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Published: August 6th 2007
Vientiane
An early morning saw us on our way to the airport in Siem Reap, where our tuk-tuk driver got pulled over by the police and fined $2. At first we thought he was a victim of what we have heard is typical police corruption in Cambodia, but later he told us it was because he was not wearing his jacket with his official license number on. Muppet...
It was an uneventful flight to Vientiane via Pakse; with only 12 passengers for the international leg, it was a relatively comfortable experience considering the small plane! Despite its infamy when it comes to fatalities, we arrived safe and well fed, much to our delight.
We checked into a guesthouse, and decided that the limited sights of Vientiane were best seen in one afternoon on the back of a moped, so that’s exactly what we did. After having a quick chat with Rhianna whom was on our Vietnamese trekking trip in Sapa, we motored our way to Pha That Luang, Laos’ National Monument. A big gold shiny thing, we climbed a couple of it’s tiers, but like every other golden Wat we’ve encountered, we agreed it was much better admired
from a distance! The artwork that was being displayed around its outer walls was another matter, with some stunning local scenes and portraits on exhibition by a local painter.
We walked to a monument to fallen soldiers, and then picked up our moped to make our way to our next destination, Pat Uxai. The US government had donated some concrete for an airport runway, but the Laos government decided that this resource would be put to better use by building this copy of the French Arc d’Triomphe… Completely understandable! Next was a drive around to try and find Wat Si Saket, a very old temple in Laos standards, and it took us a while to find it. We eventually stumbled across the grounds, where we were welcomed by bare-chested, saffron-clad monks wielding huge grass-strimmers, and found that we had missed the opening time by an hour. However, we are glad to report that the comic image of the monks made the trip still worthwhile.
We literally raced the sunset back to the other end of town, where we could watch the splendour from a better position sat by the Mekong River with a couple of drinks. Wanting to
make the most of our transportation, we then went back to the opposite end of town to grab dinner at Banmala restaurant, with rock serenades by blind guitarists and all, before calling it a night.
Vang Vieng
Other backpackers had told us that there is nothing to see in Vientiane, and in that previous afternoon we had accomplished everything one could want to do there. So, we left on a morning bus that next day to Vang Vieng, a trip in a ‘VIP’ air-conned bus that was far from how it was described! 4 hours later we arrived in the most-touristy place we had seen since Ko San Road in Bangkok, with ‘Friends’ playing at numerous bars. After lunch at one such place, we had a wander around the town and caught ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3’ for dinner.
What better way to spend a Sunday than floating in a tractor inner tube down a river in order to frequent various bars? Following the Laos backpacker tradition, we grabbed our tubes and a tuk-tuk 3km north of town and jumped in the Nam Song River, drifting past the first couple of bars before settling
on the largest and noisiest establishment for our first beverage. A game of volleyball later, Dave cooled off by launching himself off a 10m rope-swing platform, and then we were both back in our tubes floating further downstream.
Another bar gave us free shots of Tiger (Rice) Whiskey, and since the rope swing platform was wide enough for 2 people to jump together, we thought it would be a great idea to do just that. Good fun! Maybe too good… we didn’t leave the place until 6pm, and since there was another hour floating to go until Vang Vieng, darkness hit before we got there! We missed the ‘Tubers Stop Here!’ sign and carried on. Once this became evident (the stillness was eerie!), we clambered up the river bank into the grounds of a hotel and walked the short way back to the tubing office.
Not satisfied with just floating down the river, we had booked ourselves onto a caving and kayaking tour the next day. First was Tham Nam cave, where we once again jumped into tubes and dragged our way into the water cave using ropes, reminiscent of our ‘black-water rafting’ trip in New Zealand. Using
head-torches (that worked intermittently!) to navigate, we crawled, scrambled and slid through caverns filled with stalagmites and stalactites. We had a quick stop at Tham Song cave, where we used our imaginations to conjure up the natural ‘elephant’ shape that a stalactite has there, and then jumped back in the songatheaw to head downstream to where we would jump in our kayaks.
Surrounded by gorgeous scenery, we had fun kayaking through some mild rapids before eventually joining up with the tubers at the volleyball bar from the day before. Unfortunately, Ganesh who was on our tour winded himself on the rope swing and Dave had to jump in to drag him back to the riverbank! Finishing off our whiskey bucket, we saw dark clouds threatening to burst imminently so jumped back into the kayaks to try and outrun it. Fools! A huge storm cracked open straight away, the wind pushing us upstream despite our best efforts to the contrary! Managing to get over to a bank, we took cover until it had subsided enough for us to actually get further downstream. Knowing how dull it was on that last stretch without any bars, we picked up a bored tuber
on our way and deposited her at the correct place before ending up ourselves at the other end of town. All in all, a fun day!
Luang Prabang
Thinking that aircon might actually have an effect in a smaller vehicle like a minibus, we booked a ‘VIP’ minibus to Luang Prabang. This being the reason for paying twice the price of a local bus plugging the same route, you can imagine our discontent when the driver refused to turn the aircon on! Thus after a windy 4hr journey, we arrived in Luang Prabang hot and bothered. After a very necessary shower, we opted to spend the afternoon and evening wandering the small town and browsing the night market, where we both invested in some light-weight cotton trousers.
After relocating to a guesthouse that was a lot closer to the main town area, we ate breakfast at a pretty spot at the riverside (which became our regular) and made a crack at updating the 3 weeks worth of ‘blog-age’ that we were behind! We found the royal palace just after closing time, and so chose to climb Phu Si hill in the heart of town
for a good view. After Angkor Wat, the 32 temples resident to the town just didn’t appeal! A cheap vegetarian ‘street eat’ for dinner saw us early into our beds. Well, there is a 10pm curfew in town anyway!
Phonsavan
The next morning we headed off to Phonsavan, just us, 15 other people and a guy with an AK47. Apparently the route is renowned for bandits, but we learnt later it’s not the tourists they are interested in but rather the huge wads of cash the bus operators carry on board with them! Still not feeling particularly reassured, we distracted our minds by admiring the scenery along what was an extremely windy journey; around 6 times as severe as the Snakes Pass by our reckoning! We arrived in a desolate town and found two people to share the cost of a Plain of Jars tour with, and escorted them back to our guesthouse to have dinner over a documentary on the Secret War. Very informative, and horrifying. Did you know that America dropped more bombs in Laos (just because they feared communist influence from Vietnam) than it did in the whole of WWII? 90 million
cluster bomblets were let loose (let
alone all the others like the big B52 bombs, phosporous bombs etc), the cluster bombs alone being enough to kill each man, woman and child 200 times over. 30% of these bombs never exploded, leaving farmers and curious kids being blown apart to this day. Horrific.
With this as an insight to the troubles facing Laos still to this day, we started our tour the next day with a visit to one of the major bombing sites of the area. In particular our attention was drawn to one crater created by a 2-ton bomb, and a cluster bomblet that was still to be cleared up by the limited UXO clearers that are in the country. (Treading very carefully!) we moved away and on to a minority village that has made the most of the free 'scrap' metal of the area by using bomb shells as robust stilts for their houses, and even as bedding pots for their spring onions! Quite a sight, especially the rows of unused bombs that are acting as a makeshift fence. Unfortunately the sadder side of this recycling includes the explosion of more volatile bombs, contributing to a large
Cluster Bombs, Tribal Village nr. Phonsavan
Ones that haven't been upgraded to flower pot status yet!number of fatalities and injuries each year.
Skipping the waterfall as it was peeing with rain, we headed to the Plain of Jars as our final tour destination, where we chose to visit Site 1, the biggest of the 3 sites currently cleared by MAG of unexploded ordnance. We walked up to the hillock to see loads of jars scattered across the plain as far as the eye could see. The best theory for the existence of these 2,000 year old jars is that the mon-Khmer people placed their recently deceased in them so that they could make their transition into the spiritual world, before being cremated several days later. Local legend has it however that giants used these not as funeral urns but to store Lao Lao whiskey for their post-war celebrations. One thing's for sure though, that with the tallest being 2m and the biggest weighing in at 15 tons, these are some damn big jars! We visited some caves where locals hid and lived during the American bombing raids, and then stumbled across two unique jars, one with a lid and another with a human carved into the side. [It's more interesting to see than to
read about, sorry!] The day's touring done, we head back to town and enjoyed some beer and Lao Lao whiskey at local bars and restaurants before retiring for the night.
Exploration of the North: aka Time for a Numb Bum!
Having satisfactorily covered what there is to do in Phonsavan in one day, we boarded a local bus on our attempt to get off the beaten track and see 'the real Laos'. With bench seats that were surprisingly comfortable, we first had 6 hours north to get to a junction where we told to jump off to catch another bus heading west toward Nong Kiaow. 7km from Nam Noen, all that marked this junction was a small tribal village of a type unknown to us, where in true Laos hill-tribe style no-one actually spoke Laos, let alone English! Hunkering down for a bit of a wait, we pulled out the guidebook to have a look at what was to come and that led to a swarm of kids surrounding us to see what it was we had. We flicked through all the photos to show them what there was in the rest of Laos, and
also the map of what their country looked like. Once they looked eager for something else, Dave opened his 'bag of tricks' and brought out the miracle device that is the digital camera! The kids loved to see portraits of themselves, and after a video we were both getting a bit anxious as to when the bus would come. Luckily by this time the Elder's son had come over to us and he could speak some basic Lao; so with the aid of our phrasebook we managed to ask when the bus was due. Unfortunately, the response was 'Tomorrow'! Ah. Thus we planned to settle in, asking in pidgin Lao for a place to stay, where we were shown to a wooden plank bed each, and the 'bathroom' on top of a hillock where the kids were so intrigued by us white-folk that they watched Dave go to the loo!
But that wasn't the end of the day. An elderly gentleman had jumped off the bus along with us, and had spent the entire time waving at everything in the hope that they would give him a lift further up the road. After a couple of hours he scampered
in to our hut and shouted at us in what our best translation could only have been 'Quick! We're outta here!' as he had flagged down a private bus bound for Udomxai. Thus began another 9 hour journey on the rutted dirt-track roads of northern Laos, punctuated by a blown tire at one village, and ending with us arriving at 1am in Nong Kiaow where absolutely everything was locked up! Our driver banged on the door of one place long enough to wake a guesthouse owner who let us in and found us a room.
There not being anything in town worth seeing, we rose early to catch the 'inevitable' 8.30am bus that would head out of town and further west, only to find that this far out things don't quite work as quickly... After a very leisurely breakfast we got on a minibus head for Udomxai a few hours later, with only a stop for passengers to jump off and buy some cucumber snacks for the journey. Like the previous day, it was interesting to drive through vast misty mountain-ranges, passing undisturbed hill-villages and gorgeous scenery for hours on end.
The ongoing bus to Luang Nam Tha
was full, so we spent the rest of the late afternoon wandering around the town with a fellow traveller, Dan. A pretty uninteresting town, it didn't take us long; so we grabbed a drink and talked to a guy that wanted to practice his English!
Luang Nam Tha Province
After looking around the bus station for breakfast options, we decided against BBQ rat and chose some sticky rice, corn and what we hoped was pork to feed our hunger. Crammed onto the back of a local bus we set off to Luang Nam Tha, the gateway to the Nam Ha Forest. An uneventful journey, Saz may only remember it because she was accompanied into the bushes on a toilet stop, making going an unpleasant experience! (There are set paths for toilet areas even out on the open road, due to risks of land mines and UXO.) We arrived in town and after much consideration we booked ourselves on to a 2 day kayaking trip leaving the next day.
The Nam Ha Experience At the Green Discovery office we met up with two Aussies, Khan and Nel, and Dan to begin our kayaking
Lunch at Khmu Village
Left to Right:
Xai, Khan, Dan, Dave experience about one hour out of town. Our guides, Xai and Pawn, pumped up the inflatable kayaks and it wasn’t long before Saz and I had capsized twice, once jumping out to avoid an overhanging tree and once when Dave tried to video us going through some rapids… big mistake! Once Pawn had walked along the bank to fetch our kayak that had gotten wrapped around a tree, it wasn’t long before we paddled up to the banks of a Khmu village where we had a great finger-food lunch. This proved to be good timing, as the heavens opened and drenched the entire valley! Entertaining ourselves by feeding the pigs our leftovers, we had a quick look around the empty village (everyone works in the paddies during the day, come rain or shine) once the rain had mostly subsided. Then we launched ourselves back onto the Nam Ha, hitting rapids that were now a more punishing Grade 3 rather than 2 because of the rains, and now having to avoid whole trees that had been swept into the river as well as the usual overhanging branches and hidden rocks! We did well though, only capsizing one more time, and although
Saz got some nasty scratches on her face, we did not feel quite as bad this time as Xai had him and Dan take a dip too 😊
We arrived into Ban Nam Goy, a Lanten Village, in the late afternoon where we were made to feel very welcome. Settling into our communal hut, we had a wash using a less-muddy local stream, had dinner cooked by 2 families entrusted with our care, and spent the night trying to figure out numerous puzzles created by Xai using match-stick sized pieces of bamboo.
We spent the morning looking around Ban Nam Goy in more detail, dropping by the Tribal chief’s place, before heading out on to the river which had gotten back down to a more steady level. Kayaking along at a more sedate pace, we spent the morning pulling up to the banks to collect additions to our lunch. First it was the hunt for bamboo shoots, then the tree-shaking battle to obtain a banana flower, and finally Pawn had gotten some herbs and rattan. Not fighting the river as much, we had more time to take in the stunning scenery of thick forest and lush-green mountains, before
stopping for lunch. With time to kill, we were taught how to weave a trap to catch grass-hoppers, before manoeuvring further downstream to another village where we were supposed to be picked up. After a walk around the place, and where Dr. Kahn used his skills to drain an abscess on a local, we used our ingenuity to come up with games using bamboo sticks to wile away the time. Xai and Pawn knew some weird game where you had to flick up a twig, there was sword and staff fighting, both push and pull tug-of-war, and finally we taught the few local kids that were around how to limbo! A songthaew turned up after 2 hours, as the bus had gotten bogged down in the mud and phoned for back-up, and we were on our way back to town.
Fantastic trip!!
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