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Published: July 23rd 2012
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A ten hour bus journey took us further south to Luang Prabang. The journey was described as “not for the faint hearted” and it lived up to its billing with really hilly and winding unsealed roads. It was also slowed by regular stops to drop off and pick up parcels, letters, food, people, Monks, you get the picture. Despite all this the scenery was fantastic – rolling hills covered with thick jungle. When we arrived early evening at LP, we were immediately struck by how many westerners were there, far more than anywhere we’d previously visited. We made the most of it and enjoyed some western food and found a decent guest house with the novelty of a TV!
The next day we explored some of the local area but were hindered by the searing heat. The local Wats were impressive and once we’d got enough of a sweat on we hired a boat and took an hour long trip along the Mekong, easily the highlight of the day (if only for the cooling effect!)We loved the trip so much that we arranged a longer one down to the Kuang Si waterfalls for the next day with the same driver.
Mark enjoyed the traditional Luang Prabang sausage in the evening – Tina opted for a lentil curry.
The trip down to the falls took about two hours on the boat, again we were happy with the cooling effect and we relaxed and enjoyed watching the Mekong river life – lots of fishermen with differing nets and rods and others simply swimming or washing themselves & clothes near the shore. The boat took us to a small village and we jumped in the back of a pickup truck for the last few miles to the falls. The bear rescue centre there was our first port of call and after a number of pics and a T shirt purchase we reached the aqua coloured falls and pools which were simply stunning. We checked out the different levels and opted for a swim in one of the bigger pools. After watching a few people jumping in from a rope swing we plucked up the courage to join them and Tina in particular was graceful on her first swing into the water, swallowing plenty of the pool in the process! After the cooling boat back up the Mekong, we finished the day with
a taste of home – Laughing Cow cheese spread on crackers – mmm.
Our overdue blog updating day proved challenging as we found out that a computer we’d used had corrupted our cameras memory cards. Fortunatey we found an IT shop that was able to restore them and learnt a valuable lesson about backing up photos! This took most of the day, but we did have time to climb the only hill in LP and enjoy our best sunset of the trip so far at the small temple at the top. Our final day in LP was spent taking another boat trip up the Mekong (we love boat trips) to visit the Pac Ou caves –some caves filled with Buddha statues and images. The caves were average, but we were happy to spend a couple more hours on the Mekong – despite this boat seeming a bit more rickety than the previous.
With an early morning we said goodbye to LP (in particular to the two naughty barking dogs at our guest house) and set off in a minivan to Vang Vieng. It was a frustrating trip again as though it could have been several hours shorter, it
took 9 hours. Too many and too lengthy stops took their toll, although we enjoyed spectacular panoramic views at the last. At Vang Vieng we had arranged to volunteer at a local volunteering project for a week – Saeleo – so we met a fellow volunteer , Amelie and the founder, Bob, the next morning he took us over to the site. The projects aim is to promote sustainable ways of living to the local community in a number of ways, including construction, farming, bio fuel etc – it also offers daily English speaking classes to children of the local area. We spent our first day getting to know the other volunteers and the layout of the site. It was a big area of land, with a large lake the centre point. The communal kitchen was full of bugs, but at least the accommodation hut had mosquito nets.
We ended up spending just 4 days at the project, it was tough going. The highlights of the time were the food – all very well cooked and served with the local staple – sticky rice, the blue lagoon – a small swimming area near to the project (with a crazy
small dog) , the other project members - all interesting in their own way and all very friendly, the English classes – whilst daunting to start with as we’d no previous experience, they were great – Tina really loving the group of three Monks she taught, finally the rice growing knowledge – the couple of mornings working in the rice fields helped us to understand the cycle of rice cultivation much better, a massive part of SE Asian life.
Despite these highlights, we opted to leave early, mainly because of the tough conditions. The weather was wet and humid all of the time – our clothes became soaked and we had no way of drying them in the humid weather. Wet pants in the morning – not nice! It was mosquito central – we both got bitten a lot, although not as badly as a few of the other volunteers. Last but not least, the project itself didn’t seem too well organized and for long periods we weren’t sure what we should do to help out. Whilst the intentions of Bob and his project were good, we couldn’t really see what impact we were making.
We got a
lift back to VV centre and were able to enjoy a hot shower and some clean clothes, before watching the England football team outplay the Italians…… The next day, after initial safety reservations, we took on the tourist challenge of Tubing. Basically you float down the river in an old lorry inner tube, stopping at bars along the way with the option of getting pissed as a newt. Being slightly nervous about dying (we’d heard reports that several tourists each year die doing this) we took It easy on the booze. It turned out to be pretty tame – the water flowing pretty slowly. By the state of some of the revelers we saw it’s not surprising a few injuries are sustained though! It was good fun and we got ‘pulled in’ from the river into a few bars on the way with sticks and bottles attached to ropes. Our concern about how to actually get off the river at the end was waylaid when 3 young boys (not more than 11 years old) dived into the water and rescued us – well worth the few Kips that they demanded after returning us safely to the riverbank!
please note,
lack of photos of VV are due to inclement weather!
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nisha
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