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Published: August 21st 2010
Baguette and Shake
what a great way to start the day!I love Laos! There is something about this small landlocked country that is magical and captivating. I have only spent nine totally inadequate days here, and I can't for the life of me think what I actually did with those days, but I know for certain that I want to come back here again and for a lot longer next time.
If I'm to be factually accurate I suppose what I should really say is 'I love Luang Prabang' as that is where I spent almost all my time. I arrived from Vietnam with one night booked and stayed for seven. I could have stayed for twice as long and not been ready to leave. Instead I realised that I had stupidly booked myself a flight from Vientiane thinking it would be too expensive to buy last minute and I therefore have had to drag myself away from this wonderful country far earlier than I would have liked to. I am just glad that I gave myself even this short amount of time to sample the lazy paradise that is Laos.
After the hassle and bustle of Vietnam, entering its laid back neighbour I discovered an oasis of
Child for sale?
They learn to sleep anywhere from an early age out here! tranquility and friendly people. Everywhere I went on my first walk into town people smiled and called out Sabaidee. Local people were keen to practice their English and would strike up conversations with you. The most pestering I ever received was the tuk tuk drivers sleepily calling out if I wanted to go to the waterfalls as I walked past their line of vehicles. My worst experience in Laos: an over zealous guard dog chasing me down the road one night, but even this was quickly solved by a shopkeeper running out and shouting at the dog and then checking I was ok. This was definitely a one off as well, every other dog I met in Laos was either incredibly soppy and desperate for a cuddle or so dopey it wouldn't even blink when you clambered over it in the street.
This was also my first real experience of travelling alone, apart from a few days here and there on previous trips. Luckily it was a great start and hopefully the next six weeks will be just as successful. The hostel I stayed at in Luang Prabang was really sociable and within a few minutes of arriving I
On top of Phousi Hill
view of the mighty Mekong river had met lots of friendly people to hang out with, in fact I struggled to find time to myself to catch up on reading and blog writing!
My first day was spent wandering around town getting my bearings, being introduced to the best fruit shake and baguette stalls and the night market food stalls where you could pile your plate with vegetarian buffet for less than a pound. As well as hunting out food we also climbed to the top of Phousi Hill in the centre of town for fantastic views across the wide, brown Mekong River and sat around drinking cold Beer Laos and listening to the boys talk the kind of stupid but incredibly funny rubbish that only boys can have conversations about!
The hostel also organised lots of day trips and activities, not good for my budget but great fun. On my second day I went kayaking with four other people from the hostel. This was my first time kayaking on a river and the murky brown waters of the Nam Khan did not look as inviting for a dunk as the calm, clear sea in Halong bay. Luckily I didn't capsize, although there were
a few turbulent moments in the rapids when I thought it was time to start swimming! I also survived the pink eye risk despite taking the bulk of the river in my face during compulsory water fights. Our kayak trip took us to a beautiful waterfall, actually a series of big cascades that dries up in the summer, absolutely incredible to believe considering the force of water flowing over the rocks when we were there. The water was too strong for me to swim against, although the others managed to swim up and jump off one of the waterfalls. Half way through our kayak trip our guide and hostel owner, Shampoo (yes that's really his name!), disappeared. Half an hour downstream we decided to pull into the bank to wait for him, we turned round to see him paddling round the bend in the river with a huge grin on his face, it turns out he'd been having more than a few glasses of rice wine with a friend! In true monsoon season style I got sunburnt on the first half of this kayaking trip and then spent the last hour of it paddling through torrential rain that stung as
it pounded my skin.
Keeping up with the theme of my trip I have been to another cooking class, this time at Tamnak Laos Cooking School. This was a far more professional school than the previous two I attended, and far less fun because of that. The chefs there looked bored and taught mechanically. Nevertheless it was good to learn more tasty dishes to make back home and great to stuff my belly with food I'd cooked myself. I was paired up with a crazy French-Laos woman who insisted on being my prep-chef and making me do all the cooking, great because I wanted to cook for myself and so having an assistant just made it easier! There were also a father and son from Australia there so I have more invites for places to stay when I arrive!
As well as learning to cook the cuisine I tried a few other local delicacies here thanks to the friendly guy at my regular baguette and shake stall. I went here most mornings for a fruit and coconut packed shake and a fresh, crusty baguette stuffed with BBQ chicken and salad and sweet chilli sauce. In the evenings I
Grub
not such a great way to start the day would go back again for an Oreo milkshake for desert. The stall was run by a husband and wife team, the wife always used to try to overcharge me, in a friendly way, but her husband made up for it by giving me freebies from his own lunch. The first morning I was there he was extracting witchetty grubs from their bark home and I sat and watched engrossed in this activity until her offered me one to try, which I decided it would be rude to decline. The texture was a bit custardy and it tasted of soil, not as nasty as I expected but I'm glad I had the fruit shake to wash it down with! The next day was better when he offered me some succulent BBQ pork and sticky rice to try. After that he put extra chocolate in my evening shake, and he became my new best friend in Laos!
Apart from eating, strolling around looking at temples, and losing track of time, my other main pastime in Luang Prabang was shopping. The night market there was as good as Chiang Mai's but half the size and therefore much easier to navigate. My handbag
Extracting grubs for lunch
and then he offered me one to eat...well it would be rude to refuse of course! collection has grown considerably in the past week and the obsession with bird accessories has been boosted with an owl purse to go with my owl bag!
Breaking my usual habit of sleeping as much as is humanly possible, I dragged myself out of bed at 5am one morning to watch the monks from the myriad temples around town walk along the main street collecting their daily alms. I didn't enjoy this at all, everywhere we looked the ritual had been taken over by tourists, many of whom were blatantly going against the customs and advice that has been plastered on notices all over town. While the monks in their bright orange robes are particularly photogenic in the grey light of early morning, it was disturbing to see people leaping in front of the procession of monks, ramming cameras in their faces and forcing the monks to step around them, rather than keeping a discreet distance. The monks scurried away as quickly as possible and I can't blame them.
I had a much better experience the day before. It was persistently raining so I decided to go to see another waterfall as I would get wet anyway there.
Temple on Phousi Hill
Really interesting painted walls As it turns out we got confused with the tuk tuk driver and ended up at the same waterfall I had already visited, but nevermind, it was looking particularly stunning in full spate from all the rain. On the way back we got the tuk tuk driver to stop in a small village where we climbed a hill to a temple. As we were looking around some monks began playing drums and other instruments. They didn't sing at all so I'm not sure if it was prayers or a call for something, but it went on for a long time; the damp air reverberated with the rhythmic beating of the drums and made the atmosphere in a small temple in the misty, forested hills of Laos truly magical.
On my last day I discovered another gem in Luang Prabang that I wished I'd found earlier: Big Brother Mouse. This is an organisation that publishes and sells books that can be donated to Laos school children to encourage them to read. They organise book parties at rural schools and create libraries for them using donated money. They also welcome travellers to drop in and chat to local students and help
them improve their english skills. Having always been interested in teaching english I thought this would be a good opportunity to see how I liked it. I can tell you it was hard work! I felt like I was under exam conditions, being asked to explain the meaning of all sorts of words that I know perfectly well how to use but could not for the life of me think how to describe in simple terms. Luckily the students had an excellent dictionary so I referred to that a lot. We discussed all sorts of topics, from where I had been to what was their favourite subjects at school, where Manchester United was in England (good job I can sketch an ok map!), and what is a life jacket (good old South East Asian health and safety alive and well obviously). Being typically English the conversation turned to weather and I taught them plenty of useless terms they will never experience such as snow, sleet and hail. More difficult was when they asked me about politics and I tried to describe the coalition government in the UK to people living in a one party communist country! From there we moved
onto charades as I tried to convey the meaning of bow and curtsey. We also discussed typical wages in Laos; it is astonishing to think a waiter earns just £25 per month, an amount I can easily spend in a day out here, while even a good salary, say for a teacher or civil servant, is only £200 per month. It was an incredibly interesting few hours chatting with young, intelligent and enthusiastic Laotian students.
After seven blissful days I dragged myself out of Luang Prabang and onto a bus bound for Vientiane. I'd used up my time in Laos so had to bypass the crazy backpacker tubing mecca of Vang Vieng, more disappointingly I also missed out on a really good view of the spectacular countryside in this area. An annoying, noisy Spanish guy had stolen my window seat so I spent 10 hours peering past him at the towering, forested limestone pinnacles that the road wound around. I vowed to come back and travel this country again, next time hopefully on two wheels so that I can really see the scenery.
My time in Vientiane was brief and uninspiring, mostly spent warding off an impending cold
by sleeping. The monsoon was back again so it rained persistently all day, the best plan I could come up with was to get a massage to help my aching back recover from the rough bus ride the day before. I wandered around the city in search of the post office so that I could send 3kg of souvenirs home (the shopping is
really good out here!), and discovered that Vientiane is the smallest, quietest, sleepiest capital city I have ever visited. All the tuk tuk drivers were sound asleep in hammocks strung up in the back of their vehicles. Crossing the road I started to forget to look both ways, there was never any traffic anyway. Going into a cafe to get a baguette I had to call out Sabaidee several times before the proprietor realised they needed to get up and serve me.
It should be a fair culture shock to land in Kuala Lumpur again this evening and realise there are 10 million other people rushing around getting on with their lives and trying to run me over!
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