Advertisement
Published: February 24th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Tubing Migration
At this point, no one has any idea what we're in for! So, after spending nearly 2 weeks down south on the islands, we caught a flight up to Bangkok, where we met our overnight train to Laos. Upon arriving in Bangkok, we had 5-6 hours to kill before our train, so we high-tailed it to a mall to watch an honest to goodness American movie. Right before the movie starts, there is a loud Thai announcement, and everyone in the theater stands up to pay their respects to the King, as pictures of him start playing across the screen. I think if they tried to do this in the U.S, movie theaters would go broke from having to pay all the cleaning bills of the food and sodas thrown at Dubya's face on the screen.
Our overnight train to Laos was actually really fun. We paid for 2nd class sleepers, so when we got on the train, we had 2 seats, and when we were ready to go to bed, a train employee turned our seats into one bed, and then another bed dropped down from the ceiling! In the grand scheme of places we've slept, it was actually not that bad-they give you fresh linens, and the bed itself was
Overnight Train
On my cozy little top bunk pretty comfy. The next morning we arrived at Nong Khai, which is the Thai town on the border to Laos. We crossed over the Thai-Australian Friendship bridge, and after about 2 hours of waiting in lines and shelling out 35$, we crossed over into Vientiene, Laos.
The funny thing about Laos is, they accept every form of currency known to mankind. We've got Laos Kip (9,000 Kip to the Dollar), Thai Baht (about 33 Baht to the dollar), and US Dollars. And you can pay for things in a combination of the three. Don't these people know I've never been good at math!?!
Vientiene
We checked into our hotel, Mali Namphu, which was this great hotel with a pretty courtyard right downtown. Vientiene is the capital city of Laos, but is still quite small, the downtown only fills a 2-3 square mile area. The first thing we did was go to Wat Sok Pa Luang, the forest temple. And by forest temple, I mean a magical temple that offers herbal saunas and massages. We hailed a tuk-tuk and he dropped us off at gates and said "Forest Temple-that way". After wandering for 10
Paxtuay
The Laos version of Paris' Arche de Triumphe minutes, and with no clue where to go, a young monk stopped to talk to us, and finally pointed us in the right direction. The "spa" was located in a large open wooden building built on stilts. We dropped trou, changed into sarongs, and headed off for the sauna. Once you opened the door, you were hit by a wave of steam so thick you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face, you had to feel your way around to make sure you didn't plop down on a small Laotian woman's lap. After sitting in the sauna for as long as we could bare, and feeling like we had sweat out every drop of liquid in our bodies, we went back out into the open area for our massages. There are 6-8 tables all in this same open room, with people getting traditional Laos massages. I was definitely massaged by a 13 year old boy, which was awkward at times, but overall amazing-I was sooooo relaxed and limber by the end.
After, we went back into town to explore. Although it is now independent, Laos was originally colonized by the French, and you can see it everywhere.
Wat Sok Pa Luang
People enjoying thier hour long massages! A lot of the hotels downtown have cute little painted shutters on the windows, there are a ton of french restaurants, all these little sidewalk stands selling baguette sandwiches, and they even have their own version of Paris' Arche de Triumph!. That night, Ashley + I went out for a "fancy dinner" at a french restaurant, and went to town-Wine, meals, salads, deserts, for 6.50$ a person!
The next morning we got up early to rent bikes, and biked around town to see all the temples and historic monuments before catching our bus to Vang Vieng.
Vang Vieng: Backpackers Paradise (or hell?)
We arrived in Vang Vieng around dinner time, and it's a small town located right on the Mekong river, set at the base of humungous limestone mountains and cliffs. Although it has the potential to be an amazing city, Vang Vieng was built up quickly with the backpacker demand, and is a really un-impressive place. All there is downtown are internet cafes, and bars playing Friends or Family Guy all day long. Backpackers flock to Vang Vieng for its infamous tubing down the Mekong river, so thats what we set out
Wat Pak Sa Luang
Ready for our sauna at the forest temple to do! We were super lucky, b/c apparently it had been freeeezing the previous week, but we brought the heat and sun with us! The next morning, we went into town around noon, found one of the tubing outfitters, where we handed over 50,000 kip (5$), and were given an innertube and a dry-bag for our camera's in return. They loaded us up into Tuk-Tuks, and brought us to the mouth of the river. Before we even got on, there were 3-4 little stands on the riverside selling drinks in plastic bags, to take with you. A little girl helped me into my tube, and started walking me down the river (it was really shallow there) and chatting with me, and I thought "how adorable, a little Lao girl who wants to improve her english", until she held out her hand and said "MONEY".
We floated for about 50 yards, before we hit our first riverside bar. There are men on the sides of the river, ready to tow you in with long bamboo poles, so after about 10 minutes in the water-out we went! The scene was absolutely insane. It was just a crudely constructed wooden bar above
Les Jardin Organique
Our bungalow right on the Mekong river in Vang Vieng the water, but there were about 40 people there, drinking Beer Lao and fruit cocktails and jammin' to Bob Marley. There was even a huge platform you could climb to zipline into the water! After a beer or 2, I got my liquid courage and ziplined off the platform, and was rewarded with a noseful of Mekong water and my top floating 4 feet away. **I tried to add a video of this, don't know if it worked!!** After about an hour, we got back into our tubes, drink in hand, and floated for another.....10-30 yards, before being pulled into our next riverside bar. I think at this point Ash + I both realized what we were in for, shrugged, and took our complimentary Laos whiskey shot from the 5 year old girl passing them out. Hey, you only live once! The whole scene was just entirely bizarre, you are on this gorgeous river, with mountains all around you, yet you can hear Eminem bumping from a stereo and you have to duck from the people swinging into the river 2 inches from you! I can see why backpackers both love and hate this place.
After about 3 hours,
we got to the largest riverside bar, which was actually a riverside bar complex- 3 to 4 bamboo bars all attached up on the cliff. Tons of people were swinging on high rope swings over the river, and at this point in the day, everyone is pretty much best friends for life. And don't worry, plenty of drink buckets to go around!
All in all, one of the craziest days of my life. It's so funny, at the start of the day, they tell you that it takes about 4 hours to go down the river...which is true, but what they don't tell you is that you go less than a mile in that entire time. And by the end, you really can't be bothered to explore any further than that. Ash + I tuk-tukked back into town, where we chowed down on some pizza baguettes, lurched off to our hotel, where we passed out, swimsuits and all.....at the late late hour of 5:30 pm. What a day!
We only had one full day in Vang Vieng, but that was enough for us, now off to spend a week relaxing in Luang Prabang, Laos' most famous city. More
Ash double-fisting drinks
Why not start the day out right?? on that later!
P.S- For anyone who argued with me before I left-I was RIGHT: The S is silent in Laos! Hence the witty title to this blog. 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.055s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sandi
non-member comment
I'm drunk just inhaling the fumes from your blog! But you look so adorable waiting for your massage - and all the scenery is breathtaking. I just hope you and Ashley are ready for detox when you get back! Love,love,love