No time to Laos around

27th October - 6th November


Our first taste of Laos culture was the aeroplane, or should we call it a mini bus with wings. We were impressed by the lovely cabin crew but slightly distressed by the decor and the emergency devices...

Vientiane the capital was our first stop. Our first impressions were great, no tuk tuk drivers trying to push you into their vehicle, no rain (yet...) and silence-no constant beeping of horns-hooray!
We only had 2 days there and so packed alot into it. Highlights included seeing Wat Si Saket (a famous temple) where we were not only able to see hundreds of Buddha sculptures but also found an opportunity for Lucy to demonstrate her fire warden skills. This was when she walked into the 600 hundred year old main temple (she says to pray!?) where she discovered the carpet in front of the large and ancient Buddha altar was on fire, she hastily motioned in her best Laos sign language for the attendent to help and on the third attempt was successful.

After this stressful event we decided to go in search of a spiritual massage at a nearby monastry. As we gleefully jumped out of the tuk tuk and watched it wizz away (no beeps), we began to realise that we were the only westerners in the middle of a wood surrounded by monks and a large number of Laos school children. So we did the only thing we could do and approached a friendly looking monk. After a bit of language practise he walked us through the woods to our 'massage parlour' (a wooden hut on stilts surrounded by chickens, crickets and a family having a mid afternoon snooze), we obvously looked a little shocked and were quickly ushered upstairs by our massuses, two Laos men without a word of English between them. They indicted for us to put on sarongs and lie face down on the bed, at this point had it not been for the other foreigner also lying face down we would have run...quickly. However, the massage was excellent, atmospheric and Rach thought rather like being at the chiropractor.

Our next stop was Vang Vieng. When there we hired bikes (pink with baskets- rather like Hilary and Caroline's) and explored the area including caves and villages. After sweating rather alot on the bikes we needed to cool off and so traded them in for a tractor inner tube each and set off down the river. This was thirsty work and so we had to stop off at a few bars along the way for a beer Laos or three.

We awoke the next day a little fearful of the bus journey ahead of us to Luang Prabang, we had heard stories of flat tyres, sick and waiting by a broken down bus for hours but luckily the tyres held out (unlike our tubing ones, which we forgot to mention started to make deflation noises on our last leg of the Vang Vieng river) and we arrived undisturbed.

All of a sudden we were in our final Laos destination, Luang Prabang, and greeted by our familiar friend... the rain...it was poncho time! Luckily, the rain did stop and we started to sweat instead! Whilst there we visited the famed Wats (or temples), the national museum and had a couple of massages. The highlight of Luang Prabang and Laos was our trekking experience. We trekked for four to five hours, across 7 rivers, though torrential rain, in 35 degree heat, UP to a hillside village (B.Mokchong). When there we moved our things into the 'bosses' house (with permission of course), visited the school and the next door Mong village where we met the Shamen, the spiritual doctor, who was in his 70s, of the village. We ate dinner with 'our' family and were then persuaded into trying Laos whisky, which you must take neat and down in one, we hoped it would help us sleep well.

We were woken early by the hundreds of chickens, cockerals, pigs, children, ducks, pots and pans, ready for breakfast we were. The breakfast menu was; scrambled egg, sticky rice and rat. Rach braved the offer of a rat's leg, it was surprisingly tasty, Lucy declined due to the fact she could not figure out how much insulin was needed...

Fed and watered we set off down the (big and steep) hill. On our slightly shorter trek we had a narrow escape with a scorpian (this made a change from encounters with motorbikes).

Our energy levels were tested to the max on our return to ground level as we kayacked for 2 hours along a very swollen and debris infested river (which led into the Mekong) to stop off at Pak Ou caves to see hundreds of Buddhas and where the Laos king was once sent into exhile. The kayacking ended at a (snake) whisky village, where Lucy thought of her her Gran Guy and Rach thought of SMel. We then cycled (luckily on mountain bikes) 16 miles home. It was an amazingly good yet dirty adventure and the next day we found it quite hard to walk. Did we mention that there were no toilets in this 48 hour experience?!

We are now in Chiang Mai, Thailand and pleased to have made it after a slightly less comfortable 16 hour bus journey. Laos was beautiful, chilled and we had a fantastic, if not short, time there.

Rach and Luce xx

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