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Laos - Luang Prabang: Dave's Entry
Morning Home. So this will be reaching you Sunday Morning, I would hope that most of you would still be in bed. Unfortunatly I haven't been afforded such luxury with a grand total of 6 hours sleep in the last 48 hours. Though that's a story that can wait a moment.
After our last blog entry we have been very busy indeed, going out of Vietnam, through Laos and now finally through the other side to Chiang Mai in Thailand. The day following the last entry was spent climbing into the cultural delights on offer in Hanoi. After a steady lie in enjoying the comforts of the dorm duvet we headed for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleoum, not before offending many a siclo and motorbike driver though with our unreasonably low haggling attempts. As we finally manged to drop the price to a mark near our valuation we drove off with half of downtown Hanoi glaring at us.
Our motorbike driver, the self proclaimed "Valentino Rossi" of Hanoi certainly got us around quickly, though unfortunatly on a couple of occasions we sacrificed safety for speed. (Not anything to worry about though parents). The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was quite a building, somewhat ironic though that a supposed Socialist country can afford to build such lavish monuments while a few kilometres away the people are living dangerously below the poverty line. Anyway fuelled on by my Chicken burger lunch which consisted of effectivly a chicken strip and 5 chips we mastered the museums in the afternoon. The Ho Chi Minh museum was certainly fascinating, it's blatant use of propaganda was both worrying and amusing. A collection of extracts from Uncle Ho's testament certainly made me question a few things though, well worth a visit to any interested in politics & history. A sweeping visit of the one pillar pagoda and Valentino scooted us to the other side of town and to the temple of literature, we strolled around the serene and calm gardens amazed at how well kept the temple is. It is proclaimed to be the first national University of Vietnam and it certainly would have made a fine place to study the Confucian curriculum!
Tired but enhanced we headed back for the hostel. An early night followed due to the early morning flight we were scheduled to be on the next morning. When your travelling it's funny how everyday produces a whole catalouge of stories, some interesting, some funny, some scary and some that make you shake your head in quiet, sickened remembrance. This was one of them. Due to fly at 8.30 am we arrived at the airport at 7.45. This was mainly due to poor punctuality on our part but it certainly wasn't aided by the return 20 minutes into the journey to the hostel to gather forgotten passports and being stuck with the slowest taxi driver on the continent. We were running like madmen through the airport, having to deal with unhelpful and disinterested staff. The funniest moment had to be me running post security to the gate directly ahead, the other end of the departure lounge. An all time record 100 metres time smashing my previous best of a timid 15 seconds saw me arrive at an empty gate, i thought it was all over. We had missed it. It was 7.58 am. Only to find out that two minutes later, the gate opened and the swarms of passengers i had sprinted past in the departure lounge had casually arisen from their seats, strolled to the gate and formed and orderly queue behind me. Certainly recieved some confused looks whilst boarding.
A 50 minute flight and we were touching down in Vietnam with a lovely welcome gesture of a $35 visa fee to pay upon arrival. Brilliant. Anyway, we were there, that was the relief. We headed for our guesthouse, left the all you can eat breakfast buffet beyond recognition and headed out on bicycles, with flowers on, to explore the capital of Laos, Vientiane. We had a grand afternoon, it was an absolute scorcher and despite the unrelenting heat and my bicycle which broke ten plus times we still managed to see the big highlights of the city. We saw the Laos version of the Arc de Triumph, The Golden Stupa and the revolutionary monument. It was a gorgeous afternoon and the monuments certainly lived up to the hype. The golden stupa in paticular was just outstanding with the suns rays gleaming off its immaculate surface. A nice chilled out evening was had watching the sunset with a large, cold Lao Beer over the water artery of this region, the Mekong Delta, not even the JCB's in the foreground could spoil that sunset for me.
The next day and we were on the move again, a smooth 3 hour bus journey to Vang Vieng was only interrupted by the unfortunate event of a man hitting a cow on his motorbike. Both parties luckily avoided injury, the cow trudged off, the man stood rubbing his elbows. Fortunatly the delay was a minor one and progress to the tubing hotspot was not held up for too long. The afternoon we arrived we headed straight for the tubing and the bars along the river, we had ourselves a wonderfull afternoon before floating down river, freezing cold but in the awe of the limestone giants casting their long shadow over our progress. The bars certainly were of a rowdy nature, with huge towers looming over the river inviting insane jumping opportunities which we certainly indulged in, free whisky available and plenty of speakers of the booming kind. A party unsurpassed by anything i have experienced before, it certainly goes down as an experience. 21st birthday party plans for Vegas might have to be revised infact post the tubing experience.That evening our escepades of the drunken kind continued at the Q bar which was packed full of tubers, unified by beer and a sense of comradeship due to all jumping off dangerously high wooden towers we enjoyed the rest of the evening, dancing franticly to the sounds of more Western beats.
A pattern was to follow the next day in so much as that we were on the move again, this time a 7 hour bus to Luang Prabang. To be honest my memory of that journey is vague at best. Upon arrival though we were active and searched out the bargain street vendors in the night market for a vegetarian buffet of epic proportions. A tired pair we headed for the retreat of bed and hoped that tommorrows trip to the waterfalls would be a pleasing one.
It certainly was. We got up early to sample the delights of nearby temples and the famous Wat Xieng Thong monastry which was an excellent decision. It's essential that you still take the time to admire these architectural masterpieces even when you have seen a copius amount of the sort. Temples are cool, thats just a fact. The tree of life mosaic in paticular was very special indeed, and Sam's claims that it was much similar to the tree of gondor only added to the spectacle. Hot from the morning sun a trip to the waterfalls was just about right. We went swimming at every opportunity despite the freshness of the crystal clear water. We had some awesome moments basking in the afternoon sun atop of floating trees. If only i could have taken a photo of that moment, although I'm sure it will stick with me. Our ideology that jumping off things into water is both an enjoyable and entertaining excercise was continued when after climbing a large slippery tree I jumped off into the blue lagoon below using the aid of a well worn rope swing. Unfortunatly my back sufferred from the blow it recieved when hitting the water at near terminal velocity, questions relating to wether i had potential sunburn were quickly dismissed. The real classic moment though was climbing the waterfall and ending up looking out onto the lush highlands surrounding the area and the water flowing and crashing down on the rocks below. I took a silly amount of photos and now i'm paying for it with the slow upload speeds. Note to self, don't be tempted into becoming a happy snapper.
The day was topped off by climbing the mountain temple of Mount Phusi in the city to watch sunset. The hoards of tourists come professional photographers merely served as a mild annoyance, one that couldn't impede on the beauty of the landscape unfolding for miles around before us. A nice sandwich, a packet of oreos and i was ready to board the bus, knowing it wouldn't be a good 24 hours until we arrived in Chiang Mai in Thailand.
The bus was the second most unpleasant travelling experience of my life. We chose it based on price and the advice that despite a few potholes it was a managable journey. Wrong Mr Hostel Advisor come fellow backpacker man. It was insane, sleep was limited to 5 hours of constant interruption and banging. My daybag served as my pillow and my hoodie as the duvet to safeguard me from the threat of the unrelenting freeze of the air conditioning. You know it's probably not going to be a good ride when your literally catching air time from being flung up into the air about an hour into the journey. Luckily I found a companion in a very generous man from Laos who shared one of his two Lao beers with me, we cracked them open, had a toast and sat enjoying the warm beer in total peaceful harmony as the bus continued to bolt and the countryside whizzed past in the darkness. He didn't speak a word of english.
You know what, that might just be the finest beer I have ever had. Such a defining memory of Laos, at such a fitting time. Those are the stories you go travelling to be a part of.
We finally arrived in Chiang Mai after a boat accross the Mekong and another 6 hour bus, we have been busy already booking our 3 day trek for tommorrow. Things over the next week or so are going to be hectic, sleep could be lacking but what matters is that we are making the most of it, every single day.
Hope your all Well and Happy.
David.
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Laos - Sam's Entry
Such a shame we only got to stay here for short of a week.
The pressure of getting to Singapore next month has made us brutally selective about where we spend our time now - some of the things we saw and did in Laos were hard to walk away from, but we are self-classified "power-travellers"; getting up early, doing everything worth doing in a day then getting a rickity night bus to save money on accomodation.
Getting into Laos was an expensive struggle. Having naively assumed the nice Laos border police would let us in, we were charged a very expensive visa fee, where we were escorted to an ATM with confiscated passports. $35 later, we were heading towards the heart of Vientiane, capital of Laos. It's the quietist capital I've ever seen!... I'd probably go as far as to say it's as small as Rochester. We booked into a hostel and engorged ourselves on free breakfast (they will rue the day they gave an Englishman 'all you can eat' buffet).
Eager to explore the city, we hired bicycles - the fact mine had pink flowers on was a small price to pay, because Dave's bike chain was the mother of all failures, and we had to do about 6 roadside repairs. Luckily, loads of friendly locals swaggered over full of bike-knowledge and bravado. I've uploaded a photo of the offending vehicle. During our little tour we bumped into some old friends from the previous tour, and also some Swedes we keep meeting everywhere! we saw several temples, the names of which are beyond my capacity to type or say, but they were really awe-inspiring, especially the golden stupa which is on the banknotes of the Laos currency and, for good reason, is Lao's national symbol.
We spent the evening on the river bank trying the local Lao Beer and watching the sun go down. I also tucked into the Laos speciality, "Laap", a super spicy beef mince and mint dish. Going to find out how to cook it at home!
I'm saving my writing for Vang Vien really - the only thing Laos is properly famous for among the travelling community is the drunken watersport of "Tubing" - the act of getting in a rubber ring and letting the river take you downstream, passing bars along the way. We were fully aware of the gross crime against ecotourism we were committing but the way we saw it, it was a neccessary evil. We bought our rubber rings and got a tuk tuk to the top of the river where the bar parties were at - it really was the maddest party I've seen since being away. Whisky was unlimited and free, and there were trapezes and 25-foot death jump towers along the river. I had a go on the trapeze before drinking too much, a good plan because of the severe bellyflop dunkings I saw! Jumping off the death tower was brilliant - got more airtime than even jumping off the ship in Ha Long Bay. We swam back to the bar to be greeted with mass cheering and a few people throwing drink on us and trying to spraypaint us. This was hilarious but we decided to move on downriver so see what else was going on. In hindsight this was a poor choice because the first 3 bars were the only party venues... but we were among the few to actually complete the river trip, see the great mountain scenery and get our deposit back! it was hard leaving Vang Vieng, and we mulled over staying another day when we went to the bar that night, but decided that greater things await and invested money to get away early in the morning.
I would like to write a short and emotional farewell to the following items that were claimed by the river due to the force of repeated diving and drink/swimming combinations: my trusty Ben Sherman watch of 2 years... all the photos of family and friends I took away with me... and my Cambodian 'Angkor Beer' T-shirt. Luckily all sort of replaceable (just have to get new friends...)
However, I did gain something. Another box I can tick - 'watching myself being bitten by a mosquito'. While I was washing the mud off my feet about 5 of them attacked my arms and front, and the next morning I discovered about 11 bites. Let's hope the malaria tablets are doing their job.
We arrived in Louang Probang pretty late, and Dave managed to negotiate a room for a ridiculous $2.50... the first room has a flooded bathroom so after kicking up a fuss we got moved to another one. I tried Laos coffee in the morning and regretted it somewhat. We boosted to a few brilliant temples (pictures uploaded!) before doing what we really wanted to do in the city, which was the waterfall trek. True to form, we enjoyed climbing up a massive slope for a few hours, stopping to strip off and dive into ice cold, aquamarine rock pools along the way. One of the pools had a rope swing which was a job to grab hold of but after a few attempts we were merrily swinging round into the water. Our attempts were somewhat overshadowed by a group of Canadian boys (Canadians are so outdoorsy, it's unfair) who started doing backflips. Oh well. We ran up the mountain to get the blood pumping again, and got some spectacular views out of it.
Thank you for the insane zoom function on my Olympus camera, which defeated the crooning heads of so many tourists when we climbed up the big mountain in Louang Probang on our last Laos evening. The hill had around 400 steps and we knew we were in for something good (climbing up things and jumping off things are becoming our goal in life, it seems). We watched the sun set on this mountain and I've never seen anything like it really. I hope the picture I just put on does it some justice.
Our last few hours in town were a mad dash to buy as many Pringles and baguettes as possible for the death bus because we needed to offload our Kip, which is a closed currency. I got a few dollars for the remaining Kip which later saved my life, but that's another story. The baguettes in Laos are something else - rammed full of mayo and salad, more or less anything you want inside (except real cheese - they only understand cheese to be Laughing Cow).
So my last comment is on the death bus.
The worst ride I've ever been on.
The seats were constructed for pygmies, the air conditioning should be a new form of torture and the road was more like falling down a landslide for 12 hours - my whole body was flung up in the air a few times. Due to the fact nothing can ever be worse than yesterday night, I will never complain about transport again (this is a lie).
Our plan this week is very frantic and strict. We're going to do a 3 day trek in Chang Mai with the elephants, bus down to Bangkok and see the bridge over the River Kwai, before going straight back to Bangkok and bussing down to Krabi, the beach resort in the south islands. This involves several days of travel, and, as we're accustomed to, will not be comfortable at all. But then, the rewards are so massive it's hardly worth grumbling about.
Still loving life, and thinking about what it all means. I think I want to be a travel writer. Or a food critic.
Chonk Dii!!
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