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Published: January 18th 2007
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Hmong Village
A local lady sifting her rice so laos,brilliant place,friendly people and very eventful.
The fun started when i got off the bus after 23 hours from hanoi in vietnam with my big bag and proceded to fall badly on my ankle and twist it and then rip my pants.slightly exposing myself.not the best start to a new country.
The supposed nightmare bus journey was fine as not many people so had room to stretch out,some lads had hammocks tyed up and one korean woman had a full mossie suit: jackets,pants and wierd attached helmet in a nice illuminous green. not really the best person to be travellig in asia as she was constantly freaking out that we were late and then wouldnt get on the tuk-tuk as there were 12 people on it(with myself and martin(swedish lad we travelled with) hanging off the back)and the drivers insurance wouldnt cover this many people! Everyone was thinking - what insurance! Also met a Nigerian footballer who was in Vietnam to meet a prospective manager who then never showed up, so this lad was stuck in Vietnam and had to make his way to Germany by land! all very random.
Vientiene was a nice city,pretty chilled and quiet.just relaxed
and went to see the Pha that luang temple that adorns all the laos lonely planet guides. inside a local artist was presenting all his work which was prolific to say the least!
We wanted to get to vang vieng the next day as we wanted to do the tubing for new year,where you drift down a river in a old tractor inner tube and stop off at bars and drink beer and then play on the huge swings that launch you into the river.very good fun although when we did it on new years eve we set off a little late and spent too long at the first few bars.zoe decided to get a tuk-tuk home,and me and martin decided to rough it out and drift down to the end,stopped off on the way for quick top ups and chatted to local fishermen who were going to let us have a go spear fishing,anyway dark started to descend and the end wasnt in site and no-one else semed to be behind us! luckily we saw a restaurant and pulled in but then had to walk half and hour into town.
just went out for drinks that night and then
This photo sums up Luang Prabang perfectly
Classy, sophisticated, beautiful and cultural!! some big party was in bed by 1 o'clock as a bit just knackered from drinking all day.decided to do it again the next day which was a good way to get over the hangover.
moved on to luang prabang next,cool city with loads of temples and brilliant night market which we went crazy on a bought loads of brilliant rubbish to adorn our respective parents homes.did a bike ride around the temples which was pretty hard as its boiling there and watched loads of films at this cool cinema which was just a house with 6 rooms with loads of cushions and a big tele and sound system.(The town shut down at 10 so there was nothing else to do)
Left martin and decided to go further north as we had heard was worth a look. got a boat to nong khiew which took 9 hours and was pretty uncomfortable(last time i want to be on a boat).
just stayed there the night and went up to muang ngoi the next day as slightly nicer place.
went with a couple of southend couples that had met the previous day(they were alright for sourtherners).
did day walk there with cool
Nong Khiew
Beautiful isn't it! little guide jai (he was using the money we paid him to build a house for him and his mum). went to some caves and a hmong village which was interesting and nice to see the proper locals.
I wanted to go fishing but supposedly they werent biting so decided to head back to luang prabang.
Southenders knew a cool hostel called khoune and khon outside of town so went there,really nice rustic bungalows,nice setting and nice people.
I went on a trek with the lads up to one of the hmong villages as the owners of our bungalows try to help the villages around with clothes for the children.pretty hard walk up to the top but worth the effort,just wandered around the village taking it in and stayed with a local family in there house. we had roast chicken and sticky rice for tea(our hosts couldnt understand why we didnt eat the feet and head and bones,bit wierd hearing people crunching into random choice cuts!)
everything was going fine and we were just listening to locals chatting away,went for a wander round town as our guide had gone walkies,when we got back the whole village had descended on our
welcome to laos!
This was the sight which greeted us at the vietnamese/laos border! Really inviting huh!! house and something was obviously going on,turns out our young guide lai had gone into one of the girls room to ask her if she wanted to talk by the fire but she had freaked out and started screaming. the gist of this was that this had called bad luck and bad spirits to the house, and to pass it on they had to slaughter a pig and put its blood around the house. Lai couldnt afford to kill one so our hostel owner had to pay for it. if he didn't buy one he would have had to stay in the village with the girl forever!! such a random situation to find yourself in.(our owner didnt have the money so we had to lend it him,this did seem a bit dodge to us and bit of scam but we did get it back!)
anyway we were sleeping there so just wandered in after things were sort of sorted but people still discussing it and the young girl crying with her mother talking harsh words to her but not looking.Us lads proceeded to close our eyes and go to sleep hoping that we would wake up and it would all
be over.Didnt get any sleep just listened to them talking for a long while till they went to sleep.
Obviously something happened but maybe they went over board,who knows we didnt have a clue what was going on.The family might have been taking advantage as they wanted a bit of cash and we found out later that a relative had malaria and killing the pig would supposedly cure it.although malaria tablets would probably work better.
Still a really good experience but very wierd and the young guide lai has a learnt a valuable lesson not to wander into girls rooms at night up a mountain.
parted ways with the southenders as they were off to an elephant camp and we wanted to get to chaing mai in thailand.
managed to sort out a flight pretty cheap and got here safe and sound.last country left and then just one more blog and then we can just tell people in person what we have been up to,although it wont be as interesting
take it easy
rich and zoe xx
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