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After wishing farewell to Vietnam we headed through no man's land to Laos. A few miles down the road we hopped off the bus and were directed to Laos immigration. Obtaining our Laos Visa on Arrival and entry stamp was a rather long winded affair involving queuing at three different windows to see three different officials. Each official was running their own side line business asking for an extra dollar or two as an "admin charge". Whilst this is quite annoying, as the visa itself costs a fair bit and we know this money goes straight in their pockets, the officials were so friendly that we just found the process rather amusing. In the end, we paid an extra $4 each, half in US dollars and half in Lao Kip. Getting back in the bus we remembered why we liked Laos so much, whilst the same scams and corruption exist here as in many of the other countries we've visited in South East Asia, at least the scams come with a lovely smile in Laos.
Successfully through Laos immigration we settled in for the two hour ride down the mountain to the small town of Muang Khua. Ross says the
scenery was spectacular, but unfortunately Liz missed almost all of it as she was fast asleep, waking up only briefly every time she flopped over and banged her head against the window, much to Ross' amusement.
Still early in the day, we arrived at sleepy Muang Khua and set about finding a room for the night. The Lonely Planet gives one piece of advice when arriving in this town from Vietnam and that advice is "to relax, as hard bargaining is neither required or appropriate." Whereas in most Vietnamese towns we were accosted by guesthouse touts and moto-taxi drivers on arrival, here in Laos, no one really paid the bus load of backpackers arriving in town a blind bit of notice and on finding a guesthouse, we had to almost encourage the owner to sell us a room.
After settling in to our slightly past it room, we set off to explore the town and surrounding area, stopping for a very tasty duck noodle soup overlooking the river. We wandered through the market, marvelling at the array of tasty looking fruits and vegetables and the not so tasty looking charred rats!
The next day we boarded a
long boat that would take us about three hours down the Nam Ou River to the village of Muang Ngoi Neua. The boat ride was anything but comfortable, as there were so many people crammed into the tiny seating area that there was nowhere to put your legs, however, the scenery was spectacular and the mood was lightened by a bottle of homemade vodka brought along by two young Czech travellers.
After three uncomfortable hours, we pulled up at an idyllic looking riverside village. The boat driver indicated that this was our stop, so we climbed out and straightened ourselves out. We were the only two backpackers getting off here and we certainly felt a little smug as we waved goodbye to our fellow passengers. We often decide to break up long journeys by stopping in slightly obscure places that we've only briefly researched and sometimes this goes horribly wrong, but this time our luck was in. We made our way up the river bank and secured a riverside bungalow, complete with a hammock and a wonderful view and promptly cracked open a Beer Lao.
Muang Ngoi Neua is an almost roadless village (it has one recently opened
dirt track connecting it to the rest of Laos) which has been receiving tourists by boat in one form or another since the late 1990s. The first visitors apparently spent most of their time in an "opium haze", however, thankfully these days backpackers interested in exploring the local countryside by foot or bike are the main visitors. The village also seems to be skipped by many tourists, so it had a lovely low key feel to it. We spent our days in Muang Ngoi Neua walking to caves, waterfalls, viewpoints and even more remote villages. Our evenings were spent sampling the very tasty northern Laos cuisine, including a delicious coconut vegetable soup (a Suzy), Laos sausages (a favourite of Ross') and a very spicy and bitter dish which had twigs in it, although we found out later you weren't actually supposed to eat the twigs....
After a very relaxing three or four days, we had to leave Muang Ngoi Neua and caught the boat downstream to the better known village of Nong Khiaw. Nong Khiaw is a similarly picturesque riverside village, however, the presence of a rather ugly 1970s concrete bridge over the river slightly ruined its charm for
us. We found a bamboo bungalow with a river view, but failed to notice the makeshift karaoke bar that was just below us. Unfortunately this meant a not so relaxing evening of listening to one chap butcher Laos pop songs for a good few hours, although he packed it in (or passed out somewhere) by about half ten.
We spent a couple of nights in Nong Khiaw, spending our one full day walking to Tham Pha Thok, a series of caves in a limestone cliff. The caves are particularly interesting as local villagers and the Pathet Lao lived in these caves during the Vietnam War to avoid American bombing. These particular caves housed the bank and the provincial government. On our way out we met a young Laotian guide whose dream it was to visit England one day and study computer science. Unfortunately, the twenty-one year old's dream was being hindered by his two ex-wives, his three young children and his desire to have six children in total (with his third wife we assumed as he said she was a good one). We all walked away from the conversation baffled, us not understanding why anyone would ever want six
kids and him not understanding why anyone wouldn't.
Our next stop was the famous town of Luang Prabang, which we reached by a bumpy three hour bus ride. As we headed towards the more populated area around the Mekong, the blue skies became a more browny-grey and the sun obscured. We'd arrived in northern Laos in the middle of the hottest time of year, which is unfortunately the time of year local farmers slash and burn their land. The amount of smoke in the air is shocking and on some days in Luang Prabang, it felt like a whole day of dusk.
Despite the slightly apocalyptic feel the smoky skies gave the place, we really enjoyed exploring the picturesque city of Luang Prabang. The UNESCO protected city is full of gilded wats, Buddhist monks, Indochinese villas, great markets and fantastic food. We spent a lazy couple of days exploring the city, stopping very frequently for a refreshing fruit juice, iced coffee or a Beer Lao by the river.
From Luang Prabang we decided, after much deliberation, to catch the slow boat up the Mekong towards the Thai border. The indecision was mainly due to the horror stories
we'd read about how uncomfortable this boat was, how long it would take (20 hours over two days) and how it had become a full on party boat. We boarded the boat early in the morning in Luang Prabang and we're pleased to see that the seats were soft and were not the wooden benches we had been expecting and the boat was not busy at all. The partying consisted of a couple of old Laotian boys knocking back the Beer Lao and having a wonderful time doing so. None of the backpackers were getting merry and one was even crocheting (we wondered if the South East Asian party scene is not what it once was?). This all made for a very relaxing ride and it was great seeing the banks of the Mekong pass us by, however, after ten hours each day we were certainly pleased to get off the boat.
After two days on the Mekong, we finally landed at our final destination in Laos, Huay Xai, a small town by the Thai border. We walked into the town, stretching our legs after the long journey, settled into a guesthouse and enjoyed one last evening meal of
Lap (a warm mince meat salad that is a lot tastier than it sounds) and sticky rice.
The following day we had a leisurely start and as a result missed the direct bus to our preferred destination in Northern Thailand. However, luckily we were able to hop in a tuk tuk to the border, conduct all the border formalities at our leisure and hop in another tuk tuk on the Thai side, whose driver flagged down a public bus for us that was heading directly to Chiang Rai, exactly where we wanted to go.
Whilst it was really good to be back in Thailand, the smoke from the slash and burn agriculture had followed us here and although it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it was in Laos, we decided that we wouldn't really appreciate the countryside as much as we should do at this time of the year. So we got out our map of South East Asia and decided to fly to somewhere that wasn't even on it for our last month in Asia - Sri Lanka.
Our newly made plans meant we had to get ourselves to Bangkok sharpish, so we made the
journey south via Chiang Mai, the most popular tourist destination in Northern Thailand, popular for its abundance of Wats. We arrived in Bangkok late at night, just managing to hop on the last metro to crash out in our slightly prison like hotel room (redeemed greatly by the fact it had a roof top swimming pool - Liz booked it of course).
We had one day to spend in Bangkok before our flight to Sri Lanka and had planned to use the time to do a bit of shopping. However, we noticed something strange going on in the city. Supersoakers and buckets were being sold everywhere and there were some very wet people walking around. It suddenly dawned on us that it was the Songkran festival, a Buddhist celebration which was originally about sprinkling water on the heads of your elders as a sign of respect.
Well, the festival has clearly changed dramatically since it began, as Songkran now seems to be all about squirting unsuspecting strangers with high powered water pistols, preferably in the face, and throwing buckets of iced water over their heads. The party was not in full swing until the following day, which was
unfortunately the day we had to catch a flight at midnight. After having had to check out of the safe haven of our room, we found that the streets of Bangkok were no longer safe. Packs of youths and tourists roamed the streets looking for unsuspecting dry people. No one was spared a drenching and as we had our passports and all our electrical items on us, plus a night of travel to look forward to, we were confined to the hotel lobby for the morning, managing only to dash across the road for lunch in the safety of a cafe. In the early afternoon, as the water war began to move inside the hotel, we decided the airport would be the safest place to be, so we reluctantly took a taxi to the airport (we wouldn't have made it to the metro without a soaking) through the deserted city streets, occasionally passing pick up trucks loaded with vast buckets of water and gangs of water pistol wielding Thais looking for their next victims. Once at the airport we settled in for the evening and spotted many other travellers and fleeing Thais camped out doing exactly the same. After a
long evening, we finally boarded our flight to start our Sri Lankan adventure.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Idyllic
Some really great pics in this blog Liz & Ross...idyllic in spades