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Published: September 27th 2009
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Well, here we are back in paradise after spending three and a half months in Tassie doing some work and the kids doing a term of school. We had planned to catch up with lots of people but time went so fast that many of our hello’s were also goodbyes.
We have returned to Vang Vieng, Laos which was our initial plan, to sit by the river and decide what we would do with the next couple of months before we settle down again. But, you know what they say about plans…instead of a couple of days sightseeing in Vientiene before heading to Vang Vieng we spent ten days there, four of us with various stages of flu like symptoms. So instead of a travel blog our review would actually cover movies (The Son of Rambow still the winner), which level the kids got to on ‘frizzle fraz’ on the computer (20) and which strepsils tasted better (red). It did mean that the whole family had to wind down completely and relax which was not necessarily a bad thing.
We had a great time in Melbourne on the way over, spending time with my sister and family which was
great. Apart from family time the highlight was the Salvador Dali Exhibition which was amazing and the girls really enjoyed the experience. I wondered why it is so hard sometimes to keep the children entertained when I read that Dali was captivated by watching camembert melt. Anyway, definitely worth a visit for anyone who is able.
We had a two day stop over in Kuala Lumpur on the way to Laos which was great. It is a nice city surrounding the Petronas Towers with a great mix of cultures, primarily Malay and Indian as well as Chinese. We met up with a guy who the children met on a plane on our last trip from China to KL (the poor guy had the kids talking to him for the entire five hour trip while we pretended they weren’t with us, karma got us though when we had three Chinese children spend most of the 8 hour trip to Aus with us!). We met him for dinner which was great for the kids to be able to catch up but he also gave us an insight on living in KL. We were there in the middle of Ramadan so at
7 each night there was suddenly an influx of Muslim people to the eateries. We generally just pottered about the city using the sky rail which is really convenient and clean and relaxed at the pool to recover from our flight.
It was nice to be back in Vientiene but as the two or three day stop over turned to ten it was also nice to leave. The days did seem to blur into each other, not helped when we thought we had turned the corner and for some reason they put Saturday’s news paper out on Friday. No Lotto numbers through (Mitchy looked just in case)! We managed to have a couple of family outings, although one was to the doctor at the Australian Embassy.
We worked up the courage to get back on the bikes which we hadn’t done since Mac’s accident on our last visit to Vientiene. It is such a great way to get about and see more of a place. We cycled out to ‘COPE’ which is the UXO (unexploded ordinance) information and rehabilitation centre. It is a great centre with a display room of information and experiences to give an understanding of
Finns New Do
"I Give You A Handsome Laos Haircut" what living in a country which has millions of unexploded ‘bombies’ scattered in the countryside can be like. Accidents from the uxo’s exploding are still occurring, one reason being that the scrap metal from the bombies can be sold for 2000kip a kilo (25cents) so desperate children and adults sometimes take the risk and collect them. It was amazing to see the home made prosthetic legs made out of timber and to imagine what it would be like to wear one of these in the heat. COPE has a website: www.copelaos.org
Mitchy and Finn also fitted in haircuts, and all I would say is beware the barber who says ‘don’t worry madam I make your boy look veeeery handsome’, although it perhaps wasn’t the haircut that was the concern but the post cut styling.
All of us were excited about getting back to Vang Vieng which was lucky as the three hour trip took six hours. We waited on the bus for nearly half an hour to leave (dejavu), broke down three times and had some weird bridge closure type episode, ending up in a queue for over half an hour until one of the Israeli blokes on
King Of Bus
Royal Pain In The Bus board braved the heat and chatted to the Police to let us through (well that was his version anyway).
The kids had a lovely time on the final breakdown (about ten k’s out of town) sitting on the ground shelling peanuts with a Laos family who had four children as well. The Nam Song river was even more beautiful after our long journey than we remembered.
We were inspired by our Quebec friends from our last visit to Vang Vieng who cycled out to the Blue lagoon, a 7.5km trip each way. We thought that the weather was perfect as it was relatively cool and overcast after a night of heavy rain, we didn’t however take into account the puddles (some with fish in) and the mud. We took four bikes, with the three eldest kids taking turns on the two small ones. The hills were alive with the sounds of Olivia’s screams as she came to terms with the bike that may have been an inch too high, the puddles, rocks and mud. We made it all the way to find that due to the rain the lagoon was actually green rather than blue which was okay
as we were brown rather than white. The mud washed off quickly as we swung from the trapeeze and jumped from the tree.
On the way to the lagoon we stopped for water at a small stall and chatted to the Thai owner and his Laos wife, we promised to stop again on the way back which we did for a chat and drink while the couple fed the children pomelo and the guy made the boys ‘crowns’ out of the peel which they thought were great!
The weather has been great, a few magnificent thunder storms but lots of hot dry days and so we have made several trips to the swimming hole that runs into a cave near town. How things change, the kids were all desperate to swim into the cave! We remain in awe of the amazing dragonflies, butterflies and other insects in Vang Vieng, it is really like a Garden of Eden. We spent a morning on the river tubing, the trip much quicker this time at the end of the rainy season.
To make up for the failed attempt at finding the Organic Farm on our last tubing adventure we cycled
out to the farm just out of town for one of their famous mulberry pancakes which definitely lived up to expectation. The farm is very environmentally and socially aware with several different programs running often using volunteers from abroad. We are considering a stay out at the farm which would be a great experience for our city kids!
We also found the Vang Vieng market on one of our cycle trips which was great, really orderly for an Asian market but full of the weird and wonderful delicacies of live frogs, dead bats and other unidentifiable previously living foods.
We are heading back to Luang Prabang in a couple of days to and then back to Vang Vieng for the Buddhist Ok Watsa, Full Moon festival before we head back to Cambodia; that’s if we can pick up the pace after falling for the laid back spell of Laos again!
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Leonard
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Great to see U r on the road again!
Wonderful to be following your new adventures! I am going to be in Siem Reap from Oct 9 - Oct 24 and then off to Laos till Nov 5. If you are going to be in SR while I am there drop me an email and maybe we can meet! Happy travels!