North Laos

Hi all,

Southern Laos was a really cool place, very chilled out and really worth going to. Our next stop was the relatively tourist heavy north of the country starting with the capital city Vientianne.

Vientianne has got to take the award for the sleepiest capital city I've ever visited - Bangkok it certainly isn't. People we'd met on the road had slated it a bit as lacking things to do but to be honest we really enjoyed our couple of days there. The guesthouse we stayed at, The Orchid, was OK but not inspiring but the highlight of our stay was the food and in particular the meal we treated ourselves to at a french restaurant called the Cote D'Azur.

(Our guesthouse - good example of the colonial architecture that pervades the city)

We've been in Asia for almost six months and other than the roast dinner we had down in Don Det have had very little in the way of good quality western food. We had an amazing three course dinner and given it was owned by a frenchman we even felt we could trust the house red (wine is a lottery over here). One of the legacies of the French colonial times here are proper baguettes (amazing what you get happy over here - we've barely had any bread for months before arriving in Laos) and the occasional access to good wine.

Sunset over the Mekong from the riverside bars in Vientianne

A brief bit of Laos history (as taken from the national history museum) - pre WW2 was part of French Indo-China until the Japanese overun it in the war. Post war when the serious fighting was done with and they'd been bailed out the French then reinvaded, this time backed by the Americans who were sticking their noses in to try and prevent communism. The invading french were then booted out by the Vietnamese a few years down the line. A brief and probably slightly inaccurate history but what i picked up from the national museum. Always amusing going to museums in these parts with common mentions of "the American imperialists" & "Harsh French colonial masters" etc...

Next stop for us was the party town of Laos - Vang Vieng, on our way up we also stopped to do some kayaking at Nam Lik. The kayaking was ok but low waters meant the main rapid which was supposed to be a grade 3 or 4 wasn't that exciting. Probably the most nerve racking moment of the day was a rock jump a few of us did into the river. It was one of those where you get to the top and really start wishing you could bottle it, however I was up there with a Kiwi and a Spaniard so obviously couldn't let the country down.

(some random girl I met on my Kayak)

(right, now this is the rock jump - if you enlarge the photo I'm right at the centre, thankfully I was too far away fro the camera to pick up the look of abject terror on my face)

(Sunset as seen from our hut's veranda, Vang Vieng)

Most people go to Vang Vieng for one thing, the infamous tubing. Tubing basically involves hiring a rubber tyre inner and setting off in it down the river on a pub crawl. Bars range from a bloke sitting on a crate of Beer Lao holding a sign up to large properly constructed places with music pumping out. Activity of choice (other than drinking) are a variety of Zip lines and Trapeze style rope swings into the river, has to be said it is hilarious and some people stack it in spectacular fashion particuarly as the reflexes start to dull after several Beer Laos.

(Zip Lines into the river -can't beat it)

(We were wondering why this chap was shouting at us to stop jumping into the river until he rowed out in his boat to pull this fella out)

(bumping into Raleigh Participants on the river - inevitable really)




The tubing means the town is more or less permanently packed with young backpackers on the lash. Me and Charl did find it difficult not to get on our traveller snob high-horses sometimes. Six O'clock see's a whole host of hammered people coming off the river and staggering through town including a load of girls dressed in bikinni's (which I appreciate lads sounds like a good thing to us but modesty in Laos means a lot they do actually have signs up asking people not to do it). With western culture generally being looked up to it'd be easy for the local youth to start copying our behaviour. Having said all that though it is only the one place in Laos that really has this sort of reputation and we were out there tubing and drinking with everyone else. It is a great laugh and obviously brings a lot of money into the town - just be good to see a few people thinking a bit more about how they come across.

(this is me showing off my new walking on water trick in one of the lagoons outside the caves..... actually we where just jumping from the top tree branch, great fun)

(rice paddies in the surrounding area)

If you open your eyes a bit (Charl heard one particuarly bright example of our youth complaining that "there's nothing to do around here but go tubing and watch Friends" - the bars continually play reruns of Friends so people don't have to engage their brains and actually talk to each other) there's loads to do in Vang Vieng. You can trek or bike out to several caves in the local area, some of which have icy cold, turquoise streams flowing out of them. We found one stream where you can actually swim against the current up a narrow cavern into the mountain with the water being illuminated intermittently by shafts of light coming through gaps in the rock. We also had our first go at rockclimbing on the limestone cliffs that surround Vang Vieng. The climbing was cool -to those who it might mean something we did a 5a, a 5b, a 5c and a 6a. The one experienced climber who was with us reckoned it was quite a toughy for a first timer, the first climb was 28m.

(Charl & I doing our spiderman/woman impressions)

Next up we moved onto the historic city of Luang Prabang. It's a beautiful place and kinda felt like being on holiday in Europe as there's a lot more older tourists and families here, as well as lots of french style architecture. Again there is a huge range of cool stuff to do out of here but we kicked it off for going out to the elephant park project to spend some time with the Mahouts (handlers). We learned some basic controls ( shout really loud and hit them with a stick and or any pointy object to hand), rode them to and from the jungle where they were left to feed for the evening, rode them into the river to give them a bath and fed the baby elephant the project had recently acquired. It was a really cool couple of days, the elephants are all ex-logging elephants and the tourist trade is much easier work for them. Riding elephants is actually relaxing once you get into it - other than the couple of times mine decided to detour off through a thorn bush with me frantically shouting at it to stop . If anyone's ever in trouble with an elephant you could try shouting these at it in the hope it's of the ex-Lao working type

"Bayee" / "Houyee" - go

"Hau" - stop

"Sai" - right

"Kwai" - left

"Song" - please hold you knee up so i can use it as a step to climb up on your back.

(the little fella - 3 years old and cheeky when it came to grabbing food off you)

(Charl on her elephant)

(Bathtime)

There's also kayaking, rafting and trekking etc... to be done from here. You can escape the heat by finally giving into one of the incessant tuk-tuk drivers and going out to the spectacular waterfall just outside the town. We had perhaps our real mix of people going out there - 4 columbians, a spaniard, a Pole and a thai and the only common language between us all was french which was quite bizarre at the time.

(Charl on a temple summit above Luang Prabang)

At the time of writing this we were just about to set off on a road trip across to Hannoi in Vientman via a little used border crossing at Na Meo. Should be an adventure that takes a few days going through some little travelled parts but if we haven't posted another entry in a months time or so if someone could send out a search party that'd be much appreciated.


Cheers

Si & Charl