Adventureous Lao

Sunday Night, Sadiki, Amy, Ann, and myself headed out to the train station @ Bangkok, getting ready to board our 12 hour overnight train ride in First Class(which means Air Con, with fold out beds..the other option was outdoors on metal benches, sitting) from Bangkok to Nong Khai, Thailand, which is at the border of Thailand and Laos. Our train would leave at 8 PM and arriving in Nong Khai 8 AM. From Nong Khai, we'd take a Tuk Tuk to cross the Friendship Bridge(connecting Thailand & Laos) and head over to Vientiane, capital of Laos. We had planned on spending Monday morning exploring Vientiane, then hop on a bus to Vang Viang, the place for river tubing. Well, so much for planning. That's what we realized more and more...it's impossible to plan with SE Asian timing. Better off just relax and plan in lots of cushion time.

Our train did not get to Nong Khai until 2 PM Monday afternoon. At first we were informed the train was going to be delayed by a bit..ok. How long? Just a little delayed. Would you like some Thai iced tea? Breakfast? Nooo. A few hours later...We're delayed by a little bit. Why is the train delayed? It's delayed. Why? It's delayed. Why? Would you like some lunch? Nooo. Why is the train delayed? Ok, no Thai Iced Tea? Ok, Thank you. Hahah...our running joke was, somebody better order something so we can get off this train. 17 and 1/2 hours later, we finally arrived to Nong Khai. Starving, and so tired, we got over being angry annoyed, etc. We just wanted to get into Laos, get food, and rest. At Nong Khai, we bought another train ticket to cross the Friendship bridge into Laos.

It was a faster way and really the best part was, we didn't have to worry about bargaining with the Tuk Tuk for a rate. The train had a flat fee. We got our Visa on Arrival processed, and of we went into Vientiane- after bargaining for a whole car to ourselves, with AirCon instead of riding in a squeezed up Tuk Tuk. Then an idea came to us. It was already 3 PM in the afternoon. The bus to Vang Viang had already left. We next attempted to bargain with our driver to take us to Vang Viang. We didn't quite succeed with this guy, but we did try again once in Vientiane.

We bargained for a private van to Vang Viang, and it worked. It was ridiculous. With money...you can really do anything in SE Asia. It cost us a couple of mils...Lao Mills. Another ridiculous thing- the money exchange rate. We definitely had to bust out a calculator because numbers were just flying everywhere...converting to the Thai Baht, American Dollar, Lao Kip. 1 USD was 8521.5 Lao Kips. What a convenient number, eh? It came out costing very little in USD. So off we went, in the middle of the night. It was pouring. The road was pitch black dark...and we had no care in the world. Each had a bench to ourselves to sleep on, while our private chauffeur takes us to Vang Viang.

Vang Viang was all about adventures. Tubing got scratched off when we realized just sitting on a tube and floating down the Mekong wasn't too exciting. We signed up for a Kayaking & Caving trip instead. And that was all adventure. We kayak down the Mekong past by all the tubers. Then off to trekking @ some jungle path. then arrived to a cave entrance. Our tour guy said, jump in. We looked at him and asked,"Where's our caving boat?" "Your jackets, we swim!" "Uh...ok. When in Rome." The water was freezing, and had a nice murky brown. To add to that, I had no shoes on...only my flip flops- which I took off- while everybody came prepared with water shoes (FYI a must...if you think about traveling to SE Asia & doing water activities). Sure enough, I could feel everything down in the murky water with my barefeet..some slimey, some sandy, some unknown.

We waded into the dark cave with our tour guide and one flash light and absolutely no other light. It was pitch black and freezing cold. But it was fantastic. We could actually hear silence. Saw bats. Touched limestones. Rock climbed...on limestones (probably not the best thing). In New Zealand, when I toured the Waitomo Caves- also limestones- we were on a boat, nice and dry, but there was absolutely no touching of anything. Forget the swimming in freezing, possibly very lively-full-of-critters-and-creatures water. Ahh, untouched Lao.

After the caving, we hiked back and got into the truck to go back to town. Our tour guide said, you guys walk, ok? Uh...how far is town? Only a few km. Uh...no we can't walk back to town! Uh..ok. We ride on top. Huh? Yes. Climb Climb. So apparently, the extra carrier for the kayaks had to be used somewhere else, so there's no room for us to ride back with kayaks now loaded up into the truck. So we climbed & sat on the rooftop. Sensible. Well, when in Rome. So up we went one by one!

Finished the day with a nice 3 hour spa session for a crazy...15 USD and "partied" the night away Lao style @ Smile Bar. The dance floor was a raised wooden platform in the middle of the woods with two giant speakers and a mini bar. It was fantastic. Just add some bug spray and you're bound to have a good time.

The next day, we headed on to Luang Prabang in a minibus- a VIP bus with only 10 people instead of a regular giant bus of the usual 50+; we paid a few thousand extra kips- 2-5 USD?. We thought we had the better deal...only to realize the minibus usually comfortably 6 people, but in Laos, you can make a seat out of anything. So there we were 10 people crammed into a 6 (already a stretch) seater car going through windy hills, dodging cows and tree branches for 8 hours on the road. To add to this, the driver loved to save gas..so AC was off. His excuse was "we're going up mountain." Even when we were cruising downhill, there was still no AC. So an ongoing 8 hour constant battle with the driver to turn on the f-ing AC. We were a little more than annoyed...but mostly nauseated.

After a gruesome 8 hours, we finally got into Luang Prabang, and what a cute little city it was. Imagine Little Paris, but in the middle of SE Asia. That was Luang Prabang- the cultural capital of Laos. Due to its French colonialism times influence back in the early 20th century. The architecture flaunts French Victorian perched over backdrop of emerald mountains and Mekong River. Beautiful. Baguette is the choice bread wherever you go. Luang Prabang is marked as a World Heritage site where everything is preserved and protected from any construction.

After a day/night of rest and hanging around the city, we spent the next day at the Kuangxi Waterfalls, an hour tuk-tuk ride outside of Luang Prabang. The hike leading to the waterfalls is surrounded by beautiful emerald green, turquoise natural swimming pools. One of the swimming areas, with little water falls included, had a swinging rope! After finally arriving to the incredibly magnificent final waterfall, we found a path to hike up to the beginning of the falls themselves. The hike, of course, turned out to be yet another one of those steep, steep, steep hills (we found out after getting to the top there was a much easier, wooden step path on the other side of the falls). After the steep ascend, we realized we had hiked a little too far up, all the way to the top of the water falls. So we crossed some rivers, hopped on some rocks, and did a little rock climbing downward to the waterfalls. It all paid off- another beautiful swimming area up in the middle of the water falls- incredibly beautiful and makes you feel very very little and in awe.

The next morning we woke up at 5 AM just in time to catch a renowned tradition- the alms offering by the people to the local monks. Lao monks are not allowed to work and only eat what is being offered by the locals. They can only consume food 2 times a day: once early in the morning and again at noon. They rest of the day is spent meditating, reading, and studying. Every morning at 4 AM, all monks at all temples in Luang Prabang do a morning meditation, then they set on on the streets to collect food offerings from the local people. One interesting thing- women are not allowed to talk to monks- as their interaction would tempt the monks onto ...devious paths. Women would hand men the food, and the men themselves would place them in the monks' baskets. The whole process was a beautiful site. From every temple, the monks would head out in single-file with their wooden bowls and the streets are lined with people and their baskets of food. Everything's done in complete silence and a sense of reverie filled the air.

For the rest of the day, we walked around town more and did a hike up to the top of the Phusi temple. There, we were able to get a 360 view of Luang Prabang and the outskirts. Up at the top, we conversed with a Laotian man who was trained in French(very fluent) and English about Laos culture. To our surprised, Laos apparently is still a communist country (yes...non of us wiki this stuff beforehand...and were convinced it's a democracy based on its name of "LDR" Laos Democratic Republic). After informing us it was a communist country, he begged us not to make him talk about it much more, since it is dangerous. We understood and moved on to other cultural topics. Definitely will wiki more once we're back in the independent democracy...

We ended the day with a light lunch and off we went to the Luang Prabang airport for Hanoi, Vietnam!

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Part of trip: Travels Summer 2009

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