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Published: September 12th 2010
Laos....well what can we say, we had heard lots of stories about what a beautiful place it was, and how it was a favourite South East Asian country for many, and, after visiting it, we would agree, it truly is a wonderful place. The people are lovely, the scenery beautiful and the fruit shakes something else.
The border crossing from Cambodia was one of the easier so far, we didn't even have to carry our bags across, and this time we only got hit for $2.00 extra for the stamp. Pretty cheap really as we had heard that you could be strung for a lot more. No, it is not corruption, we like to think that the officials work on commission!
Just over the border we hopped onto a long boat to Don Det, an Island on the Mekong. Don Det is part of the 4000 group of Islands and is very laid back. Most of the accommodation is located along the riverbank and is very cheap some only $3.00 a night. There are some real characters that live there too, we met an Aussie baker who went there on holidays seven years ago and is still there cooking
carrot cake ( yum a real good find.) He has his bakery right over the river and the next morning we saw him fishing out of his kitchen window, while he waited for the cakes to cook, what a life!
After one night on Don Det, we decided to cross the river to another Island, Don Khon, which we had heard is a bit more up market and what a beautiful place it is. We managed to find a fantastic Bungalow right on the river with all the trimmings, a balcony and hammock, lovely cotton sheets, fluffy towels, nice soap and even coffee in the room all for $15.00 a night. What a find, and well worthy of a three night stay. We spent many hours there just watching the world float by.
We did manage to raise enough energy to rent a couple of pushbikes, and one day had a really nice day just riding around through the countryside, passing the rice fields, trying not to wake the sleepy water buffalo, and visiting what was to became the first of many waterfalls in Laos. Li Phi falls are the biggest by volume in South-East Asia and quite
a sight. Another day Dean, Dominic and Liz ( a dutch girl who we had met) decided on another day on the bikes, I this time chose a quiet day in the hammock with a book. The energetic ones cycled to the bottom of the Island and where lucky enough to see some freshwater Dolphins, which was a rare treat. Being the rainy season we did have some rain while there, mostly at night and all the roads turned to mud, great fun when you are walking back at night in the pitch dark not only dodgeing puddles but frogs as well, they were wherever.
After a really nice time on the Islands we headed to Pakse, a small town not far up the road, but unbeknown to us it was Buddha's Lent so the town was filled with holidaying Thais. So after Dean & Dominic doing the old ' lets find a bed for the night walk', they settled on one hotel which was pretty bad. They assured me that it was the pick of the crop! the bed was very ,lumpy and the mozzies weren't real good but after a real good Indian feed we didn't have
a bad night sleep after all.
The next day we hired a couple of motorbikes for 3 days and headed for the Bolaven Plateau. We had met a couple of guys who had done the ride and had told us how good it was, so with packs stored, off we went. The road was pretty good and well sign posted. First stop Tadlo, a small village located near another beautiful waterfall, about 60 kls from Pakse. Again we haven't booked anything but managed to find a family run guesthouse right in the rice fields for $ 6.00 a night. That night Dean & Dominic feasted on fresh duck that the owner killed especially for us. I unfortunately had slipped in the bathroom and was a bit battered and bruised so decided on an early night, but they tell me the duck was fantastic. Again we fell asleep to the sound of frogs.
While in Tadlo we rode some elephants through the jungle ( I know very touristy) but was good fun, we rode past another waterfall and also visited a small village, the kids were so excited running and waving, the village was typical Lao, built around a
central area and was filled with not only lots of kids, but pigs, ducks, chickens, goats, cows, satellite dishes and some of the most beautiful butterflies.
The guy riding the elephant that Dean was on, allowed him to take control, OMG Dean in control of an animal that size was a concern, but he and the elephant made it back safety. After the Elephant ride we hopped back on the bikes and headed to find Tad Hual Khom another waterfall about 50 kls away. After riding around for ages, and meeting a few others looking for the same waterfall and accommodation for the night, we decided that we weren't going to find it, so was then faced at 3.00pm in the afternoon with the problem of whether to head back or take a dirt road through to Paksong. The dirt road won! We were told a couple of different stories about the road, one guy told us it was 70kls long, another guy told us 90kls, but after filling the bikes up we decided to give it a go anyway, Thankfully it turned out to be 71kls.
The road was very rough and after some recent rain quiet
slippery in places but, we went through some of the most beautiful countryside, across rivers, through the jungle and through many small villages. At one stage we saw some guys coming out of the jungle on motorbikes, and as we had not seen anyone else for about an hour I thought this could only be a good thing, until we saw that they had rifles! Dean opened the bike up a bit and with Dominic on our tail, we didn't look back. We only hope that it was monkeys that they were hunting.
The 71kls took us 3 and a half hours and the last 40mins of very rough road was in the dark, but thankfully, with very sore bottoms we arrived safety. After Dean doing some scouting around we managed to book into another good guest house. The real treat was when we woke in the morning, we could hear some sort of carry on happening outside, and when we looked there were two Gibbons in the tree just outside our window. They were racing around the tree, chasing each other and making a hell of a racket. The guy from the GH told us they are there
all the time, and took us to feed them. We have met lots of people who had tracked into the jungle for days and had not been lucky enough to even see one, and here we were with them in our own backyard, so to speak.
From Pakse, we headed by overnight bus to Vientaine. The bus was very comfortable, and with double beds good for Dean & I but not so good for Dominic and the French guy that he shared with. I think they both spent the whole night balancing on the edge of the bed as far as possible away from each other. After all the Capital cities of Asia that we have seen ,Vientaine would have to be one of the nicest. The streets are all tree lined, with lovely temples doted around the city and, with very little traffic is truly a lovely city.
After a couple of days in Vientaine doing the usual tourist things we headed for Veng Vieng the adventure capital of Laos, another beautiful place surrounded by Limestone karats. Veng Vieng is truly on the backpackers trail, and lots of kids stop here for a few days of heavy
partying. The town caters for all their needs, tubing here is also very big and they have a system where the bar owners along the river throw a rope out to the tubers, pull them into the bar, for yet another drink, so by the time they reach the end point, some people are really quite under the weather. The kids love it.
Being the mature adults that we are! we decided against the tubing after hearing of the number of people who are either killed, or seriously injured there every year. Instead we hired another couple of motorbikes and with Dominic headed for the countryside, the scenery was absolutely stunning. The rice had been planted and was so green, and with the krasts it really is picture perfect. Most of the local roads are dirt and after some heavy overnight rain Dean was in his element going through all the puddles! Boys and their toys.
From Veng Vieng to Luang Prabang, our next stop, was 180klms of bendy mountain road, and some more amazing scenery. We found out later that we were very lucky to get through in 6 hours, as just after we went through there
was a huge landslide that took 7 hours to clear, luckily nobody was hurt. I know that I am raving on about how beautiful Laos is but Luang Prabang is really lovely. We spent about ten days there, it has a fantastic night market, and some of the best food, and fruit shakes. There are also lots of Wats there and hundreds of monks also live there, and its a real sight seeing them doing their early morning walk collecting offerings.
We did do a side trip north from there to a sleepy town called Muang Ngoi. We did the usually walk around looking for somewhere to stay, and got a very strange look when we asked if they have fan rooms, poor buggers, don't even have electricity! We settled for one of the better rooms available, and at $3.00 a night we thought a bargain. Unfortunately we spent most of the night listening to the rats eating the roof, floorboards and at times I think even the bed. Needless to say we headed out pretty early the next morning. We also spent another couple of days down the river at a nice little place called Nong Khiaw, and
enjoyed a $6.00 hut right on the river, this one did have electricity so it was nice to cool off under a fan.
From Luang Prabang, we took the easy option and flew to Chaing Mai in Thailand. Not only was it quicker but enabled us to get the 30 day Visa that we needed for Thailand. We spent a couple of days there, and from what we saw it's a place that we won't be rushing back to. From there to Sukhothai, the old capital. This is a really nice town. The old temples are located within a huge park, and we spent another great day on pushbikes seeing all the sites. We stayed in a really nice guesthouse there, owned by an Italian guy, who give you the best Mango honey on toast for breakfast.
From there to Ayutthaya, another old capital only about 60kls from Bangkok, there are also a lot of old temples there but in our option not as nice as Sukhothai. It was really hot the day we were there, and Dean & I followed a sign to the floating markets, (thinking it would be nice) only to find out after about
6 kls that it is only open of the weekend! Bugger it was Wednesday. The best thing there was a great night market, where we enjoyed the best fried chicken (better than KFC) and salad all for about $1.20. Bangkok came next, where we spent a few days catching up on things, we also had a morning at the Palace which was fantastic. The palace and all its temples etc are truly beautiful.
We left Bangkok at 7.00pm one night by bus heading for Koh Sumaui, a trip which was suppose to take 13 hours. Unfortunately it ended up taking us 25hours. We were buzzing along nicely until about 3.00am when we blew a tyre, not a problem, we turned around went back a couple of kls to a garage and changed the spare. One hour later back on the road, until after about another 10kls we blew another tyre, big problem this time as we had no spare. Back to the same garage, only to wait 6 hours until another tyre could be brought to us. By this time we had missed all the connections to the island, and was luck to catch the late ferry. Just to
add insult to injury when we did reach the Island the tuk tuk driver had no idea where our hotel was so we got to see plenty befoe, finally arriving at 8.00pm. We had a real lazy time on Koh Sumaui, spent time at the beach, went to the kick boxing and generally took life easy. Whilst there we had an email from friends Martin & Eva that they were going to be in Phuket the following week, so made plans to catch up with them.
After saying goodbye to Dominic we again caught the bus, and as we were becoming accustomed to in Thailand they chucked us out of the bus about 20kls from where we wanted to go, then demanded a arm & a leg to get us to our hotel. This time through, we decided that we were not going to play their game, and Dean flagged down motorcyclist, and asked him if he could take us to Phuket. He raced home, got his van and three kids and was back in no time, and only charged us half of what the others wanted. He got him to take us back to airport a couple of
days later, we figured we would rather give him the money than some travel company.
We spent some nice days with Martin & Eva, hanging out at the beach and pool. We visited the Big Buddha and had a really nice seafood lunch, enjoyed a night of Karaoke, and also a night in Patong checking out the lady boys. From Phuket we took another flight, this time to Penang, the travel agent on Koi Sumaui had suggested that way as in the south of Thailand there is still a lot of unrest, and really is not a safe travel option for tourists.
We only had a couple of days in Penang on the beach at Batu Ferrighi, which really was long enough. I had been there before about 14 years ago, and things have changed for the worst there. The area is really run down, accommodation very expensive and as we were leaving a local told me very unsafe for visitors! Won't be back.
From Penang we headed across to the east coast to visit the fantastic Pertenhain Islands, a place that we will be revisiting. The snorkeling was amazing, the water so clear and the coral
beautiful. We saw lots and lots of fish, turtles, black tip sharks and a huge giant groper. We had planned on spending five nights there, but because of Ramadan and all the buses to KL either full or not running, we had to cut our stay short, to ensure that we got down to KL to catch our flight to the UK tomorrow. But we'll be back.
So here we are in KL all ready to go. Have now been in Asia for seven months and are really looking forward to a meal of bangers and mash and no rice for a while.
We hope you are all well in your part of this big world, take care, and until next time the journey continues..........
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Roslyn Amiss
non-member comment
Great to hear from you
Many thanks for the blog - it was great to get up to date with your travels - wow, where did that 7 months go......Can't wait to get back to Asia and your blogs are a great encouragement - however it will have to wait until sometime next year as we are heading for Mail and Ethiopia in Dec/Jan/Feb and plan to wind down in Thiland for about 10 days before coming home so your blog has given me some ideas. Best wishes to you both and continue to enjoy your travelling. When will you be home? We will be in Perth to see our girls before leaving for Africa - I think about 17th Dec. Regards, Ros.