LAOS - Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Phonsavan, Pakse & 4000 Islands

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Right then….

Vientiane

We left the annoyance and pigs of Hanoi (Viet-scam) and jumped on the over night bus to Laos. We were warned that this was going to be an unpleasant 25hr long ride but apart from the 4 hour wait at the border it was quite ok, and only took 20hrs!!!!!

Arriving in Vientiane (the Capital of Laos) we jumped on a TukTuk (a pickup with seats in the back, their version of a taxi!) to the centre to try and find a cheap hotel. On the way we noticed the Laos people actually had rules to the road and were quite civilised, and were really nice people. MASSIVE contrast to Vietnam. Complete opposite.

Anyway stayed in Vientiane for a few days, ate out every night in makeshift bars on stilts over the Mekong River. Bit more expensive than Nam but you tend not to mind as the people are a lot lot nicer. You also tend to forget to haggle even though its common place to do so.

After a few days we decided to head North to Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. Looking at various options we thought we would try something different. We had found a place that rented out classic bikes, Dirt bikes, Harley type bikes, deluxe scooters, and sporty/racing bikes etc for a very little cost (approx $20/day). So… after much deliberation we hired a classic Suzuki Van Van (Middle of the range, not quite a Dirt bike, not quite a Harley..) and headed up to Vang Vieng. This was only decided as we had spoken to lots of people who had done the same thing and had just come back. Roads were very quiet with little to no traffic (MUM, DAD, FAMILY… don’t worry. Roads were dead and we were being very careful!! Xx).

THE CRUISE

Part 1
Headed up to Luang Prabang with a 1 night stop over in the Vang Vieng Eco Village sleeping in our hammocks, next to the Nam Song river. Very nice place out of the main town and off the main track. Down side is Gareth was munched to hell by mozzies.. 42 times in one sitting!

Following morning headed off on the second leg of the road trip to Luang Prabang. 7 hour trip on the bike. Lush ride.. roads were better up in the mountains than near the city. The views were awesome as well. Best thing is we could stop when we wanted and also take in the views unlike those on a bus!

Part 2 - Luang Prabang (World Heritage City)
Lovely place… far better than we thought it would be. Very clean, people are very kind and the whole place looks the part. Spent 3 nights here seeing the town, and the Heritage Wat (temple) which was very beautiful, and we went to see the Kuang-si water fall which was very nice and quality to swim in. The Night Market which was on every night was about 1km long down a main street, with stalls brimming of beautiful handicrafts, Liane had to be torn away several times! Very impressive, along with the surrounding countryside. Well worth the visit but just wish we were able to stay longer, and spend more money!!!!!!!

Part 3 - Long road to Phonsavan
Jumped back on the bike and headed on to Phonsavan, another World Heritage site, the Plain of Jars. This was mainly double backing on ourselves by turning East half way back. Another awesome ride, second half being better as the roads are nicer and still no traffic. Long ride and the last bit of the journey God decided to release all the water in the world on us. Very, very wet and far too heavy to ride in so we pulled over in a little hut to take shelter. To make things worse the bike then refused to start once the rain was over. GREAT! With a bit of help and a push from the locals and we headed off.

Part 4 - Phonsavan and Plain Of Jars
This town was like stepping back 20 years.. not a lot to say about the place itself as.. well.. it quite basic and not a lot there. Bit of an outpost type of town. Stayed in this hotel with the craziest Chinese lady we have ever come across. Total nut job… laughs at every thing and then just rabbits on to you in Chinese as if you are meant to understand, all the while spinning around a Hoola Hoop!!! NUTTER!!! Following morning after a quick escape we headed over to see the Jars (which were ok but really not worth the time and effort) and then back on the road to Vang Vieng. We had originally planned to do a dirt track back to Vang Vieng, but after being pointed in every direction by the locals and then being refused entry by the army to the road we needed we decided to just go back the way we came..

Part 4 - THE PLACE WE LOVE THE MOST - VANG VIENG
After another long, wet, eventful ride (broke down about 4 times!) we arrived at Vang Vieng again, but this time we stayed at the main town itself. We sort of coasted in to the town with the bike jumping and make all sorts of noises. We even had to pull into a little village and get jump started off a TukTuk.. The Gareth magic hey!!!!

This place has to be the capital of bumming around. Total kick back chilled town. All the hotels and bars play ‘Friends’ all day long and instead a sitting you have double bed type platforms to sit/lie on. Hotels are cheap at around $4 per room per night, food is cheap, and beer is around $1 for a 700ml bottle. Lush place, people are sound.

What makes this place famous though is ‘TUBING’. This is basically where you hire a large truck inner-tube, you jump in about 3km upriver and you float down river stopping at bars along the way which have huge 40M high swings and zip lines, mud baths, volley ball etc.. meeting people and getting merry while doing so. ACE! What they don’t tell you is that the bars are about 30 yards away from each other and they sell buckets of vodka (couple of dollars) and buckets of HAPPY shakes. As you can imagine 7 hours later you are not quite yourself!!!!
;-)

Brilliant time doing this and it’s a MUST if you are in the area. Met loads of people from all over the world and even a couple from LLANEDEYRN who are looking to buy a house, so we recommended our road. Crazy. After leaving the last bar we headed back down the river in the dark (large group of us all clinging onto each other) to later get rescued by a TukTuk driver to then take us back. At this point it all becomes very sketchy…..! So we’ll leave that there..!!

Spent about 3 days in Vang Vieng due to the bike being repaired. As you can tell we didn’t mind! We just recovered from the tubing (not just hung-over, but injured as well!!!) So spent the days in the ‘video-bars’ chilling and watching classic Friends.. BLISS!!

Made it back to Vientiane with no hiccups and in good time (it helps when we don’t do unscheduled stops for beer breaks!)

Heading down South..

Getting back from the bike trip we spent 1 more night to recover in Vientiane then headed on an 11 hour, overnight, bus trip to Pakse and the 4000 Islands. Pakse is really not worth seeing and a bit of let down considering the North is so nice. We went to the temples that is another World heritage site in Laos. These temples are linked to Angkor Wat and use to be the old Khmer Capital prior to moving the empire to Angkor Wat. After a few days (had to wait for Liane to get well enough as she was suffering badly with Sinusitis) headed a further 2 hours down to 4000 Islands.

Headed to the second biggest Island which is Don Det, on the advice of a few travellers we had met who had been to a few of them, and had said it was the best out of all they had been to.

On arriving at the island we noticed this was not going to be like anything so far on our travels. No traffic, no cars only the odd bike but plenty of water buffalo. The whole island is only around 4Km long and 1Km wide and in the centre of the Mekong. Surrounded by hundreds of other smaller islands. Its this type of place you notice how much volume of water flows through the Mekong, LOADS.

Checked into a nice little bamboo hut over the Mekong on the Sunset side of the Island. Very simple, 1 wooden bed, small decking and two hammocks. NO electricity by day and only 4 hours of light at night between 6pm and 10pm. Proper in the sticks as you can imagine. Still this place is laid back and that’s what it’s all about!

Following day we met up with the Danish guys we had met in Nam as they were doing to same trip but in reverse, luckily they ended up on Don Det as well. So for a bit of fun we all went tubing again, nothing like Vang Vieng. This was just simply floating down the river in a tube so to spice things up we bought a bag of beer to drink on the way… well cool. Best thing is we had to be rescued twice for taking to wrong turn and heading towards rapids and waterfalls… Funny as!! After getting back to the correct island we kept the tubes and sat near our hut and bar drinking the night away while the sun set over the Mekong along with others staying close by. Very cool day and night.

Following day we went WHITE WATER RAFTING. Difference being there isn’t any white water and the rapids are not really there! SAME SAME but DIFFERENT!!!!!
Good day, had a small section of large rapids but not enough to justify the trip. However after the ‘rapids’ we floated in our life-jackets down the Mekong which was probably the coolest part of the tour! After the boat we headed up to the waterfall which is the largest in Asia for volume.

Following day hired a few bicycles to go around the island to go to another island (joined by an old rail road) to go to the southern beach and see and endangered species of Irrawaddy dolphins. Charted a small boat to the Cambodian side of the river to see the dolphins (only 12 alive in the world and this is the only known place to see them). To our surprise we could see quite a few so after pleading with the boat guy he agreed to take us out and to float down river to get a closer look. Tried to capture pics but without any luck as they were a bit too far away. The closest they came was about 50meters or so…

Anyway.. leaving the chilled relaxed atmosphere of Don Det we headed off on a long ‘VIP’ bus (minibus, then another minibus, then another minibus etc.. crammed full of too many travellers) over to Cambodia.

CONCLUSION OF ‘LOVELY’ LAOS.

Great place, people are very nice and very kind. They don’t seem to always be trying to make a buck off you like to Vietnamese people do. However if they do they are very nice about it.

The country itself is stunning and the World Heritage Sites are well worth the visit. If you are after fun Vang Vieng is a must. Also down South near Pakse there are also lot of activities to do.

Companies to use.
JULES CLASSIC BIKE RENTAL - French owned, speak to Thierry. Really nice guy. However if you hire a bike of Laos owned company I very much doubt you would be in a situation where they would be as helpful if you did break down, or have mechanics in the various cities on-hand.

Downside of Laos is that its quite expensive in comparison to Vietnam and Thailand (so we have also been told.) Still lush a place and a must for any traveller or holiday maker.

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Comments

[marouska]

nice!
lovely pics and story, thanks! really cant wait to get there now. good tip about the bike rental... like you said you can stop anywhere you like and thats the kind of travel we like too! happy travels greetz m.

[Muffys Travels]

Yeh, you will love it. Best bit of the trip so far. The place for the bikes is on the main road parallele to the river. You van't miss it. Have fun, just remember to give your selves extra time in Vang Vien for the tubing!!!! Have fun.