(Vang Vieng - Laos - 07.03.2004) - We were told our bus would arrive between 10:00 and 10:30. The fecker turned up at 09:00 on the dot. Luckily we were already up and mostly ready to go. Can communists tell the time one wonders...?!
What followed were five torturous hours in mad heat, in a stuffed mini-bus and over bumpy, partially tarmac'd roads. The bus depot in Vang Vieng was a vast and strangely broad area of tarmac. Turns out it was the town's airstrip! Security? ... Arse!
There were the usual locals sitting around in their tuk-tuks, spiders waiting to pounce on the latest batch of backpackers. Told 'em all to piss off as we had already decided to go to a place mentioned in the Lonely Planet called the Na Na Gueshouse. We got a triple room for the princely sum of U$3 a night!
Had to get the owner's in as the bog light was knackered (started was dead). Cue a local electrician and a brace of giggling girls that worked in the guesthouse, while we are trying to recover from the journey.
I bailed on dinner after ordering it and having a few bites as the auld stomach was getting a bad case of the gurgles. Didn't go any further than that luckily.
(Vang Vieng - Laos - 08.03.2004) - Kip and buckets of water sorted the stomach out thankfully. No Arthur's Revenge for me :)
After breakfast (actually it was after our 'second breakfast' as Pippin would say), we decided to go off in the direction of the caves that Vang Vieng is famous for. Had to pay a tithe to cross this fairly rickety bamboo bridge across the Mekong. Walked about 2km, and finally found the Khan caves. A sign told us that we were expected to pay and entrance fee of LKP5000, but there was no one there to collect it, so we helped ourselves!
The entrance to the cave was mad stuff - climbing up a bamboo ladder, then down another one into the maw of chaos. Ok, it was pretty cool looking though. We followed the arrows into a low opening and walked into pure darkness. I had my maglite with me and lit up a small and dangerous-to-the-head cavern. I ducked below a sheet stalactite and nearly soiled myself upon seeing a rather creepy statue of Buddha which emerged out of the darkness as if by TGV. Took a picture as the face of the statue was not what you normally see. Slightly unsettling. That was the sum of that cave (unless you wanted to swing downwards on ropes etc.), so we exited stage left.
We left looking to find the Jang (or Chang) caves. We had to pay the bloodsucking bridge owners again, dodge a few dragster-style taxis, and head for the Vang Vieng Resort, though which you have to go to get to the caves.
The damn caves were closing as we arrived and there was a big outdoor party going on nearby. Thought at first it was a wedding, but none of them were dressed up. Presumed it was just a party for the hell of it. We sat and had a few BeerLaos, then were joined by three or four young Lao boys who were interested in our cameras. We took a few pictures of them and showed them the pictures. They nearly shat themselves with laughter.
The cheeky monkeys followed us the whole way back to town practically. Could hardly shake the feckers off. They were daycent auld skins however.
Had our evening nosh in a fabulous Indian restaurant called Nazim. The food was superb. It was richly complimented by the copious amounts of BeerLao ;0)
More to follow. We are just about to leave Australia for New Zealand, so I have yet to catch up on Vietnam, Cambodia Hong Kong and all of Oz, so bear with me! With all the rainy days expected in NZ, I'm sure I'll catch up eventually!
DM
Saturday, April 10, 2004
10.04.2004 - Airlie Beach (Australia) - Righto, you're all annoyed by the lack of updates. I know I know. Been busy y'see!?! Anyway, enough gay banter, here's some of the catchup comin' atcha right now...:
(Pakbeng > Luang Prabang - Laos - 04.03.2004) - We got to the boat "jetty" (i.e. we stretched from the rock over the water's edge onto the boat - there was not so much as a stick in the water to represent anything like a pier etc.). They must have heard our bitching because we were divided onto two boats this time. There were more Lao onboard this time. It seems the Lao share a trait with their Thai cousins - they love to hock major loogies and them deposit them noisily in the vicinity of away from themselves at high speed. Charmed I'm sure.
About 30 minutes away from Luang Prabang, the boat started suddenly doing a docking manouver. We discovered that we were stopping at a set of mad caves called the Pak Ou caves at a place called Tam Ting. It cost us a full LKP5000 (about EUR0.38!) to step off the boat and another 8000 then to go into the caves. It was peanuts really, but still seemed a little cheeky!
The Pak Ou caves were compact but really amazing. It is a limestone cave which formed a cave with a large opening facing toward the river. Some locals turned it into a Buddhist temple of sorts way back and since then, the devout have amassed Buddha statues numbering in the thousands. Very impressive.
About 30 minutes after that, we arrived into the town of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage City. Faced down most of the local flies all vying to get you to stay in their hovel for a 'dolla' a night. Went with one recommmended by two English girls we met when we got off the boat.
We all had a nice dinner down on Sisavong St. where the night market gets going after dark.
Two noisy girls arrived in about 03:00 and started roaring at each other. Then one went to the communal loo down the corridor and I swear I thought a caravan of elephants was going by. Followed by more shouting and giggling. Micaela lost the rag and went in to quieten them. She asked them to go to sleep and the harpie that opened the door to her said she couldn't sleep as it was proving too difficult for her. Must have given in to one of the many grass-selling touts hiding in the shadows outiside. They quietened down for an hour or two then one of the twats ran up and down the corridor banging on all the doors and trying to open all the doors. Slapperama.
(Luang Prabang - Laos - 05.03.2004) - Turns out those two girls (whom I thought were Brits) were from 'Norn Iron', to my shame. Still, they were filthy slappers of the highest order. Thank god I didn't actually set eyes on them or they would have gotten a beating.
Had brekky at the foot of the amusingly titled Phou Si Hill in central Luang Prabang. We were stopped by an 'old boy' (as Richie was calling all males over 40) calling himself Mr.Nou, who did personalised treks to "where other tours don't go". He had fairly decent english, but I thought he was really shifty, but Richie and Micaela thought he was pukka. As with all these dudes, he whipped out pictures taken of him and people he took off into the jungle to prove he wasn't a serial pederast! Just kidding. He probably was fine, but I was having none of it for my part.
We traipsed around the town visiting some of the many temples called Wats (Thailand, Cambodia) or Vats (Laos). After walking down a road crammed with the things, we went into and booked a one-day trek (for the following day) in the Luang Prabang area with a company called ActionMax, founded in Vietnam and run by a Frenchman. Looked really good.
We went to visit the former Royal Palace (L. Prabang used to be the Laos capital), but it was closing, but they recommended we see the nightly performance of traditional Lao drama. Bought tickets and went to see it. It was an enactment of a load of Lao legends and was completely acted (not voiced) while an orchestra of 6 and two singers sang the words to the drama. Pretty interesting.
Bought a "Let's Speak Lao" booklet in the night market afterwards so I could make conversation with the local people. Naturally, the only language you need here is dollars :-D
We were asked a number of times on the way back to our guesthouse whether we wanted any grass. These guys would come out of the dark ether at you without warning, scaring the crap out of you. Disconcerting to say the least.
Very cheap (and prarticularly good) beer, grass is freely available and the food is dynamite - my first visit to a communist country gives me a good feeling about communism!! Rock on guys...
Got to the tour place bang on time for our trek to the Laos outbak. Our guide's name was Sommai from Attapeu in the south. For someone who only learned his first word of ENglish last year sometime, he was doing pretty well! FIrst off we took a tuk-tuk to the hills and took a 2 hour trek across rural countryside, punctuated by small Hmong tribal villages. The Hmong are like the Lapplanders - one of those migrating peoples that still travel from Myanmar through to Vietnam and southern China with no fixed abode really.
The trek finished up at the Kuang Xi waterfall area, an amazing waterfall with a complex series of pools with very cold water. We all had a plunge after lunch and froze our nuts off. Micaela too thought it very cold. Actually, we could tell... he he...
Richie and I hiked up to the top where there was another series of pools overlooking the lower ones. Due to time constraints, I didn't get in. Richie did though.
When we got back to town, we showered and rushed to get to the top of Phou Si Hill for the sunset. Locals can go up for free, but tourists are charged LKP8000. For a communist country, that smacks just a teensy weensy bit of capitalism to me! Unfortunately, there was a lot of cloud cover so when we finally got settled up the top, it disappeared behind the clouds and that was it. Bugger.
Had eats and much needed BeerLao's in an excellent reataurant called Indochine. There was talk of monkey's falling from the sky later on. Can't remember why... ;-)
LaterZ
(Pakbeng > Luang Prabang - Laos - 04.03.2004) - We got to the boat "jetty" (i.e. we stretched from the rock over the water's edge onto the boat - there was not so much as a stick in the water to represent anything like a pier etc.). They must have heard our bitching because we were divided onto two boats this time. There were more Lao onboard this time. It seems the Lao share a trait with their Thai cousins - they love to hock major loogies and them deposit them noisily in the vicinity of away from themselves at high speed. Charmed I'm sure.
About 30 minutes away from Luang Prabang, the boat started suddenly doing a docking manouver. We discovered that we were stopping at a set of mad caves called the Pak Ou caves at a place called Tam Ting. It cost us a full LKP5000 (about EUR0.38!) to step off the boat and another 8000 then to go into the caves. It was peanuts really, but still seemed a little cheeky!
The Pak Ou caves were compact but really amazing. It is a limestone cave which formed a cave with a large opening facing toward the river. Some locals turned it into a Buddhist temple of sorts way back and since then, the devout have amassed Buddha statues numbering in the thousands. Very impressive.
About 30 minutes after that, we arrived into the town of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage City. Faced down most of the local flies all vying to get you to stay in their hovel for a 'dolla' a night. Went with one recommmended by two English girls we met when we got off the boat.
We all had a nice dinner down on Sisavong St. where the night market gets going after dark.
Two noisy girls arrived in about 03:00 and started roaring at each other. Then one went to the communal loo down the corridor and I swear I thought a caravan of elephants was going by. Followed by more shouting and giggling. Micaela lost the rag and went in to quieten them. She asked them to go to sleep and the harpie that opened the door to her said she couldn't sleep as it was proving too difficult for her. Must have given in to one of the many grass-selling touts hiding in the shadows outiside. They quietened down for an hour or two then one of the twats ran up and down the corridor banging on all the doors and trying to open all the doors. Slapperama.
(Luang Prabang - Laos - 05.03.2004) - Turns out those two girls (whom I thought were Brits) were from 'Norn Iron', to my shame. Still, they were filthy slappers of the highest order. Thank god I didn't actually set eyes on them or they would have gotten a beating.
Had brekky at the foot of the amusingly titled Phou Si Hill in central Luang Prabang. We were stopped by an 'old boy' (as Richie was calling all males over 40) calling himself Mr.Nou, who did personalised treks to "where other tours don't go". He had fairly decent english, but I thought he was really shifty, but Richie and Micaela thought he was pukka. As with all these dudes, he whipped out pictures taken of him and people he took off into the jungle to prove he wasn't a serial pederast! Just kidding. He probably was fine, but I was having none of it for my part.
We traipsed around the town visiting some of the many temples called Wats (Thailand, Cambodia) or Vats (Laos). After walking down a road crammed with the things, we went into and booked a one-day trek (for the following day) in the Luang Prabang area with a company called ActionMax, founded in Vietnam and run by a Frenchman. Looked really good.
We went to visit the former Royal Palace (L. Prabang used to be the Laos capital), but it was closing, but they recommended we see the nightly performance of traditional Lao drama. Bought tickets and went to see it. It was an enactment of a load of Lao legends and was completely acted (not voiced) while an orchestra of 6 and two singers sang the words to the drama. Pretty interesting.
Bought a "Let's Speak Lao" booklet in the night market afterwards so I could make conversation with the local people. Naturally, the only language you need here is dollars :-D
We were asked a number of times on the way back to our guesthouse whether we wanted any grass. These guys would come out of the dark ether at you without warning, scaring the crap out of you. Disconcerting to say the least.
Very cheap (and prarticularly good) beer, grass is freely available and the food is dynamite - my first visit to a communist country gives me a good feeling about communism!! Rock on guys...
Got to the tour place bang on time for our trek to the Laos outbak. Our guide's name was Sommai from Attapeu in the south. For someone who only learned his first word of ENglish last year sometime, he was doing pretty well! FIrst off we took a tuk-tuk to the hills and took a 2 hour trek across rural countryside, punctuated by small Hmong tribal villages. The Hmong are like the Lapplanders - one of those migrating peoples that still travel from Myanmar through to Vietnam and southern China with no fixed abode really.
The trek finished up at the Kuang Xi waterfall area, an amazing waterfall with a complex series of pools with very cold water. We all had a plunge after lunch and froze our nuts off. Micaela too thought it very cold. Actually, we could tell... he he...
Richie and I hiked up to the top where there was another series of pools overlooking the lower ones. Due to time constraints, I didn't get in. Richie did though.
When we got back to town, we showered and rushed to get to the top of Phou Si Hill for the sunset. Locals can go up for free, but tourists are charged LKP8000. For a communist country, that smacks just a teensy weensy bit of capitalism to me! Unfortunately, there was a lot of cloud cover so when we finally got settled up the top, it disappeared behind the clouds and that was it. Bugger.
Had eats and much needed BeerLao's in an excellent reataurant called Indochine. There was talk of monkey's falling from the sky later on. Can't remember why... ;-)
LaterZ
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