Travelling south through sleepy Laos

20th to the 30th of May

Even hotter than Thailand – you get used to being constantly drenched in sweat (too much information?) but the storms are much more spectacular to make up for it!

12,500 kip to £1 – Laos beer around 10,000k & rooms or bungalows from 50,000k for 2

First impression: basic, authentic and so very hot! Laos is also very European due to being colonised by France and as a result it is full of coffee shops and patisseries with most menus and signs in French - it’s strange to be surrounded by such a European feel and yet be so far from home. The crumbling buildings, held up by handmade wooden scaffolding and the numerous cows, dogs and chickens wandering around definitely separate the capitals though. The guidebooks call the capital of Laos ‘delightful’ but in all honesty, it’s a bit average but we only stayed one night and we were in a lovely guesthouse and had a lot of fun with happy hour cocktails and little beach bar huts so although I wouldn’t rave about the city, I wouldn’t skip it either.

From Vientiane we took a VIP bus to Vang Viang, the journey was 2 hours over the stated 3 (not bad for SE Asia) and the air con was actually open windows but it was a stunning ride and we stopped at a bar half way through for a bit of a breather so it was pretty easy. The next town had 1 main street with a few smaller ones leading up to it and it is randomly full of bars that play episodes of Friends from open until close – if you’re lucky you get Family Guy or movies but mostly it’s just Friends. This was Claire and Joel’s first stop for food poisoning so they stayed a couple of nights in an air con hotel (the kind you pay £100 for in London but actually only £8 in Laos) when Nathan and I moved to a cheaper place across the river. Having just said the hotel price, us moving sounds quite tight but it gets worse... as the bridge was a toll bridge, we decided after a few trips that we’d join the locals and just cross the water but, being somewhat less knowledgeable than the locals, instead of crossing at the knee deep part, we were in to our necks in a pretty decent current and I was wearing a white dress and carrying a handbag. Also, if it wasn’t for some sweet local kids (who were having a right laugh at us) I wouldn’t even have any shoes left. We saved 4000 kip each, that’s about 30p.

Next day and it’s time for tubing! For those who don’t know what that weird phrase means, it’s a huge rubber ring in a 5km stretch of river with bars and rope swings every 100m. It’s about £3 to hire the tube and get a ride out to the start and it’s absolutely stunning and hugely relaxing and fun. Nathan did the majority of swings and slides, Claire was a bit smarter and stayed away and after a bit of persuasion Joel and I did a slide (shot about 3m into the air and smacked the water with our backs – ouch!) and the last and highest swing. I chickened out a few times (after the slide experience and based on the fact that Laos has absolutely no health and safety and I doubt travel insurance quite covers acting like a tool) but eventually I did it and it was amazing! We stayed one more night in town and hired another motorbike to explore the caves and lagoons but they ended up being much further than expected, plus the roads were bad, the dirt tracks were thick with mud and the sun was cooking us so moods were not at their highest when we managed to stack the bike. But, despite ending up filthy and having to use a hammer to reshape the pedal, it was pretty funny and a lot more exciting than the caves themselves! Another highlight was getting to watch the most amazing tropical storm that night, although we did end up without power and water so there were no showers or charged iPods before the VIP bus back to the capital and sleeper bus down south to Paske.

Paske is a very sleepy town & there’s really not an awful lot to do. The guesthouse was pretty average and the streets pretty quiet but we’re getting pretty tired by now so a couple of reliable places to eat and a great beauty and massage place and we’re pretty happy -massages and beauty treatments have become a fairly frequent part of the trip due to the prices being about 5% of that in London. We also fitted in a day tour to some waterfalls, plantations and rural villages that was pretty cool and it let you see how they really live. It is so different. The villages are made up of wooden huts on stilts, which have coffins waiting to be used (and reused) underneath and kids as young as 5 are smoking huge wooden pipes and roll up cigarettes. The space is all shared with pigs, chickens, cows and dogs, which just wander around and there are dozens of half dressed children that look like something out of national geographic and who don’t seem to have many, if any, kiddies toys or treats. It’s tempting to try and help them but money and sweets apparently teach them to beg so we were told that only presents like pens and paper are a good idea – unfortunately we were already there so it was a bit late. All this said and as much as it sounds deprived, there’s no feeling of depression as these people are friendly, bubbly and happy and although far from wealthy, they live in the most beautiful places. We could probably learn a lot.

Anyway, our tour leader was a very romantic Laos guy called Larn who told a lot of stories that I really didn’t understand but we took him out for dinner anyway and then he took us to the most random basement karaoke bar imaginable! The people here love their tragic love songs and shocking ballads so don’t expect to hear anything you’re likely to add to your iPod but they love to stare at us westerners so you feel almost famous and it’s all pretty funny. I laughed a lot anyway.
So 3 days in Paske takes me a month into the trip and this morning we said bye to Nathan as he heads to Phuket before home to Oz and caught a bus and then a boat (more like a wooden canoe actually) to a remote place called Four Thousand Islands. And that’s where I’m writing from now – on our balcony overlooking the river. There is no power or internet so I’m not actually online but I’ll upload this soon and then I’ll definitely try to post more regularly from here on.

Next Stop: Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia...