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Published: October 3rd 2006
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Commuting Laos style
The fast boats certainly lived up to their names. Seems like ages since we last wrote, we have done so much that this blog will probably go on forever. We had a great time in Thailand and Laos and are now in Oz. Will update you all on Oz another time....first a quick catch up on what we have been up to.
To start with we finally managed to leave Thailand only 1 day late. The border crossing was the strangest that we have ever done, bascially it consisted of boarding a large canoe (with a motor) with all our bags etc and going across the Mekog river. It only took about 5 minutes but it was bprobably the scariest 5 minutes that we had experienced (to date) and the threat of losing our rucksacks was very real!
Anyway we made it over and then headed off to catch our slow boat that would take us doen the Mekong. Because of the delay to our trip our tour company had upgraded us (I user the word in a relative way) to having our own barge boat for our tour group. The scenary was really amazing and over the 6 hours we had on this boat we barely saw
Tribe on the Mekong
WE visted this hill tribe on the Mekong river. You might be able to see that their features are more Tibetan than Laotian. more than about a dozen people and no towns or anything (although we did see a dead pig in the river....nice).
We caught up on the delays from the hold-up at Chiang Mai, consequently arriving at a local village that evening, to the promise of a clean bed, but no electricity between 11pm and 6pm (i.e. the generator would run for 5 hours). However, we were more than compensated with good food and a snapshots of local life, best encapsulated by happy children playing in the streets, simple bars and great food. 1 good night of sleep was followed by very cold showers before heading off to our next destination on a long-tail speed boat. We wrote above that the crossing at Chiang Mia was, to date, the scariest form of travel. It was easily trumped by the 50 mile-per-hour "skimming" of the boat (big enough for 4 passengers) across whirlpools and cross-currents. And the noise justified the use of earplugs. Needless to say we covered a big stretch of water before stopping off to see a local tribe (think medieval Europe in terms of subsistence farming, accomodation and lifestyle), to be followed with a trip to caves and
Luang Prabeng Waterfalls
THis was amazing. We nearly got to the top of the waterfall but my flip flops decided to give way so we had to come back down. Howevver we swam in the pools even though the water was freezing!!! a Laos "whisky" (that term very loosley describes something more akin to paint-stripper (though suprisingly pleasant once your mouth is numbed after one shot)).
The big destination point was ahead though, jewel in the Mekong river - Luang Prabeng. Its strange how some places seem to grab you interest more than others and this was one of them. The city/town itself is a UNESCO world heritage site and from spendig some time walking around it you can easily see why. Apart from the amazing temples and the french Colonial architecture there is almost a certain naiivity about the city that makes you want to protect it. AS you can imagine tourism has seeped into it but in a very gentle ad delicate way. The ritual of the monks begging alms at 6am every morning still takes place, and the roads a full with bicycles and scooters rather than cars. Its hard tyo take a picture to explain what this places is like its more a feel. I know this sounds all very corny but if any of you have been there or plan to go there you'll probably know what I mean. While there we visited a number of
Temple at dusk
While we were somewhat templed out the temples at Luang Prabeng the UNESCO world heritage site were amazing and gloriously free of tourists (apart from us!!) sites including an amazing waterfall which we swam in, we saw a tame tiger (personally I wouldn't rely too much on the tame part) and some bears. All very exciting.
Our jounrey then took a more traditional Laos form - a bus. But not just any bus, this was billed as a VIP bus. I think perhaps that Laos definition of VIP and ours are miles apart. The bus itself was 1950's interiors (which had not been updated since then), air con consisted of opening the vents at the top of the bus and the only plus point was that we all had 2 seats to ourselves. However this joy was shortlived as we crawled up some mountain passess and seemed to glide down them (minus breaks). Then to make matters worse we experienced true Lao transportation........a break down in the middle of nowhere (although we found out later it was bandit country) where the driver (and friend) proceeded to take apart the gear box and basically spend 2 hours trying to get the bus working again. When they did they seemed tohave 2 gears.....2nd and 5th. So this meant that we crawled up mountains, and sped down them.....combined
Brokeback mountain (ha ha)
Our luxury bus.........where it stood stationary for 2 hours....fun!! with the occassional stop to change the gears. We eventually reached our destination....very tired, very hungry and with very sore bums!!!
The rest of our time in Laos was equally interesting, we saw loads of caves, temples and markets.....we wont bore you with details but suffice to say that so far this country has been the one that has left the biggest impression on us and one that we would heartly recommend to any intrepid traveler.....just remember that luxury is not a word in their vocabularly.
We then returned to Bangkok for well needed luxury (hot water, clean comfortable beds, and air con!!) and headed off to Oz.
We have been in Oz about 2 days now and have caught up with Mish (Ralphs sister) and Freyja (our niece) and are enjoying the laid back atmosphere. Will keep you all updated.
Keep the emails coming!!!
Love,
Jo & Ralph
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wow
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thanks that is really good