Advertisement
Published: January 6th 2007
Well, despite the scaremongering in guidebooks and on the web, Lao Airlines flight 522 was a faultless ride with descent onboard service and even arrived 20 minutes early! Gleely motioning through immigration we shared a clapped out 70's toyota with two fellow travellers and stopped at 3 different guest houses before settling on Joes on the banks of the Mekong. After a bite to eat and a phone call to the folks we jumped aboard a Jumbo "Lao's enlarged tuk tuks" to Pha That Luang a radiant gold temple where a festival of the same name was taking place. It was in fact the full moon finale of a week long festival where it seemed the entire populus of the Lao Capital began to congregate and walk through fairground attractions toward the temple itself.
Before entering the temple itself which glowed dazzlingly in the late afternoon sun, Claire had to rent a fetching Lao skirt from a stall before we walked past the line of security into the outer quadrant. Inside it was magestic. Hundreds of people circled the temple carrying towers of flowers, wax sculptures and kneeling to pray and light candles. Fascinated and feeling quite welcomed Claire and
I spent almost two hours circling the temple and people watching before the full moon rose like a theatrical spotlight between the temples towers. Stepping outside once more now that darkness had come, the packed precinct had taken on the form of a kind of Buddhist Glastonbury with two large music stages and hundreds of stalls selling food and clothing all surrounding thousands of revellers. Feeling in nostalgic festival mood we sunk several cans of Beer Lao through straws, ate kebabs from stalls and generally bumbled our way through the crowds of staring locals. With language not being a problem in Cambodia owing to their excellent English we had several hilarious exchanges with stall owners and even an armed guard trying to explain that we needed the toilet by wincing and crossing our legs.
After eventually finding a stinking toilet bloc we paid an additional entrance fee to an enclosed stage area where we made our way to the front where hundreds of locals were dancing to a kind of Lao Abba outfit. Finding a plastic seat somewhere near the front only to realise that as soon as the band had finished that song, everybody left the dancefloor and
pprrrrrp!
Lao airlines flight 522returned to their seats! Now sitting amongst a group of Lao teenagers we vaguely conversed whilst the nights bingo results were called out. Before we knew it, the band were up again and the entire crowd flocked to the front sucking us with them. Much like any other mosh but this time feeling like we were unexpected guests, we spent the length of a very long song bashing into people and singing along to the cheesy pop band whilst men from all angles grabbed at us for a dance. Although everyone was clearly delighted that we wanted to join in their local festival after a while we got a little wierded out when we cottoned onto the fact that people were vying for my attention so that men could pull Claire away for a dance so we said about 100 goodbyes, bought a giant bag of popcorn and jumped into a Jumbo driven by a certified lunatic back to Joes. Whizzing through Vientianes streets we arrived back and were immediately presented with our room key. "how did you know what number?" we asked... "you are last home" was the reply!
With a respectable hangover we arose, polished off two
Lao landscape
taken from the speeding minibus! cheese waffles and hired two bicycles to follow the lonely planets walking tour of the Capital. Visiting four beautifully ornate temples in our immediate vicinity before peddling on to a domineering black stupa which legend has it that used to be clad in Gold before the pilliaging Siamese invasion. After lunch at the comfortably western Joma bakery we cycled to a lookalike Arc de Triumphe harking back to the days of French colonial times. At the top overlooking the main boulevard we again showed monk magnetising skills in meeting Vixian, a young monk who had been living in the Capital for three years but harboured dreams to travel the world having completed a media qualification. Excercising excellent English Vixian couldn't bear to let us leave but after swapping emails we jumped back on our bikes and rode back to watch the hazy blob of sun go down over the mighty Mekong with a beer lao in our hands. That evening I tasted Lao traditional cuisine with a Mekong fish Laap, a spicy salad of minced fish, banana flowers and fresh mint and with a droolingly good waffle for desert we collectively notched up the highest denomination meal yet at 103,000
Claire in Lao Skirt
And doesn't it suit her! kip.
In the morning we moved on to the north with a bus journey to Vang Vieng travelling through vast plains of flooded rice paddies where Water Buffalo swam and munched on the vegetation. Although hazy, the distant form of craggy limestone peaks loomed closer until our arrival at Vang Vieng, a lethargic but pleasant strip of buildings set amongst the stunning mountains. Heading in the other direction to everyone else on the bus we checked into Babylon Guesthouse a clean, new and well run 3 storey building where our huge top floor en suite room was a mere US$7.50 per night. Dumping our backs we strolled around the super relaxed streets gaining information on the various activities on offer. Kayaking, Caving, Rafting etc. Bizarrely nearly every restaurant had become obsessed with providing tourists with televisual comforts by showing episodes of friends, sienfeld, simpsons you name it, whilst people ate their food like zombies. Miraculously, just as my sandals disintigrated we encountered a "fixing shoe man" who skillfully repaired them whilst we ate a chocolate and banana pancake. Not just any Choccy nana pancake either, the street sellers in Vang Vieng create the finest in the world with a
monster knob of butter to ease your faltering hearts. Walking over the ricketiest of bridges to a river island we drank beer next to the fast flowing water and took in the beautiful surroundings.
Now forget your adventure activities for the moment, designed purely for the satisfaction of backpackers as it may be, the main event in Vang Vieng is without a doubt
Tubing, a pastime made available to anyone for the price of $3.50 and which enables you to climb into the innertube of a Tractor and float effortlessley down the river some 4 kilometres. Having piled the tubes on a tuk tuk we travelled the 4km upstream with two English fellows by the names of Mark and Andy and began what was to be a stupendous day. At laughably short intervals along the river course, shonky bamboo bars line the shore with their tendors screaming at you for trade and it was at the first of these, just 40 meters downstream that we climbed ashore. The other temptation for tubers aside from bars is a selection of ropeswings or deathslides or flying foxes, whatever you want to call them. Either way, they are contraptions designed to launch
you into the water from varying heights without the slightest care of safety regulations. Pah to those. After a coke as it was still before 11 we moved onto the next bar some 20 metres further for more ziplining into the water where we also made the aqcuaintence of Odhran a super friendly Irish chap and Ben and Melissa a lovely couple from England and Canada respectably. Moving on and drifting down the river on the giant yellow tubes we were surrounded and even used as seats by tens of bright fuscia pink dragonflies and all along the banks the air was filled with dancing butterflies. Cruising through a mini rapid we arrived at a huge bar complex set on the river bank where we ungracefully disembarked and immediately ran to the tall platform where a huge trapeze swing was set up. Standing at the top it actually took quite a chunk of courage to leave the platform and quite a lot of strength to hold on as you lurched down in a huge loop and released the bar to fly about 10 metres into the river below. Stupidly we assumed that it was required to let go on the
first swing so with the five of us doing so to varying degrees of backslapping pain (Claire letting out a window shattering scream) we watched the next person go up and hold on for several swings before dropping in to the water with some control. Although doing this saved on injuries it was less fun so we all gradually aimed to build up to the swing and launch on the first time.
Floating on again downstream another bar enticed us in with screams of
Come on, Come on! Bear Lao, Beer Lao Come on!
and so the day went. Although its difficult to describe the feeling of floating down the river it is enough to say the the experience was well, just the best thing! Travelling in the main is of course about experiencing life in other countries and although this was about as far from a cultural hit as you could imagine, the grins on our faces told the story of worthwhile activity. Amidst stunning scenery of towering jagged peaks smothered from base to summit in thick rock clinging forest, we lazily floated the long stretch down to the final two bars at a shady bend in the river and where on the tallest of ropeswings, locals
who had clearly grown up doing nothing but this were performing acrobatics to entice us to the latter of the bars. For another good hour or so we merrily drank and repeatedly lauched ourselves from the 10 metre platform into the picture postcard scenery, Claire bravely letting go of the trapeze on the first swing of the largest one. Just as we had been warned by 4pm it was beginning to get cold so we plonked back into the water with Ordhan one last time for the lengthy float back to Vang Vieng. After a final section of rapids to wake us up we popped out of the rings with aching everything and returned to town for another well deserved Chocolate and banana pancake!
Waking the next morning we decided that we had done the backpacker thing in tubing the day before and opted to hire a scooter to head out to some caves about 6km away. Over bamboo bridges and through streams we juddered our way through tiny villages where cattle spilled onto the road and people could be seen working the fields only by the top of their hats. Arriving at Poukham Cave we set about a
steep climbed on razor sharp rocks to reach the vast cool cave adorned with stalagtites and stalagmites and a golden reclining buddha. Unable to explore the inner depths of the cave having established that morning that the only items those scammers on the journey to Cambodia had stoled from our bags were our headtorches, we succumbed to the heat and retreated back down to a small lagoon where we along with a few monks jumped into the clear water to cool off. After a short while we gained the nagging sense that we were feeling unentertained by the caves so with a bus already booked for the following day to Luang Prabang we drove back up to the point on the river where the bars and ropeswings were to get another fix. Although we had a fantastic afternoon we still envied the people who where floating past us on rings but resigned ourselves to returning to town to see if we could find a party and enjoy our last night. As it turned out we hung around in the main party bar waiting for a party which never occured so after spending the evening alone we awoke the next morning
with a flash of regret and decided to cancel our bus tickets at a loss and go instead for another days tubing!!
There are after all as we tried to reason with ourselves, very few if no places in the world where you can have a go on a trapeze swing without any safety restrictions let alone into an untamed river nor anywhere where you are permitted to float at the mercy of the current in an inflatable polo mint. That was the descision we made anyway and well, we're glad we did. Although it is just a kind of theme park for backpackers complete with a handful of westerners who you would rather not be there and a sense that drinking beer down river is not the most sensible activity, it was impossible not to accept that it was just about as much fun as you could possibly imagine! And so it was that we spent another day gently floating amongst the amazing scenery and launching ourselves from a great height into the water only this time with a different but equally nice group of people. Thoroughly satisfied and after a long day we had little choice but
Claire at the festival
Kebabs at the Buddhist Glastonbury! to watch friends on the TV while we ate and of course, a final nostalgic banana and chocolate pancake! Life a la Laos...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0233s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
