Viva La Laos!

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Ok.......so after sad goodbye to Vietnam we left Hanoi for Laos. All the sensible people booked flights while David, Tash, Pat and I climbed aboard the sleeper bus for probably one of the worse 24 hour bus journeys. It was fine until halfway more people got on the bus - I woke up on the floor in between the bunks with 2 people sitting in my bunk! Delirious, tearful and angry we had a hellish border crossing and seven hours later we arrived in Vientiane for much needed showers and food!


We spent two nights in Vientiane, that was enough for us really, we saw the sights on bicycles and there wasn't much to do at night except for bowling. Everywhere shuts at around 11pm except for the stalls along the riverfront where all the ladyboys come out to play and you can enjoy cheap cheap Beer Lao.


The next morning we loaded onto a bus to the tubing capital of the world Vang Vieng where the main event is floating down the Nam Song River in a rubber ring while riverside bars pull you in by plastic bottles attached to ropes for free lao-lao shots (local rice whiskey) and whiskey buckets. Now add in massive rope swings, trapeze swings, zip lines and tree top wooden platforms and you've got a backpacker's playground! To add to all this fun, throughout the whole day we were surrounded by absolutely beautiful landscape. I remember at one point being covered in mud and paint, bucket in hand, David flying through the air off one of the swings, Daft Punk blaring from the bar, looking around at the scenery thinking this is surreal!


We decided to leave out the tubes and just swam to each bar - lots of fun but I wouldn't want to try this in the wet season when the current is really strong!! The best part of Vang Vieng was where we stayed - amazing bungalows at the bottom of a mountain. They were well worth the slightly higher cost than the guesthouses and they were right next to the river so you could actually just float down the river from tubing right to your front door! The town itself was really bizarre, all the streets were lined with practically empty restaurants showing back to back episodes of Family Guy and Friends season after season. The workers at these places really must hate the first customers of the day when they have to put on Friends for the next 12 hours!


After a few days of Vang Vieng, we decided to move on to the next city, Luang Prapang. A very cool town on the Mekong river where, like any other place in Laos, relaxing is the most common activity. Nobody gets up off their hammocks unless it's life or death! We went on a day trip to a mong village, bear hospital and stunning turqouise blue waterfalls.


On the bus from Hanoi we met another Australian couple Kim and Dane so its now us and seven aussies! The only damper on the Laos trip was when our bus driver to Luang Prabang ran over a poor dog and didn't even bother to stop. He actually narrowly missed hitting some children that were with the dog but it was so horrible the poor thing was screaming, hopefully someone put it out of its misery.


I'm a bit behind on the blogs, we're now leaving Chiang Mai for Bangkok again. We always have fun in Bangkok so thats where we've decided to have new year, we'll write again soon!

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Photos

Vientiane
Tuk tuks with Dane, Kim, Tash and Pat

Vientiane
One of the only late night activities in Vientiane, plus cheap Beer Lao!

Vientiane
After the 11pm curfew in town we ended up having a drink with this local man on the right who plied us with shots of who knows what. Apparantly it was 80% alcohol that he'd made himself - the guy on the left actually vomited all down himself after doing one shot, since he was a local and he couldn't handle it there was no way I was touching the stuff!!

Vientiane
Thailand on the other side of the river

Comments

[janet and mustafa]

lovely to see some more of your pictures. Keep them coming. Love xx