Following the Mekong

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After a long slow boat trip down the Mekong (2 days!) we arrived in Luang Prabang, a lovely little town, very French, very relaxed, and a lovely place to spend a few days. Not much to do there but wander around, go and see a few temples, wander around the market, but it had a great feel to it. We climbed up to the highest temple to watch the sunset, where loads of women were selling birds in tiny cages "free for good luck" not that they were free, obviously, they cost a couple of dollars, but if you freed them you'd get good luck - we declined the offer, and when we reached the top we could see hundreds of the little things flying around, just waiting to be caught again my the women and shoved back inside their cages where they would get a free feed (maybe not so lucky!!). Emma was very impressed with the sunset, which at best was mediocre, it wasn't until I saw that she still had her rather pink sunglasses on that I realised she was seeing it through rose tinted glasses - literally!!

There were also some beautiful waterfalls near Luang Prabang with swimming holes to cool off in, which came as a welcome relief. There was also a Asiatic Bear sanctuary, so we got to see just how big our bear from the Gibbons was going to get, and how quickly - wouldn't fancy a bite from him in a month of so!!

From Luang Prabang, we headed North again to Nong Kiaw and the "sleeping princess mountain" partly just because we liked the name, and partly to do a bit of wandering! We got our first real experience of transport Laos style - a bus full to bursting, stops to pick a few more people up, I was curious to know where they were going to sit, images of three people perching on my knee sprang to mind, fortunately (?!) some little plastic chairs came out and were squished along the aisle where the rest of the poor unfortunate souls sat. It wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact the Northern Laos is very hilly and very windy, so every time we went around a corner, you can imagine what the chairs inside the bus did!! Plus Laos people are also not good travellers, soon after the chairs came out, so did a guy with some little plastic bags, and it wasn't long before they were being used! I nearly jumped out of my skin when something brushed my leg, fortunately it was just the rooster that had been tied up on the floor and was trying to make an escape attempt!!

Nong Kiaw is a very sleepy town with little electricity (seems to cut out all the time!) and not a lot to do except sit on your balcony over looking the Mekong, go to the caves where people hid out during the war, and generally wander around. Unfortunately the rain really set in while we were there so despite enjoying our time there, a couple of days were enough and off we trotted, back down south to Vang Vieng.

Vang Vieng is unlike any other town we've been to, it is right in the middle of the dessert; with only small villages surrounding it yet it is probably the liveliest town in Laos! It is full of T.V bars and bright lights and people totally engrossed in Friends and Simpons re-runs!! As much as I'd like to pretend that we didn't indulge, it was raining heavily (see the excuses are coming already!) so we had an entire day watching films and eating!! We weren't inactive the whole time, when there was a break in the weather we threw on our raincoats and braved the walk to some more caves. These were really impressive, lots of incredible rock formations and massive networks of interconnecting caves, we kept seeing signs for "the cave" so deeper and deeper we went, hoping my torch would last out! Every cave we got to apparently wasn't "the cave" so we kept going until we got to a tiny opening to crawl through and finally we were there "the cave!". Unfortunately I didn't find it as impressive as I should have as scenes from "The Descent” suddenly started popping into my head, which at the time I didn't find scary at all and was laughable if anything - however there I was deep in the caves and I suddenly wasn't so brave!! So after sharing the story with Emma (so nice of me!!) we made a hasty exit back into the sunshine!

Deciding to capitalise on our sense of motivation we booked a kayaking tour for the next day. Off we went, dry packs ready, only to be told that they only had one guide so as a bonus for us (hmmm!) we'd get to see more caves - what they didn't tell us was that the closest we'd get to a canoe was seeing them strapped to the top of the car until about 3 in the afternoon when after a lot of begging, we were finally allowed to start paddling!! In fairness to the tour guide, he was very funny and kept us entertained for the morning, he also took us into a caves where the mouth was almost totally covered with water. We had to enter through the water in "tubes" basically huge inner tubes for tyres, hauling ourselves along a rope with torches strapped to our heads, into complete darkness. After a few minutes we reached some dry (ish) land and off we went on our hands and knees crawling through the smallest space ever to get to another space, filled with bats!!! I felt slightly rambo-esq, not least because I was about twice the size of our guide so felt like a man mountain (not good when you're following him through small space, just because he fits....!)
before we knew it, out we popped back into daylight, covered in mud and feeling very much like the intrepid explorers!

Soon after, we got to go into our Kayak (yay!!) me at the back steering again which if Emma remembers from our family holiday in the Dordogne - I am rubbish at!!. This was soon proved as we went over our fist mini-rapids, off we went, following the guide, until he start gesticulating that we should go the other way, despite my attempts to steer the opposite direction (not helped by forgetting which side I needed to put my oar in, and initially choosing the wrong side!) we were destined to follow the guide the wrong way down the rapids. As it turned out, the rapids themselves were fine, but as wee came out of them they pushed us into a huge tree which promptly whipped Emma around the face as she screamed "duck" and threw herself backwards, despite her valiant efforts, we both ended up with enough tree in our hair to make us look like a moving bush!!

We reluctantly left the bright lights of Vang Vieng and headed south to the Capital of Vientiane with High hopes. These were soon to be quashed - it is muddy, dirty, empty horrible place, with over prices, scummy rooms. Its only saving grace was the French bakery, which we frequented for cinnamon rolls! Unfortunately we were stuck here for a day or so to get our Cambodian visa, and Em wanted to go to a meditation session - 4 days away, agghh!!! We filled our time getting very muddy and visiting random places like Buddha park, a crazy little place designed to bring all religions together, but is in fact just a collection of bizarre statues which you can sit in and climb on - but it passed the time! Finally mediation day rolled around, excited that we would be leaving the next day we set off, unfortunately as an oversight we hadn't found out where the monastery was before hand and after a lot of wandering, the time for meditation came and went, and my frustration levels rose, eventually we admitted defeat and headed back for town, annoyed that we’d waited all this time in such a god-awful city for no reason!! On the plus side we found the biggest bag of banana chips on the way home which cheered me up no end!! Easily pleased!!

From Vientiane we finally headed south to Champasak where Emma convinced me it'd be a good idea to hire out a bike (the actual pedalling kind!) to go and see some ruins about 10 km away. After acquiring out 'shopper' style bikes, off I went, very wobbly partly due to the fact that the saddle was so high I couldn't touch the floor, and partly cos I haven't ridden a bike since I was about 12!!! Soon however I was in the swing of things and we were soon riding like real life "Maria's" singing songs from the Sound of Music at the tops of our voices (unfortunately this part is true - it was the bike, it made me!! I just needed the curtain dress!) The actual ruins were nothing to write home about but the ride there was worth it, if nothing else just so I could surprise Emma with my bike riding enjoyment!

Fro m there we spent our last few days in the 4000 islands. I must admit I was expecting white sand beaches and clear water - god knows why, we were still on the Mekong, not the sea, but a girl can hope! !!! Well, ok they weren't exactly picturesque, but after leaving the first Island (where on leaving I was prodded and poked around by a group of boys amazed at how "high" I was, asking how much I weighed and how many times a day I ate - cheeky beggars!!) we arrived on Dong Det where we found a place with a communal hammock balcony, and we whiled away our last few days in total relaxation. Oh apart from the night when we inadvertently brought a rival dog home with us, thinking it was the one who lived at our place - a huge fight erupted and was only broken up by the owner smacking the dogs with a big stick, ouch - I felt bad enough but when our dog kept limping over to sit next to me and lick his wounds all the next day I felt so bad I had to go and find somewhere else to spend my day, away from the accusatory eyes!!!

Anyway, that pretty much ends our journey through Laos, it's a beautiful country and the people are full of smiles, not a lot to do but a great place to spend time. Unfortunately there aren't any photos to go with this as something happened to the memory card and the photos (all of them 😞 ) seem to have disappeared - if I get them recovered I’ll add them later!

I'm 1 blog behind, having travelled through Cambodia I'm now in Vietnam, so another blog will follow this one shortly, and then you'll have a break for a while!! Hopefully it will be a short one! (The blog that is, not the break!)

Take care

Sarah xxx

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Comments

[Kath Mariner]

Who would have thought it?
Sarah your blog brings back so many memories of the conflict in Vietnam with so many young americans dying there. Kennedy sent them in in ever increasing numbers but although he has never been given much credit Nixon actually brought America out in 1975. Anyway what have I told you about stray dogs both the 4 and 2 legged variety! Whilst in Thailand my sister was trying on trousers and the stall holder said to me 'you want trousers? I have very big'