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Published: February 3rd 2007
8 hours, a winding dirt track and a modified pick up truck. 17 bodies bouncing about in a contorted mess, coughing and spluttering on the dust and the fumes. As far as rides go this one was way down there, yet somehow it felt good. Gone were the thailand days of air con and reclining seats, this was hardcore bone crunching, stomach churning travelling. I was back on the road!
Muang Sing in the very north was my first stop. It is a colourful market town and from here i was able to visit the hilltribes and surrounding countryside. The villages were realy rural and untouched, they were some of the most undeveloped i have seen so far on my trip but the people worked hard and were happy. Maybe this is because they are not dependant on material goods, have a strong family unit and a sense of community but it is probably due to the opium that they grow.
After a few days i headed south to non kiaw, took a near disasterous boat trip to luang prabang and headed up to Phonsovan. Phonsovan is famous for the inexplicable plain of jars. This is a scattering of
hundreds of rocks carved into jar like shapes. No one can explain what they are or where they came from, one theory is that they are 2000 year old burial chambers for human remains. To me this is a bit far fetched, it is quite obvious they were put there by aliens.
Something that i found more interesting about Phonsovan was the 'secret war' and its legacy. In the sixties and seventies Laos received an unwelcome visit from Uncle Sam who in the name of freedom and democoracy bombed the shit out of it. Laos was turned into the most bombed country per capita and is still littered with bomblets and uxo, something the people have to live amongst.
Next stop was Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is one of those places that exists solely for travellers, not exactly a cultural experience but a whole lot of fun. It is also the tubing capital of the world, the beauty of tubing lies in its simplicity, it basically involves floating down a river in a rubber tractor tyre getting drunk. Along the way are makeshift bamboo bars with swings and ziplines but these are just a warmup for things to
come. About halfway down as you round a sharp bend in the river a small bamboo city comes into view. It is filled with tubers from all the world over and there in front is the mother of all swings. Tubers relax on the banks of the river supping beer lao and judge others with 'oohs' and 'aahs' as they swing, but it is not what happens in the air that concerns them, like gymnastics its all in the landing and the more painfull the landing the more entertaining for the crowd.
After a few beer lao i was feeling brave and took to the swing. At the peak of the first swing i released my grip and was thrust froward into thin air, for a second i was flying, then i was falling. Legs kicking and arms flapping i broke the surface of the water with an open legged face plant. it hurt. as i resurfaced and gave the thumbs up i received a sympathetic 'ooohhh' from the crowd. I had staisfied them and i was happy. As i crawled back up the bank wincing in pain an old aussie fella turned to me and said " D'ya
crack ya nuggets mate?" - I couldnt even answer him. Tubing is by far the most fun i have ever had involving rubber and pain.
From vang vieng i kayaked down to the capital city vientiane and then bussed it down to the southern tip of laos and the four thousand islands. Unfortunately i did not have time to visit them all but i did see two rather nice ones and got in some quality hammock time. It was difficult to leave, but eventually i managed it and with brief stops in tadlo and savanakhet headed once more toward another nightmare that is a border crossing.
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Matt Kelleher
non-member comment
Tubbing to the sea
Glad to hear you made it down the vang vien river with nuts intact. Drank so much Beer Loa tubing down that river, lucky I didn't pass out, floating 1000 ks through lao, then thailand and into the sea. But it would be fun.