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Published: November 17th 2009
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Good day all, Sam here. Sorry it’s been a while since our last blog. We are currently in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, but first we must update you with the on goings of the beautiful Laos...
After an uncomfortable few days in Vientiane, which need no further describing, we headed off north to the town of Vang Vieng. The journey was but a few hours long, and we arrived at around midday. Upon departing the bus I encountered a friend from Uni, which was somewhat of a surprise considering our location, or was it...
The town happened to contain the largest concentration of tourists that we had encountered in our entire trip. Worse still, most of them were Brits consuming beer like Steve Bruce in his hey day, and everyone, and I mean everyone, was wearing a vest...
Anyway, we managed to find a beautiful bamboo bungalow across the river from the town. The views of the limestone karsts surrounding the town were incredible, and the banana pancake sellers were a mere 5 mins walk away. We met Naimh and Darragh, a lovely couple from Dublin, with whom we were to spend the next few days. The
highlight of Vang Vieng was our journey into the countryside on mopeds, Laura on the back of mine. Mum, all was well - stop fluttering.
Nevertheless, it was a bit of an adventure. It started off pretty easily, as we made our way to the Blue Lagoon, climbed up a limestone karst and explored a cave, then went for a swim and a rope swing in the lagoon. Laura chickened out of the swing because of her pitiful upper body strength. I of course went for it, and promptly completed a comedy not-letting-go fall, which was about as graceful as a Darren Moore backpass. Darragh dived and leapt like a salmon, putting us all to shame.
After an hour or so we headed back out on the bikes on to the permanently arm-juddering roads. The first 20 minutes or so wasn’t too bad, apart from the fact that we had gone completely the wrong way and were in a little village. We realised our mistake, but before we could get back on track we were hailed down by a very merry local chap who wanted us to come into his house on stilts and join in the fun...
he had had 12 Beer Laos, and was adorned in a Republic of Ireland footy shirt. He and his friends, with the able waitressing services of an elderly lady, went on to try and ply us with alcohol. As me and Darragh were driving we passed all but the occasional slurp on to Laura and Niamh. The hailer-downer professed his love to Naimh, not Laura much to my annoyance, and then he went on to discuss the effects of Lao Lao, the infamous Laos ‘whiskey’. With some interesting miming and much shouting of the phrase ‘boom boom’ he managed to get the message (some Viagra like qualities) across, and we at this point managed to excuse ourselves before the situation got any worse.
Finally getting back on the road, we headed on around the loop, conscious that in a few hours it would be dark. The roads got progressively worse, so much so that when a road merely contained boulders and rocks we smiled in joy. The first major obstacle was a 20 foot wide pond, of unknown depth. Darragh went straight for it without a moment’s hesitation, and despite a depth of about 1 foot in places, he
made it across comfortably enough. With encouragement from Laura, we went for it immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, I was so engrossed with looking like Steve McQueen that I forgot to turn up on the embankment leading out of the pond (turning right would continue to be a persistent problem; left proved to be far easier). I ploughed straight into a muddy mound, covering the bike, myself, and Laura in sticky brown mud. We then had to haul the bike out of the mud, and prey that it started again. We were now miles from the town, and hadn’t seen another tourist for a good few hours. Chk chk chk was all I got for a good few minutes. Everyone looked anxiously at each other, except me, as I had my head in my mucky hands, half in fear of the bike not starting, half in fear of Laura’s wrath. Fortunately, after 5 minutes of panicking, the bike had dried sufficiently for it to start again, and we were on our way...
Not much further down the ‘road’, however, we encountered another obstacle (I was looking for a bald bloke and shouting “Get the crystal!” by this point). This time it
was in the form of a swamp. Darragh made an abortive attempt to scoot through it, and Laura made a soggy attempt to go around it on foot. Instead we thought laterally, literally, and went round it the other way through the bushes.
This was one of the easier obstacles, for despite all the mud spraying, the fear that attached itself to having to traverse the first mighty toll bridge was unfathomable, until the second one. Anyway, the few shoots of bamboo that claimed to be a bridge, and the bloke and his string who claimed to be the toll barrier operator, proved mighty tricky, and even Laura and Niamh who walked across, found it pretty difficult. I have absolutely no idea how me and Darragh managed to navigate it on our bikes.
What we didn’t realise, however, was that this would seem like the Golden Gate Bridge compared to the next one. The latter swayed like a rope ladder as we went across it, after paying another toll man his 10,000 Kip. Needless to say, we made it across, and promptly headed on our way. This would not prove to be end of the obstacles - in the
following hour - on an otherwise completely desolate rocky dirt track - I had to dodge a hundred dogs, cats, sheep, goats, chickens, lizards, cows and most road hogging of all, water buffalo.
We made it back just before dark, but my hands were still shaking from all the vibrations for the next few days. It was an epic journey, partly enjoyable, partly hell. What was constant throughout though, was an astonishingly beautiful backdrop, particularly as the sun went down.
We spent the next day relaxing, swinging in the hammock, reading and writing, and always eating. We had four nights in Vang Vieng in total, and despite the huge number of backpackers in a tiny place, we had a fantastic time; it was just a matter of escaping the town.
We headed to Luang Prabang on the bus, which was a good 6 or 7 hour journey, but the scenery as we passed through the mountain villages was utterly stunning. A parked van marked with UXO provided a timely reminder of the nation’s past, and more specifically the huge numbers of unexploded bombs that litter the countryside. What was also noticeable was the poverty - Vientiane and
the town of Vang Vieng created an illusion of cosmopolitan development that is lacking through the large majority of Laos. We saw it when out on the mopeds, but it was remarkably evident in the little villages that we passed on our way north. The kids had no clothes and the houses no electricity; all there seemed to be were an awful lot of chillies being left to dry in the sun.
Think Laura will be doing the next one, hope you're all well, and will blog again soon
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Ha ha ha!! the joy of motorbikes!! Be thankful you didnt go over the handlebars and kill a dog!! :S Laos sounds ace, The Wirral is miserable..... Peace x