Advertisement
Published: August 30th 2007
Edit Blog Post
On the 19th of July we started our trip into Laos by crossing over the Mekong River from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Houayxai, Laos. Rich and Jess, a British couple that we had met on our trekking trip in Chiang Mai, decided to join us for the trip and would be our travel companions for our time in Laos. We all joined the flocks of other tourists at the immigration checkpoint in Houayxai and got our visas and passports stamped. From there we headed to meet our longboat for our two day journey down the Mekong River to the town of Luang Prabang.
We joined the multitude of other tourists that had thought that a trip down the Mekong in a longboat would be a nice, romantic trip to find out that it was really just 100 or so backpacker, a few locals, and maybe a chicken or two crammed as tightly as possible into one boat. We found a couple of wooden benches towards the back of the boat and settled in for the first day of our two day journey. We got to see some great scenery and traveling down the river gave us the opportunity to see
what life on the river was like, but after six hours we were all ready to get off the boat.
We stopped at the little town of Pakbeng for the evening. The town itself seemed to depend heavily on the tourists that shuffled in and out but still maintained a great local feel. Once we got past the touts trying to walk our bags up the hill to the waiting guesthouse salespeople we were able to find a great little place to stay with a friendly owner. We ventured out and walked around the town a little before finding a great little family restaurant to have dinner.
On our second day we loaded up on some sandwiches from our guesthouse and found a seat on the boat for our ride down to Luang Prabang. The second day was much like the first and lasted about 7 hours. Throughout the day we would periodically pull into a little village to either drop someone or something off or pick up some locals for the ride down, but for the most part is was a long ride down the river.
The boat finally pulled into Luang Prabang and we gathered
our things and booked ourselves into a guesthouse close to the river. That evening we wandered around the night markets that took over several of the streets around our guesthouse where you could get t-shirts, local clothing, silver, paper lamps, books, and even some cool handmade slippers. The town itself was quiet and the locals were very friendly which made the town very inviting. There was a bit of a French feel to the architecture and a lot of the food had a French influence to it which gave the town an interesting international feel to it.
On our first day in town we found out that there was a huge parade and ceremony that day for a local monk that had just passed away. All of the local people closed up their shops and headed to the main street to join in the parade to the local stadium where the ceremony was to take place. The president of Laos was even present for the ceremony. We joined all of the people on the street and watched the parade pass by. That afternoon we checked out the National Museum and Wat Ho Prabang and then took a jumbo (the
local version of a tuk-tuk) out to the Pak Ou Caves. The caves were up and across the Mekong and housed several old Buddha statues.
The next day we headed out to the Kouang Si Waterfall which was outside of town some. The area around the waterfall is a favorite with the locals for swimming and there is also a rehabilitation center for both Asiatic Black Bears (also called Moon Bears) and Indochinese Tigers. We checked out the bears and the lone tiger that was at the center, hiked up to the falls, and then had a nice swim in one of the many swimming holes there.
The next day we felt like it was time for a little adventure so we hopped on a bus down to Vang Vieng. After wrestling some people for some seats together we strapped in for the 5 hour rollercoaster ride through the mountains. The driver didn’t really believe in using the breaks and preferred just laying on the horn as we barreled down the narrow streets of the little towns lining the “highway”. When we finally stopped after getting out of the hills I noticed smoke coming off the breaks and
tires and the driver was putting water on the break pads to cool them down. We finally made it Vang Vieng but our stomachs were a little worse for wear after the whole trip.
We spent two days in Vang Vieng soaking up the relaxed atmosphere and checking out the surrounding areas. On our first day we decided to check out the local pastime of tubing down the Nam Xong River and spent the whole afternoon floating lazily down the river stopping off at the different places along the riverside that the locals had set up. Whenever you wanted to stop someone would hold out a long pole for you to grab and they would pull you in to shore. At the different stops we hung out, got some food and drinks, and threw ourselves off the different rope swings set up. We had a great time and met several travelers that we ended up spending the rest of the day with.
On our second day we rented some bikes and rode across the river and out into the countryside to find some of the caves. We rode down the dirt roads enjoying the view of endless rice
paddies and limestone cliffs. We checked out one cave and then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in a lagoon.
The next day we got another bus down to the capital town of Vientiane where we spent our last few days in Laos. The town itself was very quite for a capital town and we were able to either walk or bike to all the places we wanted to. We checked out several sights in and outside of town including the That Luang Stupa, Patouxai Monument, Buddha Park, the Presidential Palace, and a couple other temples in the area. From Vientiane we said our goodbyes to Rich and Jess and then headed off to Vietnam.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.365s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 84; dbt: 0.0833s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
MDaddy
non-member comment
that river
Woah, that river is gross...