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But this was of no matter because as it turned out Laos was going to be one of favourite places yet. Judging by some of the msn conversations with home it occurred to me that Laos may need a short introduction. So, very briefly, Laos is a small, landlocked country about the size of the UK. It is bordered to the north by China, to the east by Vietnam, to the south by Cambodia and to the west by Burma and Thailand. The only thing of particular note in its recent history is that it was part of French Indochina (which is great for us because there is plenty of good food available) and it was bombed massively by the Americans during the Vietnam war…
Right, so we find ourselves in Vientiane… almost the second we stepped foot in Laos the weather changed…. We were no longer followed around by the grey skies of Vietnam but were able to bask in glorious sunshine.. It was great!!!!! There was something else that we noticed almost immediately…. Everyone seemed so laid back, its hard to explain but Laos just seemed to be the most chilled out country ever… after the first day to recoup from our long journey we had a quick look round this very small city and as per normal found ourselves in a bar for the evening….
At this point it is worth mentioning that we had managed to acquire an unwanted tag along in the form of a huge Goth-like Swedish girl….. I am telling you it was scary.. If you want to picture her then imagine the honey monster crossed with some strange female
version of Marilyn Manson... I am not even exaggerating. We picked her up because she was getting touched up by some local guy on the long bus we had just been on.... Zig the consummate gentleman that he is offered to sit next to the randy Vietnamese guy and so I was treated to a rather large bus companion for the remainder of the trip....
So, back in the bar..... Those who know us will know that mine and Pete’s football knowledge is not that impressive. However, in a stroke of inspirational thinking all four of us, (me, Pete, Zig and Rich) we all begin talking about football, very quickly and with as much English slang as we could muster... Our attempt to bore the girl to death started to work and after only 45minutes she decided that she could hear no more and left!!!!! Success!!!! Within minutes... and I mean minutes.... Pete was winging his way over to some rather attractive Dutch girls sitting on the table next to us trying (as he does) to work his magic!!! After a nice (but civilized) night we agree to meet the girls again the following night.....
The next day was our final day in Vientiane and so we got stuck into some sightseeing and enjoyed the warm weather and friendly people. That night we met up with the Dutch girls again and started sinking some drinks.... Our plan was to take it easy because we were being picked up by our Bus the next day at 7am..... Taking it easy did not really work out and it ended up being a really awesome night. We found our way to a club that was on the top floor of a local hotel where Pete and Zig proceeded to work their magic"....... Zig's magic consists of some very smooth moves on the dance floor and what he continually refers to as "The Eyes"..... The eyes, (as he calls them) seemed to be working quite well this night and the first Dutch girl was under his spell....... It is worth noting that if Zig gets too drunk then 'the eyes' kinda turn into what someone in Thailand described as 'a look of a rapist'... but, for the moment it was working..... Pete's magic seems to have taken a turn for the worse on this trip.... its not that it doesn’t work (although on this occasion it didn’t) its just that he has kinda resorted to getting down on one knee confessing undying love and proposing to girls he likes... At this point please refer the to photographic evidence... This was our first proper night in Laos and it was a wicked night... We all got completely smashed and rocked up at our hotel at about 4am..... Lets just say that the alarms that we set for 6am didn’t work so we were awoken by the hotel manager banging on our door because it was now 7am and our taxi outside waiting to take us to the bus station....... s***!!!!! Pete and I leapt from our beds and hurriedly crammed everything in sight into our backpacks... chucked on last nights cloths and ran into the corridor where we ran into Zig and Rich who were also looking like standing was a challenge and we quickly proceeded to the bus station.... Check out the picture we took when we got to the bus station….. We all look pretty hanging and I can tell you, we felt it!!!!
So, on to our next destination Louang Phabang. Laos just kept getting better and better, the bus journey which was about 8 hours took us through the mountains and it was amazing!!!! The actual town of Louang Phabang is a perfectly preserved historic town that sits on the section where the Mekong meets the Nam Khan River. The town has loads and loads of charm, great food and a good crowd of backpackers. We spent the next few days chilling out and absorbing the atmosphere….. Then we decided that it was about time we got involved and booked the trek which was our reason for being in Louang Phabang….. The trek was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Trek
Day 1. We met at the office at about 8am where we were meeting our guide and we picked up out bikes. We then cycled for 50km over the next 4-5 hours…. We were travelling upstream and mostly off road so there were a lot of steep hills and gravel tracks… every now and again we would load our bikes into a small boat and hop over a river or stream. This was really tiring especially in the heat of the day. After about 5 hours we stopped at elephant lodge for a quick break and then we were off again but this time on foot. We walked for about an hour and a half until we finally reached our destination for the evening which was a small village home stay.... we had been in the village for bout 30 minutes and we could not take any more.. We were all so tired that we collapsed in a heap on the floor of our allocated shack and slept while our guide Thong prepared our dinner. After dinner we were invited to one of the other huts to enjoy some of the owner’s homemade whiskey that we named 'moonshine'. At this point we were directed towards a medium sized urn filled with what looked like swamp water and some kind decaying plant life..... As we looked hesitantly at the urn we noticed that they were plunging several very long sticks into it.... we were about to discover that these sticks were in fact..... straws!!!! Our guide then informed us that this was a local drink made from river water being drained through fermenting ummmm fruit... or something... and that we had to all drink at the same time as soon as the singing began..... So there we are, all positioned over the urn with the sticks in our mouths waiting for the singing to begin and for us to taste the fermenting broth sitting before us!!!! And so the singing began and simultaneously we all began sucking..... and to our delight the fermenting broth actually tasted ok.... not great, but not terrible either.... we keep drinking all to scared to stop while the local woman is singing but we were now draining the urn at quite a good pace.... we cast each other a look as if to say "yeah, they did not reckon upon the drinking powers of the English" and just as we were thinking that they started to fill the urn from the top while we continued to drink... This process was repeated several times until we all began to feel a little ill despite having quite a good laugh.... It was at this point that we decided to turn the tables on the local guys sitting round us!!! It was now our turn to make them drink and lets just say that we were in the mood to sing!!!! So that is how we found ourselves in the middle of a jungle in Laos singing the theme tune to 'Only Fools and Horses' while encouraging some village elders to drink more alcohol river water.... the whole night was a real surprise but totally awesome!!!!
Day 2. We started early despite the activities of the night before and rose at about 7:30 for our breakfast of cold omelette and a dry baguette.... This was to be the day of walking and man did we walk.. The plus side of this day was definitely the scenery... it was absolutely amazing; we walked through the forests and hills and we had some incredible views and some truly breathtaking sights... The weather was really clear but this also meant that the sun was beating down on us.... The one major complaint about the trek from Zig and I was that we did not feel that we had enough water.. After about 3 hours we had already drank most of the water that we had been carrying but we tried not to let this bother us..... approaching hour five we were now becoming hungry especially Pete who was particularly keen to get some food down.... Finally we stopped at a little shack that was sitting on its own in the middle of a clearing... Thong lay down four huge leaves and got out our lunch... This consisted of a large handful of sticky rice two boiled eggs each and then two tins of mackerel between the five of us..... not exactly the lunch we had
been hoping for but it was all completely gone within minutes.. So after our refuelling we set off again... this time we were finally heading downhill which should have been better but for some reason when you are tired, steep downhill’s are actually quite challenging...
about an hour on from here we were all absolutely boiling again and sweating like crazy.... fortunately we were just around the corner from a calm open pool on the river which was just too inviting to pass up.... we could not even be bothered to put our swimming shorts on and we just decided to jump in naked...... It was great!!!!! there was no opportunity to shower on the trek and we had been carrying everything we needed for the three days in one small bag each so the chance to jump into a freezing cold river was fantastic.... After feeling much fresher and substantially cooler we finished off the 50 minutes or so walk to the second village. On the way we passed a green snake that had just been killed by one of the villagers but apart from that the rest of the day was quite chilled out.
Day 3. Another early morning start was at an easy pace back to elephant lodge where we had been two days earlier. From here we picked up the first of the days methods of transportation which in this case was two large Asian elephants.... This was great... I had only ever ridden a horse once in my life and that was when I was 4... now we found ourselves on the back of huge elephants for over an hour going up and down hills and wading through a river... it was so cool and a much more relaxing form of transportation than what we had become accustomed to.....
The ordeal was not quite over... after the elephant ride we still had to retrace the 50km that we had done on bikes at the start of the trek... fortunately our bikes were no longer there so we had to cover the distance in kayaks..... I got a Kayak with Pete and Zig and Rich got one as well..... over the next 4 hours we paddled our way down the river and reflected on the past three days. It was great.... made even better when Zig and Richcapsized their Kayak on one of the rapids.... this actually made mine and pete's day as we laughed continually all the way back to the town!!!!!
Vang Vieng
This was our final destination in Laos.... this town is tiny with no historic or cultural significance of any sort.... In fact its only real purpose is to cater for backpackers in search of a bar!! and it was exactly what we were looking for!!!!! The main attraction of Vang Viang is what they imaginatively call "Tubing". What happens is that they take you about 2 miles upriver from the town put you in a large inner tube and float you down the river....... Does not sound too interesting, however.... there are makeshift bars all along the way... if you are in need of a beer you simply shout to one of the people on the shore and they throw you a line and pull you over... you can either get out and enjoy the music and cable slides or just take your beer and carry on down the river.. let me tell you that this is a great way to spend a few hours on a hot day!!!!! after tubing we hit the town and became acquainted with buckets of Sang Som..... this is crazy stuff that makes you do strange and interesting things..... on this particular evening Pete decided he did not want to pull the nice Dutch girl that had been giving him so much attention on the river and instead decided to collapse in the corner of the bar.... later I had to enlist the help of some random Argentinean guy who helped me to carry Pete home (the Argentinean left very swiftly after Pete tried to kiss him)............. all this fun was only a prelude to what was to follow in Thailand.....
The next day we boarded a bus at the start of a 24 hour journey all the way back to Bangkok to get my old house mate Tim. This was now 2 months after we had been there to pick up Zig!!!!
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