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Published: October 12th 2008
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Lovely Laos
We’d met quite a few people in Vietnam who’d just come from Laos and said the whole country was flooded. This was potentially a big issue given all the places we’d planned to go are next to rivers. So we had a quick look on the internet to see if there was any news, decided that because there wasn’t, things couldn’t be too bad and booked flights to Vientiane from Hanoi.
Lao airlines is a bit hit and miss apparently, with not the best safety record in the world. As you can imagine, this did not go down well with Lynne. Our guide book said not to fly if the aircraft was Chinese made, so after checking and rechecking that the aircraft was indeed French, we were set to go.
We didn’t know much about Laos before getting here. Reading about its history, it always seems to have been the piggy in the middle, typically trying to fend off Thai or Vietnamese claims to territory. The Ho Chi Min trail in the Vietnam war actually crossed the border into Laos for a large part of its length and as a result Laos was bombed to smithereens
by the Americans to try and disrupt the supply route. According to the books, more bombs were dropped on Laos (a country that is smaller than the UK) than in the entirety of WWII! And this was all done covertly, with CIA pilots dressed in shorts and cowboy hats, taking off from Thailand and then “crossing over the fence”.
As a capital city, Vientiane is probably one of the smallest we have been to, but is in a really nice position next to the Mekong. Evidence of the floods was everywhere. The entire banks were sand bagged and it had only been a few days since the flood waters had receded. There wasn’t much damage to Vientiane but apparently villages an hour away were badly affected. There were lots of rumours that the flood waters had been caused by the Chinese releasing dam gates upstream without warning, but we’ve no idea if this was true or not.
Vientiane itself is a very lazy type of place. There isn’t masses to see, so we hired bikes and went around all the major sites in a day. A quick ride got us to Wat Si Saket temple. Then the heavens
decided to open so we were left with a choice of being stranded in the temple, or armed with nice plastic ponchos, to head off and brave the rain. Ever stupid, we did the later. Lynne didn’t do too badly, but my poncho didn’t cover my shorts when riding so I ended up absolutely drenched.
As quickly as it started, it stopped and was replaced by glorious sunshine. So after drying off over lunch we cycled out to That Luang. This is very impressive, particularly in the bright sun with all the gold leaf shimmering. On the way back, we stopped at the Victory Monument, which is like a Laos Marble Arch. Apparently concrete provided by the Americans and intended for Vientiane airport was diverted to help finish this, so it must be important to the Lao people.
There are quite of few nice cafes and good food in Vientiane, you can even upload your ipod with the latest albums. Lynne’s new favourite is the ladybug shake (watermelon and lime juice), mine is the national dish, Lao Lap, a spicy minced meat with chilli and coriander served with rice and a broth.
Our first experience of travel
in Laos
Our 3 hour bus trip to Vang Vieng turned into a 7 hour nightmare. The bus broke down half way, but the driver and resident mechanic managed to jack it up, so it looked perilously close to tipping over, and then get under it and do their business. Rather them than me! The “fix” was obviously temporary, as we then had to do the rest of the journey in first gear and you could honestly have walked quicker.
The first impression of Vang Vieng isn’t good. You get dropped off at a huge disused tarmac airstrip (a legacy from the Americans) but its only a 10 minute walk to most of the accommodation which lines the river. It’s a tiny little place, with about 4 streets. We got a really nice place next to the river, just out of the centre and once there our impression changed. The view across the river was of misty karst mountains and villagers fishing in the river. It is really pretty.
Most people come to Vang Vieng to do some sort out outdoor activity. The river is good for kayaking and there are also caves to explore. We chose
to do tubing. You basically hire a tractor inner tube and get dropped off upstream, jump in your tube and gently float back to town. The twist is that lots of enterprising locals have set up bars all along the river. They throw you a line as you float past, pull you in and then offer you a choice of vicious local alcohol or Beer Lao. Many of the bars also have rope swings from trees into the river or zip slides. One even looks like it’s building a big slide, a bit like an Eddy the Eagle ramp.
There is absolutely nothing cultural about this, but it is one of the best things we’ve done. You get to meet loads of people who are out for a laugh (and we get to meet up with most of our unfortunate bus mates from the day before). Beware of the buckets though. These are a sandcastle buckets filled with half a bottle of whisky, one bottle of coke and one of red bull. Lethal! Particularly as it is local red bull which, with hindsight, we don’t think is very good for you at all! So after visiting about 7 bars,
we floated back to town in the pitch black, got dragged out of the water at the right spot by a couple of local kids and somehow staggered back to the hotel and immediately to bed.
The hangover the next day was not pleasant. The mixture of booze and red bull had resulted in very little sleep and a banging headache. To be honest, it didn’t clear all day but we had another go at the tubing, just this time with a lot less booze. To round off our time in Vang Vieng we spent the evening watching “Wild Hogs” at one of the cafes in town, still a little delicate!
Nothing like Vang Vieng would be allowed to exist in the West, so get there if you can! Also the Lao people are so friendly, you are constantly met with cries of “Sabai Dee” (“Hello”) and “Kop Chai Lei Lei” (“Thank you very much”), that it’s really hard not to like the place.
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