Laos - too much adventure?

After lieing to Laos immigration (and yes Mr Holier than Thou travel agent, I know it was wrong), they let me in (I managed to hide the hacking cough and running nose, and disguised the fever with a tonne of Panadol....) and so began interesting times in Laos - which are set to continue for a few days at least....



Walking onto the tarmac and looking at the Laos Air "aircraft" (a stretch) and it's twin propellers was definitely an indication of what was to come - as was Trafford's look of shock when I said I was off to Laos - and his one-word "Why??". So, it's a developing country - but that's not their fault. Getting the crap bombed out of them for years in the Indochina War wasn't their fault.... the people are nice though, the trekking is phenomenally good and I've met some awesome people (and had a lot of good coffee). In all - a win in my book.




First stop was Luang Prabang - it was off the twin prop, and straight into the back of a ute (I'm now a pro at flinging bag and self into fast moving, run down mini-utes). Of course, I booked my accommodation on the internet, but old mate at the Guest House only checks his about once a week, so they didn't have my booking, but luckily there was room - and the guest house was awesome. Souk Lan Sang Guesthouse is right on the Mekong - Luang Prabang is on a neat little peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Phong rivers - and I had a great old style Lao teak villa to call my own. I wandered into town - and it is a pretty town made up of colonical style houses and old Lao teak houses - Unesco protected so no crap lying around or crappy signs - and wallowed in the sunshine (which was shortlived). Great restaurants, great coffee, great food - touristy but not like Vietnam or Thailand....




Enter two days of unstopping rain. I was ready to committ a crime by the end of it - and in fact managed to get into a bit of trouble (but, I maintain, I am not a stalker). Even my sister said "This is the third time you've rang me this week. Are you bored?". Thanks Sarah, I've missed you too, as you've clearly missed me. (Note: There was a reason for each call, not general chit chat). So bored in fact that I've hand ample time to extend my stay away and find a few exciting things to do en route on the way home......

This is the only photo that I could take in Luang Prabang town without drowing a) myself or b) my camera. It is a ..... temple! You'll just have to take my word on the rest of the town's beauty....

Finallly! The rain stopped! And my trek that was cancelled twice finally went ahead... and it was worth the wait.It was muddy, and overcast, but nice and cool - as the trek was pretty hard work uphill, and even harder work downhill not to slip and slide... well, there was plenty of that anyway....

My transport here in Laos - and this is a good looking ute, I can assure you.....

The trek started at a Hmong Village in the hills around Luang Prabang.... I've never seen kids have so much fun with an empty bottle and a puddle of water.....

Supervising her brothers... oh I've seen this look on a sister's face before.....

Walking through the hills, rice paddies, fields, and jungle was really pretty......

But the pictures don't do it justice. This is Laura and Rob from Canada. We ended up spending the next couple of days together and had a lot of fun....

Lunch - prepared Laos style. Banana leaves make great plates...

This was my favourite part of the day. We trekked up and down mountains for hours and hours, and finally we got to the top of the Kuang Si waterfall. All of the rain the preceding days meant that we had to walk down the waterfall.... literally. It was four times as big as it normally is.....

There weren't as many waterfalls as Iguazu, but this one was as loud, as powerful, and I got as wet as I was in Argentina and Brazil.....

....but much, much dirtier.... my trekking shoes are going to need to be piffed before I leave SE Asia - there is no way Australia is going to let them in. For a start that cute little beagle will die.

The vegetation was stunning..... I saw so many fruit and vegetable plants that I didn't even begin to imagine - star fruit, peanuts... and about 25 varieties of pot plants (now I know where they come from)....

Crossing this part of the waterfall had my imagination commentate "Tragedy strikes in Laos earlier today when 6 tourists, 1 Australian, were caught in rapids as a result of heavy rains and drowned".... Trust me it looks worse than it is....

Where I was staying was Wat Central, and it was prayer time as I staggered home from trekking, covered in mud....

A market can be just a market, but the Luang Prabang one was pretty special. At night the main street is blocked off and hundreds of these stalls are set up by the local hill tribes.... the result is pretty.

I dragged my sorry arse out of bed at 5:20am - barely able to move after the previous day - to see the giving of alms to the monks. This happens everyday - the monks are offered all their food by the local people at dawn, or thereabouts..... There are about 2000 monks in town, and they walk through the town collecting offerings from the locals...

....who diligiently sit and wait for an hour or two.....

It was pretty special and I tried not to get in their way....

The monks also give some of the food away to the ill, poor and children - some of whom walk alongside them....

Shortly after this - I got on the bus to Vang Vieng. Or Vientiane - I wasn't really sure.... but it ended up being Vang Vieng.... I'd heard the trekking was good... But I was not at all prepared for the bus ride. I had some bad experiences in South America - but this was by far and away, the absolute worst. A certain motorcyclist who is riding from Melbourne to London would have had a lot of fun on this road, I think - but in a bus, no. It was a vomit inducing ride to hell. Aiming straight for cows and not braking. Not braking in general. Accelarating on the wrong side of the road around blind corners with a steep drop off. Going over corrugations so fast that my head hit the cieling - AND I'm only 5 foot 4. The landscape was stunning - which is a shame, as I couldn't enjoy it. We stopped for lunch - well I see why it was included as there wasn't a whole lot of eating going on. I was greener than green, and had popped enough pills to tranquilise an elephant. I got off at Vang Vieng, thankful for my life and vowing never to get on a Laos bus again. I was going to worry about how that meant I was going to get across the rest of the country later.

The first thing I did was book a trek, and start planning how to get the hell out of there (see previous entry regarding the obnoxious English and happy, magic type food - which I see now why - people have it before the bus to make it bearable).

Another fabulous trek - with some caving thrown in. I am truly exhausted tonight... It had rained all night and I got up with dread, but we ended up with a cool but eventually sunny day - joy!

These limestone cliffs are all around the town.... and we walked up, down and around them, and in and out of all the caves around....

Some are temples....

....lot's of people working - they asked us to help out - but I wasn't too keen on this backbreaking labour. These guys are all subsistence farmers - so this is their life and food....

Very cool caves - we went inside up to 300m - 500m. Some of the spaces were tight - but there were huge galleries as well - I've never seen anything like it....

Mushrooms for breakfast, was it Kathryn?

Buddha.... at the Hoi Cave....

These karsts went on and on....

More kids... it's Laos school holidays, so they are everywhere....

I got really lucky - I met some great people on the trek - so we went tubing together this afternoon. Tubing in Vang Vieng is normally the domain of the obnoxious 18 year olds mentioned earlier - but we decided to hit the rapids. The Luang Prabang waterfall was huge - well, the river was even huger. I don't know what I was thinking.... the first 300m was pure, white water, terror. Again, "Tragedy strikes today in Laos, when four tourists, one Australian drown in fast moving currents as a result of heavy rains.....". But it was fine - once we turned the first corner it slowed down, and I only bashed my hands and knees a few times on rocks, cliffs, tree branches - and didn't hit my head at all. I do not know how others do it pissed, and high (there are makeshift bars the .... not my problem though.

Luckily the kids are on school holidays - they had to fish me out at the end, or by now I'd be in Vientiane. I wasn't the only one though!

So sunburnt and sore and sorry after a big day, we went out for dinner tonight. I've met Stella - a great Irish girl - and we ended up having dinner with a former Buddhist monk who now teaches philosophy - really interested guy. Stella wanted to go to Vientiane as well, and didn't want to get back on that bus either (it turns out we were on the same one). So, we are taking the river instead and kayaking to Vientiane instead tomorrow morning . I'm really looking forward to it - it's an all day affair - and I think when a novice kayaker chooses to kayak 50km to a town rather than take a 4 hour bus ride - that's an indication of the road safety standards.... If all goes well, I'll write next from there!!