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Published: April 3rd 2008
Saturday 29th was an early start - up at 5am. We were outisde Wat Xieng Thong temple at 6am, waiting for the monks to appear. Each morning an offering to the monks is performed here. People line the streets and all the monks walk down along collecting food for the day from the locals and a few tourists that join in, this is the monks food for the day. There was hundreds of monks all with little food baskets hanging off their orange robes. Next we headed to the morning market (7am) where we had been told we might see some odd bugs for sale if we arrived before the police are up and about. We saw a dead guinee pig for sale and some fried lizards on sticks (yummy!). Next we headed to the temple on top of the 'mountain'. This isn't much of a mountain (about 350 steps!) but all the locals call it that. The views were good and a confused Adam turned down the bird offered for sale to him at the bottom - turns out you let them free at the top! We picked up some banana cake for a cheap breakfast and headed to White
Offerings to the Monks
They are collecting food for the day from locals...they just kept coming...! (Adam was very tempted to join the line!)Elephant Tours for our kayaking starting at 830am. Busy morning! We met our guide (oddly called Lao) and jumped in our truck type thing to go pick up the boats. We had a canadian guy (Justin) and another young brit (Dan) with us to make up our group of 4. We picked up the 2 person kayaks and lunch for the day and started the hour drive to the river Nam Ou, we forgot the group waters and had to go back for them after ten mins! We had a good chat on the journey and our guide seemed very interested in comparing cultures and we learnt lots about Laos. He was the same age of us and currently at college and working part time. We arrived at the Nam Ou river and carried the boats down to the river side. Lao then gave a very brief introduction to kayaking - let him go first, paddle in time and when he shouts 'rapids!' the rapids are coming up. Seemed simple. We choose the Nam Ou because it had a better rapid rating (grade 2-3). Well after about 2 minutes of paddling Lao shouted 'RAPIDS!', and after about 3 minutes Nick
Adam and Nick Kayaking
Shortly after falling out in the rapids! was hanging onto our overturned boat and Adam was floating down the river clinging onto his paddle! Great start! We got washed down to the bottom of the rapids and Lao helped us back into the boat and said that always happened. The other 2 in our group had kayaked before and looked rather smug! We surrvived through the 2nd and 3rd rapids with no problems and started to dry a bit. We then all stopped on an island for curry and rice for lunch, plus some fruit. Over the last 3 weeks I can garentee no one in the world has eaten with views as good as we have! We got back in the boats and headed for some more rapids, the other 2 fell out on these ones and we managed to keep dry following behind them, 1-1 now. We then stopped at a beach on the river to finish the fruit, here we met some village tribe kids (known as Hmong people), they looked at us like aliens and then the canadian taught them some magic trick and we all had a good laugh and got some photos with them. This seemed fun for them, as we
Stopped at riverside
Where we stopped to eat fruit and met local village children arrived thier Dad was beating them with some sort of little stick, so a nice change I'd imagine. We then had a relaxing paddle down river taking in the nice mountain and jungle views. We had a 30 minute drive back, and nearly everyone was falling alseep on it. We dropped off the boats at the owners house and saw next door had a big cock fighting gathering going on, which apparently is legal in Laos and happens every weekend, we popped in for a quick look before being dropped back by the guest house. We decided we would spend the evening eating and putting up the blog, but we fell asleep at 4pm in the room and neither woke until the next day! Working too hard!
Up at 630am the next day after a long sleep. Packed up our bags and went for breakfast, tried to upload the blog but it was too slow. Got ourselves some cake for breakfast and used an ATM, Adam's bank cards all seem to be working fine again now, we think maybe Natwest and Vietnam aren't freinds. We checked out the guest house and flagged down a tuk tuk who wanted 70k
Village tribe (Hmong) Children
Obvious trouble maker on right! kip to take us to the bus stop, this seemed a lot, so we flagged down a motorbike with some sort of side cart thing on it, he took us both there for 20k. Our bus left at 9am and we had some english 'chavs' on it being a bit of an embarassment to our country, this probably started to form our opinions of Vang Veing before we even got there. We stopped for some dodgy free lunch and arrived at vang Vieng at 3pm. We got a shared tuk tuk to some guest houses and took the Saysong Guest house for $12 a night. We had a walk about and took in Vang Vieng, it was an odd place. Its situated between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, so makes a good stop to break the bus journey. But this place was a bit of an odd holiday resort. Lots of bars and restaurants, all showing 'Friends' and 'Simpsons' on repeat. People seemed to either spend 1 day here, or stay here for weeks. The main attraction is 'Tubing', which is basically floating down the river in a truck tyre inner tube, in Vang Vieng this is made more interesting by
Forest Fire
We drove through this on way to Vang Vieng! the river side bars that pull you ashore for drinks. We didn't really come to Laos for getting drunk and watching Friends, so we booked to bus to Vientiane for the next afternoon at 1pm, and decided we would go tubing early in the morning when it would be quite. We went out for some food and the annoying sound of Family Guy was silenced by a peaceful power cut! We then finally managed to get the blog online and figured a vague plan for the next few days. We were in the room about to fall asleep at 10pm when the craziest weather we have ever seen happened. Out of nowhere came a crazy storm. Windows were breaking outside, our rooms window frame broke off and came in the room. Restaurants tables an chairs where flying about. The place was almost constantly lit up by lightening. Adam headed outside to watch for a bit but it was too dangerous to stay out. The power cut again, and our torch ran out of batteries the first time we really needed it. We tried our best to fix our window cover back on and got some sleep.
Next morning we
Vang Vieng
Spot the local person!?!? woke at 8am and the power had not returned. We packed in the dark and then went outside, everyone seemed to be repairing things from last nights storms. We hired a dry bag and paid 50k kip each to go tubing, and were the first customers of the day. This price includes your tube rental and a tuk tuk drive 5km to the drop off point. Here he dropped us off and we got in our tubes and jumeped into the river. It didn't seemed to be moving very fast, we thought the storm would speed it up, but apparently not. We went past the empty river side bars, that had lots of slides and swings into the river, and apparently sell mushroom shakes (ermm no thanks lol). This place must get pretty crazy in the evenings and can't be very safe! The mountain views were nice though on our peaceful morning float and the sun even came out for a bit. In wet season it should take 1 hour to float to the end, we were in the dry season so it should take double, but after 2 hours we hadn't reached the end. We ended up having to
Adam tubing in Vang Vieng
You can see the bars but it was far too early for that! do a lot more paddling than floating, but eventually found the end and returned the equipment. We then checked out our room and got some food in peace (no power still), although halfway through eating we got some more TV burlting in our ears when power returned, we were glad to be heading out! Also an interesting thing here is everyone seems to be Irish, and we can't explain it, nowhere else has had irish people, why are they all here!? We waited for our bus to Vientiane and it left an hour late at 2pm. It was only 3 hours which is now an easy journey by our standards, we both had a bit of a sleep. Arrived in Vientiane at 5pm and tried to figure where the bus had dropped us. Turned out we were quite in the middle of town, but every guest house we went in was full. The Belgium people we met in Halong bay had recommended a place here so we headed to it on Sihom Road. It had a room free for $12 with a/c, hot water and tv, so we took that and the place seems nice. The guy showed us the
Nice Views
Nice jungle and hills all around - shame no current (Nick looks fed up of paddling!) room and said if we need any women or smoking or anything at all to let him know - how nice! We checked into th Sihom Guest House and brought a city map from them. We walked to the center of town (about 5mins) and got some food at Sabadee Resturant. Sabadee means Hello in Lao, and everyone uses it for a greeting, even tourists who know no other words. We used the internet and headed back to the room to plan our time in Vientiane, picking up a Beer Lao from reception on the way. Beer here is about 50 pence for a massive bottle! We listed everything we wanted to see in Vientiane and then got some sleep.
April Fools day we were up at 9am, we got ready for the day and packed some laundry into carrier bags that we needed to get done somewhere. We didn't get more than 5 steps out the room before the guest house cleaner said they could do it for us, she weighed it up using her very acurate arms and said 20,000 kip for the lot, which is very cheap for here. We then went to the morning market
Victory Monument
in Vientiane, Laos and got lost in it, we picked up some deoderant and batties (for torch!) then found our way out. We then walked towards Victory Monument, this is made to look at bit like the Arch de Triumph and was built in the late sixties. We walked to the top and got some great views of Vientiane and also could see our next stop - Wat That Luang. After about 15 minutes walking we arrived at Wat That Luang, which is a 45m high golden stupa. It looked good in the burning sun and we walked about inside the grounds, luckily arriving 3 minutes before it closed for lunch. Turns out they don't keep the paint work up as good around the back but it was still impressive! We then got a tuk tuk back to the food and guest house area. The guy said 40k at first, then 30k but we expertly got him to 20k. We then tried some tradional Lao food, minced chicken and veg with sticky rice (called Lab). Nick didn't like it much but Adam but most of it away. We lookeda t bus prices to Chiang Mai (north Thailand) and then chilled in the room's
Wat That Luang
Golden Stupa in Vientiane aircon for a bit, it was seriously hot today. We went out and booked our journey to Chaing Mai, which would include a border crossing and 2 buses, taking a total of 17 hours. We then headed to the National Stadium, we had heard you could try shooting here for cheap, but we couldn't find any sign of it, the football pitch was nice though! We then headed to check out the Lao Bowling Centre for something to do tonight, it was ok but a bit run down, we found out the 'Lao World' has a newer bowling place. We went back to the guest houuse and the nice staff gave us our laundry back (minus a white sock)! We then headed to Lao World Complex, this place was impressive and had bowling/cinema/karaoke, but was too far out of town, it was empty here! We played 1 game of bowling and Adam won (obviously) but both scores were 'girls scores'. We got a Tuk Tuk back to Nam Phu Fountain after walking along the road for a while, not sure if we were walking in the right direction! We got some food here and had a few beers before heading
Lao Food
Minted chicken with traditional sticky rice in straw basket (and coca cola!) back to sleep.
Wednesday 2nd was our last day in Vientiane and our last day in Laos. We were up at 9am and got a Tuk Tuk from the guest house to Budda Park. It was very out of town the the little Tuk Tuk struggled up and down some hills and bumps! When we arrived it was a really nice place. It was a nice green gardens full of stone carvings and statues, all apparently made by amatures under supervision of a sculpture. They were mostly of buddest gods and other related things, and had a few odd things in there too (a mermaid!?!). There was a big odd bowl thing we went inside by entering some statues mouth (see photo!). After the journey back there was a bit of confusion over the price, they wanted 100,000 kip per person and not for both, which we thought we had agreed. It was only a few pounds and the journey was long so we paid them anyway. We then checked out the guest house and left our bags there.We went to the same palce as last night for food and accidently walked into the 'lunch buffet', which was the
Nick losing at Bowling
Only us in the whole complex almost! greatest buffet ever (and cost about £2). Ate as much rice and veg as we could plus Adam tried some Lao dessert that was just slimey and tasteless.We spent our last bit of kip in the shop getting food for our bus journey tonight, then waited int he guest house garden for our bus pick up. Suprisingly we were picked up by a Tuk Tuk that took us to the local bus station, here he put yellow stickers on us and gave us some bus tickets for a local bus that left at 3pm to Udon Thani, apparently here we would change for Chiang Mai. The local bus turned out to be ok, it took us across the Friendship Bridge border crossing, where we had to get off at both sides to go through passport control. There was some big ques in here and we were last back to the bus worryingly. After getting back into Thailand the bus took us the hour drive the Udon Thani. When we got off here some guy was shouting 'Chiang Mai!' and ushered us into a Tuk Tuk (maybe he saw our stickers - we'll never know!). The Tuk Tuk then rushed us
Odd looking thing in Budda Park
Inside this thing was crazy! Lots of carvings and you could sit at the top! across town in the rain and dark, and when we asked where we were going he just laughed and didnt understand! Turns out he took us to the other bus stop where we would catch another bus to Chiang Mai. At 8pm our bus pulled up and it was amazing, it was a double decker coach with the best reclining seats and flat screen tvs on it. We got handed out biscuits and cola and sat back to enjoy the journey - only to find out we would be changing bus again at 11pm - no idea why. At 11pm in a place we will never know we changed onto another bus in a lay by. This was not so comfy and we both got the worst nights sleep of our trip over the next 9 hours on this bus...
We are due to arrive in Chiang Mai at 8am after almost 17 hours on various buses! We have really enjoyed our time in Laos and wish we could have stayed longer, but we can't afford to fall behind schedule!
Next step of our journey will be from north Thailand down to Bangkok, then heading south to the
Veiw over Budda Park
This was taken from on top of the odd thing! islands after that.
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Adam Gibson and Nick Burke
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fatai - Bubbles-
non-member comment
I never knew that.
I never knew that ''the monks walk down along collecting food for the day from the locals and a few tourists that join in,'' i thought the Leader chooses one or two of the Monks to go out to buy food from the Market.. .. fascinating.. _bANANA CAKES.. hmmmmm .. yummy.. yummy ..finger licking gooood. :) hahaha.. look at Adam in the Tube.. chil-laxing (chilling and relaxing) lol keep it coming...