To the land of Beer Lao

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Well hello there!
Firstly, I guess I should apologise for the lack of blog in so long. No excuse really, just that things have been a little hectic since we arrived in Laos and also, internet connections aren't what we were used to and in some area's pretty expensive...excuses excuses I hear you all cry!
I am going to do the first two weeks in Laos and then Rich pick it up from there. You should....I say should get two blogs in quite quick succesion. We're just sitting and waiting for our bus to take us down to Hoi An in Vietnam and we have free internet and about an hour to wait.....so, here we go. Furiously typing!!

Anyway, back to the long awiated blog!

After a pretty dreadful night in a grotty guest house in a place called Houyaxi where I was pretty convinced the bed had bugs so needless to say, not much sleep had by me, (Rich slept like a baby) we caught a slow boat to Luang Prabang. It soon because apparent that this wasn't about the be the most comfortable two days travelling but Rich assured me it was a great way to meet people so I stuck with it, even after temptation from a local bus company promising more comfort and only 10 hours journey time (which turned out to be absulte rubbish btw). We soon struck up conversation with two travellers called Gareth and Tommy, then quickly followed by Macca (aussie), Craig (Scot) and Ville (Finn). Wow, how the tables had turned. Rich, once surrounded by nothing but girls, now had a bunch of boys to back him up and I was seriously outnumbered. Not that I minded as they were all nice guys....who would turn out, be great fun and perfect travelling companipons for the next few weeks. The first day was helped along with a few social beers and swapping of stories and it flew by pretty carelessly. The scenery was spectacular, totally unspoilt counrtyside and jungle with the odd village dotted along the way. First impression of Laos, BEAUtiful!! Everyone said I would like it....and they were right. Beer Laos not half bad either. Everyone may have been right about that too. lol I heard a lot about the stop over point, Pakbeng, but it wasn't too bad. The boys stayed up late and did......well boy stuff and I.....went to bed with a headache....how girlie is that! ha ha.... Anyway, I think Rich enjoyed a boys night, so everyone's a winner (my headache went as soon as I got some sleep)!!
So day two of the boat and it was even more packed that the first day.....so we piled all the benches on the roof and sat on the floor. We had quite a little gang going and although the boys were a little jaded from the night before, spirits were still high and we set off. 8 hours later, we arrived in Luang Prabang and checked into a guest house, cleverly negotiated by Macca who seems to have a bit of a nack for negotiations and haggling! Nice One!

Luang Prabang is probably one of my favourite places we have visited on our travels so far. It has a really chilled out pace about it and it's French Colonial architecture is pretty influencial throughout the whole town. It is set between two rivers and we were quick to discover that the yearly dragon boat race festival was due to take place on the Saturday, What a touch! There is a temple on a hill right in the centre, which would prove to be an amazing view point for a sunset and also have loads of funky buddha statues and a Buddha's footprint cave there also. Being practically Buddhist now due to my tattoo (yeah right!!), I find all this stuff totally fascinating now.
We got up early a few mornings to watched the monks collect their food for the day (Alms), litterally hundreds of them, walking everywhere with the half the town there also, giving out little leafed packages of sticky rich and food. Was such a peaceful thing to experience, a real treat in my eyes. The bars and restaurants here were really cool and the food was amazing too, the highlight being a BBQ/Steamboat that we had in Lao Lao Garden, shared between the 5 of us. Our group was growing by the day and we were sometimes joined by a Canadian couple called Jordan and Jami (Joyce and Jason sometimes as they couldn't get my name correct), Katrina and Bradon from Oz/NZ and then Duane and Kate from Australia. There are a couple of lovely waterfalls in the area so we piled into a songthaews (cross bewteen a pick up and a tuk tuk), which once again was negotiatied down in price by the master of this stuff, Macca and off we went to Keung Si. What a great day out. We climbed the waterfall as far as we could and larked about in the water, swimming in pools and jumping off stuff. Check out the photos, it's pretty beautful too. A few days later we also visited another waterfall called Tard Lao, also equally as stunning but for very different reasons. That water just seemed to flow from everywhere.....through the trees it was amazing and really vast. This is where I had a bit of a dilema.....the elephants. I really wanted a ride but don't really feel great about elephants in captivity.....but after much deliberation, I decided to go for it. They looked in really good health and had great relationships with their Mahouts and I am so pleased I did too.....the experience was amazing. They literally walk through the waterfall and up and down banks, always perfectly balanced and carrying us carefully through the water. AMAZING! After the ride we went for a swim, climbing and jumping into pools again which was great.
The day of the boat race was hot hot hot! We woke a little late and headed into town to find the others and get some breakfast. Macca was pretty well known by this point among westerners so we quickly found him at the bakery and headed for the finish line. There were thousand of people in this usually sleepy town and the atmosphere was electric. Everyone was smiling, wandering around and generally having a great time. Locals, local villagers and westerners, all together....it was great actually! A real treat! The local villages all enter a racing team and the races are carried out throughout the day, watched by the locals on river banks and streets and by westerners in bars and hotel balconies. Like I said before, the day was a scorcher and it was soon apparent that we needed shade.....and refreshments. During our search I found a slush puppy (or asian equivilant) stall so quickly grabbed one, for free to which was a result as they didn't seem to be selling that many. I quickly discovered that they were laced with alcahol whiskey, cleverly named Lao Lao whiskey and so there we stayed, for the whole afternoon....grabbing every westerner that passed to join the party and purchase the slushies. The locals on the stall must have thought their Christmas and Birthdays had all come at once as they muct have sold hundreds of these drinks as there were about 30 of us gathered there, huddled under three umbrellas, talking loudly and dancing to local music and westlife (very strange). What a funny day!! Now there's a curfew in the whole of Lao and in Luang Prabang it is midnight. This is so the locals can get home and to sleep in time to feed the monks in the morning but for some strange reason, the loop hole to this is a bowling alley, just outside of the town. It wouldn't be our first visit but this seemed like a good place to finish off the night so off we went and bowled....until the early hours. Now I was pretty excited about the propect of bowling from the minute I heard about it in the Perhentians as Wii Bowling surely must have taught me a thing or two about knocking down the pins......but apparently no! I was rubbish and came an impressive last both times we played! Good going I think but I handled it well, considering my previous outbursts when loosing at stuff (competitive Carol).
We had an amazing time in Luang Prabang and I would have loved to stay a little longer but we collectively decided it was time to go. Some of the others had already headed down to Vang Vieng and now it ws our turn. I was sad to leave and after getting up early to see the monks one last time, we headed to the bus station and borded the bus to Vang Vieng, home of the tubing!!

The bus journey was probably one of the most amazing we have caught so far. It followed wonderful mountain ranges and the roads twisted and turned along narrow ridges, quite scray at times. It was all we could do but gawp out of the windows in amazment and the scenery and trying to capture it in a photo. 6 hours later we arrived in Vang Vieng, excited about the next few days but not looking forward to starting the seach for accommodation, again. It seems like all we do soemtimes.....check in and check out of places that sometimes, you probably wouldn't send your enemy's to. We found such a place pretty quick and because we were hot and too excited about exploring, we decided to stay one night. We'd soon regret it!
First thing we found was an aussie bar run by a guy called Steve. Strange place, not much soul but we stayed for a beer (it's amazing what you'll put up with for beer lao) and got chatting. Maaca being Auusie too struck up a raport with him and after discovering it was actually his birthday, agreed to come back later and help him celebrate....great, can't wait! lol We headed off to find food and soon got our bearings of the town.....all good so far. Moved to a bar close by, DK3 for anyone who's been before and ordered some Shakes. After about an hour, we were feeling pretty HAPPY with ourselves and ordered some food.....and then some more......and some more.....and pretty much sat there for the next few hours, chatting and talking rubbish. UNTIL......we remembered Steve's Birthday. Bugger......none of us wanted to go....but we had promised, or at least Macca had! So, we prized ourselves up from our slumberous seats and headed down to Steve's place. One look inside showed us that we were "the party"....and noone else was there....or probably coming.....bugger again! We reluctantly went in, after weighing up the options and thinking someone had probably seen us outside deliberating and sat down.....noone speaking, all feeling a little tired and weery after our full on day and previous happiness. Macca, deciding it was all too much, left...to be heard excusing himself with tiredness and practically running out of there. So we stayed for a drink.....still not saying much and staring at each other blankly. As if this couldn't get much worse, Steve decided....we looked hungry.....so out came a feast of noodles and fried rice....what the f*ck?? Clearly not realising we had spent pretty much the last two hours eating, he looked so pleased with himself......so we ate.....as much as we could! Needless to say, the night didn't progress much after 10pm and as soon as it was polite, we made our excuses and left!
Next day, after a dreadful nights sleep due to noise, heat, ants (nesting in Craig's bed) and generally trying to sleep in a hell pit, we checked out first thing and set out to find another place. Mission soon accomplished when we stumbled across a new hotel which had a introductory offer of 60,000 Kip per night (about 4 pound) for lovely rooms, own bathroom, hot shower and nice fan! Sorted! We had a pretty lazy day, lounging around Friends bars watching episode upon episode of Friends (funnily enough) and then headed back to DK3 for much of the same as the day before. Didn't really want to do much as the next day we had planned to go tubing, finally, for Craigs Birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Craig!
Now for anyone that doesn't know what tubing is, here's a brief introduction. Grab yourself a rubber tractor inner tube, head down to the Nam Song River which is pretty calm but has quite a current in the center, lower yourself and your tube into the river and head where ever the current takes you for the day.....stopping in at the bars/restaraunts on the way. As we were celebrating Craig's Birthday we had already discussed that we weren't to get too hammered on the way as we wanted to enjoy the evening and didn't want any accidents. This paid off as we ended up having a great day with lots of giggles and falling off, rope swings and zip slides into the river, it was great fun! We still managed to take in most of the bars, most amusing of which must have been Mr Lao Lao's (original again), who was there himself to serve drinks (of which he drank more himself) and generally tried to entertain us with air guitar and laughing at himself. We spent a total about about 7 hours on the river and made the most of everything. Apparantly, a lot of people miss sun set and have to do the last part of the river in complete darkness.....not my cup of tea, or the others, so we were pretty good at keeping an eye on the time. We like to call it....."Responsible Tubing"!! lol Along the way, we picked up another girl (finally) called Louise, who would join our group for the next few days and journey up to Vienteinne. She was a very welcome add to the group and we talked her into travelling down to Vientienne with us, which she was as pleased about as I/we were. She also introduced us to a guy called Authur, who we wouold later get to know a lot better in the Four Thousand Islands, but more of that later from Rich's Blog.
After a hard day's tubing, we were pretty tired but still managed to meet up with most of the others and head to Smile Bar, which is on an island in the middle of the river, covered in similar bars.....including Bucket Bar, which we also went to a few times.
Last day in Vang Vieng and we hired a couple of bikes so we could explore some caves and a crystal clear lagoon that we had heard about. After Rich found his way round a semi-auto bike, we headed off and found the cave etc. The water in Lagoon was amaingly clear and you could actually swim into a cave which was a little spooky but I am so pleased that I did it cos it was really cool inside. Cos the light shone in through the water in the opening it seemed to glow and looked even bluer that it had before. The darkness soon freaked me out a little though and headed back out. Our fun was cut short though as it soon started to rain.....really rain! We tried to wait it out under a roof but when it died down a little we headed back to the bikes. Because we were already wet, we went for an explore and watched a lovely sunset in another Autralia bar close to the town center.
So, after all our fun and frolicks in Vang Vieng, it was time to move on and we had booked a Kayaking trip between the two towns. Another great day....and made a nice change from sitting on a boring bus for however long.....although it wasn't without it's bus/songthaew ride but was all made worth while by the time on the river. We all doubled up and started off down the river. Now, if you've been paying attention to our previous blogs you will remember that kayaks and me and Rich, don't really go hand in hand and to say the day was without arguements would be a little porky. We fought for the first 30 minutes, much to the amusement of Macca, Lou, Ville and Craig. Sorry Mum, I know you told us to leave the kayak's alone. You will be pleased to hear (and have probably guessed by now too) that we didn't drown each other though, but did come off in the rapids three times. Rich's balance is terrible and as soon some white water headed our way, that was it......he tipped over, taking me with him. He swears that he heard me shouting "drown you bugger" as I had my foot on his head at one point but I can assure you it wasn't like that. I called him a prat and not a bugger LOL. Obviously that's a joke.....the arguing wasn't bad at all and we had a really great day. And, actually, that last time we came off....it was my fault, I tipped the boat in the rapid and dunked us both. Anyway, after the rapids we stopped for lunch on a rock and then headed back down the river at a much slower pace, taking in the calmness of the water and fisherman on the banks who were kind enough to let us have a go at fishing, I caught a little fish about an inch long. After about two hours with about an hour for lunch, we met the truck and headed off to Vientienne.

So, that is our journey so far in Laos, will leave the rest for Rich to fill you in. I love the country, the Laos people are so friendly and the scenery is stunning. I think I would go so far to say that this may have been my favourite country so far. And of course we mustn't forget a special mention to the Beer Laos. I had heard the legends and after tasting it, can confirm that it could possibly be the nicest beer in the world!

Anyway, speak soon. I hope this keeps everyone happy for now. We will try and stay on top of the blogs from now on! Can I also just say once again Thank you to Kit for our last blog. I couldn't read it for ages as was missing you but you did an amazing job, well done you!!

Love loads. Miss you all!
Carol.....and Rich (Dito) xxxxx

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Photos

Slow Boat
Crammed in

Ville, Craig and Macca
Our new travelling companions for a while

Pak Ou
Buddha caves close to Luang Prabang

Craig, me and Macca
We couldn't resist climbing up

Dragon Boat Race
We have no idea who won??

Our ride
We couldn't beleive we were walking through the waterfall