Despite having several useful guidebooks, ebooks, online
resources, and gps maps on our phones, we have still managed to find ourselves
lost in awkward situations without the right words to express the absurdity of
our snafus. (I think "snafu" should be spelled "snafoo".)
Scene One:
It’s 0500 and we have decided to take the
motorbike in Hoi An, Vietnam for a ride to the lighthouse to watch the sun come
up and see the fisherfolk do their thing. We tiptoe out of our guesthouse and
come to a locked gate at the entrance. How do we get the bike out of the gate?
We consider climbing the gate but that won’t solve the bike dilemma. We look
around for a doorbell to ask the family to open the gate. Phil finds something
next to the main door. “Do you think this is the doorbell? It kind of looks
like a fire alarm,” he says. “I don’t know. Can you read what it says on the
button?” I reply. “No,” he says. “Well I guess you can give it a try if you
think it is the doorbell,” I say. Seconds later a very loud, obnoxious ringing
from the red fire alarm above the button begins and we can’t find an off
switch. We wake the family. We wake the other guests. We wake the neighborhood.
Did I mention it is 5am? The family gains entry into the reception area and
locates the off switch. We are let out of the gate and shown where the real
doorbell is located, next to the gate. We get on our motorbike, chagrined, and
drive off into the sunrise.
Scene Two:
We arrive in Vientiane, Laos with the plan to
meet our friends at a restaurant that is very popular in town. We forget to
look up the address online. There is no WIFI in the airport. (I can’t really
believe we now expect to get free WIFI at airports. How spoiled are we?) We look
around for a tourist map/guide and find one in Japanese; this is unhelpful. We
ask the taxi stand people if they know “Sticky Fingers” restaurant. Multiple
shakes of the head “no”, but after a bit more discussion someone says “yes”. We
get in the taxi and drive in to town. We drive around. We drive around some
more. We start to worry that the driver does not actually know where we want to
go. And then the driver stops at a hotel and looks at us expectantly. We say,
“No, we want to go to the restaurant Sticky Fingers.” He proceeds to drive around
aimlessly a bit more while we restate the name in different inflections,
faster, slower, different accents. Phil tries to act out sticky fingers. I try
writing in English the name. None of our efforts seems to help the poor
Lao-speaking driver. Then I gesture eating and our driver has an “aha” moment
and takes us to a restaurant…not Sticky Fingers. Needless to say, I end up on
the driver’s cell phone speaking to someone who speaks some English and we
agree to go back to a hotel we passed earlier in the ride. At the hotel, they
are kind enough to give us a map and direct us to the restaurant, which is two
blocks away. Being the brilliant people that we are, as soon as we leave the
hotel, we start walking in the opposite direction of the restaurant. An hour
and two beers later, we join our friends at the restaurant.
Scene Three:
We drive to Kuangxi outside Luang Prabang, Laos to visit a
waterfall. We have read in Lonely Planet that you can ascend to the top of the
falls on the left or right, the right being more perilous. So, of course, we
choose the right side, the side less travelled. Half way up the waterfall we
encounter a fork in the road. The path to the right appears larger and more
defined although in the opposite direction of the waterfall. Again, we go
right. The vistas are beautiful, the heat is scorching, and the sound of the
waterfall is receding as we continue our climb. Every few meters one of us
questions our decision but the scenery is lovely, the hike is good and so we
keep trekking. At last, we come upon a beautifully tended terraced garden, a
couple thatch-roofed dwellings and a breathtaking view…and no waterfall.
Sometimes getting “laost” (Thanks Aadip.) is a good thing.