The Farm

We met Laura, the world's friendliest Spaniard, on the bus from Savannakhet to Vientiane. She mistook us for South Americans, we were flattered, and became fast friends. A few days later when Laura told us she was going to an organic farm in Vang Vieng where you can volunteer to do farm work or teach English classes at a local community center, we decided we would go too. I was looking forward to being in a classroom and Travis wanted to help out in the gardens. Laura also told us that the farm was expecting a group of 20 Korean volunteers within the next few days. That sealed the deal. We hopped a morning bus and arrived in Vang Vieng in the afternoon.
Vang Vieng is like no other place we've seen in Asia. It's weird. It's sketchy. It's a rip off. It's a SERIOUS tourist trap- Internet is 3 times more expensive here than it is in the rest of Laos, and more than twice as much as in Korea or Chibna. The town is basically a single road lined with restaurants and "Friends" bars. These so-called "Friends" bars have low tables and lots of pillows for reclining and on small tvs mounted on the ceilings play "Friends" episodes on DVD all day long. All day long. In Vang Vieng many restaurants have not one, but 2 menus: the normal menu, and the 'special' menu. The special menu contains food cooked with marijuana in it as well as smoothies made with mushrooms and other natural drugs. After sunset, the whole town seems stoned or jittery, and everyone's eyes are glued to.... What else? "Friends"!
Busloads of obnoxious people arrive in Vang Vieng daily for one reason: tubing.
The tubing industry in Vang Vieng is unique. For $4 you can rent a tube and get a tuk tuk to take you up river. Within 50 meters from the drop off point is the first riverside bar, but there are dozens more most offering not only alcohol, drugs and snacks but also massive rope swings and high platforms for jumping off. It's a risktaking show-off's dream come true. As you gently float down the river in your tube, bartenders standing on stilted, bamboo platforms wave frantically and try to throw you a rope to drag you into their bar. People jumping and swinging off ziplines zoom above your head and splash loudly near you. People at the bars cheer at shout at the jumpers. Bad booty-fied early 90's rap music thumps from every riverside bar (though one of the last bars was playing Fleetwood Mac at full volume instead). In the water, which is only moderately clean, drunken people splash and splutter loudly. On one side of the river you can see large, steep, forested mountains. On the other side are scores of hotel bungalows being built. Everywhere in Laos, but especially in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, you can feel a tourism industry on the verge of blowing up.
We were understandably quite happy to be staying at the Farm 3km outside the town and away from the "Friends" laugh track, but the Farm was another trip all it's own. We showed up, were given organic mulberry tea, got a room and were ready to volunteer, but how we could get involved was not made clear. That afternoon at 4:30 someone led us up the muddy road to the classroom for the children's English class. On the road we saw plenty of chickens, plus locals bathing at the government-installed, public clean water faucets. The ladies bathe wrapped in a heavy sarong. The men just wear underwear.
There were 60 children outside the classroom aged between 7-12 none, plus a few toddlers. The kids grabbed our hands and were eager to look at us. As soon as the classroom door was opened they slipped off their shoes, ran inside, laid colorful plastic mats on the floor and diligently set up low tables to work on. A teacher was writing 10 sentences in English on the dirty, well-worn whiteboard. Once everything was set up, the teacher introduced us foreigners one by one. The entire classroom YELLED in unison "Hello! What! Is! Your! Name?!!!" Travis said his name and they shouted "Hello Travis! Where! Are! You! From?" He said U.S.A. and they screamed "USA!!! Nice to meet! You!" and then repeated this exact drill for exactly all 5 foreigners in attendance. By the end of introductions our ears were throbbing.
The second class of kids aged 13-20+ was much, easier on the ears. All of those students could read and speak in English and only their writing needed help. It was fascinating to see kids so eager to learn and so successful at using a foreign language. Put in perspective, our own Korean students, who I adore and put on a pedestal for being amazingly well-behaved and hard-working, are slackers given their positions of priviledge! When the group of Korean volunteers arrived, all of whom by law must have studied English all through elementary and middleschool, it was clear that the Lao students spoke MUCH better English than the wealthier, "better educated" Koreans.
We spent the next 5 days with the Koreans, painting a public school, digging a ditch for electric cables, making a concrete sink and patio, pulling weeds outside teh community center, watching Lao traditional dance, inspiring an impromptu B-Boy competition. I took four of the older students into town and showed them how to set up email accounts and use the Internet (only a mildly successive endeavour. 2 girls understood, the other 2 were lost mostly because they had trouble with typing accuracy and you can never really see a "password" because it shows up in dots not letters) Laura volunteered in the kitchen teaching the girls working there how to prepare Spanish food. We feasted on tortillas Espanolas and paella for dinner.