Luang Prabang > Vientiane

Has it really been 7 days since I last wrote something? Doesn’t feel like it but hey ho, suppose anybody who is still reading this deserves something to brighten their day. Luang Prabang was pleasant enough, went out to a waterfall one day which was nice or would have been if it wasn’t for the pouring rain. The best part of the 4 days I spent there was getting up just before 6am to see the monks walking down the road receiving alms from the local people. Other than that it was a fairly relaxing few days, without embarking on a tour and I haven’t got the money left for those kind of extravagances, it was pretty hard to get out of town and into the hills.

I left Luang Prabang for Vang Vieng. For those of you who don’t know Vang Vieng has become a kind of backpackers mecca over the past few years…and not particularly in a good way in my opinion. It is the essentially the center for adventure sports in Laos so there are some great opportunities for kayaking, caving and all that jazz. At the same time is also has a huge drug problem and I do mean big. Not in the way of one of London’s tougher neighborhoods but in that there are countless cafes/restaurants/bars that just play endless repeats of Friends on the TV for the doped out masses. I’ve got nothing against the people who do it…..actually I do but let’s disregard that…but it just ruins the place. Young travelers drinking opium spiked tea, eating ‘space’ pizzas or whatever else the chef has decided to spike don’t exactly make the place appealing. Tubing down the river complete with bars on the side is one of SE Asia’s ‘rites of passage’ but both the girl I met up with again in Vientiane from Luang Prabang and I didn’t bother. Mostly because doing it by yourself would suck but for a couple of other reasons as well. I only ended up going to Vang Vieng to break up the journey down to Vientiane and for that it was worth it but other than that it was a pointless stopover.

Vientiane is the capital of Laos and you would hardly call it bustling with life. A population of just over 200,000 people in a fairly big area gives the impression that the city is empty most of the time. Vientiane is the one city where the French influence on Laos is nearly impossible to escape from. From the street names to bakeries, the language to the impossibly ugly rip off of the Arc De Triomophe, French influence can be seen everywhere. Not that that is a bad thing of course…especially in terms of food. Last night I found a restaurant in what appeared to be a wine cellar taken straight out of Provence complete with aging overweight French chef who did nothing but walk around talking obnoxiously to his customers whilst chain smoking filter less cigarettes. But I did have a 3 course meal for a fiver consisting of french onion soup, a superbly cooked steak with 3 different sauces and a fruit salad……Poirot I salute you.

Other than eating rather better than I am used to I visited the Buddha Staue Park for a couple of hours yesterday. This place is basically the result of some crazy man who decided that his mission in life would be to create religious statues out of concrete and plonk them all in a field. Pretty cool actually for the most part but you couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something just a little but ‘wrong’ about the whole thing. The guy got chucked out of Laos a number of years back and did the same thing just across the river in Nong Khai (Thailand) so I might check out that one in a few days as well.

I think I’ll spend another day or two here finishing things off and then head across the river back into Thailand. My plan to go to Angkor Wat for a couple of days was scuppered when I realised how expensive it would be to get to Siam Reap and then fly back to Bangkok in time for my flight to Hong Kong. Not to mention the $30 dollar per day entrance fee, so I have put that one aside for the future. I don’t want to spend 5 days in Bangkok so will probably get there, dump all my stuff in storage and then leave for 2 or 3 days with just a day pack to explore Ayutthaya the old capital, the floating markets and maybe depending on if I have time the infamous Bridge Over the River Kwai. So I should be keeping busy.

Will let you all know how it goes!

x

We all Live in a Green Treehouse

I just got back from the Gibbon Experience, it was…interesting. Before I start this rant I should say that in the dry season my experience would probably have been much better but in the rainy season it was pretty much a complete waste of $200.

We arrived at the office in the morning and were kept waiting until after we were meant to leave for somebody to actually open the place up. The short safety video that we watched was not exactly what you might call comprehensive considering the activities we would actually be doing, then again this is Laos so I guess it could have been a lot worse – at least they had a safety video! The lady in the office was moody as hell and did not seem interested in any questions that we had.

We loaded up the truck and drove for 2 hours towards the reserve. This is where the problems started. There were a couple of small notices in the office informing anybody who accidentally stumbled upon them that in the rainy season the truck may not be able to cross the river, in which case participants would be required to walk for 5-7 hours to reach the camp. Fair enough you might say – they have warned us about the possibility. The problem is that they just don’t tell you exactly what this walk will entail. It took us 5 hours to reach the village just outside the main part of the jungle along a road that anybody not of decent fitness would have seriously struggled. So we reach the village, rest up for 10 minutes and then have another 1 and a half hour trek across the fields and through the jungle to the first treehouse, by this time it was 4.30pm and we had been walking/trekking for over 5 hours. Awesome we are here everyone thought; alas we had another 2 and a half hours to go following what we supposed to be a track though it was impossible to tell.By the time we had got there just before 8pm everybody was shot to pieces, I had absolutely nothing left to give. There was no warning of just how hard the trekking would be, we had some fit people in our group and they were in the same position as me. Everybody fell over at least 5 times and towards the end in the dark it was a miracle that nobody was seriously injured, if they had been then I have no idea what we would have done to get them out. After showering (if you can call it that) and generally tidying ourselves up we opened up the Tiffin box containing our dinner for 8 people. The first night consisted of cabbage, rice, boiled cucumbers, something else cabbage like with a few chunks of potentially rat meat and carrots. After 9 hours of walking with only a crappy sandwich provided by the company that was what we were meant to eat to replace our energy, oh sorry I forgot we also had green tea and ovaltine. On first sight there was barely enough food there for 4 people let alone 8 adults who had spent a day like we had, it turned out that the lack of food was not that much of a problem as its complete blandness/awfulness did not exactly encourage people to have seconds. I ate a packet of Oreos I had bought with me.

We did a couple of zip lines on that first day in between long stretches of jungle walking. It is a pretty cool way to get around it must be said but the first time was a slightly nerve racking experience! Clip the safety line onto the cable followed by the roller and very rudimentary braking system and basically just run off the edge the platform! Before you know it you are flying at a brisk pace with the canopy below you and the odd tree branch smacking you in the face, it gives you a great buzz. The zip lines on the first day were pretty good but by the end it was dark and zipping in the dark is not quite so much fun…..incidentally it was also the only thing the safety video was clear you shouldn’t do.

The second day was more like what we had expected, even though breakfast consisted of exactly what we had for dinner the night before. We had a 2 hour walk through the jungle interspersed with one or two zip lines before arriving at a waterfall and natural swimming pool. The swim was gratefully received and one of the few times we felt just about normal for the entire three days. Some suitable calls of ‘CANNONBALL’ from the rocks meant that when we went for lunch everyone was feeling good. Then lunch arrived, one again it was cabbage, cabbage, a few boiled potatoes and some rice. We did however find a chili plant growing nearby so we plucked them off and chopped them into everything we had to give it at least some flavor. Boy are freshly picked birds eye chilies hot!

A bit more walking led us to the best part of the three days, 3 long zip lines with only a 10 minute walk between them, this was quite simply incredible. If you can imagine yourself flying about 150m from the floor over the canopy for 300 meters or so then would be just about there. Nothing to stop you from falling apart from your safety rope if the roller somehow became disconnected, to the right and left were endless trees shrouded in mist with the odd treehouse just in view. Over those 3 zips the Tarzan call and I became firm friends! This was a lot more like it; the first day almost seemed worth going through to do this. The group of 8 had split at this point as our treehouse only had room for 6. So 2 people ended up in a small treehouse a fair while away, not actually that bad a thing for them considering they were a couple and it was the girls birthday – “Hey son, did your mother and I ever tell you about where you were conceived?” Anyway the treehouse the rest of us had had the most amazing view, absolutely stunning. Unfortunately it also had a population of spiders rivaling that of your local zoo, along with a couple of rats who popped up now and then, big jungle cockroaches and something that looked like a grasshopper on steroids with 3 sets of wings. Certain members of the group did not sleep that well! The discovery these creatures of the night came just after it began to pour down with rain and we resigned ourselves to another long, long walk back to the main road in the morning, all in all not a good half an hour!

Our fears were confirmed the next morning when we were told we would be walking the 8 hours or so back to the main road. It was actually easier than on the first day, maybe because we expected it but mostly because we stuck to the dirt track and didn’t have to spend so much time inside the jungle I think. Anyway we trudged on through the rain, waist high rivers and Glastonbury style mud before eventually getting back to the road around 5pm. All in all the experience was not worth the $200 that we all paid for it. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the place to someone in the dry season but at this time of year the effort of getting there and around outweighs the fun aspect of the trip. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the company provided a bit more information about the trekking aspect, discounted the price during the low season to take into account the day that you lose inside the camp itself or was just a bit more organised. Still it was good fun at times.

Caught a two day boat from Huay Xai down to Luang Prabang down the Mekong. Not the most relaxing of journeys thanks to being jammed into the long boat like a pack of sardines but this was at least partly offset by the stunning scenery we had for the entire trip. Completely forrested hills on either side of the river interspersed with small villages and lone huts. We had an overnight stop in a random village where I was enlisted by a restaurant guy to write a sign in english telling people why they should come to his restaurant. After eating the food I wish I hadn’t been so complimentery but at least I got a free bottle of lao-lao out of it. Weather and boat were both much better on the second day the only thing that spoiled it was the rather large loudmouthed girl with an absolutely hideous Dublin accent sitting just behind me. Sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it!

Luang Prabang is pretty nice, really quiet and peaceful for the most part and with loads and loads of Wats (temples) to explore. Not that I have the patience for any old temple after all this time but some of them have turned out to be pretty nice. Will stay here a couple of days and then head down to Vientiene for a bit before *hopefully* going to Cambodia for a couple of days to look around Angkor Wat before heading back to Bangkok around the 24th to catch my flight to Hong Kong. But I will be sure to write something before then so don’t despair!

x

Meanwhile on the otherside of the Mekong………

So I have switched countries again and am now lounging around in Laos.  Last couple of days in Chiang Mai were ok, fair few people to hang around with so all was good.  The final day of the cookery course was again a success, though slightly less so seeing as I managed to slice the tip of my finger off (well a good portion of my fingerprint anyway).  Not much else to report on Chiang Mai, took a trip out to the zoo which although relatively modern did little to float my boat, the lion enclosure was a disgrace.  The main reason for taking the trip out there though was to see the pair of pandas that Thailand has on loan from China.  All pandas in captivity are technically loaned out by the Chinese for silly amounts of money, but process had led to a much better understanding of how to look after pandas in zoos.  They were certainly the best looked after animals in the zoo anyway.  I’d never seen a panda before and after seeing the quality ‘Kung Fu Panda’ at the cinema in Bangkok I thought now would be as good a time as any!  Very cute looking, except for the photo on the wall that showed the pair doing it ‘panda style’ if you get my drift……nudge nudge wink wink and all that.

Left Chiang Mai yesterday afternoon and took a public bus to Chiang Khong, the nearest border point with Laos on the western edge of the Mekong River.  Quite a strange experience sorting it out yourself as pretty much everybody just books a package with a guesthouse that includes the bus, food, night in Chiang Khong and the slow boat down to Luang Prabang (main Laos city nearest to the border).  Got some strange looks from people along the lines of ‘independent travel, huh? How did you sort that out?’…..enough said really.  Anyway woke up and went to the border this morning, got across without a hitch apart from the $12 fine I had for overstaying my visa by one day.  The boats used to cross the river are completely flat bottomed so you are no more than about 8 inches from the water, you should be able to see that in the pictures.  It is only a 2 minute trip over the river but definitely the best way to cross a border, quite exciting!

Have manged (through a bit of luck) to get myself on the Gibbon Experience for the next 3 days .  This is basically a series of treehouses built in the rainforest that according to the disclaimer I signed earlier can be anything up to 100-150m up in the canopy!  That’s a hell of a big tree but will see when I get there tomorrow.  You do a bit of hiking through the forest, possibly 7 hours on the first day if you cannot cross the road using a truck but your mode of transport mostly consists of a series of zip lines that have been erected throughout the National Park!  Again the disclaimer I signed my life away to earlier says that you have to be prepared for lines that are up to (but not excluding anything else) 150m high and 1000m long!  That is a heck of a zip line!  It was pretty pricey at nearly 100 quid but for 3 days and the overall experience it should be worth it hopefully!

After that I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.  Definitely be taking the slow overnight boat from Huay Xai at the border to Luang Prabang and will probably stay there for a week or so, maybe do a trek.  I should be meeting up with someone from Chiang Mai for a week or two to go down through Laos so a bit depends on that.

Other than this there is not much else left to say!  So I will see you when I get back in a couple of days!  Oh and obviously my phone will not work out there so I’ll be out of contact from tomorrow morning (saturday) until Monday afternoon.  Need to sort out a Laos SIM as well, but my Thai one still works here at the moment as the border is only 100m away.

xx