LUANG PRABANG & VIENTIANE

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Luang Prabang

The journey was fine although as with all night buses I barely slept and arrived to my destination like a zombie. The bus was half empty which helped a lot though. It was a full 12 hours before arriving to Luang Prabang with no movies to watch and no countryside to gaze at once it went dark. It was a "VIP" bus but I guess in Laos VIPs don't need to piss as there wasn't even a toilet. This means we were stopping regularly at the side of the road in addition to other random shacks along the way so that people could relieve themselves. Combined with the state of the bus and the state of the roads it meant the trip probably took about 4 hours longer than it needed to. This is, as I'd heard from many travellers before, bus travel in Laos.



It was a chilly and slightly misty morning when we arrived to the southern bus terminal and jumped into a tuk-tuk to the centre of town. From there I got my bearings and followed the ridiculously inaccurate map in the LP guide in search of accommodation in the old part of town on the peninsular eventually checking in at Kinnaly's Guest House. It was a splurge at about 12USD a night but it got me probably the nicest room I'd had so far on the trip in an old French-style villa with nice views and super comfortable rooms. I got lazy here and ended up staying 7 nights leaving on Tuesday 27th. I would've happily stayed longer.



As with Chiang Mai in Thailand there's plenty to do in Luang Prabang - elephant rides, trekking, rafting, cycling, home stays and a butt load of courses, but just as with Chiang Mai I was happy to focus on the city itself. It was a very quaint place, the sort of place where every street corner offers some kind of photo opportunity - between the old French architecture, the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers and the monks strolling around the streets on their way to one of the many temples dotted about the city. The Mekong River flows down the west of the city whilst the Nam Kahn flows down the east. Restaurants line both river banks and are all beautifully lit up at nighttime. Here there was something for everyone from the high-end and expensive resorts and bars right through to the 3 dollar dorm beds and 1 dollar local fare at the night-food market. It was a place for splurging and a place for saving. It was a place for doing everything and a place for doing nothing. I really liked Luang Prabang (it's hard not to) and I'm sure that come the end it will remain one of my favourite places I've visited.



The main sights to see around town were all in easy walking distance. The palace/museum was worth a gander to see how the Laos royal family lived not so long ago as was Xieng Thong temple, one of the most important temples in Laos built around 1560. I also walked up the 328 steps to get to the top of Phu Si Hill towering over the centre of town for a glimpse of the That Chomsi temple as well as the great view of Luang Prabang, the Mekong & Nam Khan Rivers and the countryside beyond. Another day was spent at the Kuang Si waterfalls about 45 minutes from town via a shared mini-van. The transport there and back set me back around 5USD and the entrance fee was an additional 2USD. The falls themselves were actually very impressive, far more than I expected them to be. One large waterfall falls down from high above and cascades down into various pools below, one including a cool little rope swing. The water was cold and turquoise green and the whole place reminded me just slightly of Semuc Champey in Guatemala, just in miniature! Unfortunately once again my camera chose the wrong moment to stop working and I wasn't able to get any pics of the waterfalls. As a consolation I sent a postcard back home with half a dozen shots of the falls on it! Around 4pm the minivan picked the group up and dropped us off back in town via a brief and depressing stop at a random poor village along the way.



The days flew by and on the morning of the 27th I took another "VIP" bus down to the Laos capital - Vientiane...

Vientiane

And what a journey it was… another 12 solid hours in a cramped bus with broken seats and a toilet that made even the portaloos at Glastonbury festival look clean. It was pretty much 12 hours of non-stop lefts and rights. It's never a good sign when they hand out small plastic bags at the beginning of a trip. It wasn't a bus journey. It was an endurance test. As with the previous bus trip in Laos the going was slow and I lost count of the number of stops we made. I could've broken the journey up by staying a night or two in the town of Vang Vieng but for me any place where the main attraction is getting wasted and tubing down a river is a place to avoid at all costs. When we finally got into Vientiane it was dark and I was tired and hungry. From the station a shared tuk-tuk carried everyone away to the centre of town from where people went off in search of accommodation. I headed for Mixay Guesthouse, the only one in the guide book to have dorm rooms - 50,000 KIP (5 Euros) a night. It was clean, comfortable and best of all had aircon! I spent 4 nights here. It later occurred to me that this was the 21st hostel of my trip and I'd been travelling for two and a half months. During my five months in Central America last year I stayed in a total of 21 hostels. I'm not sure if that means I'm moving around fast this time or just really slow last time. I suspect the latter! For me Vientiane turned out to be a really cool city. I'm not sure if I've ever been or will ever be in such a relaxed chilled out capital city. Everywhere just seemed to have an air of calmness and peacefulness. There were no traffic jams or cars beeping their horns nonstop. People seemed relaxed and friendly. It's a capital city but it felt like a small town.



I'm sure I just spent the Wednesday sleeping and relaxing after the previous day's journey down from Luang Prabang. The following day I rented out a bicycle, something I wouldn't even dream about doing in other South East Asian capitals, and headed off on a wee jaunt around the city to see the main sights stopping first at Patuxai - Vientiane's bizarre Arc de Triomphe replica. It was a nice view from the top though and after a while gazing out over the city I carried on a bit further to the Pha That Luang temple, Laos' most symbolic and important monument. The timing worked out well for a wee cycle along the bank of the Mekong River at sunset to finish the day off. With the only other day I had I took a look at the presidential palace and the Wat Si Saket temple which contains an impressive collection of over 2000 small silver and ceramic Buddhas, and also passed by the COPE Centre - a not-for-profit organisation that works in partnership with the National Rehabilitation Centre to provide access to orthotic & prosthetic devices and rehabilitation services for victims of UXO (Unexploded Ordinance... bombs that were dropped but didn't explode on impact and that still pose a risk of detonation). The scary statistic was that of the 260 million bombs dropped on Laos during the late 60s and early 70s, it's estimated that 30% didn't explode equating to some 80 million UXO. Now these UXO are being dug up during farming or discovered by kids looking for scrap metal to sell and as I learnt from some of the videos all some of them need is a little tap in the wrong place to detonate. A large number of people, many of them children, fall victim to UXO. It was an extremely well put together centre that really brings home the easily forgotten after-effects of war.



On Saturday 31st March I made the short walk over to the Talat Sao bus station to catch the 2pm Thai-Lao International Bus down to Udon Thani in Thailand. The guide makes this place out to be a real dive but I didn't think it was that bad. It was an OK town to bed down for the night and wake up fresh the next day for the next 8 hour bus journey. My destination - Bangkok.



Suerte

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