South East Asia Part 2 - Laos and Thailand's Andaman Coast

---

Happy New Year to all of you guys! To carry on from where we left off, here is what we got up to in December in South East Asia. Hope y’all enjoy, get in touch and let us know how you’re doing!

Laos

Pakse and Bolevan Plateau: 3 Dec - 8 Dec

We arrived in Pakse after what turned out to be a 15 hour journey (double what we were originally told!). The roads weren’t too bad but the bus kept stopping to pick up stuff on the way. There were bags of lemons, birds in cages, fish, chickens; everything you can possibly imagine was crammed into the bus, in the boot and on the roof – even a couple of motorbikes! They certainly know how to make the most out of a bus journey here! Lee was helping load the bus and got lots of smiles and handshakes in return – quite a contrast to our bus experiences in Vietnam, where the staff were mostly rude to us!

There’s not much to do in Pakse – it is mostly used as a base to explore the 4000 islands and the Bolaven plateau. We rented a semi-automatic motorcycle, got a map, and soon enough we were on the road to the Bolaven plateau to discover its beautiful, unspoilt scenery and numerous waterfalls.

Neither of us had any real experience in riding a motorbike but we got much better throughout the days – it’s really fun (especially on dirt roads!) and the scenery was gorgeous. On our first night, we stopped in Tad Lo, a charming little village with three waterfalls scattered around. The guesthouse we stayed at had a magic vibe about it. It was run by a guy called Mr Poh and his family, including Pinkie, one of the cutest kids ever! We were playing with the kids for quite a while when Mr Poh came to us with a couple of chopping boards and knives. Time to help him cook! Salad, pumpkin soup, chicken and veg, all yummy and shared around a table with the family and other guests. It felt like being at home! We could have easily imagined ourselves staying there for another week, what a magic place.

Back on the road the next day. By late afternoon, we took a turn off the beaten track and followed a dirt road, went past a few settlements and stopped to see the most gorgeous Katamtok waterfall - absolutely breathtaking. But as night was falling, we got back on the road wondering where the hell we could possibly find a guesthouse for the night. We stopped at a house in the first village after Katamtok and asked its inhabitants where we could find somewhere to sleep. They didn’t speak a word of English (and we only speak two of Laotian – “Hello” and “Thank You”!) but hand signals got us through. With a mime of ‘sleeping’, ‘eating’ and ‘money’, we managed to get ourselves a bed for the night in the home of one of the villagers!

Their hut was very basic. We had seen a lot of them on the road – basically just a wooden hut on stilts. There were two rooms: the kitchen, with a few utensils and plates on the wall, and a fire-pit and a rug on the floor. And one bedroom, with a mattress and a mosquito net where the whole family slept. There was little else: a photo on the wall, a few clothes drying, and that was all. Outside, piglets were playing together in the yard. All around the hut there were coffee plantations.

The housewife made a fire in the kitchen and cooked us dinner: massive plates of plain rice and very spicy noodles. After dinner, they showed us to our bed - a mattress on the floor under a mosquito net, which they had installed next to theirs in their own bedroom! And there was us thinking we’d sleep on a rug on the balcony! We sat in the bedroom around an oil lamp with a few kids and an old grandma for what turned out to be a very memorable couple of hours. At first, we felt a bit awkward because of the communication barrier and because all eyes were on us. But we had some really funny moments (always using hand signals!), like when they were watching with puzzled eyes as Ori used a cleansing wipe and then all imitated her when she passed them round for everyone else to try. And when they were trying to teach us some Laotian words to describe body parts and laughing at our accents. We also had a few pressies (balloons, pens and notepads) for the kids which we’d bought before leaving Pakse. The kids were staring at us the whole evening, some of them hiding behind their elders. Kids are shy here, and so so cute!

We went to bed at 8pm (!), sleeping just metres away from the family, in the same room, and woke up early in the morning to the cockerel’s chant and the light piercing through the tiny holes in the bamboo-weaved walls. We played around with the village kids in the morning. They were on their way to school and showed us their school books proudly. We ended up walking them to school, a long wooden building with a large playground at the front, located at the end of the village. When we got back to the house, breakfast was being served. And guess what? To our delight, massive plates of rice and noodles…again!!

Whizzing through the Bolevean plateau on a motorcycle was definitely one of the best experiences we’d had so far. Not only for the beautiful landscape we went through, but also the people we met there, who were just so kind and welcoming. And the streams of kids pouring out of school all jumping up and down screaming ‘Sabaidee!’ (‘Hello!’) to us were so heart-warming.

In three days we had met and lived with two extraordinary families. These are exactly the kind of magical moments that we were hoping to have on our travels. In fact, there hasn’t been one day up until now that we haven’t thought about the family near the Katamtok waterfall. They might not know much about the outside world and they might not have much comfort in their little hut, but they’re surely as happy (if not happier) than most people in Western countries who have comfortable lives but with the stresses, frustrations and worries that come with it.

Kong Lo cave: 8 Dec – 10 Dec

Next stop was Kong Lo cave, an impressive 7.5 kilometre with breath-taking rock formations, stalagmites and stalactites forming inside. We took a long-tail boat to explore it. The cave was grandiose and absolutely gorgeous. We stopped mid-way and walked through a lit area where there were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, sometimes merging into columns. They looked like giant sculptures of wax; the best architect of the world couldn’t have conceived such a landscape! The wonders of nature - simply beautiful. And when you think that this work of art is the result of thousands of years of minute changes! And that these changes, even though indiscernible to the human eye, are in fact happening right here right now in front of us: the cave is constantly evolving, it never stays the same - it really does take your breath away. We stopped for a while to witness the growth of a stalagmite. Water was dripping at regular intervals from a stalactite above it. The stalagmite was only 20 cm tall, which (based on the fact that a stalacmite grows on average by 1 millimetre per year) means it was ‘only’ about 200 years old! But in a few more centuries, this will develop into a column! We stood there for a while, listening to the heart beats of the cave: water dripping here and there, giving birth to new rock formations. On a human scale, this feels like a gigantic work of art and reminds you that we’re only passengers on earth. We’re just tiny little ants compared to the scale of the universe, and we’re here for a split-second in the grand scale of things. What an honour to be able to witness the creation of such an amazing landscape that will survive us.

Vang Vieng: 10 Dec – 14 Dec

There’s one word that pretty much sums up Vang Vieng: madness!!!

This town started out as an attraction for tourists a few years back, due to the beautiful natural surroundings. It’s set on a winding river, amongst karst limestone cliffs, so it’s a great place to go kayaking, or trekking, or climbing, or mountain biking, or whatever outdoor pursuit takes your fancy. But over the years, Vang Vieng has evolved into party central, and is now more famous as a place to go ‘tubing’, and also for its pretty relaxed drug laws.

So ‘what is tubing?’ we hear you ask. Well basically, you hire out a massive inner tube (usually used in a tractor tyre), you get a lift up to the top of the river, and then you drift down the river and get trashed at the many bars that line its banks! And when we say trashed, we mean properly tramp-drunk – they practically force-feed you shots in every bar you arrive in, there are group drinking games a-plenty, and you buy booze literally by the bucket! Add to that a few rope-swings and slides, plenty of banging music, and thousands of people bouncing and floating around in blazing sunshine and you start to get the picture!

In fact, so rapid was the pace of drinking, that Ori and I only made it to the third bar! Not that we didn’t last a decent amount of time; just that there’s little point getting back in your tube and floating 10 metres down the river to the next bar when you’re having so much fun where you are! Needless to say we have pretty hazy memories of the night!

But, unlike many other people, we made it home in one piece (well, two pieces technically!). You see plenty of people in town hobbling around wrapped in bandages from tubing injuries, and hear plenty of stories of the many deaths that occur each year. And when you turn up sober at the tubing start point, you can see why – free-flowing booze, loads of jagged rocks sticking out of the water, zip-lines and swings – it’s a recipe for disaster!

In Vang Vieng town itself, there are loads of bars and cafes playing hangover TV shows: mainly endless re-runs of Friends and Family Guy. So that’s how we spent the day following our tubing experience; lying around watching Family Guy and doing as little moving as possible!

Luang Prabang: 14 Dec – 17 Dec

In contrast to Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang was a really nice quiet town, a welcome respite after the lunacy of the previous few days. The place felt almost European, with quaint little streets, lined with tranquil cafes serving good coffee and gorgeous pastries – for the first time on our travels we managed to get hold of a decent croissant, much to Ori’s delight!

We hired out bikes to tour the town, stopping at a few temples and sights along the way. Luang Prabang has been a centre for devotion to Buddhism for centuries and some of the temples there were almost 500 years old.

Once more, we reverted to our new favourite form of transportation (motorbike!) to visit the nearby Kuang Si waterfalls. They were absolutely stunning, extending for hundreds of metres as we walked uphill, with pool after pool of bright turquoise water gently cascading into the next just a few metres below. Then we came to the main waterfall – an impressive drop of 50 metres – and even trekked right to the top of the falls to catch a view from right over the edge, watching the water violently splashing around below. Simply awesome. There was also a bear sanctuary on site, and we stopped for a while to watch them chilling out in their hammocks and slowly mooching around their enclosures – looks like an easy life from what we could see!

Luang Prabang is also known for its night market. There were some great stalls selling local crafts and memorabilia. The only problem was that it was just too big and dominated the entire centre of the town. So even if you just wanted to go from one place in town to another, you were forced to walk through the ba-zillion stalls and people! (A bit like the Christmas markets in Birmingham!)

The market also had what we thought was some great value food – an all you can eat buffet of all sorts of South East Asian food for 10,000 Kip (less than a quid!). On our last night in Luang Prabang we stuffed our faces at the buffet but this turned out to be a big mistake…

Vientiane: 17 Dec – 18 Dec

The journey to Vientiane was probably more memorable than the city itself, for all the wrong reasons!

As mentioned above, we stuffed our faces at the buffet in Luang Prabang the night before leaving. But the food had been sitting there out in the open for a good few hours and was only slightly warmed up before we ate it. So, needless to say, we both got pretty ill the next day, which started badly when both of us woke up around 5 am and took it in turns to run to and from the toilet, puking up everything we’d eaten the night before! But we’d booked and paid for the bus to Vientiane, so gathered the courage to get on with the journey ahead.

We were crammed in the nasty seats in the bottom of the bus, surrounded by luggage from every direction. Neither of us is usually road-sick but our stomachs were still turning from the night before, and we’d only been on the road for a matter of minutes when we had to look around for puke sacks! What a horrible journey we had ahead – despite only being 370 km apart, it took 12 hours to get to Vientiane!

After what turned out to be one of the longest days of our trip so far, we got to Vientiane, ate something that we trusted (pasta) from a decent restaurant, and slept early to ready ourselves for another day on the road the next day!

Thailand

Phuket: 18 Dec – 19 Dec

We flew from Udon Thani (just inside Thailand, from Laos) to Phuket and spent a quiet night there trying to decide which beach to head to the next day! This wasn’t easy by any means – Thailand’s got so many beaches and islands to choose from, it’s hard to know where to start! It’s a hard life, eh?!

Tonsai Beach, Krabi: 19 Dec – 24 Dec

And so we ended up on Tonsai beach, near the town of Krabi, and what a good choice it was! Not too developed or touristic (most of the buildings were wooden structures), mainly populated by backpackers, and good nightlife as well, with plenty of ‘Reggae’ and ‘Bob Marley’ bars! So good was the nightlife that we went out for a bite to eat on the first night and ended up staying out partying until 4 in the morning and met plenty of cool folks, including a bunch of English guys that we ended up seeing plenty of throughout our time in Tonsai and also Ko Phi Phi.

And we were so pleasantly surprised by the scenery; we arrived late at night so didn’t really get to see it until the next morning, but the beach was surrounded by huge impressive cliffs soaring vertically out of the ground on all sides, and even some sprouting out of the sea, opposite the nice, clean, quiet beach. Gorgeous, and a perfect place to chill out for a few days.

That’s not to say that we spent the whole four days sat on our arses getting burnt to a crisp (although we did do plenty of that!). Tonsai is a mecca for rock-climbers and so we gave it a go. We’ve got to say, hats off to anyone who’s half decent at it! By the end of our morning of climbing we were aching like crazy! You use muscles you didn’t know you had, especially in your hands and forearms which take a lot of strain as you try to grip the tiniest little crevice with the tips of your fingers and drag your weight up just that little bit higher to the next grip. All good fun though! We also tried to learn to walk on a slack line (basically tight rope)- I guess we need more practise at it, although by the end of our stay, Lee could do 3 steps on it - not bad!

We also rented out a two-person kayak for a day and went exploring the cliffs and caves (including the penis cave,full of dildos of one sort or another, left as offerings?!) around the bay and rocked up on another beach for a couple of beers and a massage. Elle n’est pas belle la vie?

Ko Phi Phi: 24 Dec – 25 Dec

Eager to do something different for Christmas, we decided to leave Tonsai for a night and head over to the gorgeous Ko Phi Phi Island. We left most of our stuff in Tonsai and took just our hammock, a mosquito net and a change of clothes. Plan A was to rough it on the beach somewhere, wherever we could put up our hammock! But we ended up finding a really cheap room – it was almost disappointing not to sleep under the stars!

Phi Phi is known for having some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and we have to say that ‘they’ were right! Fine white sand, clear blue water – absolutely amazing, just like paradise. But it is also known as an example of how not to develop an island for tourism; about 20 years ago it was entirely unspoilt but as it’s become more and more popular with tourists, they’ve just chopped out bits of forest to knock up massive hotels and restaurants. They’ve “paved paradise and put up a parking lot” as they say. But it’s still gorgeous; those beaches, and the forests in the middle of the island are breath-taking – you just have to look past all the buildings that have been somewhat thoughtlessly constructed. We just hope that they’re more careful with the way they develop the other quiet spots we’ve been so far, like Tonsai beach, and also Koh Rong in Cambodia. But hey it was perfect for a Chrimbo get-away!

The party on the night of Christmas Eve was awesome – there was a great atmosphere as everyone was going nuts for it! We started off with a couple of cheap buckets from a local shop – you just buy the bucket, a half bottle of booze (rum, in our case) and a couple of mixers (a can of Coke and bottle of mental Thai Red Bull) for 200 Bhat – about £4! Unfortunately Ori didn’t really like this bucket so I had to drink it pretty much all to myself, on an empty stomach, which was going far too hard far too early, so I was on the waters for much of the rest of the night! But it was an awesome night in all, as we hooked up with the English guys from Tonsai and pulled some funky moves on the dancefloor!

It was weird to spend Christmas away from home though– a first for both of us. A lot of time was spent thinking “if I were back home, we’d be eating dinner/pulling crackers/opening presents right about now.” Instead, of eating a roast dinner, we were roasting on the beach; instead of drinking champagne, we had buckets of filthy booze; and instead of a normal pine Christmas tree, we had a tree constructed with palm leaves! There were some Christmas tunes being played, but they felt a bit out of place given the surroundings, the lack of snow and the 30+ degree temperature! But we were in a great place, having fun, and there were thousands of other Westerners on Phi Phi going through the same thing, all in good spirits with good wishes for each other, so it wasn’t too bad in the end - certainly a memorable Christmas!!

Tonsai and Hat Yai: 25 Dec – 27 Dec

On Christmas Day, we headed back ‘home’ to Tonsai, Skype’d our families and then chilled out for the day before heading off on Boxing Day towards Hat Yai to take our flight to Kuala Lumpur to meet Slat and Brig who were coming out from the UK to meet us!

---