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Laos is a really beautiful and amazing country. Carelessly I didn't plan my Vietnam visa very well and so I could have spent much longer in Laos but every extra day more than I'd planned was taking time from my Vietnam visa.
I got the slow boat along the Mekong river from the Thai border down to Louang Phabang. The boat took two days of about 9 hours with an overnight stop in a village, Pak Beng along the way. The journey was not the most comfortable ever, but I quite enjoyed it. I had heard stories and so prepared myself with a cushion but it make all that much difference to sitting straight on the wooden bench for that many hours.. There was just about enough room to stand up in the isles every now and again to strech the legs and the views and scenery definitely made it worth it.
In Laos most people's lives revolve around the river and so spending time on it is the best way to see the country. We passed lots of villages along the river banks and so passes people fishing, bathing, washing clothes, farming along the banks, panning for gold... and
just swimming to cool off from the heat.
I met quite a lot of people on the boat and so spent a few days with some of them in Louang Phabang. You can really see the french influences here, especially in Louang Phabang. The town centre is an UNESCO World Heritage site and so all the building have wooden fronts and shutters. also you can get really good french baguettes everywhere!!
The town used to be capital of the kingdom and so has many beautiful temples and they've converted what was the Royal Palace into a museum which is really nice to see.
Every morning at 6am as the sun rises the monks walk around the town to receive their morning arms. It is considered to bring good luck and fortune to those that give to the monks so many Buddists line the streets with gifts of food; rice, bananas, biscuits, drinks... and money to give to them as they pass.
I met up with Vashti (who I went to school with) and her boyfriend Sam in Bangkok and then also again here. They are spending a lot longer in South East Asia than me so took
a different route but they then persuaded me to go with them to see a bit of the north of Laos. (This was what ate into my Vietnam visa but it was def worth it!)
We got another 8 hour slow boat up the Nam Ou river to Nong Khiaw and then from there another hour or two up to Moung Ngoi.
When we arrive in Nong Khiaw we found the next day there was going to be dragon boat racing to start the celebrations for Thai and Laos new year.
I'm really glad we stumbled upon this, villages from all around had entered a boat and they'd obviously spent a lot of time and effort preparing the boat, their outfits, and apparently training! It looked like most of the villages had come to cheerlead too!
Moung Ngoi is a village only accessible by boat. There we found a tour guide and got him to take us kayaking one day and then trekking the next. This time of year is the hottest it gets and so not the best time to decide to go trekking. It was so so hot, Vashti was pretty ill all day, (not helped
by the Lao Lao ( v strong rice wine) that our guide had been feeding us the night before), and the whole area is being burned ready to re plant when the rains come.
The main theme to Laos and Thai new year is water. Perfect for the time of year it is, it was really nice to get fired at by a water pistol or thrown a bucket of water over!!
In Moung Ngoi on the first day of the offical celebrations the villagers carried the head monk down the main street on a bamboo chair and everybody threw water over him and everybody else anywhere near. Then at the temple at the end of the village the women and children washed the Buddha. The head monk then got into a little wooden hut which had a bamboo chute leading into it and everybody then poured water down the chute and so onto him in the hut..!!
(I lost the memory card for my camera with a lot of my photos on from Nong Khiaw and Moung Ngoi so not photos of this bit I'm afraid)
The water throwing started about a week before the new year
and went on for more than a week after. You could see their was a hierachy of water gun size amongst the kids and it was sweet to see old men obviously loving the opportunity to poor a bucket of water down their wives' backs and get away with it!
Louang Phabang is the main centre for the celebrations in Laos and I went back to there after spending time with Vashti and Sam and the whole town is one massive street party and you could not go anywhere and escape being drenched from head to toe! The guest house I stayed in was a bit out of the centre and the family invited me to join them in drinking Bier Lao, eating, dancing and singing kareoke in the street.
People line the streets with massive buckets of water ready to throw at any passing vehicle or pedestrian! Loads of groups of people drive around the town in trucks ready to get water thrown at them/ throw water back too.
After Louang Phabang I went to Vang Vien. Vang Vien is famous for tubing (well with backpackers at least). You rent a tube for the day and get
taken a bit further up the river and then you have to make your way back. The river is lined with bars though... lots are probably only about 100m or less apart and so moving down river is very slow going! Bier Laos, supposedly one of the best beers in South East Asia, is only about 10,000 kip (50p) for a massive bottle and most of the bars have set up rope swings & slip wires so it is really easy to spend a v long time in them and not make it v far down the river at all! We were a bit late for the 6pm curfew to return the tubes by, opps! I only spent one day tubing (because of my Vietnam visa) but i can see why people get stuck there for a while...
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