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Sunset on Mekong
This was our last night in Laos and we saw the best sunset for 2 weeks Pictured Above - Small Banana Waterfall, Bolaven Plateau, Southern Laos. We flew into Luang Prabang on a dodgy little plane from Chaing Mai and the scenery was stunning-all rugged cliffs. Luang Prabang was a very chilled out city which seemed as if it would fit better in France than in Asia. It was full of quaint little restaurants and coffee shops.
Whilst there we spent a day sight seeing taking in Phu Si (a temple on the top of a mountain and a great view over Luang Prabang) and the Royal Palace Museum as well as checking out the night market and having tea there. During our hectic sightseeing day we also managed to squeeze in a massage at the Red Cross - the things we do for charity!
We also did a day trip to the famous Tat Kuang Si- a series of beautiful waterfalls with lovely turquoise pools perfect for a dip on a hot day!
Due to a government curfew in Laos everything closes down between 10.30-11.00pm as nobody is supposed to be on the streets after this time. This made for a few boring early nights during our 2 week stay especially when
Mekong Rapids on Laos/Cambodia border
A sight to Behold. At this point in the river, the Mekong squeezes through a narrow gap. This is the main set of rapids on the Mekong. Millions of litres of water every second crash over these rocks and into Cambodia. we were staying in cheap digs with no T.V in the room. However in Luang Prabang they had an answer-the bowling alley! Cos its classed as a sport the bowling alley can stay open after the curfew so all the tourists head there to drink beer after hours. We went early-around 10pm for a few games and several beers. By 11pm the place was heaving. It was a bit like a circus and some people were so drunk they were running down the bowling lanes and dropping balls all over the shop-chaos! By 12.15am we'd had enough and escaped to bed.
Next stop was Vang Vieng- famed as a party town where people go to get drunk, go tubing down the river and watch endless episodes of Friends. In some ways we liked Vang Vieng, the limestone scenery was amazing especially when we were laid in our tubes looking up at the cliffs with nobody around but the 2 of us (most other people hadn't made it past the first 2 or 3 bars). It was also a great place to relax and we loved watching Friends.
The down side was lot's of very young very drunk people-mainly
Laos Tractor
Standard mode of transport in Rural Laos English and American. When we went tubing everyone just sat in the first bar getting drunk. After 1 hour 1 beer and 1 bucket of vodka I was bored so we jumped in our tubes and set off down the river. The tubing was surprisingly hard work- because it was dry season the river was not flowing very fast most of the time so lot's of paddling with arms was required. There were also places where rocks were sticking out and you would get stuck on a rock and have to help pull each other off. After going for around 15 minutes we stopped in a bar with a giant slide 10 feet above the river that drops you into the river. I had to have a go-Gareth while watched! It was amazingly fast-the surface was made of bathroom tiles and I went down screaming and frantically trying to find something to hold onto to stop. I landed in the river with a massive splash and climbed back out with my knees knocking together. Later that day we discovered the slide is called the ''slide of death'' as some girl had died on it only about 2 weeks before I
ventured down it-aaaggh!
After Vang Vieng we headed to the capital-Vientianne. One word sums it up-boring! It was also extremely expensive. Whilst there we were so bored we spent a day at a gym. Gareth mnaged to twist his ankle going down some stairs so was forced to sit out the gym session in the Jacuzzi and pool.
After 2 days we escaped on a night bus to Pakse and from there went straight to the Bolaven Plateau-famous for it's coffee growing. We had a cabin booked at Tad Fane resort so we hopped on a Sawngthaew with all the locals as well as 2 baskets of live eels and a bag that was moving. I stupidly asked the lady what was in the bag and she pulled out the biggest frog ever! At least it wasn't snakes. After waiting 35 minutes for the driver and his pal to completely overload the Sawngthaew with all sorts of things we eventually set off and the journey took 1 hour. We had numb bums but at least we felt like we'd experienced a bit of the 'real Laos'.
Tad Fane resort was very pretty and overlooked a massive waterfall
Our tuc tuc to Bolaven Plateu
Crazily overloaded and we shared this with a menagarie of soon to be eaten animals called...Tad Fane! Two streams of water emerge from teh Jungle and fall 120m to the rocks below. Its an impressive sight. The downside-it was freezing! With all our layers on we still sat shivering in the restaurant so headed off to bed at 8.30pm! Gaz slept like a log but I lay awake shivering all night. The next morning we got up early to go on a 5 hour trek. The trek was great and nice and hot! We saw coffee and tea plantations and then crossed the top of 'small bannana' waterfall walking through the river-very scary! We then went to the bottom of the waterfall and I went for a swim. It was very pretty. After that we walked to Tat Yuang, another impressive waterfall with twin torrents about 40m high, before heading back to Tad Fane. After the trek we headed back to Pakse and spent a quiet night there before heading to 4,000 islands the next morning.
We went to Don Det as it sounded like the most lively. The accommodation there was pretty basic-it was all wooden bungalows and some didn't even have a toilet. Those that did were of the squat variety and
Tad Fan Waterfall
Two streams of water emerge from the jungle and fall 120m that's what we ended up with, although it was only 30,000kip a night (around 2 pounds 50). It's also very hot as Don Det is not quite on the power grid yet so they have electricity from a generator just between 6pm and 11pm-so no cooling fans or air con.
Whilst on Don Det we spent a lot of time laying in hammocks reading. We also relaxed on the small beach, hired bikes and cycled to Don Khone (the neighboring island linked by a bridge) and I swam in the Mekong a few times in an attempt to cool, down. After 2 nights we were sick of the accommodation and wanted to see what Don Khone was like so we got in the most rickety boat ever and got dropped of on Don Khone. There we stayed at Pans place and it was very nice-the room was brighter with more windows and the electric was run from 6pm until 2am. There was also a section cut out of the roof in the bathroom and covered with perspex to let in light-it was here I came face to face with rat! But it was O.K he couldn't get to me.
Its not a rock!!
This an irrawaddy river dolphin. Theres only about 75 in the whole of the Mekong. we saw loads but photographing them was "tricky" Gareth managed to injure his increasingly unlucky left foot again when he stepped on a nail on the way home one night. Someone had helpfully left a nail protruding from the road which went through his flip flop and into his foot. Maybe it was the local garage trying to drum up some puncture repair business.
Whilst on Don Khone we relaxed reading books in hammocks and hired bikes and cycled to Don Det-sound familiar!? The next day we went on a trip to see the rare and endangered Irrawady dolphins -freshwater dolphins that swim in the Mekong. It was supposed to be quite hard to see them but we were lucky and saw around 30-it was amazing! From there we went to Khon Phapheng falls-a 13km stretch of very powerful rapids. It's where the Mekong flows-or rather crashes over the border from Laos into Cambodia and was pretty spectacular to see.
After our trip we got dropped off at the Laos-Cambodia land border and headed over on foot in the baking midday sun. Next stop Cambodia!
Summary of Laos; a very relaxed country (sometimes a little too relaxed for us especially in the evenings) with incredibly
Melissa swimming at small banana waterfall
Look really closely to spot mel at the right hand side of the waterfall beautiful countryside and scenery.
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