearing orchids and stunning red blooms. Only 30 minutes later as we arrived at the rescue centre was it noticed that they had inadvertently purchased plastic flowers, rather than real ones. (Just to note – the photo is of REAL flowers, not plastic ones.)

Evenings and weekends were our opportunity to explore the town of Luang Prabang. The herbal steam room was visited quite often, and was surprisingly refreshing, given that it was hardly cold outside (still in the low to mid 30s here). An early Saturday morning spent helping local youngsters with their English in the excellent ‘Big Brother Mouse’ organisation was also rewarding, though hard work for Emma, as a member of her group was keen that she tried to explain words like “among” and “around” without enough understanding of English to grasp any of the contextual sentences that Emma tried. Still, neither of us had the challenge of another volunteer there, who was talking to a group of medical students and had to try to explain words like “venereal disease” and “haemorrhoids” to them. I’m sure that one was a set-up on their part!

I got closer to nature with a leech bite (harmless and painless, but bleeds profusely), an encounter with a snake which was in the process of eating a frog, live, and therefore not interested in biting me, and being (affectionately) molested by four bear cubs as I tried to hang something in their cage.

I also acquired a pet worm. Not your common-or-garden worm that we all know and love, but a nematode hookworm that has the rather annoying habit of burrowing under your skin. They live on dogs and cats, primarily, and cant survive longer than a few weeks in humans, but during that time they apparently just wander around just beneath the surface of your skin, leaving a trail behind. It all sounds pretty gruesome, not helped by the medical terms for the affliction - “creeping eruption” or “cutaneous larva migrans”, and admittedly Emma is none-too-impressed with my new friend, but I find it quite fascinating. I’ve named it George. Unfortunately for George we will be off to get some medicine to put an end to him tomorrow (though that will take a few days to work). I wont post a picture of George, not because it would put you off your tea and biscuit, but because what you are imagining is probably far more spectacular than the reality and I wouldn’t want to dampen your creative thoughts.

George hitched a ride at the end of our stint at the rescue centre, ironically around the time that we were giving the bears their monthly worming dose, but I didn’t discover him until we had reached our next stop – Vang Vieng. The cheap, “local” bus to Vang Vieng seems to be the only thing in Laos to run on time, since we arrived at the bus station 10 minutes after it had left, so we had to get the far-too-touristy-for-us “VIP express air-con bus” instead, for an inflated price. The air-con didn’t work, the bus made numerous stops for pick-ups and we didn’t feel all that important, so I think the bus is misnamed. We did get a free bottle of water each though.

Vang Vieng is where people go tubing. We know this because in the last 9 months, and especially in the last few weeks, we have seen numerous young westerners wandering around in the travellers uniform of Billabong shorts and an “In the tubing Vang Vieng” vest top. Yep, the words don’t make sense to us either.

Tubing in Vang Vieng consists of sitting in a large tractor inner-tube a few km upriver from the town and slowly (or quickly) drifting to town on the river, stopping regularly at bars, rope swings and other such distractions on the way. Or so I’m told. Given that we could only really spend a day and a half in the town, we didn’t want to spend it with a bunch of drunk westerners in rubber-rings. So we didn’t earn the right to wear a “In the tubing Vang Vieng” vest top. Shame. I suspect that it is actually good fun, but I also expect the experience, much like the town, would be somewhat spoilt by the yobbish culture that surrounds it. I know I’m sounding old, but it’s the lack of respect shown to the locals, and the local culture that we dislike. Typified perfectly by the sight of two songthaews (large tuk-tuks) – one filled with half naked and loudly singing westerners with their big yellow tubes on the roof, and the other filled with fully clothed, quiet locals, looking on. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of that exact scene, but this picture should give you an idea.

Instead of tubing, we spent our day wandering around the town, which was blissfully quiet during the day (made up for at night!) – probably as most tourists were either floating on the river, getting slowly drunk, or recovering from the night before. We visited an impressive cave system nearby which we didn’t want to leave as it was wonderfully cool inside.

Our Laos visas running out, and our desire to be home for Christmas, means the next two weeks will be a rush around Laos, unfortunately. After a very brief time in Vang Vieng we got a minibus (which drove around town picking up people, only to dump everyone at the edge of town to be transferred to another almost identical minibus) to the Laos capital city, Vientiane. Initial impressions are good – this must be the quietest capital city on the planet!