Laos

Sunday the 30th

I took a tuk-tuk to changmai airport and caught my flight out of Thailand to Luang Prabang in the north west of Laos. Luang Prabang is situated in the middle of jungle covered mountains on the Mekong river. I got off the plane and the first think I realised was I didnt have enough money to buy my visa so I had to borrow a couple of dollars of a scottish couple that were on the plane with me. I got a taxi into the city, found myself a guest house and took a stroll around. The city has lots of greenery and even though it is got 100,000 people it always feels like you are in the country, probably because they have vegetable patches on the banks of the mekong. Also there are Buddhist temples everywhere and its hard to walk around for five minutes without seeing a Buddhist monk in their orange robes.

I spent the evening visiting the different temples around the city. The most impressive temple is Way xieng thong and inside there was some ritual where some guy who started off in normal clothes ended up in an orange robe, im assuming he was being ordained but i couldnt understand the chanting. One temple is located up on a hill and it gave a beautiful view of the city at sunset.

I went for dinner in a restaurant reccomended by lonely planet. I ordered a "special soup" to start and a curry for the main. They were both identical except one was in a bowl and the other was on a plate served with rice. They could have bloody told me. Anyways after a hell of a lot of the same soup/curry I went to the evening market where lots of textiles and clothes were on offer. I also booked myself on a trekking and kayaking trip for two days in the nearby mountains.

Monday the 1st

I got up at 5.30am and headed out to see the procession of buddhist monks. Each morning at 6am the monks walk around the city with baskets and the people feed them by placing food into their baskets. Loads of women were trying to sell me food to give the monks the second I hit the streets. I gave in and bought some rice and bananas and positioned myself beside sitting on the ground on the side of the road beside another western couple, Edel from Ireland and Niel form England. Soon we were joined by some locals all sitting on the side of the street with big pots of cooked rice in front of them. The arrival of the monks was announced with an approaching drum beat. Then they came in drones. There must have been at least 200 monks who walked by us in single file. I gave them rice and bananas until I ran out, the rice was already cooked and i just piled it into their baskets with my bare hands like everyone else. Im sure the monks must have been thinking, O christ, not rice again or maybe Oh Buddha as opposed to Oh christ. Anyways, when I ran out I did manage to get some decent photos and video footage. A procession of monks all dressed in Orange walking down the street in single file at 6am really is a sight to behold.

Afterwards I went for some breakfast in the local morning market with Edel and Niel, who had just been married in thailand and were honeymooning about south east asia. We saw some crazy things at the market, such as barbequed rat, frogs, huge fish unkown to me apparently caught in the mekong and lets not forget the dead squirells. I opted for some sweet sticky rice and tea since my stomach just wasnt up to barbequed rat.

After brekkie I got my stuff together and rolled up for the trekking. The group was myself and a couple from Quebec in Canada, Stephane and Elyse, so a great opportunity to practice my french. The three of us had two guides Kai and Keo, so we were well looked after.

Before we strated trekking we were brought outside the city to a festival in celebration of the Mong tribes new year. Here the girls were all dressed up in colour full costumes in what seemed to be a parade of elligible batchelorettes. Apparently the new year festival is a great time in Mong culture to find your new wife. When a couple meet, and its mainly the boys decision although Keo assured me the girl did have some say, the can be married in as little as three days. No messing around.

After the festival, which was in full swing by 11am, we headed off and started trekking. We trekked for a few hours through beautiful countryside eventually reaching a village for lunch. In this remote village there was not a whole lot going on, the women were weaving something and the men were playing cards. They dont have a lot to do since the government decided to make the growing of opium illegal. All in all it was a pretty depressing place, its only shining light being its amazing location in the mountains.We ate lunch and took a stroll around to admire all the people doing nothing.

The after noon was again spent trekking through the countryside and in the evening we reached another village. These people had a bit of go to them and they had converted from growing opium to regular agriculture. The village was quite pretty with all the houses made of bamboo. We were shown our bamboo hut. Dinner was incredible thanks to Keo and Kia with salad, soup, stir fried vegatables and sticky rice. After dinner we sat around a wooden fire outside to keep warm. Its ok during the day but at night it gets a bit cool here. One of the houses/huts beside our hut has a generator, the village has no electricity, and a television. Each evening the woman of this house charges her neighbours a few pence to come and watch tv, which keeps her in feul for the generator and keeps tv access for the village. So i was interested to see what they were all watching so i looked through a slit in the side of the bamboo hut. The TV was sorrounded by mainly the women of the village and their children and they were all watching some thai programme showing women strippers stripping. Strange!!!!


Tuesday the 2nd

I awoke at 4.30am, 29 years of age, to a frigging cock doing its cock-a-doodle-doo. What a happy birthday. In a few minutes there must have been ten of them at it. Honestly, who in their right minds gets up at 4.30. Anyways i thought it was very kind of them, shoved my earplugs in my ears and went back to sleep on my rock hard mattress. After a few more hours sleep which involved changing sides every 30 minutes to aleviate the pain induced by the mattress, we all got up, ate our breakfast, an omelette with ginger and lemon grass, and hit the road again. The trekking was mainly downhill through rice fields and jungle and after about an hour and a half we reached the river for our kayaking.

We were in the kayaks for about 15 minutes when we reached a waterfall on a tributary river coming onto our river. The water fall was called tadsee and it was something out of a fairytale. It wasnt very high but consisted of an array of steps and trees. Only pictures can describe it. Here we lounged around in the sunshine for a while and after an hour of taking in the beauty we were given our lunch. Lunch was a sandwich about two foot long. I ate half and was stuffed. After lunch we got back in the kayaks.

Kyaking on the river was amazing. We passed fishermen in the river with their nets, farms on the banks with the farmers tending to the land, women washing the household clothes and their children and many groups of teenagers with guitars singing songs celebrating Laos independence which is the same day as my birthday. We also passed a few rapids on the way which got the adreniline going a bit but not too much, and even though we got wet on the rapids it didnt matter as the skies were completely blue and the sun, higher than the sorrounding jungle covered mountains, was there to keep us warm.

When the kayaking was finished we got truck back into Luang Prabang. I went back to the same hotel I had been in before and got myself an even better price. Bargaining is really part of the game here. In the evening I went for dinner with Elyse and Stephane from the trek and we didnt have to pay as dinner was included as part of the trek. We had a Laos barbeque. You cook your own meat and soup on a wood fire barbeque which is in the middle of the table where you are sitting and everybody shares out the food. It really is something that if marketed properly could be a hit back home.

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