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Chiang Mai-> Chiang Kong
Having spent a few days attempting to plan what I'd be doing in the rest of Asia and failing miserably at making anything that vaguely resembled an actual plan, I was very glad to start my organized-by-someone else stray bus. I paid my bill at SK House 2 (fairly sure they can't count and only charged me for half the nights, but they didn't seem to agree, so what can you do?) and headed over to Manee House to get the bus- woooooooooo! I wasn't on my own for long, as about 2 minutes after I sat down, a girl called Kirsty came and joined me and we got chatting. The bus left on time which is always a good start and everyone seemed pretty friendly. I chatted to Kirsty and Maegan on the bus, and a little to John, Fabien and Lasse and was generally glad to be with a bunch of happy, easy going people with absolutely no effort on my part whatsoever! Ha! We drove towards Chiang Kong, on the border, stopping to see the stunning white temple on the way- I am already a little templed out, but this one was so interesting as it was all painted white, with bits of silver and mirrors inlaid into the walls on the outside and religion meets modern day western culture murals on the inside. The idea of the temple was that one side represented hell, with pits of hands clawing up at the sky and all kinds of 'evil' things- alcohol, the terminator (!) etc, then you walk up a path into the temple and towards 'heaven', leaving all the bad things behind, emerging through a back door cleansed of all your sins. Inside the main building, the back wall was painted with all sorts of bad things (there was a face, possibly the devils'? Can't remember! Which had a picture of Bin Laden in one eye and George Bush in the other!) and on the other wall, a mural symbolic of heaven and all things good. The building itself was stunning and the sculptures and murals really interesting- it could almost have been an art gallery. Even the toilets were in a crazily elaborate golden building!
We continued our journey to Chiang Kong and were all pretty grateful to reach the border town and get our first glimpse of Laos across the Mekong River. Simon (the group leader) suggested meeting for dinner in an hour or 2 and was instantly shot down by a very grumpy and hungry Fabien who said something like 'we're on the bus for 6 hours and you really want to wait another 2 hours for dinner? Really?' which was pretty entertaining! Needless to say, we went for dinner about 45 minutes later… We found a strange little restaurant to eat in, where we struggled to get them to take our orders and lots of people started to get food before we'd all even ordered. We listened to a local Elvis with a sore throat sing and gyrate, whilst Tod and Michael entertained with their dancing! The other singer (a lady) took a bit of a fancy to Simon and kept hanging around behind him, complementing him with gems like 'you have a beautiful eye'…
We woke up nice and early (after very little sleep due to some very loud and consistent music coming, according to the guest house staff, from Laos- must be handy, having a whole other country to blame, so close by!) to banana pancakes (and everyone singing banana pancakes) and walked down to the river to be first in line to cross the border. We were almost first, and a few locals decided to push in front which was annoying, but aside from one of the border control people (there were only 2) choosing the moment they opened to have a chat on the phone (typically the man I was queuing up to see), we got a boat and crossed to Laos without too much trouble. Somehow I managed to be the only one who got off the boat straight into the actual river, soaking my shoes and my trousers up to my knees… genius move.
To say the border control/ visa on arrival system is a mess really is an understatement- judging by the fact that thousands of people to try to cross the border every day, you really would think they'd have it sussed. Instead, you have to queue to collect a visa application form and Laos arrival card before finding a spare bit of ground to sit on whilst you frantically fill them in. You then queue again (to see the same lone man) so that your passport, forms and a photo can be taken and put on the table next to the man. He then decides, whenever he likes, to pass the pile of passports to a dining room table behind him, on which is sat 4 or 5 confused looking people with no sense of urgency and the liking for a good natter. They all take a good look at the stack and pass them on to the next person to do the same. Eventually, someone takes the passport and puts a visa sticker inside (as slowly as possible) and again, when a suitable stack has built up, they are passed to another lady at a tiny window who holds the passport (picture page) up to the window, nice and low so that only the person at the very front of the crowd can see who it belongs to. If no one collects it instantly, it goes into another pile, and so on… You then have a chance to buy some Laos kip and become a millionaire (the first chance really for all, as nowhere else seems to carry Laos kip for you to change your other currency to). Did I mention that these 3 single windows, plus the one for the people who have pre-sorted visas, are all arranged around a sort of courtyard area which must measure all of about 2 and a half meters square. That's Asia for you! We all managed to get through within about an hour and a half, which is apparently the quickest Simon's ever get a whole group through which really does say something considering we were almost the first there and beat the major crowds…
We walked up to our lovely orange stray bus for the first time and met our local guide (apparently called Porn…hmm…) and set off on another long bus trip towards Luang Namtha. Most of this journey was spent sharing silly travel stories with Lasse, a very funny guy from Norway, tricking him into taking my rubbish, being leant on whilst he slept and accidentally elbowing him in the face whilst I slept! We arrived, checked in to our guest house and went next door for a coffee. Somehow, the wind managed to blow the menu, which knocked over and smashed my glass, spilling the contents all over Kirsty… woops! We went for dinner nearby and binned off the Chinese disco for an early night.
Next it was on to Luang Namtha, stopping along the way for lunch (at 10.30?!?! I decided not to eat and to wait until we arrived instead, which I was told was just another 2 hours and ended up being about 6 more hours!) so me, Kirsty and Michael (one of the funniest people I have ever met- a quirky camera assistant from Melbourne with the slowest, most monotonous voice I've ever heard and the most amazing timing with his comments) went to explore the local market instead, finding some proper gems- hula hoops for back fat reduction (the previous night's lunges to fit into my jeans only did so much!), some beautiful bags with Burka Barbie on them, some TVs from the 70s, etc. Michael bought what looked like a children's top (but amazingly did just about fit!) and then later in a Chinese supermarket (after being yelled at that they had to pay in American dollars not Kip) Michael bought some milk tablets, which he ate like sweets and Kirsty bought some fairly safe looking chocolate balls, which apparently tasted like old chewing gun (she shared them around to everyone she could give one to, who all came back asking what on earth they were meant to be). After another few hours driving, we stopped for a bit to walk through a small roadside village, which was strange as all the adults were out working in the field and it felt like a bizarre parentless place with children playing in the road and helping their siblings to shower outside by the road. I enjoyed the rest of the ride as there were lots of small villages like this one, which we passed quickly but it was interesting to see a tiny snapshot of these people's lives- a man leaving out of a window, a lady squatting in a doorway, women sleeping by shop stalls until the next customer arrived, children giving each other piggy backs… Nong Kiaw itself was absolutely beautiful- we stayed in little huts on a hill at the side of the Mekong, where me, Kirsty and Nick sat on the sand (after a bit of frog catching on my part), watching the 3 other English boys attempt to swim against the tide of the river. We had dinner and a few drinks before being told to go to bed by the owners as it was quiet. Amazingly, Lasse actually got up at 7am to see us off as he hopped off the bus (very sad), which was sweet.
Nong Kiaw ->Luang Prabang
I'd started to actually really enjoy the bus rides through all the little villages- all the houses are at the side of the road, balancing on a few sticks, over big valleys and ditches so you get a glimpse of all the villagers' lives as you go past. Pretty cool. En route, we stopped at some slightly standard caves with some statues and stuff in them. I wasn't that interested to be honest and the highlight for me was probably some random Japanese woman looking at me, pointing, getting very excited and then having her photo taken with me. Glad to know the people here understand my rightful place amongst the famous! Ha!
Luang Prabang was one of the places I'd opted to hop off the bus for a few days, as had about half of the rest of the bus. Always good- means you made a good choice :-) We headed straight away to the famous and stunningly beautiful waterfall- the photos in no way do it justice- theres almost transluscent turquoise water everywhere, gushing from hundreds of different levels into refreshing cold water pools. Really nice! We had a quick walk to a higher level to get some good piccies and went back for a swim in the lower pool- people jumped off the waterfall into the water (not me, sorry) and got crepes from a stall at the market before ehading off back to town to find dinner at the local night market food stand- basically a bunch of ladies with big tables stuffed full of all sorts of pre-cooked platters of noodles, rice, various veg (even brocolli!!!!!!! SO HAPPY!), spring rolls etc (and a few with crazy stuff like pigs' heads, chickens' heads and chickens' feet... we won't talk about those)- you get given a plate and the idea is to cram as much as you can on it- dinner and a game all in one! Once you've made your food mountain, you hand it to the lady who re-fries the lot to heat it up, at which point you get her to balance a few prawn crackers on top! All that for the equivalant of less than a pound (sorry no button for that on my laptop).
Luang Prabang, like much of Laos, has an 11pm curfew- everything shuts (almost everything anyway) and everyone goes home to bed. The only things that stay open after this are bowling (totally normal bowling alley, very out of place in cambodia) and the chinese disco. After a wander around the night market and a few drinks at Eutopia, we opted for bowling. Many people may be aware that my bowling skills are second to none (if you don't play it right that is) so it was always going to be a bit interesting! We ended up in a tuk tuk with half of the stray lot and a bunch of random people we picked up along the way, so when we reached the bowling alley, we set ourselves up with 2 lanes- Stray V The Others (and Michael)- I wasn't initially so fussed about actually playing but they wanted us to fill the lanes, so I paid my money and when the others arrived, one guy called Paul seemed a bit annoyed not to have a space. So Paul and I decided to share turns. The game started well, with other people knocking down pins. My turn came and I had one pathetic attempt at normal bowling, before deciding it still wasn't for me and going for a crazy shot instead- what followed was myself and Michael attempting to better each other with our adventurous 'alternative' bowling- anything goes but the normal style- knocking down any pins at all is simply a nice bonus. This was fine for me and I had fun, but Paul seemed a little more serious about the whole thing and tried to convince me I needed to be taught how to bowl 'properly' as I would make his team lose. Considering that not bowling properly is actually the only way I get anything down at all and the only way it's fun for me, I was a bit less than willing to have this ruined or to be made into some sort of charity case. Anyway, he got more annoyed as I continued to do badly and seemed to forget I'd paid for all my turns, he was having half of them. The other Stray team members slowly caught on and actually decided my way looked more fun. In the end it was pretty much all alternative bowling, everyone but Paul having a blast. I think he enjoyed it, but maybe more for the beating people thing than the actual game. Stray team still won overall, but the real winners were Team Sarchael/ circle- me and Michael! Very funny evening!
The next few days were spent visiting the swimming pool (where our relative peace and calm was ruined by diggers filling in a pond behind us, where children then decided to wallow in the mud); general exploring and much more night market food. Oh and Joma Bakery. Pizza for brunch... amazing!
On our last full day, Rita, Kirsty and I went back to the waterfall with a bunch of random people from the hostel (which was full of bed bugs the size of my fist FYI... not nice!)- Roul, Gus, Lindsay, Ryan and a few others whose names I forget- that was good fun. Again, more swimming and jumping but this time Kirsty sat with the bags whilst the rest of us trekked up a big hill to the very top of the waterfall in search of the upper pool. Some of them found it... us stragglers, not so much. What we found was a hill that went on for ever, a swamp, a rubbish view and a trekking group who asked me where my shoes were! Bikinis and bare feet not so good for mountain climbing huh? On the way down, my balance let me down a little and a was close to falling on my bum more than a few times to the amusement of the guy whose name I forget... Yuval maybe?
Then Vang Vieng happened...
Our first afternoon there, Simon instructed us to go forth and buy ugly tubing tops and waterproof bags but not bother with tubes- sound advice. We headed off to the river en mass and began our assult on the bars- lots of buckets of whicky and something were had, many free shots were gulped down and many bracelets collected as a prize. Instead of tubing, we floated down the river and were pulled into the next bar by a man throwing an empty plastic bottle on a rope. Very entertaining day and evening... the first of many!
- comments
Chris I am so glad you were able to do this and the both of you look so comfortable on these large, but I am sure, engtle animals.I think it is wonderful to be able to be a little part of their lives, more than just riding them, but also spending the day with them, getting to know a little of what they are like.