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23/06/06
We were up bright (not!) and early for our mad bus ride to the airport to Laos (silent 's', the french added it to Lao when they were here however long ago. That is why there is a lot of french influence in the country.)
Laos has the honour of being the most bombed nation in the history of warfare. During the Vietnam conflicts U.S bombers returning from bombing raids would drop their excess load over the Laos side in order to complete their drop quota and also because they are friends with Vietnam and that also a lot of their people crossed over the borders into Laos.
Between 1964 and 1973 Laos was engaged in a secret war that the rest of the world was oblivious to. The war had raged for centuries but during these years a number of countries went against the Geneva convention which forbade the presence of foreign military personnel and located troops in the country. The secret air force known as the Ravens dropped on average one plane load of bombs every eight minutes for nine years. 1.9 million tons of bombs were dropped over laos costing 2.2 million dollers a
day, as America fought with Vietnam.
80% of Laos is mountains, which would explain why the travel in Laos is not the best and only 20% of the roads are sealed. So it may not be one of the easiest countries we have done.
We got to the airport did the usual airport stuff and two hours later we were in our ninth country!!!! The flight was good, the plane was only small and the view as we arrived into Luang Prabang was stunning. There were lush green mountains that stretched for miles and the mighty Mekong river running straight through them.
We got through customs, bought our 15 day visas (which means we will have to be fast through this one guys.) Then got our taxi with 4 other people into town.
Oh before I, Andy forgets, I was talking to a guy at the airport and this other guy interrupted and asked where I was from, I told him Rotherham and he repiled that he was from Bolton on Dearne (5 minutes away for you guys darn sarf) I then told him I was from Mexborough (Next town to Bolton on Dearne, for you guys
darn sarf) Anyway, I used to go to school with his cousin, cool!!!
Luang Prabang is a listed UNESCO world heritage site because of all the temples in the area. We have heard from lots of travellers how amazing this place is so again we had high expectations, especially because the subject of Laos has not been talked about since Malaysia as it always caused us to fall out due to various reasons.
When we arrived in town it was the usual job of finding a nice, cheap place to live. We did ok, we stayed at a place called Sok dee's for $6 (got a dollar knocked off)
Now this is where things get complicated. There are hardly any ATMs in Laos, thats why we got travellers cheques. They use the Thai baht, the U.S dollar and there currency the Laos Kip, there is 18,000 kip to a pound, 10,000 kip to 1 U.S dollar and 1.8 Dollars to the pound. You get that!!!
When we got checked in we had the usual shower then walked around the town, its very pretty, what with the green hills with temples sticking out from the trees and the
Check out the wheels!!
I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my biiiike!!!river running along the town (although it is brown in colour, due to it being in flood).
We got some money out from an exchange place, for roughly 50 quid we got 950,000 kip, so we were nearly millionaires.
When we went for some lunch, the sandwiches we ordered came 20 minutes later after he had told us there was no ham (This was our first experience of the laid back lifestyle of the Laos people)
We had a look at a Wat that we were passing. Inside there were monks all chanting and praying together. It sounded really nice yet eerie. Outside we got chatting a young monk (19). We sat down and chatted for 10 minutes or so asking lots of questions. He had been a monk since he was 14.
Most men are a monk at some point in their life whether it's a week a month or a few years. We thought this little encounter was quite 'cool' and a good start to Laos.
After dinner we took our first dreaded malaria tablets. Fingers crossed we are ok!! We met a girl who was on our flight, from New Zealand, Megan and
A local woman weaving her magic.
Her machine looked as if it was made from the people at Blue Peter. But it obviously does the trick! had a chat with her whilst fighting off the children who are always coming round trying to sell you bracelets and things from their trays and boxes. They are really cute, but if you buy something from one of them they will all be on you.
Later that night we walked around the night market, which sells loads of quality textiles ranging from slippers to bed covers, all hand made. The people selling them were a MASSIVE contrast to the market sellers in Bangkok, they were so quite and shy, a little too shy!
The following day in our new adventure, we walked up to the main through road that contains all the restaraunts, bars and tour offices, here we hired ourselves a couple of snazzy bikes complete with bells and baskets on the front. We looked quite fetching and when we first set of it was a case of riding down the road, passing the locals ringing our bells shouting sabay dee (hello), our destination? More wats.
Our ride took us along a river that runs into the Mekong and over a wooden bridge into a little village, for the first time since South America we
Smile.
Ok YOU try and take a photo, whilst ya riding a bike (on the wrong side of the road) were back on dirt tracks for roads, which is always cool.
The sun was beating down, it was red hot, there were kids playing in the street in their dusty clothes women outside the fronts of their bamboo houses preparing the nights textiles for the market and people shouting "sabay dee" to us (very friendly).
We came across a couple of temples which we had a little wander round (we must admit, they are all begining to look quite similar), we watched a woman weaving, bought ourselves a couple of paintings and a hand made paper book, for our third journal. We saw the women making the handmade paper, like the posh paper you can buy in the art shops at home for about 4 quid, here it was about $1.
We did a full circle then headed back to the town over the wooden bridge.
The scenery is just amazing, massive mountains all around the town which has the 2 rivers running through it.
After a brief rest in our room we went back out to find a boat to take us across the Mekong to see another village and a couple of Wats.
We found a guy
What, Wat is it?
We've seen that many, we don't know WHATS, WAT anymore. Or WHICH WAT IS WHAT. Or WHICH WAT IS WHERE. with a boat and he said he would wait for us for a couple of hours on the other side (for $3) we had to pay him in advance and didn't expect him to be there when we had finished.
This village was like nothing we had seen before, chickens in the street, more bamboo houses 1 little shop. The funny thing is some of these bamboo houses have satellites on them.
We walked throiugh the village and the woods to a temple that was inside a cave,Wat Tham Xieng Maen. We paid an old guy, who was sat there waiting, to unlock the gate and put the lights on. Inside the cave at first it doesn't seem to impressive. There are a few old Buddha statues that have rotted and fallen apart. We continued down into the cave and found lots of little rooms off the main area. It was really quite impressive, massive staligtites and other rock formations, odd Buddha statues scattered about and nice and cold.
We spent probably about half an hour in there came back out into the daylight and walked back towards the village to see another wat, Wat Chom Phet.
We had
to pay for this one too and climb a lot of steps. The temple at the top was not so impressive and looked a little deralict, but must have still been in use because there was freshly melted wax infront of the golden Buddha statue. However the views from the top were really beautiful. We could see Luang Prabang from a different view and it was great.
We headed back through the village to the guys house (we had to walk through his garden, chickens, ducks and family) who had dropped us off. Yes, he was still there waiting for us, so that was good. Back on the boat and back to the other side. We picked up our bikes and rode onto the main street to get ourselves a baguette. (See this french influence is good as it means we can eat baguettes and sandwiches for lunch instead of more rice or noodles.)
We then took our bikes back and headed for the theatre because we had read that on Saturdays they have dance performances. We had to ask if we could go in dressed as we were after a days cycling, but no problem. It had said that
That Chomsi.
On top of Phou Si hill it was ballet and traditional dances. The traditional dances were good (don't need to be fit to do them though). The main dance was more like mime to music, the costumes were really great though. On the way in we had been given a summary of the dance so Andy would keep telling me what was happening and he was very proud of himself that he knew what was happening within the dance.
We were so shattered we decided to get food whilst we were out otherwise we may not get back out of the room.
The malaria tablets seem ok so far (Iknow we have only had 2) but we have definitely felt the sun more, Andy even got a little burnt, as it says they make you sensitive to sunlight which is great when you are taking them in a tropical place!
After dinner we checked out some different companies to do a tour tomorrow. We booked one for the day for $18 each then went back and relaxed.
Our third day already in Laos and we were up and ready to be picked up at 9am by tuk tuk. We met the other couple who we
Ban Xiang Men,
Or the name for the village across the river. were spending the day with, Cyndia and Vincent from France and our guide.
On the drive to the elephant camp, that's right we are going elephant treking!!!, the guide (I'm sorry I have forgotten his name) told us about himself and his country, it was really interesting. He said when the war was on he lived in a small village near the Vietnam boarder, which got a lot of attacks because there were lots of caves there that the vietnamese used to come over and hide in. Him and his family left and went to Luang Prabang and were safe. His fathers 2 brothers were killed. It was really quite sad to listen to stories first hand about a war, it makes you realise how lucky we are.
After about an hour on a bumpy dirt track up in the mountains we reached the elephant camp.
Andy and I were first to climb aboard our elephant, Kamoon who was 47 years old. It was quite scary on top, very wobbly and really high up. Our 'driver' sat on her head and used his legs behind her ears to steer and move her.
The trek through the woods, took
us through little streams, one which had buffalo having their daily dip, up and down hills and at times gave us lovely views of the hills and mountains in the background. Andy had bought some bananas so we fed her along the way when she wasn't trying to rip the trees down herself. It was very relaxing and peacful. We had to keep taking note that we were actually sitting on an elephant in Laos! It doesn't get much better eh?
After an hour we had to alight our elephant and use our own legs to walk to a waterfall. Here we had our lunch and checked out the falls and had a dip. It was FREEZING! but no fish this time. The amount of waterfalls we have seen in the last 10 months, but they still look pretty.
At the waterfall we watched the local kids jumping off trees and an old guy and a girl taking a bath, soap, shampoo an' all!
The 4 of us went from the waterfall to look at a 'sanctuary' in the woods where there was a tiger that had been rescued from poachers and some asiatic bears. They were very cute. We
In the Cave of Wat Tham
It went underground for 100 meters and was really impressive, we think! didn't know if they were there for their good or for public viewing.
Back to the tuk tuk to meet our guide to take us to a Hmong tribe village. Again the houses were made of bamboo that they have made themselves, they only have 1 room and are allowed to build on any land they like.
As soon as we pulled up we could see the kids getting their stuff out to sell. The kids were cute, very dusty and asking for money for photos.
We had a little walk around and Andy and I did buy a couple of bracelets off the children.
Andy asked our guide if any of the money from the tours goes into the village, as you might expect, but the answer was no. We thought this was a little unfair.
On the way back to Luang Prabang, thanks to me, we stopped off at paddy field (where they grow rice). Again we saw buffalo, with the scenery and wildlife it was like something you would see on Animal Planet.
Back in town we were shattered but we still managed to find the energy to climb Pou See hill. When the monk
asked us if we had seen Pou see? We thought he was being rude and we were back in Bangkok!
The view from up there was panoramic over the whole of Luang Prabang. We can't say anything else we haven't already said. There were a couple of Buddha statues on the way down which were good.
That night we wandered around the market, booked our mini bus to Vang Vieng and settled down in a bar with the french couple for dinner and the England game. There were a lot of England supporters and were very loud.(England were slightly better but still not convincing.)
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Dad and Anna
non-member comment
Odd one out
We spotted the odd one out straight away, It's the big one in the middle, all the others are bald weirdos kneeling around. What an adventure on the Elephant, I can just imagine Melissa being so so excited. Love the bloggs and great to talk to you the last couple of days. Stay safe and see you soon love Dad and Anna