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Published: February 10th 2010
The Slow Boat
... and the hammock!The Slow Boat
So after recovering with an early night at the border it was time to tackle the slow boat. Firstly it was a ride across the water on a dodgy little long boat and then a couple of hours enjoying the chaos of the Laos border regulations. A friend of mine had told me about this boat a few weeks before and recommended I buy a cushion (I can’t thank you enough Tanith!). I had heard some real horror stories about this boat trip as basically you have 120 people crammed onto the boat for 9 hours a day and seating comprised of a wooden bench and less legroom than your average Easyjet flight. To take the pain away a few of us loaded up with BeerLao (cracking lager) and some whisky and all of a sudden it became much more bearable! People who have done the slow boat will tell you it’s hell on earth but you have to do it (they say the same about India!) and only now do I understand why. Not only did it turn out to be a good laugh and great socially, the scenery as you drift down the mighty Mekong
View From Bed!
On the stopover at Pak Beng is stunning. Rich luscious jungle covered peaks and dunes of sand dotted along the bank made me fall for Laos within minutes. The overnight stop was a success as had a great gang, accommodation was less than a quid night and the owner of our hostel was a legend. The next day was a bit better, we were loaded onto two boats and I took the initiative and found myself a little spot to lie down, played some cards with some Germans and French and brushed up on my language skills, it’s amazing how much comes flooding back! So yes do it and yes buy a cushion!… or a hammock as one smarmy bastard was living the dream albeit with 119 glaring sets of green eyes on him!.. I’m not bitter!
Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang used to be the capital city of Laos and with a population of only 50,000 tells you a little something about Laos, there really isn’t much here! Being part of the French colony for many years the architecture and food here are heavily influenced. God bless ’em as the bread here is awesome and a nice change after Thailand, less of the satay
and more of the paté! The main part of Luang Prabang is set on a peninsula out over the Mekong and is full of temples, cafes, spas and a huge night market, lovely little place to go as a couple. One thing that most do here is get up at 5am to feed the monks as they have no income due to spending their time enlightening each other, need I say I wasn’t ever in a state to arise at that unholy hour (excuse the pun). One day we headed off to see a waterfall and this was the most beautiful I’ve seen in South East Asia. From the main waterfall the water drifts down in the form of stunning electric blue pools complete with rope swings, it’s like something out of Jurassic Park! The next day me and Russ went out on the motorbikes, he had never ridden one before and they turned up at our hostel with these manual bikes, about 5 minutes into our ride towards the Pak Ou caves we come across a very busy bridge whereby you have to ride across the Mekong on a plank! Quite an introduction to biking! As soon as you
Arrival In Luang Prabang
At last! What a nice scene to land to. get out of the town (which takes about 3 minutes from the centre!) the roads become dirt tracks and settlements consist of self built wooden and thatch huts at the roadside, a long way from Thailand this is! The Pak Ou caves were a bit disappointing but a fun day nipping about nonetheless. There are some cool jungle style bars in Luang Prabang with gorgeous gardens which is part of the reason I ended up staying here for a week! If you order the ’hotpot’ they remove a circular slab from the middle of your table and chuck in a pan whereby you fry your veg in stock and make a soup before frying 4 different meats on the middle, great stuff. These bars all close down at 12pm so then it’s off to THE discotheque which is about 3km out of town in the middle of nowhere, after this closes at 1.30am everybody follows down the road to the only place still open, the bowling alley! It’s really weird after you’ve had a night out dancing and the like then to go and smash a few pins down but it actually makes for a great after party, met some
Waterfall
Luang Prabang good friends there.
Vang Vieng… Tubing!
So Russ and I headed 5 hours south through the gorgeous mountains to Vang Vieng and the thing I had most been looking forward to on my trip so far….TUBING! For those of you unfamiliar with the recreational activity that is tubing, it basically involves getting a big rubber ring and floating from bar to bar down the Mekong. This must be the most fun one can have with their clothes on (well not always!). Set on the river beneath the ever mentioned jungle clad mountains these bars have the biggest rope swings, zip lines and slides you have ever seen along with pumping tunes and buckets galore. People do die here but most myself included usually just come away with a serious amount of bruising, oh and the slide made me deaf in one ear for 4 weeks! Vang Vieng itself is basically just a playground for the traveller, there are more foreigners than locals here! The bars in town play Friends and Family Guy on a constant loop and every menu has a ‘happy’ option! There is an island with huge outdoor bars which consist of hammock bays and camp
Waterfall Pool
These went on for about 1km fires, this is a proper party zone, like Glastonbury Festival in the jungle! The days that we weren’t tubing were basically spent horizontal but we did get out on the bikes a couple of times, waterfalls, lagoons, caves (saw a spider bigger than my hand in one cave!)etc. There are no decent maps so it’s just a case of riding and see what you find sometimes, great fun. One day we stumbled across a small village at the end of a little dirt track and the kids were all very excited to see us, they were real cuties, got some great pics. 14 DAYS after arriving here myself and my American buddy Danny (who I first met on a drunken bowling episode in Luang Prabang) mustered up the courage to head south again to the capital city, Vientiane.
Vientiane
A lot of people said that Vientiane wasn’t worth it but I had time to burn as my Vietnamese visa didn’t start until the 21st of December and Danny was heading down that way anyway so Vientiane it was. Little did we know but we were to catch the final few days of the South East Asian Games, what
a result! We first went to watch this game call Sepak Takraw which is volleyball but using your feet and a small hard ball, these guys are unbelievable, it’s such a great sport, I really wanted to have a go! In the same arena was the Muay (boxing) which was also a good watch. The next day was the final of the football, Vietnam Vs Malaysia. Of course with Vietnam not being far away it was a sell-out but we decided to take the risk and ride over to the stadium and successfully scalped some tickets, rubbish seats but we managed to sneak through to the best seats in the house! The national stadium is impressive for Laos, must be about 30,000 all seater and I think there were probably only 500 Malaysians there! The complex also lay host to Volleyball and swimming so we had a little snoop around those as well. Danny and I had already got ‘Vietnamed up’ at the side of the road on the way to the stadium, bandanas and flags painted on our cheeks! Vietnam Vo Dich! The Vietnamese were loving us, Danny and I played the game spot the Falang (foreigner) for about
5 hours and I think he won about 9-4, we were treated like celebs with people wanting to take our photos and even sharing their food with us in the stadium! The atmosphere was electric, constant chanting, flares and bands. Vietnam were the better side though a late goal from Malaysia disappointed the bouncing Vietnamese support and saw them lift the trophy. In the evening we bumped into some of the Vietnamese contingent and had some good banter with them before heading to our now stable haunt, the rooftop bar of Borpennyang.
The first night that we arrived in Vientiane I met a beautiful girl, Panoy, and she welcomed us in to her group of mates which was a good laugh. After few more days and a trip to the serene Buddha Park Danny continued south from Vientiane and I just couldn’t drag myself away from this girl so stayed a week with her generally just hitting Borpennyang and Don Chan nightclub which is set in a hotel and is the tallest building in Laos at about 10 floors! I found myself totally immersed and was invited to birthday parties and a wedding which are the things that just
don’t happen when travelling with mates. The guy who invited me to the wedding was quite wealthy, owns a clothes shop and kits out the rich, Laos is a very poor country but I was riding round in a pimped up 4x4 with TVs dropped from the ceiling! The wedding was a huge affair, about 800 people in a very posh hotel, the lad that had invited me brought me some local attire to don and after gave this to me as a present, apparently expensive kit though I looked like a right muppet mind you!
Oh I should mention how weird the sexuality is here, I reckon about 50% of the guys here are either gay or ladyboys, crazy stuff! One night I met this Welsh guy in his forties who was chatting with Panoy’s ladyboy friend, I assumed he knew but the next day I walk out of Borpennyang to see them having a spat outside as the previous night he had found out the ‘hard’ way! He wasn’t happy with me, I felt a bit bad at first but to be honest was pissing myself afterwards, especially how he was boasting to me on the night
that he‘d been kissing ‘her‘ tongues and all! Hehe.
Panoy had some time to waste as she had finished uni and was off to France to nanny and study for a couple of years from the 31st of December so we thought it would be nice to go to Hanoi together for a few days over the Christmas period. A 25 hour bus ride awaited us (and my recliner was broken!) landing in Hanoi at 8pm on Christmas day though Christmas didn’t really mean much to me over here!
Unfortunately I didn’t make it down to southern Laos and ‘The 4000 Islands’, the place is supposed to be gorgeous, maybe next time! Laos is definitely my favourite country I have ever been to, lovely people, beautiful landscapes and a whole lot fun.
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