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Published: December 9th 2008
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Dave said in the last entry that nothing interesting happened on our last day in Chiang Mai. But I for one beg to differ. On the last day in Chiang Mai boys and girls - I bought a hairdryer!!! For three weeks I suffered the plight of letting my hair “naturally”. Three long weeks. So I got myself a neat little Panasonic “turbo dry 1000” for the bargain price of £8 and have never been happier.
Armed with my new best friend, Dave and I travelled to the local airport to board a flight to Luang Prabang in Laos. We flew with Lao Airlines which, if you believe the reports, is a little like gambling all of your money on red. The odds of making it to your destination aren’t perhaps as in your favour as you might like them to be. They are renowned for not publishing their safety record and the American Government advises against travelling with them. Excellent. Nevertheless, Dave and I have not one bad thing to say about them. We boarded the plane in about 10 minutes and actually departed early. The flight only took 40 minutes and during that time we were given a
free drink and snack too (maybe to take our minds off the possibility of impending doom).
Having arrived in one piece at Luang Prabang we paid for our tourist visas, collected our rucksacks and caught a taxi to the place we’d booked up. ‘Merry Guest House 1’ is the most expensive place we’ve stayed so far at US$40. It was roomy and clean and had a TV but by far the most outstanding feature was the bath-meets-shower-meets-entertainment facility in the bathroom. It was like something out of Doctor Who and quickly attracted our quiet fascination and admiration as we pressed all available buttons and were sporadically rewarded with jets of water, music and mood lighting. The shower fully exhausted we went to find some dinner before retiring back to our room for sleep. Unfortunately someone had scheduled a “sticky rice party” (no idea) nearby that continued until dawn. Happy days.
Not able to afford another night at such lofty rates, we checked in to another nearby guesthouse for a much more reasonable US$10 (Tony’s Place). And at about 11pm that evening we found out why. While we were in fact accommodated in a private room with four surrounding
walls, each time you shut your eyes it seemed much more plausible that you were in a dormitory of, say, 50 others. Each of whom tasked with the objective of making as much noise as possible. All 50 were very good at this challenge and succeeded admirably in drawing groans from David and myself throughout the night. One chap in particular deserves a special mention. His snoring in both volume and sound is unprecedented and given half the chance I would not hesitate to shove a cabbage up his nose. On the third day we checked-in to a much, much better place (which seemed all the more luxurious for the two previous nights) and all was well with the world. Amazing what a difference a bed can make.
Luang Prabang is a small UNESCO heritage site (which as far as we can tell means that any restoration undertaken is in keeping with the original architecture with new developments restricted). We went to the museum, which is housed in a once royal residence. Very plush. Our favourite part was the series of 15 drawings that depicted a most important story of Lao culture. To summarise, man gives away food and
belongings, people happy, man gives away elephant, people angry. Man sent away with wife and children to mountains. Man gives away children to strange hermit bloke. Man tries to give away wife to same strange hermit bloke. Later man is renuited with children at castle. Current King abdicates. Man is made King. So kids, let that be a lesson to you…
The same day that we visited the museum we went to see a traditional Lao performance of song and dance. I would very much like to say that it was a beautiful and moving experience that will forever hold a special place in my heart but, in truth it was a bit rubbish. The main chapter of the performance was the story of a woman who is captured by an evil, lizard-like man. We’d read the synopsis beforehand so knew what was happening; unfortunately though this didn’t make it any more enjoyable. The speed at which the story unfolded was akin to a drunk snail swimming through glue. We watched a giant bird try and save the unfortunate women through the medium of dance for a good 15 minutes. He failed and she was captured anyway. All in
all what we learnt from the story was don’t put magic water on a hermit. Even the monkeys with knives dance couldn’t save it. They also just moved very slowly.
Having enjoyed walking up countless steps in Chiang Dao so much, we decided again to scale a few hundred steps in pursuit of a good view. Although this time we did it at sunset. See pictures. It was lovely.
On our last full day in Laos we did a tour and it started with an elephant ride. We were really unsure about elephant riding because we’d heard how badly the elephants are treated in order for them to stay submissive while two people clamber into a seat on their back and stay there as static heaps of weight for the remainder of the journey. We decided to make our own minds up though and all in all it was a good experience. It was quite unsteady and high (as you might expect) but clambering through the jungle in the early morning on the back of an elephant was
pretty darn good.
We then trekked for a couple of hours to a hill tribe village where we had lunch before continuing our hike to the Tad Sae waterfall. Which was amazing. We only got a couple of photos because the camera ran out of battery (noooo!!!!) about 60 seconds after we arrived but the place was stunning. The water was a milky blue-green and with only a few other visitors, we almost had the place to ourselves. We spent a good hour at the waterfalls, paddling about in the cool waters and watching an odd-looking water beetle untangle himself from a plant before waiting at the shore to board a longtail boat (Dave: it was us that boarded the boat, not the beetle). This was one of the best bits of the day and as we chugged along the Mekong River - Dave and me, the driver and the guide - I felt just a little bit like Bruce Parry.
On our very last day in Luang Prabang we went to the most famous waterfall Laos has to offer - Kuang Si. It took us about an hour to get there and was well worth the journey.
As the waterfall is accessible by road we had to share it with several coach loads of tourists but the waterfalls and lagoons were beautiful nonetheless. There was also a rescue centre for the endangered Asiatic black bears (illegally imported from China to undergo cruel torture for supposed medicinal purposes) where the bears spend most of their time play fighting and generally having a nice time in their big enclosure. This part of the world isn’t known for its animal rights so it was good to see something so positive in place. We then went back to Luang Prabang, collected our rucksacks and took another journey to the airport to board yet another Lao Airlines flight. Would we make this journey…? You’ll have to wait until our next blog to find out. My money’s on red.
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Sarah (the one from Keele who doesn't like knees)
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Howdy!! I thought I'd sit down with a cup of tea and spend a few minutes reading your travel blog. A few minutes turned into an hour -mainly cos I'm a slow reader, and also because I haven't been able to stop laughing at the thought of Dave doing an impression of a Tiger. I'm glad you both seem to be having a fantastic time. Most jealous about the elephant ride (just to compare, the highlight of my day today was having a checkout opened for me in Tescos when there was a massive queue....) Will keep tuned in to see how things are going. Love to you both x x x