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Vientiane
One of many dragons decorating the temples.After a brief flight from Kathmandu, we arrived in Bangkok in the early afternoon. Due to all the political protests that were going on in the center of the city, we though it best to explore the city at a later time, hopefully once thing have calmed down a bit. From the airport we went straight to the train station and booked a night train to Nong Khai, on the Thai-Lao border. After some of the night trains in India, the Thai train was pure luxury. We had clean sheets and the train was actually cleaned from the last people before we got on. We had not seen anyone clean anything in over two months, so it was pretty nice. We crossed the Lao border and were right away pleasantly surprised at how clean and organized it was. The people were really friendly and helpful, and it was really calm and peaceful, even in the capitol city, Vientiane. No car horns, no yelling and no annoying hassles from anyone, a nice change from the last two months. We stayed in Vientiane for 2 days so that we could meet up with John
and his girlfriend, who by coincidence were coming here as well. We separated in Kenya expecting not to see John until Canada, but fate had other plans.
From Vientiane, we caught a three hour bus to Vang Vieng. We had heard about this place from other travellers, and it did not disappoint. The main activity in Vang Vieng is tubing down the river. The idea is you rent an inner tube for the day, catch a tuk-tuk 3km upriver, then float back downstream in a few hours to be back by 6pm to return the tube. The reality is more like this... as soon as you start floating, the bars on the river bank throw you ropes and reel you in. They offer free shots, cheap beer and all sorts of swings, zip cords and slides to jump into the water. The bars are full of people, good music and lots of fun. So really you end up making it to 4-5 bars, about 500m downstream, you are drunk and you run out of time. You have to end up catching a tuk-tik back to town to make it by 6. All in all, a very fun way to
spend the afternoon.
From Vang Vieng, it was back to Vientiane for a night stopover, then on the road again to southern Lao. We weren’t really sure where we were going but knew that we wanted to cross into Vietnam somewhere around Da Nang. In Vientiane it was time to say good bye to John and Sunny again, since they were heading directly to Vietnam. We bought bus tickets to a town called ThaKheak, on the Lao-Thai border, and after talking to a French couple at the bus station who told us about a bunch of caves and rivers in the area, we decided to spend a day there. We rented a scooter for about $4 CAD, and set off on a tour of the Lao countryside. We got to go swimming in a cool river in the mountains, explore a few of the many caves in the area, and see some of the remote villages in Lao. A good day, as we got a chance to see the local side of life here, off the tourist track.
We hoped that from ThaKheak we could catch a bus right to the Vietnam border, but when we arrived in
Tubing in Vang Vieng
More like drinking in Vang Vieng! Savanakhet, there were no more buses that day, so again we had to spend the night. Not much to say about Savanakhet, just another lazy Lao city on the Mekong. We stayed one night, and the next morning were on a 7 hour bus to Hue, Vietnam.
We marked our one year anniversary on the road in Lao on May 1st, 2010. In a year we’ve visited 28 countries and 94 cities, many of them, like Lao, which we had no intention of going to when we started out. Looking back, the year has flown by for us, loads of memories from lots of different places, but we are not yet ready to end this trip... so onto Vietnam we go.
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emily
non-member comment
hey! great post and great pics. tubing sounds awesome!!!! cool you got to meet up with john again!