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Published: August 10th 2007
Dragon
Guarding the templeWell, it took some getting here, but we made it! Several days after setting off from Kota Bharu, we are finally in Luang Prabang in Laos. As I previously metioned, we couldn't take the overland route into Thailand so we decided to fly (much easier than it sounds!) This involved getting to the bus station in Kota Bharu via a lift from our hostel owners, then an 8hr bus journey to KL (we set off at 9pm and arrived at 5am the next day). Being in KL now, we thought great, this is easy from here, but not so the airport is 70km outside the city! We then had a walk to the nearest train station where we had to wait for the first train of the morning to take us to yet another station to catch the airport train. We got on the airport train but as we were i the cheapy terminal, the train doesn't stop there and we then had to catch another bus from the actual airport to our nasty airport. Needless to say, we didn't have too much time to spare when we got there but were very happy to have done. The flight was just
under 4 hours but was fine and uneventful, though "Air Asia" are more twisted than easyjet. It says on the back of the ticket that they intentially over book seats but that if you loose your seat they won't charge you to catch the next plane!!! In the US they pay you to catch the next plane! Luckily it didn't come to that and we got to Chiang Mai in Norther Thailand safely. We had been told that you could only get a maximum of 15 days in Laos with a visa on arrival so had to wait out a couple of days here before we could enter the country (we already have a flight out booked!)
Chiang Mai is a lovely partially walled city with lots of markets and craft shops (we're going back as part of our Thailand tour) so we weren't stuck for time. The first night we went off in search of a hukkah bar we had seen advertised in an in-flight magazine. Needless to say, it was more pricy than expected but well worth a look. It was a cigar bar within a hotel which from the outside looked like a community centre but
when we walked in it was out of this world (plus they were shooting a tv show or photographing for a brochure or something, we couldnt tell but almost disrupted it all!) Inside the hotel were huge ornat sofas and rock pools which had floating candles, everything was perfect in there, it looked like it was out of a design magazine. At this point we realised that it wasn't going to be cheap and this was confirmed when we were taken through a stunning restaurant and sat on the roof bar. Several members of staff came over with various things, one crisps in a bowl, another hand towels and another with insect repellant (a very nice touch considering the area). As soon as we got the menu we knew we had to get out of there and after asking a member of staff for the phone number and feigning that we wanted to go for a meal with friends the next night, we got out with no cobb-webs removed from the wallet. We spent the rest of the night strolling around the (huge) night market. It seems to go for miles down one road with spurs off into car parks
Hot-rod
A northern Thai tractor, I think they're ace! and shopping centres, we spent hours walking round anyway and found a few souvenirs to come away with.
The next day we went to go online in the morning to check email ect only to see the travel blog news. At that point all plans went out of the window and we spent the next 2 hours trying to save what we could. I happily now only have 3/4 lost entries. That afternoon we rewarded ourselves with a beer and then headed out for our first temple visit to Wat Chedi Luang. Supposedly the oldest temple in Chiang Mai and a former home for the Emerald Buddah (I think?) before a large earthquake in 1535 or somewhere around there. It is an amazing old building and huge considering it was built so long ago. On each side is a gold buddah image and around the edge is a row of elephants. Not 100% in tact but very good condition considering the earth quake! We also went into what I can only call a small chapel near it too which housed a very lifelike wax-work of a religious leader to whom they prey. We also catght some signs for 'Monk
Chat' where you can just go and chat to the monks about almost anything. Unfortunately they were all occupied so we may return.
The next day our journey continued with a mini-bus ride to the Laos border which took around 5 hours. We did get ot meet some nice people on the bus though so time wasn't too slow in passing. That night wasn't so good though. The hostel we stayed at in Chiang Kong as part of our package was really unfriendly (package was bus, hostel and boat to Luang Prabang) but there was a really nice bar over the road wehere we passed our time whilst the owner was showing us his guest books (people can leave messages for him) and he was telling us the best places to stay. They also show movies in the bar so we saw Oceans 13 over a drink with the people from the bus. The next morning was the start of the least fun part of the trip. We were ferried to the boat crossing (Thailand is on one side of the Mekong River and Laos on the other) to go to Houay Xai and jumped onto a little boat
to take us across the water. On the other side we were met by some smarmy guy who spoke English and called everyone 'beautiful'. He proceeded to semi tell us what to do before nominating Vicky to deal with the customs agents on our/his behalf whilst he dissapeared. Our passports were then passed around several people before we eventually got them back and went to find the guy again. He then went on to tell us that there were no rooms in Pak Beng (it is a two day boat journey to Luang Prabang so the boat stops overnight) and that we ahd to book through him. Mine and Vick's first reaction is un-repeatable on here but needless to say we wern't so trusting. I really didn't want to give him a penny but was eventually convinced that 5GBP to be guaranteed accomodation wasn't the worst con in the world. We were however left without a reciept for our room which proved to be a problem later. We eventually made it to our slow boat and happily got seats only to be told a couple of minutes later that the boat wasn't going anymore and it was the one next
door. At this, Vicky flung herself out of the window and into the next boat guaranteeing us a seat whilst I went to re-claim our backpaks. We had heard it would be cramped but this boat was a joke, there must have been over 100 people on it and room to seat 70! Once the (very very small) seats filled up the rest of the people were left to fill spaces they could find on the floor for our six hour journey. The seats weren't much better, resembling very poor quality church pews (thankfully we splashed out on 60p cushions beforehand!) The jor\urney was amazing if you remove the discomfort factor, cruising down the Mekong in a slow-boat with no signs of human life anywhere barring the occasional tribal village of wooden huts. We stopped at one or two on the way as the boat caried supplies for the villages. After six hours we made it to Pak Beng to find we had paid twice the value of the room and it was still full of lizzards and slugs! Also two Irish girls from our bus were harrased by local men who took their bags off the boat and demanded money from them in spite of the girls repeated protests that they were capable of carrying them. The men did recieve a resolute 'no' though.
When we got to the hostel and realised we had no reciept which we needed we had to get the hostel to call the agent back at Houay Xai and confirm that we had paid in advance which he thankfully did after a long while. That evening we decided to treat ourselves to our first Beer Lao, the local brew and very nice indeed. We went to a restaurant for an indian which was very nice but at the end (thankfully) there was a thud on the table and some two inch flying insect had landed infront of Vicky and then leapt at me, though I managed to dodge it. We got out pretty soon after that to enjoy our two hours of electricity that the hostel provided (there is no main line there, its all generators). The next morning we headed for the boat early after the cramming the day befoer (we were up at 6am for the 9.30 boat). Thankfully it was a different boat (well two this time!) and had cushioned seats aswell. The journey was much more pleasant than the day before though 8 hours this time but we arrive at our final destination safely and have been indulging in 50p large Beer Laos since...
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Ann
non-member comment
Wildlife
So now the wildlife can't keep its hands off you - diving at you like that! Big girl, bet you screamed louder than Vicky!! Sound like a great adventure, but you still don't seem to have come across wonderful accommodation with swimming pools, hairdriers etc - definitely not the holiday for me.xxxx