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After spending 3 and a half months in Thailand...3 weeks in Laos went way too fast.
We were stalling a bit in Luang Prabang to stick around for a festival, so we decided to do an overnight trek and stay in a hill tribe. The tour was fantastic, it was only Sus and I. Our guide spoke enough english to humour us and when it was too quiet hiking he'd encourage us to keep sing. On the first day when we arrived in the village we were told to take a shower before the locals all came home from work. You'll see in the pictures why we only washed our feet. A quiet evening in the town with no electricity lead us to play cards by candle light. The next day we woke with the roosters at 4 am, watched the sunrise from the school yard on the hill then set off to hike back to the main road. We were excited for the days activities. Kayaking down the river to Tham Ting Cave, then a little farther along we got off the river at an elephant camp. I rode an elephant bare back for the first time and were taken thru a village where they make whiskey...could you imagine what we got up to that night? Alot of no good.
Back in Luang Prabang and rested after 2 eventful days we were asked to join some local tuk tuk and boat drivers for drinks and dancing by the river! Why not, right? After 2 days of dancing and drinking with these fellas we had to get out of town...they were looking for wives and loved the idea of us sticking around a bit longer.
We made our way to Nong Khaiw to break up the next leg of the trip. Before getting on a night bus for 12 hours we decided it would be a good idea to trek up a mountain. Then for the bus ride...hmmm where to begin. Well we got on the bus at 10:45 pm and the bus was over filled so they put plastic stools in the centre aisle for us to sit on. I ended up between 4 Laos ppl and they all used me as their pillow for the first 3 hours! I was just trying to balance on my stool as we wound around the steep mountain roads. Just to give u an idea of how steep and windy they are...we never went faster than 30 kms an hour for the whole trip! After 3 hours. A few locals got off and 3 of the 4 farangs(foreigners) on the bus had gotten seats...I was nice enough and let a man with an infant sit in the next available one! Couldn't watch him bounce around on the plastic stool any longer, figured I'd be in better shape to. But one of the drivers did me a favour then...he crawled onto the roof of the bus( where all the luggage etc was strapped on under a tarp) while it was still driving and grabbed a sack of rice for me to sit on. He swung it thru the window and set it up in the aisle for me as my new seat!
Very nice of him I thought! Scary to watch him crawl in and out of the window of a moving bus on those roads! But I guess he has good balance! I only had to sit n the rice for an hour until there was another seat available! So 4 hours in I finally got a chair...it's now 2:45 am and they not only turn the karaoke music back on full blast but decide that they should show the videos too! Always entertaining.
When we arrived in Sam Neua we needed a days rest before we ventured into Vietnam...lucky for us the festival and boat races that we just saw in LP was happening there this weekend. The town was completely quiet but on the way in we saw the lake where the boat racing and festivities were taking place. So we walked a half hour up the highway to check things out. We were the ONLY tourists at the celebrations that day. It was noon and we were just about to catch the end of the races. Not 5 minutes into us being on the grounds, we were pulled into a beer garden blasting the karaoke music and handed beer. We were getting tossed around the dance floor and our glasses seemed to be bottomless. The thing is Laos like to cheers, and when you cheers someone you must finish your drink...and as soon as they see your glass is empty, they refill it! We were in for a long day. One guy spoke enough english to introduce us to his village people, the race officials and the "higher ups" of the community. We were paraded around and invited to join their village for a community banquet in town later that day. The celebrating for us was brought to a halt when I realized my purse and camera were missing along with our rain jackets. Not to worry (for long) people we "knew" took them to town for us.
The next day we had a failed attempt at heading to Vietnam as the bus broke down. But luck was with us the day after, kinda. The bus to Vietnam would be 12 hours, so we rocked up at the station plenty early to get good seats. An hour of driving around town picking up locals and random envelopes filled with cash. We were off. Check out the picture of the bus and see if you can count how many people were on the bus. We were seated right behind the driver, and there were 9 people sitting in front of us, there were even 2 people hanging onto the side of the bus for the whole 12 hour trip. Every time we stopped it was like putting a puzzle together to fit everyone back in. I'm glad I have no problem sleeping while traveling, but the same can't be said for Sus:( A long 12 hours later we arrived at our destination, Thanh Hoa, Vietnam!
Its the journey, not the destination! right?!
- comments
Mom Omg on so many fronts. What an adventure. I see you took out the part about the long night fighting for the bathroom lol