Advertisement
Published: February 15th 2011
I will start this blog by saying that the journey from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang was one that we thought might be our last! The roads were absolutely mental and we spent most of the journey hanging onto the side of the cliffs!! We made it though and the scenery on the way was some of the most beautiful we have seen in Asia, very mountainous and green. Kate and Laura had left for Luang Prabang straight after the tubing and for this I take my hat off to them, those roads on a drunken hangover = hellish!
On our first day we were up at the crack of dawn to see the monks collecting the alms(rice/food) in the main street. A long line of orange stretched for as far as the eye could see. After wakening up a bit more and having a gander around the streets we decided that Luang Prabang is probably one of the nicest Cities we have been to yet. The main street looks like it has been pulled straight from La Paris, the French influence is really strong and it seems much more of a town than city- very peaceful. Therefore a great
place to hop on two wheels and go sightseeing, which after one temple didn’t really get off to a great start - I think we are officially all templed out!
Around Laung Prabang there are numerous activities to take part in from trekking to visiting some of the waterfalls. We decided to make the most of the sunshine and go to one of the waterfalls for a dip. We booked to get the bus there and after picking up about 30 folk (the bus was a 12 seater!) we arrived at an absolutely stunning waterfall, so stunning in fact it didn't look real(see pics!). Although don’t let the pictures fool you, the water was absolutely freeeezing!
The Great Escape....
Every backpacker is on a mission, to escape all other backpackers - this is near on impossible!!
In Laos it is common to trek up North into the local villages and do what is called a 'Homestay' - basically staying in a local village. All of the tour operators offer this experience for astronomical prices and is therefore the opposite of what we were looking for if everybody can pay for it. However a brilliant tour operator,
who wasn’t trying to make a quick buck, suggested we could do it ourselves – Score!! ... It would only be a 4 hour bus journey, 1 hour boat ride and a 3 hour trek away! How hard could it be??! As we were heading off into the unknown it was decided that there would be safety in numbers and our chums, Tina and Paul, came along for the ride.
As with anything in Asia the transport side of our journey took twice the time it should have. Hence we stepped off the boat into a village as it was starting to get dark, the trek was a no go at that time. The boat journey to this village was really spectacular and we were happy to stay there for the night and chill out before the morning trek. Already we were off the beaten track with no roads, few shops and only a once a day boat to get away again!
The next morning we were all geared up for our trek and had no idea what would await us at the end of it. For all we knew we might have ended up camping in a
field with no 'experience' to speak of. The journey started off with high hopes as we followed a clear track and visited some caves on the way! However we were soon even further off the beaten track, as in there was no track - or people or villages!! We were trudging through rivers and fields with no sense of direction what so ever. What had we got ourselves into??! After a few more hours of aimlessly wondering through fields in the scorching sun we spotted a village in the distance - huge sigh of relief! As we arrived at this tiny village it would seem that our escape had been a success - not a single backpacker in sight!
We spent the afternoon looking around the village having some of the village kids look at us! James and Paul got into the local spirit by playing a game of bools with our host for the night and drinking shots of Laos Laos (rice whisky - vile!!). It turned out that our host was also a teacher at the local school, the perfect person to give the books, pens and pencils we had brought with us to. James and Paul
Deserted!
First village stop-overhad also brought some footballs along in the hope of getting a much needed kick about. One kick of the ball and there was a swarm of local kids looking to join in, the glee was written all over their faces (Inc. James and Paul) and this was definately one of the 'authentic' experiences we were looking for!
Later that evening our host rustled us up some BBQ buffalo, and although her intentions where kind we were worried that we might lose all of our teeth trying to chew what seemed like pieces of rock! We had an early night as we had to trek back in the morning and this was an experience in itself as the cows wondered under and around where we slept. I was worried one of them might come up the steps and into the room, however Jamesy assured me that cows could not climb stairs and we would not be coming face to face with any coo's during the night!
We made it back to the mainland with no hiccups and were over the moon that we had managed to have an authentic experience without paying $60 for it!
However the
days ahead are ones which we have been dreading for sometime, a 3 day journey down to the southern Thai Islands - arrrgggghhhhh!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0359s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
