mmm....BEER LAOS

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Pink Floyd Cover Band from Laos

Another extensive bus journey was in order to get to Laos, the most bombed country in the world. It took about 14 hours to get to the capital Vientiane from Bangkok, this included a multitude of breakdowns en route.

Once over the border I changed my dollars into Laos Kip and after doing so felt quite rich. For round abut 10 poundish (no pound sign on keyboard) I get 220,000 Kip! There is no coinage in Laos just notes and it takes a while to get used to. When paying for things you just end up with bundles and bundles of notes everywhere.

An early point to make about the capital Vientiane is that it is no where near as busy as Bangkok. And with an apparent population of around 200,000 compared to Bangkoks 12 million people this would clearly explain why. Walking around at times it felt as if I had the whole city to myself. So along with the lack of people comes a slightly cleaner & less polluted environment.

And with Loas comes the beer I've heard so much about, 'BEER LAOS'. Possibly my new favourite beer. Infact I don't think I went one day without it whilst in Laos, it also appeared to be an essential part of everyone elses diet in Laos. I'll have to check when I get home if it's possible to get this stuff, I recommend to all.

The only time I cheated on BEER LAOS was the first nigh that I was in Vang Vieng, a small town a few hours north of Vientiane. I met up with a couple of Brits & an Aussie and we hit the buckets big time. Needless to say the night was doused in drunkeness & when I awoke the next morning at 8ish the need for water became a key priority.

As I slowly emerged out of my hotel in search for water there was a table of Lao people calling me over. They were celebrating the recent birth in the family & asked me to do a shot of whiskey with them ... at 8:05am in the morning! I downed the whiskey as it would have been rude not to, I was then asked to join them at their table. One of the guys had stringed Laos instrument called a Pin and another chap had a bongo, I told them that I played guitar and they went and fetched me out a Pin and we all had a little jam. It was quality, but by about 9am and 6 or so shots later I found myself re-drunk. But it didn't stop there as it wasn't long before the BEER LAOS entered the equation and it appeared that I would be in for another day on the piss.

Vang Vieng as a whole is a very relaxed place and nobody seems to be in to much of a hurry. They have bars for example where you just go and lay down on a bed with a pillow & watch episodes of simpsons all day whilst chilling out with a fruitshake or..... BEER LAOS.

One day a rather attractive Lao girl took me down to the river Nam Song where loads of people go to swim and hire inflated tractor inner tubes to sit on and float down the river and stopping off at bars along the way to refuel on BEER LAOS . Basically all along the river it is one big water park with swings and devices that catapault the 'farang' into the river. It was a good day but the only clanger I dropped was that my wallet got soaked through even though I supposedly had a water tight bag. So for the remainder of my time in Laos I was paying people in soggy Laos Kip. It was so wet that you could actually ring the water out of it. The Lao people just laugh when you hand the soggy notes over to them and they say 'Nam Song'? Just like its a common occurance to be receiving water caked money from the river.

I found Laos to be a beautiful country and may even consider a revisit before I move on to Oz to explore the north of the country. The hospitality of the Laos people was excellent, I met many Laos people along the way who would invite me for food and show me around. Experiences like this are just priceless.

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