"What do you mean there's no ATM there?" she asks me from behind. "They have to have cash machines." Marne is an Australian twenty-something I met on the plane. We'd both purchased our Lonely Planet Laos guides last-minute at the airport in Bangkok. I'd been looking for one for weeks actually, thinking I would find at least a counterfeit copy at one of the street vendors in Saigon or in Thailand. You won't find a legitimate copy of a major travel guide anywhere in Saigon, but you can get a counterfeit copy of just about any travel book you want for $5 or less if you look long enough - some are photocopies of the original and others are independently typeset. I prefer the photocopies... they at least are not riddled with typos. But I couldn't find a Laos guide. Not a real one and not a fake one. None at all until I got to Hua Hin on my last day in Thailand. There I found a real copy... several years out of date and in French but it was better than nothing. It was enough to get me started, at least. Enough to decide that I wanted to fly directly into Luang Prabang rather than starting at the capital, Vientiane. Just before checking in for my flight, though, I decided that my French really wasn't up to the task and I would probably enjoy Laos more if I knew something about it, so I splurged for a $30 copy, a real one, and in English, at the airport bookstore.
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to read that book until I was already on the airplane. That's when I found the section on money. From there I learned that the primary currency in Laos is the kip, with an exchange rate of about 10,000 kip to the dollar. The second major currency used is Thai baht, which I could have easily loaded up on before leaving Thailand if I had known. As it was, I did my best to spend my last baht before getting on the airplane, figuring nowhere else on the planet would take them. The third main currency accepted is the US dollar, and the fourth (and probably moving up in rank by now) is the Euro. All those options and none for me. I have plastic, and I have dong. Plenty of Vietnamese dong. As for US dollars, I have enough to buy my Laos visa but not much more than that. In Thai baht, about $10. Enough to stay in a really cheap guest house for a couple of nights in a pinch. Like Marne, I was counting on loading up on local currency from an ATM.
But according to our Lonely Planet guides, which have now got our full attention, we won't find an ATM in Luang Prabang. There are a few in the capital, it says, but don't get excited. Other options are getting a cash advance on a credit card at a bank or bringing a huge wad of dollars from home. It tells the story of one tourist who had to go all the way back to Thailand to get cash.
Hmm, well, these travel guides are always out of date, aren't they? This one was probably published in 2003 or something. I have a look. August 2007. Damn. Marne and I pore over our maps to see where the bank is. By the time the plane begins its descent, the two of us, along with a German woman named Sandra, have agreed to share a taxi directly over to the bank. We're scheduled to land at 2:00 and the bank is open until 4:00... should be plenty of time to get our visas-on-arrival, clear immigration and hop a cab into town. We hope. It's Friday... Plan B is we stay at the hotels that are expensive enough to accept credit cards until Monday. Plan C is we go to Viantienne, but that seems a bit extreme.
"I think Marne's right," I say. "There's got to be a way for ordinary, underprepared travelers like us to get cash." Marne and Sandra nod in agreement. "It is an international airport, and it's a UNESCO site... they've had tourists there for at least a couple of years."
"Yeah," Sandra agrees. "It's a communist country, but they must want people to spend money." We hope we're right. We've been flying over thick, mountainous jungle for the past hour. If we've screwed up, our other sources of money are pretty far away.
The plane is descending through a stunning valley along the Mekong and that takes our attention for the rest of the flight. We fly deep in the valley, passing alongside steep cut terraced hillsides and below green hilltops off both sides, some with golden temples resting on top of them. We see one paved road alongside the river and only dirt roads branching off of it. The pilot seems to be having trouble keeping the wings level. He adds a burst of power just before touching down, then jumps on the brakes as soon as we hit the ground, and I do mean hit. The runway at Luang Prabang International is not short, necessarily, but apparently it is a mark of shame if the plane rolls out past the terminal building and has to turn around and taxi back. Or maybe the runway isn't wide enough for it to make that turn. Whatever it is, our pilot is determined to stop the plane quick, and to judge by the thick black marks at the beginning of the runway, he isn't the only one. We all look at each other as the plane rocks and skids to a stop. Relieved, the passengers revive an old tradition and give the captain a tentative round of applause.
We disembark and walk over to the terminal building. It's a little smaller than the one at my home airport of San Carlos. No major cash facilities here, we're thinking. Marne and I wait in the visa line. Sandra has been planning this trip for months and already has hers pasted in her passport. The visa line takes a good half hour. In that time, we watch two Lao Air turboprops take off, leaving just one six-seat Cessna on the ramp. "There goes our Plan C," I say to Marne, as the the second one climbs out.
"I think we'll find something, though," she says. I do, too. We talk about something else for a while. Marne's spent the last six months working at an NGO in Bangkok and I ask her what that was like. The visa officer scrutinizes my dollars... a twenty and three fives. I know that there's a small tear in one of the fives so I bury it in the middle of the stack and try to pass it off. I've heard that the people are really nice in Laos. Maybe he'll be kind enough to take my damaged American money. No luck, though. He hands it back to me. But at least he's not refusing it outright; he just asks. "Do you have another one?"
I give him one that has a fold mark but no tears and he seems satisfied. That leaves me with $25 US dollars, all in bills that are in some way substandard. I hope that I won't need them until I get back to the states. Twenty minutes later, the three of us are on our way out. Sandra sees an exchange office and gets first excited and then disappointed. "Closed," she says. But there, right next to it, I see something...
"Look!" I say, "an ATM."
Sure enough, the Luang Prabang airport now has an ATM. We feed at it greedily, pulling out hundreds of thousands of Lao kip as if we wouldn't have another chance for weeks. Because we might not. We agree that we should let the people at Lonely Planet know about this exciting new development. Marne and I share a taxi into town anyway and end up checking in at the same guest house. We are completely charmed by this town by the time we arrive. On our way, our tuk-tuk is waylaid by kids beating the heat with squirt guns, laughing and squirting at us. Our $15 a night guest house is in a French Colonial era building with polished dark wood floors and stairways, and slate tiled roofs. Across the street is a beautiful wat with at least six different kinds of flowers either lining or overhanging its walls. It is one of 32 wats in the town of Luang Prabang. This one is known for its beautiful garden. The one next to it is known for its art school. I look out my window and watch a monk hang his saffron robe out to dry. I wander out of the guest house in a daze, still so surprised by how beautiful everything is that I don't even think about paying attention to where I am. I just start wandering.  |
| Resting on the bank of the Mekong |
No comments:
Post a Comment