Northern Laos (Vang Vieng - Luang Prabang)

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Next stop on our journey through South-East Asia was Vang Vieng, undoubtedly the party capital of Laos. Despite the spectacular scenery surrounding the town, Vang Vieng seems to exist for the sole purpose of catering for people looking for a party. In addition to the many bars, most of the restaurants show “Friends” on the television all day long, for those recovering from the night prior. The main attraction in Vang Vieng is tubing, which involves floating down the river in a giant donut visiting various dodgy bamboo bars on the way. The end result usually involves hordes of drunk, loud tourists wearing next to nothing being delivered back to the main street at 7pm. I’m sure the Vang Vieng locals have a great impression of Westerners.

This is not to say we didn’t enjoy Vang Vieng, in fact I’m quite sure we would have joined in on the festivities had my first few days not been marred by whatever disease I had picked up in Pakse. It’s just after witnessing what we did every night we didn’t feel it was really appropriate to be behaving like that in a country as conservative as Laos. Also, tubing really isn’t a couple’s scene.

Anyway so back to our time in Vang Vieng. We spent our time there admiring the spectacular surrounding lime stone mountains whilst kayaking, caving and even tubing (a very tame event though mind you). On our second day (the first being spent in bed feeling sorry for myself) we booked ourselves onto a caving and kayaking tour. Lots of fun was had especially in the “Water Cave”, which basically is a cave flooded with water. The best thing about exploring this cave is that you jump into a tube, attach a torch to your head and then pull yourself through the cave on a rope whilst floating in the tube. Some areas you can actually get out of the tube and crawl under the rocks to find caverns of stalactites and stalagmites.

After the caves we roamed through some watermelon fields to get the truck to the river. We kayaked 8km passing through some rapids and the tubing bars, trying to avoid hitting tubers or be hit by people jumping from 10m high swings into the river (you notice A LOT of people in Vang Vieng sporting various bandaged limbs).

The following day we had planned to hire bikes and check out the surrounding area, though feeling adverse to exercise and very hot we decided to forfeit that idea and instead sit in a tube doing not much. Tubing was worth it for the people watching alone. First of all and most obviously you have the young tourists on tubes out to party, then you have the older, middle aged tourists taking boat trips up the river looking somewhat horrified at what they have come across, then you have those on kayaks trying not to run into the previous and finally you have the Korean tourists, cameras in hand, fitted out with life jackets whilst sitting awkwardly in a tube and being escorted down the river by someone who can actually swim. The tubing shop says that the trip down the river would take two hours without stopping, thus when we arrived at the shop with 3 and a half hours till close we thought we would have plenty of time. Though as all things are in Asia, time seems to be measured in a way which best suits those involved and 3 hours later after only stopping for 15 minutes, we were racing down the river and back to the shop so as not to incur a ‘late fee’.
Next stop on our adventure was the beautiful French inspired town of Luang Prabang. The journey there was not for those with sensitive stomachs, but thankfully we arrived vomit-free after 7 hours of hairpin turns up and down the very hilly countryside, the same cannot be said for some of our Lao travel companions. We spent the next day or so wandering around the town, exploring some of the wats, eating crepes and bumping into some friends we had made in Cambodia before booking ourselves into a two day caving, waterfall, elephant riding and kayaking adventure.

The following day, after an early start we made our way on a slow boat to the Pak Ou caves. To be honest, although it is a sacred site for Lao people, to us it just looked like a warehouse for Buddha statues inside a cliff face - hardly worth the one and a half hours it took to get there. It wasn’t really any fault of the tour considering we would have gone there by ourselves regardless. Anyway, that afternoon things picked up with a trip to the Kuang Si waterfall. It was a hot day so a swim in the beautiful, turquoise waters was definitely called for... the area was so nice it looked like it was straight from a movie!

After spending the afternoon lying around in a waterfall we were transferred to the nights accommodation which was included as part of the tour. It was by FAR the best place we have stayed in - the beds had springs, there was hot water, space to actually put our bags and it was furnished!!! Very exciting. The day ended with a tasty traditional Lao meal and some good company.

The next day we dragged ourselves up at the crack of dawn and donned a very attractive mahout (elephant training) uniform. They were very fashionable - expect to see them in the next issue of Vogue. Looking extremely good, we headed out into the jungle to collect our elephants and bathe them in the river. It was so much fun, I sat directly on the elephants head like a pro while it proceeded to use its trunk to splash me with water whilst sitting in the river. It really was an amazing experience.

After a quick breakfast we mounted another elephant (this time with a seat on its back) for a trek through the jungle, before it was time to get in the kayaks and paddle down the Mekong back to camp. Merric and I are really getting the hang of kayaking and are actually quite good at it now. The three hours went by very quickly (but probably very slowly for the larger man in our group!) and we were delivered back to Luang Prabang with just enough time to find a new guesthouse before it got dark.

Our remaining day in Luang Prabang was spent paying a visit to the night markets, wandering around eating and trying to organise transport to Chiang Mai, Thailand. We had originally planned to take the two day slow boat to the border, then from there take another days worth of buses to Chiang Mai. However, once we found out that the slow boat was actually US$40 (not including accommodation and food), we decided not to waste 3 days of our lives on an extremely uncomfortable boat and buses and instead cheat and take a 1 hour flight directly to Chiang Mai. Whilst the boat was still the cheapest option by far, it was not as dirt cheap as we expected it to be, thus did not warrant the suffering that would be involved! So that’s where we are now. I really enjoyed Laos, more so than Cambodia (Angkor aside). Hopefully we will continue having an excellent time in Thailand!

xoxo

Kate

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Comments

[James Waller]

Riding elephants looks like a quite a thrill, although it's a shame the tubbing scene failed to deliver (you were so excited prior to leaving). It looks as though you may have actually developed a tan, Kate. To quote a few ex-Eastwood Public students, "that bitch", haha.