General Travel Tips Vol. 2

Valium and Xanax are your friends for long journeys--Valium and Xanax are sedative-hypnotics in the benzodiazapine family. I didn't even have to look that up. When you take them you will either fall asleep or drift into a pleasant daze. Either of these makes a long plane, bus, or rail trip infinitely more bearable. Most countries require a doctor's prescription (or good connection) so don't be an idiot and try to bring them across borders.

No one cares about your travel blog--By travel blog I mean a blog or series of emails where you provide pictures and long written descriptions of places you've been. It might hurt to hear this, but your family and friends will either be apathetic or bitterly jealous of your travels. Sure, there will be one person on the outer periphery of your circle of friends who seems really enthused, but let's face it, there's a reason you don't hang out with her very much.

The other thing is that this isn't the 16th century and there's nothing unique about visiting places halfway around the world. There was a time when Thailand was exotic and mysterious*, but now it's just a mass tourism destination like any other. Hell, even my sister's been there and she likes Dane Cook. Unless you're visiting North Korea or hitchhiking through Iraq, people just aren't interested.

*Check out the excellent "Temples and Elephants" written by a 19th-century Scandinavian adventurer.

Get the business card from wherever you're staying--Sometimes you can't remember the name of the place you're staying. Sometimes you're too drunk to pronounce it. Sometimes the cab driver doesn't know where it is and needs to call the front desk. You don't want to be wandering around trying to remember where you checked into a few hours ago.

Get lots of passport photos--The last time you needed passport photos you probably got the cheap set of four, used two on your paperwork, and shoved the others into a drawer. This is a mistake. Living in another country (or just travelling abroad) will burn through passport photos like a fat guy eating Cheetos. Any time you need to get some paperwork handled (including visas), you'll generally need to provide at lease a pair of photos. God help you if lose any travel documents. It's usually only marginally more expensive to get 16 (or more) photos instead of 4, so make sure you take advantage of the opportunity.

General Travel Tips Vol. 1

Here are some general travel tips I've picked up over the years. I've tried to avoid things that are well-known or just common sense.

Get the special meal--Have you ever been on a flight and wished you could get your food before everyone else? Well, you can either fly first class or request one of the special meal options when buying your ticket. If you select kosher, halal, low-sodium, etc., you get your food before they start passing out regular meals. I can't understand why more people are not aware of this. My favorite is low-sodium because it comes with a packet of salt. I generally avoid kosher because I figure I'd have a hard time explaining that I'm not Jewish if the plane gets hijacked.

Get the more expensive bus--If there are two buses you can take from point A to point B, go with the more expensive option. The air-con, comfortable seats, on board bathroom, and lack of livestock are more than worth the extra $5.

Backpackers, leave the gadgets at home-- I've mentioned this before, but it's a mistake many people seem to make. If you're staying in a hostel (or anywhere else where security is a concern), don't travel with a laptop, ipod, $700 camera, etc. You either have to haul all this shit wherever you go or worry about the very real prospect of it getting stolen. A good compromise would be bringing an iphone or ipod touch--it can play video and music as well as connect to the internet for email and other applications. The device is small enough to keep on you without any inconvenience. Internet cafes are everywhere in case you need to do any significant typing or upload pictures.

Digital cameras should be small and cheap--If photography is your hobby, by all means get a nice digital SLR. Otherwise, you want a camera that is compact so you can shove it in your pocket and relatively inexpensive so you won't be heartbroken if you lose or break it. A small drop in image quality is a small price to pay for the pictures you'll be getting from bars/clubs/boats/whatever. Besides, you can easily find pictures of landmarks that are 100x better than anything you could do.

I'm sure there will be additional travel tips as I think of them.

August

I have a fairly significant project to finish by the end of August (nothing Laos-related) so I’m not sure how much writing I’ll get done this month. Hopefully I’ll have a burst of creativity and be able to put up one or two things.

I was listening to the Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil” and something I had never thought of started to bother me. Near the end of the song Mic Jagger sings “just call me LUCIFER” like it’s supposed to be some major revelation. The only thing is that the previous lyrics make it painfully obvious who the speaker is and the song is titled “Sympathy for the Devil.” The “ha, gotcha” ending really only works if you’re so stoned you forgot the first three minutes.

It must be terrible being a Hollywood makeup artist. I’m sure the job itself pays well and is interesting, but you must be constantly harassed by people wanting you to transform them for parties and other events. I’m sure the following happens all the time:
“So, what do you do?”
“I’m a special effects makeup artist.”
“That’s awesome! Hey, I’m going to a costume party in two weeks, can you make me look really fat?”
“Um, that would take over 20 hours to make molds of your face and color the prosthetic pieces.”
“I could pay you like $100.”
“That’s less than $5 an hour and my work schedule is really busy…”
“So, can you do it?”

Lesson Learned From Lao New Years

note: I started writing this several months ago

I have a column half-written about how much I hate Lao New Years (pi mai lao or Songkran in Thailand) but I’m too happy today to finish it, mostly because I got plenty of sleep last night, it’s sunny, and the streets aren’t filled with assholes waiting to douse me with filthy water as soon as I turn my back. So culturally what can we learn from the whole ordeal?

I think one reason people like the holiday so much is that, as one Lao friend put it, “everyone’s head is on the same level.” Before I get to anything else, I need to explain about Lao culture’s inane obsession with head placement. Despite being a communist country (at least officially), Lao culture is extremely hierarchical. Status depends on age, gender, profession, and whether a person is a monk (monkness?). Except for brief moments, your head should not be higher than someone of greater status and Lao people put a lot of effort into ensuring this. For example, if you are standing and a maid or child has to cross in front of you, they will bow at the waist to ensure their head is noticeably below yours. I find the whole thing embarrassing and mildly distasteful, sort of a body language equivalent of being called “master.” As a foreigner, you won’t usually have to pay attention to these head placement conventions, but as a general rule you shouldn’t be standing when the people you’re talking to are sitting.

Getting back to my original point, the pi mai holiday allows for a suspension of normal social rules. It’s perfectly ok to show mild disrespect to authority figures like monks, teachers, and generals (well, maybe not generals). In western culture, it’s not unusual to go drinking with your boss, but asians seem to find this same sort of familiarity liberating.

Watching pi mai, it becomes immediately apparent why we lost the Vietnam war. The Lao people are probably the friendliest and most generous I’ve ever met, but anyone who’s lived here knows they’re not especially motivated, creative, or disciplined. But when the new year rolls around, they start plotting elaborate ambushes and are able to hurl water balloons through the windows of moving cars. It’s nerf guerilla warfare ant there’s no reason to think the real thing was much different.

Teaching English in Laos

The following is based on conversations with teachers who are friends of mine. It is accurate to the best of my knowledge but you're encouraged to do your own research if you're interested in teaching here. My friends are caucasian native speakers. This article only applies to Vientiane; I'd imagine condtions and pay are worse in other parts of Laos. I can not give you advice regarding specific schools or how to find a job. I may update this article with a list of schools to avoid.

The first option is to teach at one of the 2-3 international schools here. You'll have a steady job with 9 to 5-type hours and a decent paycheck, at least for Laos. Unfortunately, you essentially have to be qualified to be a teacher in your home country: 4-year college degree, TEFL certificate, references, etc. Your job is really no different than a schoolteacher in your home country so I don't think this requires further explanation. You will not make enough to save any money--if you want that, teach in Korea or somewhere else with good pay and a low cost of living.

The second option is to teach at an institute. They may call themselves schools or colleges, but they are really just institutes where most of the people are going to English class a few hour per week. I'm making this distinction because there are a number of differences between these and regular schools. The main one is that your goal is not to improve students' English, it is to get them to like you so they re-enroll. One consequence of this is that even if they are talking on the phone or otherwise misbehaving, you can't discipline or yell at them. If you do, they'll complain and you'll eventually be fired. I'm going to use bullet points to explain the other downsides of teaching in an institute:


•Probably 90% of the English classes in Vientiane are taught Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5-7 PM. It is much more difficult to find work teaching at other times.

•Most students miss a significant number of classes and many come late to class. You will never change this. You can spend hours planning lessons and thinking of creative examples, but it won't matter when 2/3 of the kids don't show up.

•It's not unusual for a school to promise you a class and then cancel it at the last minute because there aren't enough students. You don't really have a job until you're actually in the classroom teaching for money.

•There are often 2-3 weeks between semesters. This can wreak havoc on your budget if you don't plan for the downtime.

•You will frequently have a day or week off for Lao holidays or Christmas. Again, if you don't know about these, your paycheck will be much smaller than you planned for.

As a white native speaker, you should be making $10-12/hr. Only take a lower-paying job if you really need the money. If you do this you should be actively looking for a better job. You will probably need to work at several schools to make ends meet.

Any current or past teachers are welcome to contact me with information or corrections. I'd especially be interested in teaching outside Vientiane.

Visiting a Country for a Few Days Doesn't Make You an Expert on Its History and Culture

I'm frequently asked how I deal with the huge number of backpackers visiting Laos and my answer is always the same: concentrated artillery fire to break up their ranks followed up by a motorbike cavalry charge to rout the survivors (obviously nerve gas would be preferable but international law regrettably forbids its use.) Another question I get a lot is why I have such a problem with backpackers. I really don't, at least not all of them. I've met plenty of wonderful people who are just passing through. People who are intelligent, funny, insightful, etc. Then there are the other backpackers. The ones who seem to have been put on earth to annoy me, the ones, I'll be talking about shortly.

While there are numerous ways backpackers piss me off, it mostly boils down to one thing: they know everything. Fucking everything. They can elucidate the aspects and traits of various cultures better than any anthropologist. They can pontificate upon the facets of a people's history and the causes and aftereffects of various wars. Their knowledge of political structures and geopolitics is unparalleled. I'm sorry, just because you browsed through a 1997 Lonely Planet at your hostel doesn't mean you know what the fuck you're talking about.

Why is it so difficult to say the words "I don't know" or at least refrain from talking about something you know almost nothing about? I spent a week in Melbourne and even had a local to show me around for most of that time, but I wouldn't pretend to know anything but the most basic information about the city. If someone asked me about the south of Laos, I would answer truthfully that I've never been there, don't know much about it, and I'd suggest they Google it. I sometimes get emails asking about marriage procedures, property ownership, or some other complex issue. While a backpacker would probably make something up and pat himself on the back for appearing clever, I tell them to consult a lawyer.

Another thing about backpackers is that, despite what they say, they really feel superior to the people living in the places they visit. Even to the point of thinking they know what's best for them. This is usually expressed as some kind of sentiment wishing people could preserve their traditional ways of life. Well, when given a chance, most people will choose a modern lifestyle. Is this because they've been tricked by evil corporations? No, it's because most "traditional" ways of living, like subsistence farming, are horrible for the people living them. Sure you get to have ipods and air-conditioning and MRIs, but if it were up to you, these people would be toiling on the same dirtpatch for the next thousand years. You probably don't even want them to have tractors because that would spoil the landscape for you.

This brings me to another point, one that applies to all classes of foreigners. Whether you're visiting a Hmong village or watching monks assemble in Luang Prabang, these are real people, not human zoo exhibits. You are not in an anthropological theme park. These people have a right to make decisions about their lives and if you don't agree, fuck you, you don't live there.

Twitter and Facebook

I've made a Facebook page for myself at www.facebook.com/livinglaos. Everyone is welcome to become my friend (or "friend").

I generally hate Twitter and think it's a moronic tool for narcisists. However, after much inner grappling, I've decided to create an account. I think it's neat that I can post via SMS whenever I have some kind of insight or observation that doesn't warrant its own article. Or when I'm drunk or bored. Anyway, I promise not to write about any of the trivial bullshit that gives twitter a bad name. I realize that no one gives a shit what kind of salad dressing I'm using or if I'm going to buy a new DVD player. If I've configured everything correctly, you should be able to see my tweets (god, I hate that word) over here>>>
or you can subscribe directly at twitter.com/LivingLaos. I should start sending messages within a few days once I get my phone set up and everything configured.

PS, why are all my adsense ads for fucking dog training? What the hell keywords are making Google do that? (Yes, I realize I probably just made the problem worse)