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Published: March 21st 2007
Luang Prabang
View from the Temple ! 21st March - Arrived In Luang Prabang. Very quaint. Considering it's the 2nd biggest town/city in Laos. A couple of streets, lots of restaurants, a night market, guest houses and the odd temple.
We found somewhere to stay and then went to eat. The restaurant claimed to have had Jamie Oliver over for cooking lessons (not sure if thats a good thing or not) It was lovely if not a bit pricey.
Next day we hired a tut tut driver and went to the waterfall and had a picnic - French bread, cheese, pate & wine - how civilized ! Considering the fact that Laos is such a poor country, the choice of food & wine etc is incredible and cheaper than England in most cases..
It's still hard to get your head round a pizza costing 20,000 kip (1 pound) / a room costing 30,000 (1.50) and a large beer lao costing 8-10,000 kip (40p-50p).
Luang Prabang is lovely place with a really relaxed atmosphere, a very French influence with bakeries everywhere. Definately a good place to stop for a few days and get your bearings before going north to the hills trekking or south.
23rd - Left Luang
when in Rome
Couldn't resist the photo opportunity.. Prabang at 9am to get a minibus to Vang Viang, like most other back packers.
The journey took 6 hours. (for a fiver) Leg room not great apart from that it was ok. Great scenery as you head through the mountains, the driver looked fairly confident of getting us, our bags and the bus there.
We arrived in Vang Viang - usual - get a room and went for an Indian, why not !!
24th - Hired bikes and went to check out the area round Vang Viang, see caves and swim in the blue lagoon, whilst pulling all your muscles on rope swings. A good chance to see the place and get some some sun. Had a lovely day until i drove over a log in true kickstart fashion and the killed the bike. A few locals kindly had a go at trying to fix it. After an hour or so we gave up and i started to push the thing back. It was going dark and i had no money. I thought i would give it one more go & it started, typical, at least it didn't cost me anything to fix it ..
25th - day off
- relaxing, eating, having a Lao Massage, eating again and sleeping. Just what i needed.
26th - Tubing. At first this sounds a bit like something you would see at a Spanish water park, however it's brilliant. Basicaly you get taken 3/4 an hour up river in a tut tut, you spend all day drifting down the Nam Xong river on huge tractor inner tube. On route there are loads of bars, rope swings and zip lines. Strangeley, the more you drink the more confident you are of jumping off things, not knowing how deep the water is below. We got back to town at about 7pm absolutely knackered and a bit worse for wear from the beer and Lao Lao (Whisky that every bar gives you as soon as you get out of the rubber ring). That evening we had some food and an early night ready to head to Si Phan Don (4,000 islands)
Vang Viang is very backpacker focussed with lots of western style bars showing Friends and the Simpsons on repeat day in day out. You can see how some travellers spend weeks there. Perhaps a few years ago i might have spent longer there, instead
Luang Prabang - Temple
5 A Side footy team ready for the JJB we decided to head down south to the Border with Cambodia to Si Phan Don (four thousand islands)
27th - We left Vang Viang at lunch time on an awfull bus, minubus then boat (22 hours in total). A new PB for me, both in travelling time & sweating. We arrived in Don Det (one of the main islands) at about 11 am and started looking for somewhere to stay. It's a strange place largely unaffected by the American & French wars, which has got to be a good thing. For the first time in S E Asia the people didn't seem interested in trying to sell you something or take your money. The people seem happy for you to be there and if you spend money then fair enough. Food takes up to 2 hours to arrive, if they can be bothered serving you. Guest houses are very basic with no electricity / an hour or two a day, no hot water and certainly no air con or even a fan come to think of it..
The place has a very laid back feel and a raw beauty.
The next day we decided to take an easy option of
Another Temple
7 headed snake apparently ! going on an organised trip to see freshwater dolphins and then a waterfall. We did see some dolphins from a distance, unfortunately out of camera range. Then on to the waterfall which was very impressive, apparently its the biggest in South East Asia. It was baking hot and being the daft brit abroad forgot to put sun tan cream on.
29th - Woke up very de hydrated from the swealtering heat during the night and sun burn, had a bite to eat then hired a mountain bike for the day to ride to Don Khon (i think) a neighbouring island to see yet another waterfall. Unfortunately i had a fall trying to get to the swimming area. I lost my sun glasses and landed badly on my back and funny bone (or not as the case may be). It was quite lucky as i fell on a flat rock. Appears no serious damage done, just bloody hurt, especailly when i put my backpack on the next day.
30th - Got up at 5am feeling like i'd been hit by a train to get the boat, public bus and taxi to Ubon (In Thailand) then we got a flight from Ubon
Back to Bangkok. We were all tired from the trip and went for a meal. It was going to be the last time the four of us would be travelling together, as Jim & I were off to the full moon party in Ko Pha Ngan, Raphi flew to Japan and Anat was staying in Bangkok for a few more days.
With the benefit of hindsight i'm glad we went from Thailand to Cambodia, then Vietnam and Laos. They are all very different with regard to the experience, things to do, see and more importantly the people. A lot of travellers say that Laos is the best country to visit in South East Asia and is worth spending the longest there. I would tend to agree. It has just about everything, but most striking is just how friendly the people are. Its possible to spend months if not years in some of the places that we visited. It was a great way of getting a taster before a lot of these places get consumed my western influences and the search for the tourist dollar/ pound, dong, kip, real, Baht or whatever..
The 6 week whistle stop tour gave a great
overview and there are some places i will be coming back to for a bit longer, some time....
I do like South East Asia, next stop the Islands for some beach time before heading to Malaysia then Oz..
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