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LAZY LAOS…
Crossing the boarder and arriving into Laos, and finally the capital city, Vientiane, was not without its troubles or ordeal. A fairly routine 18 hour journey turned out to be far from that. After bus number one was loaded full with rice bags along the aisle, the driver decided to reverse off a foot high ledge, busting the suspension, making the bus crash up and down against the rear wheel for the next 3 hours. When the bus could no longer take this beating, another bus was called and we waited 4 hours for the new one to arrive. This when it arrived was fine, and took us, minus the rice bags, 80km from the Vietnamese/Laos boarder before stopping for 2 hours, whilst we waited for a new bus to come. Apparently ours was not insured in Laos! So we waited, and when the new bus did arrive, it was full. So we now had to fit our full bus, and our luggage, onto another full bus with all their luggage. So that's exactly what happened. It was a squeeze, our bags went on the roof and we ended up sitting in the aisle for the next 12 hours, but we got to Vientiane in the end…just as the heavens opened!
Soaking wet, and not really knowing where to go, we found the nearest, reasonably priced guesthouse we could find, and now had a bed for the night. It was a curry and a couple of Beer Lao that night before a much deserved sleep. Deciding we were going to take things slow in Laos, visiting only 3 cities/towns, we had a lot of lazy days over the two weeks we were there. And that's how we started. We walked around the city centre, which does not have a great deal to shout about, ate some food and drank some more Beer Lao. We found a great little expat supermarket, which sold real cheddar cheese, so we made some cheese and cucumber sandwiches. With home only a couple of weeks away, food is becoming a major aspect of my thoughts! We did hire bikes one day and rode around the city. We took in the Patuxai, basically Laos' version of France's Arc de Triumphe, a couple of markets, the Presidential Palace and a few temples AKA Wats. En-route to somewhere, we stumbled across a waterpark and decided to take a dip and we hit a few skittles at the local ten-pin bowling alley. And, that's basically Vientiane in a nutshell.
Leaving The capital behind we headed north, still within the Vientiane Province, to a tiny town called Vang Vieng, famous amongst backpackers for getting drunk on whiskey buckets, throwing yourselves in a big inflatable rubber ring and cruising down 4km of river stopping at various bars along the way for more buckets, rope swings, zip lines and slides. One bar, Appropriately named 'Mud Bar' was exactly that, it had a load of massive mud pits, equipped with a volleyball net and tug of war and a couple of mud pools just to shove your mates in. Needless to say, the mix of mud and drunkenness proves quite fun. Apart from Tubing, there's not much else to do in Vang Vieng, other than lounge in one of the many bars showing endless episodes of 'Friends' and the occasional bar that might have 'Family Guy' on its screens. We spent 5 days here and put ourselves down the river twice, although quite how we made it back I'm not sure!
Leaving Vang Vieng, we headed north again along a very scenic but windy road to Laos' old capital, and now a UNESCO World Heritage City, Luang Prabang. It is without doubt the nicest city in Laos, at least that we went to, and it was another 5 lazy days here. We took in the main sites on foot within an afternoon amidst the boiling heat, consisting of yet more wats, the Palace, a stroll along the Mekong River and finally a short climb to the summit of That Phu Si Hill, offering panoramic views of Luang Prabang, built within its lush, green hills. Luang Prabang also hosts a pretty impressive night market, selling handicrafts, jewelry, paintings and all sorts of other things at bargain prices. A little tense and achy one afternoon, we decided to have a traditional Laos massage, which was basically and hour of stretching and prodding at the various pressure points around your body, but it was a fun experience and I did feel a little better afterwards..it was worth the three quid anyway! The next day we headed out of town on a 'jumbo' to Kuang Si waterfall where we were able to swim in its turquoise pools and the area also hosted a Black Asiastic Bear Rescue Centre, which was pretty cool. They used to have a tiger, but apparently it died…maybe the bears ate it! We splashed out one evening and treated ourselves to a traditional Laos BBQ at one of its best restaurants. We basically cooked it ourselves as the BBQ is set in the middle of the table as we put a combination of chicken, beef, pork and water buffalo on the grill. What we didn't account for was how hot it was going to be, and it turned out to be a pretty sweaty eat, but very enjoyable all the same.
From Luang Prabang it was an unbeliebably uncomfortable and bumby 15 hour night bus to the Loas/Thai boarder where we spent a night on the Laos side, in a town called Huay Xia, crossing the river into North Thailand the following morning...
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