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Published: December 16th 2008
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The roads on the Chinese side of the boarder are quiet and brand new so smooth traveling. Our destination is Laung Nam Tha, a small rural town only 3hrs from the border. On the bus we meet Jurgen, an Austrian traveling alone and after lunch we hire bikes to tour the countryside. “Sabaadee” is the Lao greeting, and it is shouted by kids every few meters. A new Stupa is being built on a hill for the monks to have a place to pray, and watching carvers and painter do there work is very interesting as most temples visited are old. The roads are rocky and dirty making cycling hard yaka! As the sun sets we have our first taste of Beer Lao and Sticky Rice.
Laung Prabang is a painful and boring 10hr bus ride 300km south. The scenery is the same and the road is windy and slipping into the valleys. LP is the 2nd largest city in Lao but it’s still small and the main road in town is transformed into night markets every night. It has responded to the growing tourist trade and Guest Houses, Travel Agents, Bars and restaurants are everywhere turning this quaint old
town into a carbon copy western tourist town. Prices of these services reflect the new customers and it’s a bit of a shock to the budget traveler; although we searched hard and eventually found a cheap room and food. We decide not to do one of many overpriced tours and head south to Vang Vieng, another 6 hour mini-bus ride. It takes a long time to get anywhere in Lao and the scenery for us was average, luckily we had a 12yr old Aussie kid to keep us entertained by hitting on 2 French girls the whole journey.
Now this is more like it! Vang Vieng is backpacker heaven. Lots of walks and self guided tours, cycling, kayaking, cheap food, drinking holes, and TUBING - the reason why most people come here. The river running through town is clean. On an island there are bamboo bars with huts on the rivers edge to chill out and gaze at the stunning scenery of limestone cliffs and local country life. Alternatively you could sit next to a busy road and watch re-runs of ‘Friends’ on TV in one of the many restaurants repeatedly playing the sitcom to entertain patrons. Strange.
Tubing! And from what we had been told by fellow travelers it will be good times guaranteed. Groups of 10 are taken up river by Tuk-Tuk with their tractor size inner tyre tube and enough money to spend at the many bars perched on the river bank. 100’s of tubers scatter themselves like rubber duckies floating down river. Every bar has different music and activities like the classic rope swing and volley ball to the unique and impressive home made hydro slide that amused T for hours. We bumped into the Aussie kid and his family from the mini-van and T had loads of fun hurtling down the slide and slinging him into the water (see video). Several buckets and beer lao’s later the 6pm curfew was close and the sun had set leaving us freezing and in need of a hot shower and food. Floating down a river in the hot sun is most enjoyable, however sliding down a hydro slide and being hurled 4m into the air after lao lao whiskey shots is far more exciting. Both of us had a great time, so did everyone else on the river, and we recommend this to anyone as the
Swimming hole
lagoon outside cave most fun you can have with your pants on in one day in Asia. Good as Gold!
This place is so chilled out we stay another couple of days and T explores a lagoon and caves by mountain bike while A hires a ladies bike and cruises around town. The landscape around VV is breathtaking, huge cliffs rise abruptly behind small bamboo shacks and rice fields. Most DIY bamboo homes in this rural country have a large black satellite dish in the front yard, for a poor country they have some interesting priorities.
Our time is running out for this holiday and we want to travel north again up the mighty Mekong to Houy Xai on the Thai boarder where the Gibbon Experience departs. The slow boat takes 2 days with a night stop over in Pak Beng. It feels like the wild-west in this two horse town that is only there to service the slow boat passengers. One street lined with guest houses, bars and restaurants creeps over the river inland and when it comes to accommodation, you take what you can get.
The second day up river flows smoothly with assistance from home make cocktails and
Slow Boat up Mekong
the cartoon balloon did not make it the whole journey card games.
Andrea decides not to partake in the Gibbon experience and escapes to Chang Rai in Thailand to stay with the Akha Hill (www.akhahill.com) tribe at their mountain retreat relaxing in mineral baths - highly recommended. Meanwhile Torin is bumping his way with 7 other group members by 4x4, into the jungle, in search of the shy Gibbon Monkey.
The Gibbon Experience is a 3 day, 2 night, tramping, zip-line, sleeping in a tree house, kick ass exciting adventure!! Our guides teach us the ropes on attaching our harness, including safety rope and a rolling castor, to the various zip-lines that span valleys and link tree houses with tracks in the dense jungle. Safety First
The thrill and adrenaline rush as you zip at speeds of about 60km/h over the jungle canopy is as breathtaking as the scenery. If you can manage to keep your eyes open and turn your head to see it. We spend 3 hours flying around a course of 8 zip-lines until the sun has set and our dinner is ready at our tree house 25m above the ground.
The food is basic but cigarettes and peanut candy is provided to
Misty Morning
chilly 30m up. pass the time before bed.
The morning is misty & chilly and I get a face full of cold water spray being first on the zip-line. Lines range from 50-400m in length and most of the time we make it to the tree but sometimes you have to pull yourself along the cable to reach the end. We walked 2 hours to our next nights accommodation and a new set of zip-lines to keep us amused throughout the day. The views high above the canopy, up to 70m, are fantastic and even the view from the toilet of the tree house is worth it. No Gibbons had been heard or seen yet so three of the group, lead enthusiastically by me, convince one of the guides to do a 4.30am SAS style reconnaissance of the area the next morning. This would require zipping in the dark, something the safety video said not to do…cool.
With head lamps on we dropped into the blackness below and looked up to see a sky full of bright stars. It felt like we were still sleeping and it was a dream, yet the crisp air rushing past reminded us that we were
Zipp Line
on the Gibbon Experience traveling fast and a tree would soon be there to stop us. Out guide slashed through dense jungle with a machete and stopped every 5 min to listen for any sign of the Gibbons call. Unfortunately, after 4 hours of searching we headed back to base with only the sound of the zip line ringing in our ears.
Exhausted, I join Andrea in Chang Rai and the following day we bus to Chaing Mai, the adventure capital of Thailand. We were in no mood for adventure at this point in our holiday. Instead we visited parks, local craft shows, get a massage, and bum around with all the middle aged white men looking for poontang, living the dream.
The final two weeks of our travels consisted of 4 nights on the Island of Koh Chang, 3 hours east of Bangkok, sunning ourselves and one of us getting a tattoo as a souvenir of our 6 months in Asia. To finish the trip we had 3 nights in Bangkok shopping, 4 nights in Kuala Lumpur soaking up the big city lights (and shopping), then flying to Melbourne to stay with Torin’s folks at a caravan park for Christmas.
Greeting Party
kids greet the slow boat at one of the small villages along the mekong Big thanks for Jay Balls for collecting all our parcels we have sent from around the place, we think it might be more than 60kg...that’s almost as heavy as him.
SAFETY FIRST!!!
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