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Published: February 3rd 2006
After parting ways with Claire and Marianne I caught a minibus up to Chiang Khong, a small town in Thailand on the border of Loas. The bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong took 6 hours and I stopped over a night at the border, unfortunately my room was directly above a bar which was blaring out music all night. Since I couldn't sleep I thought I should just go down for a drink. I met up with a Scottish couple from Glasgow who are planning to marry on a Thai island in a week or 2 and stayed up drinking Thai tequila with them, some local Thai's and a Laos immegration officer. We played pool and ate pork barbequed on the campfire until the wee small hours. I got to bed at 5AM and set my alarm for 7AM as we were due to cross the border at 8. At 7.55 I was woken by the hotel owner banging on my door, I shoved everything in my bag and rushed downstairs. Thankfully though we were (as always) working on Asia time so pick up truck due to leave at 8 didn't really go till nearer 9. Still, I didn't feel
too fresh and had 2 days on a slow boat ahead.
At the border I took a small boat across the Mekong river to the small wooden shed where I was issued with my 15 day visa for Laos by the same guy I had played pool with the night before. He looked mighty rough and refused to make eye contact with me. Have a feeling he'd be in a lot of trouble if his boss found out he was drinking in Thailand till 5 AM before work! Once across the border we piled onto a long boat. There was around 100 people on the boat along with all our rucksacks. It was a tight squeeze and everyone had just enough space to sit down. The first day we cruised down the Mekong for 6 hours. I made the mistake of sitting on a wooden bench at the front I had about half a metre leg room and a very painful ass. Saying that the scenery along the Mekong is stunning and I met tons of people to talk to. (being stuck practically on top of each other really breaks the ice) We stopped every so often to drop off/
pick up locals who piled on the cramped boat with huge bags of rice and gorgeous kids strapped to their backs. Each time we stopped in a small village all the local kids would run down the huge sand dunes to stare and wave at the falang (westeners).
That night we stopped in Pak Beng, a tiny village which only has electricity for 3 hours each day. As we got off the boat we were ambushed by the local kids who practically ripped my arm off for the bag of oranges I had. That night I shared a room with an English girl I had met on the boat, Danya. Our room was the best of a bad bunch, all we had were mosquitos & a stinky toilet (no hot water) others had rats and bed bugs. One Irish guy, Cathal, spent the night in the back of a tuk tuk on the street because there was a huge rat in his room. We spent that night having a big meal with people from the baot before sitting out on the balconey drinking Beer Lao by candlelight.
The next morning we piled back on the slow boat for another 7.5
Slow boat
100 people - 2 days - sore ass.hours down the Mekong river. This time I was more wise and sat at the back of the boat on the floor where I was able to lie down and sleep most of the journey. Then after 3 days travelling I finally arrived in Luang Prabang, former capital of Laos.
Now most people don't know much about Laos, I know I didn't before I travelled to South East Asia so I'll just explain a little bit abou the country. Now officially called Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao P.D.R.) Laos used to be called Lan Xang Hom Khao which means Million Elephants, White parasol but was long know throughout Indochina as the land of a million elephants. I saw 3. Roughly the same size as Great Britain Loas is landlocked, sharing borders with Cambodia, China, Myanmur (Burma), Thailand & Vietnam. The landscape is rugged, around 85% mountainous, and sparlsey populated (under 6 million people live in Laos.
The most interesting thing about Laos is that although people know so little about it, it is infact the most bombed country in the world. In 1962 the Geneva Accord recognised the neutrality of Loas and forbade the presence of all military personnel.
The USA along with China and Northern Vietnam then began what is known as 'the secret war'. To evade the Genava agreement the CIA placed agents in 'foreign-aid' posts & turned air force officers into civilian pilots. Then over the next 9 years (from 1964 - 1973) the secret airforce dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every 8 minutes for 9 years. Bombing in Vietnam was halted in November 1968 and extra air power became available & was used on Laos. By 1973 approximately 1.9 metric tonnes of ordnanace had been let loose on the country. This equates to over half a tonne for every man, woman and child living in Laos. It is disgusting to think that all this was going on only 30 years ago and the outside world had no idea.
Luang Prabang
First stop in Laos was the former royal capital, Luang Prabang. It's a gorgeous World Heritage - listed town based around the confluence of the Nam Khan and the Mekong River. There are 66 temples in the town, 32 of them are still occupied by monks who can be seen wondering about in their bright orange robes hiding from the sun
under black umberellas. The architecture mixes temples with french provincial and at times it is very easy to convince yourself you are in Europe. It is a quiet town where Hmong, Mien and Thai tribal people congregate for the nightly market & most residents are asleep by 10pm. I shared a hotel room with Danya and another English girl, Jude, we had also met on the slow boat. We mainly just lazed about in the sun, eating in the excellent local bakeries. We hired bikes one day and cycled round the temples before watching the sunset from the Xieng Thong which is set high on a hill in the centre of the town. Another day we visited the Pak Ou caves which are filled with Buddha images and swam at the gorgeous Kuang Si waterfalls. Then of course there was one night of drunken madness which saw Danya, Jude and I share a tuk tuk with 20 other people from the slow boat - I was hanging off the back, trying to find a party (which we did!)
Vang Vieng
After about a week in LP I took the 5 hour bus journey to Vang Vieng. The scenery along
the way was stunning and we passed tiny wooden huts set high in the mountains. Vang Vieng is a typical backpacker place, tonnes of bars and restaurants with pool tables playing DVD's everynight. VV is famous for "the friends bars" and sure enough as soon as I walked up onto the main street (there are only 3 streets) I heard the friends theme tune blaring out of at least 3 bars. These bars show friends non stop morning to night, everyone lounges around on massive cussions drinking fruit shakes and tea. It was great! I was shocked to find episodes I hadn't seen and spent an average of 5 hours a day watching friends episodes. After one particularly heavy night I watched a solid 8 hours! The other thing Vang Viang is famous for is tubing - this involves floating about 8KM down the Mekong in a huge inflatable ring, it's brilliant! all along there are bars which call you in with ice cold Beer Lao. Guys on the river bank throw out a bamboo pole which you catch as you pass, then they pull you in. At each of the bars there are huge jumps or flying foxes to
play on. We left at 11 AM and by 4 PM the sun was hidden behind a mountain so we hopped out at the next bar and took a tuk tuk back to town.
Vientianne - Si Phan Don
Having stayed a full week in Vang Vieng (I had only planned to stay 2/3 nights) I had to rush to the capital Vientienne and extend my visa ($3 a day to extend) I had heard it wasn't that great so just spent one and a half days seeing the sights with Danya before she headed to Bangkok to fly home (after 2 years of being away) and I headed south to Si Phan Don.
Si Phan Don translated means 4000 islands and is the most laid back place in Laos, (which is the most laid back country in the world, so you can imagine). I took an overnight bus from Vientenne to Pakse then a 3 hour minibus trip to the 4000 islands. I stayed on Don Det at a place called Mama and Papas, where I had my own bungalow for $1 a night, very quaint on the river front (sunset side) I had a small porch with
a hammock and no electricity. Everywhere was very basic, toilet was a hole in the ground (not that unusual) and shower a hose in a wooden hut about 20 metres back from my hut. Electricity is provided by a generator and ends at 10pm. It was cool seeing everyone making their way home along the tree lined paths by candle and torchlight. During the days I just swung about in my hammock reading, swam in the Mekong or hired a bike and cycled round the Don Det and nearby Don Khon. All very, very relaxing.
From Don Det I booked a ticket to Phnom Penh, Cambodia leaving on the 30th January. Not an internationally recognised border crossing it has a reputaion for being very dodgy.......
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anonymous
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Rock on, Laura
Hi, Laura, I look in every day to see what you've been up to, and this morning was just stunning. Here in Vancouver we've had a solid month of rain and its so lovely to see such beautiful scenery and to hear how you're doing. I think South East Asia has to go on my list of places that one day I'd like to see. Keep safe! Ann