Down the Mekong

---

Hello everyone!

We're now in Vietnam but realised we haven't written anything about Laos yet so thought we'd better fill you all in. It started with the trip down the Mekong from Thailand into Laos. We set off from Chiang Mai in Thailand on the 13th May (Sarah thought this was unlucky but she was glad we weren't on the boat on this day!) by bus to Chiang Kong - very uneventful but lovely scenery and green mountains. Once we got to Chiang Kong it was 4.30 and we'd heard they charge extra for people trying to cross the border after 4pm (apparently they need to be paid overtime then!) but we decided to risk it anyway. We crossed the Mekong, which forms the border between the Thai town of Chiang Kong and the Lao town of Huay Xai, in a small boat which Sarah really didn't like! (It was perfectly safe!) Immigration was a little office, not very obvious, just down the street from the main boat landing. We managed to only get charged $1 more for overtime, but it was still annoying! We met some nice people on the bus on the way and found a guesthouse with them in Huay Xai, then went out for dinner with some of them. Next day was time for the big boat ride. We'd heard such terrible things about the 2 day journey to Luang Prabang so we were prepared for the worst, but in fact we were pleasantly surprised, as the boat was really nice, and because we arrived early, we managed to get minibus style seats with proper padding rather than the hard benches - luxury! Sarah didn't even mind it too much! The scenery was incredible, with lush green limestone mountains on all sides and the beaches (with great sediment for Phil!) of the Mekong. We also saw the traditional houses of the people, which are built on stilts, and saw many of them rowing on the river catching fish. We spent the first night in Pak Beng, a small village halfway to Luang Prabang where quite a lot of development has taken place due to the tourists, but where the electricity still goes off at 10pm (not good for the fan! - it was like being on the trek again). We've realised since that we were incredibly lucky with our boat as some people we've spoken to had a pretty rough time of it, with incredibly crowded boats and very hard seats.

Anyway we arrived in Luang Prabang on the Thursday evening and checked into a guesthouse very near the boat landing, very nice and convenient! Luang Prabang is like no other town we've seen on our travels. It's protected status means there are lots of regulations on building so it looks really old fashioned and pretty, with wooden houses and lots of temples. It also had a wonderful night market, which luckily was relatively small as it still took us 2 nights to explore properly! It was similar to the Thai night markets but much better, as it sold much more of a variety of things and they were all made by the people themselves. While in Luang Prabang we visited the National Museum (quite interesting) and Phu Si, a hill in the middle of town with some temples and shrines (and two massive Buddha footprints! I'm not sure how he was supposed to have made footprints that big!!) that had a wonderful view from the top over the Mekong and the town. One aspect of Laos that we've loved is all the baguette stalls, selling really cheap baguettes for a tiny price - yummy! We also visited the Tat Kuang Si waterfall, which was like paradise in the middle of the jungle. It had the clearest turquoise blue water and was lovely and cool to swim in. We stupidly listened to the Lonely Planet and decided to try and find the second tier, which is apparently much nicer than the first one, but after around at least half an hour of climbing on a path that seemed to fizzle out, and after meeting other people who had already been that way and not found anything, we gave up and Phil went for a lovely swim to cool off. We met Haseena and Russell, an Hawaiian girl and British guy, on the way up, who we've bumped into a lot ever since!

On the 18th we set off on a supposedly local bus for Phonsavan, east of Luang Prabang. We'd heard that the bus takes 10 hours and that the roads were terrible but were surprised when the bus turned out to be really nice (with air conditioning!) and the roads weren't bad at all (certainly nothing like Nepal!). However, the bus did make funny noises and the engine sounded very strained when we were going uphill. Sure enough, about an hour from Phonsavan the bus broke down (something to do with the gear box apparently) and we were stranded in a landscape that was unlike the rest of Laos and more like the French Alps, with grassy hills and cows with bells on! It was luckily much cooler as Phonsavan is high up in the mountains, so at least temperature wasn't a problem. We switched to a proper local bus after about half an hour of waiting for one to come along, and managed to squeeze in for the final part of the journey (Phil sharing a seat with a rather large old lady who refused to move her equally large shopping basket from the seat - it was a tight fit!).

Phonsavan was interesting - it was nice to be somewhere less touristy as it's not on the general tourist route through Laos. The main reason we came was because of the Plain of Jars, comprised of 3 sites of mysterious stone jars, some up to 2m in height, and no one knows why they're there or what they were for. They've been dated to around 2000 years BP and there're arguments between the locals, who think they were used for storing rice whisky (that's a lot of rice whisky!) and the archaeologists who think they were used for dead bodies. The first night we spent in Phonsavan we had a couple of cockroaches in the room - Laos cockroaches are not like European ones - they are about 3 times the size and equally as fast - very scary! We were grateful for the mosquito nets so we could sleep in peace knowing they couldn't get at us. The next day we took our trip to the Plain of Jars, but unfortunately the weather was terrible and it poured down all day! Apparently the rainy season has come about a month early this year - great!! We ended up taking off our flip flops and just walking in the mud as we were slipping so much!! The 3 Jar sites were really interesting and would have had fantastic views if it hadn't been raining the whole time! The tour also involved a visit to the whisky village, where they make traditional lao lao or rice whisky - it's very strong stuff! Apparently it's illegal in Laos but everyone drinks it anyway! We had lunch (noodle soup) included in the price, which was delicious. We returned from the tour quite early so went to visit the MAG office in the evening. MAG is the Mines Advisory Group, and they show videos each night about efforts to clear the country of unexploded ordinance. There were some really interesting stories about training people for clearing the mines, and it was a really valuable experience. On the main tourist trail you tend to miss all the things about the mines and the history of the country, so we were glad we'd managed to see that. That night we had even more cockroaches in the room and were quite freaked out - we told the guesthouse owners (the woman screamed even more loudly than Phil did!!) and they let us move rooms, where thankfully we had no more trouble.

On Tuesday we got the bus to Vang Vieng, which is surrounded by incredible limestone karsts. Vang Vieng is famous for it's watersports and is a major stop on the tourist route, which means it's become very developed. It was very strange walking along the main street hearing nothing but Friends blaring out at full volume from the TVs in the countless bars! It felt more like Thailand than Laos. The first afternoon we explored a bit and Phil booked a tour for the next day. She went on a tubing tour with 7 other people up the Nam Song River. The tour began with a visit to a cave, where there were lots of Buddha statues. It's known as the Elephant Cave as the stalactites have formed the shape of an elephant - it's really quite convincing. Next was a visit to another cave, where we were able to tube through on an underground river. Tubing is where you sit in an inflatable rubber ring and pull yourself along on a rope - it was brilliant and there were some really nice people on the tour. The lunch, which was included in the price, was lovely - fried rice, barbecue kebabs, baguette and chilli sauce and a banana for pudding. Then the afternoon was spent drifting down the Nam Song on tubes again, stopping at lots of the bars they've set up en route. The weather was amazing for once and Phil had her first tast of Beer Lao - very nice! That evening we all went out for drinks to a bar on the river, although unfortunately the weather decided it couldn't hold out any longer and we had to sit under the umbrella most of the night! They do buckets of cocktails in Laos very cheaply, so we were drinking Lao Lao cocktails all night. We spent the next day just relaxing and watching Friends, feeling quite exhausted after our first night out in three and a half months!!

We set off on Friday morning wanting to get the bus to Vientiane, the capital, but Phil was running out of money and there were no local buses until 12.20 (and we couldn't afford the express buses) so we ended up getting a sangthaew, a sort of pick up truck. Luckily the trip only took 3 and a half hours but it wasn't the most comfortable experience ever! It did mean we got to Vientiane early though, which was good as all the guesthouses filled up very quickly and we only just managed to find one we could afford (which was not the nicest guesthouse ever!!). Vientiane is a strange city - it's a mixture of communist and colonial, and it doesn't seem as touristy as other places in Laos. We went to visit the Pha That Luang stupa, which is the symbol of Laos, and the Patuxai monument, which is a sort of an Arc de Triomphe thing in the middle of town - it looks quite horrible though as it's made of concrete and is very grey!! The rest of the time was just spent wandering around town and sitting in cafes talking to people we'd met on our travels through Laos - everyone seems to be doing a similar route so you end up seeing the same people again and again! Sunday (yesterday) was the day we flew out to Vietnam. We'd heard Vientiane airport was really tiny but it was actually really good, and it even had shops - we had great fun spending the small amount of kip we had left (it's no use to anyone outside Laos) and then got on the flight to Hanoi. We flew with Lao Airlines, who have a terrible safety reputation, but although the plane was very noisy and the landing was quite bumpy, we survived (!) and it really wasn't too bad. They even served us lunch!

Arriving in Vietnam we got a taxi into Hanoi with Jordan, a guy we'd met in Vang Vieng who was on the same flight, and then headed off to explore the Old Quarter, where most of the tourists stay. We eventually found a hotel to stay in, but we were shocked by how expensive they all seem to be here!! Hanoi is a brilliant city - very busy and noisy with loads of motorbikes, but with lots to see and a very pretty lake in the centre. We've spent this morning mostly walking around and exploring and we're planning a few day trips in the next few days. Until next time...

---