30/10/11 - 06/11/11: Luang Prabang to Vientiane

The Charm Offensive

Luang Prabang is immediately striking for its peaceful laidback charm. We spent a few days here, eating dinner at the fantastic night market - fish stuffed with lemon grass, grilled pork on top of a buffet of noodles and spring rolls, sunny days wandering along the Mekong riverside, past old colonial style houses through idyllic small town scenes and past the grand temples of WAT XIENG THONG and WAT MAI SUWANNA PHUMAHAM and NAM KHAM and a steep walk up MOUNT PHOUSI to THAT CHOMSI for great views over the town.

The highlight though was getting up at 5am to see the monks alms procession through the hazy streets. The monks eat only once in a day, so every morning they file out of their respective temples and walk in solemn procession along the main street whilst devotees sit patiently holding bowls of sticky rice and other food to put into each monks collection bowl. The quiet reverence of the mornings' ritual is disrupted by the tourists who spill out of minivans to crowd around the line of monks, getting right into their faces and snapping away like paparazzi at a film premiere. We made sure our snapping was at a respectful distance and wondered at the nerve of other foreigners.

Our journey leaving Luang Prabang took us along steep winding roads through the mountains and hillside villages with interesting scenes of rural life. Bamboo rattan houses on stilts with large round trays full of bright red chillies on the roofs drying in the sun. School kids walk or cycle along the road and women wearing Vietnamese pointy bamboo hats carrying long poles with goods laden at each end are all surrounded by beautiful limestone karst scenery.

The road gets progressively worse, deteriorating to potholes, gravel and narrow paths through mudslides. As we approach Vang Vieng cows, water buffalo, ducks, dogs, goats and chickens are casually walking in the road causing the driver to slalom between them.

The Party Set

We'd been a little unsure of whether to go to Vang Vieng having heard that it's the opposite of pleasant and genteel Luang Prabang, being full of ravers and stoners partying till dawn and describing itself with those dreaded words - "backpacker haven"…

Sure enough, whilst walking the streets trying to find a hostel, a pair of overweight milk-bottle white girls in neon bikinis walk past us to one of the plethora of identikit bars showing 'Friends' or 'Family Guy' on continuous play at full volume. The bar was populated by bleary eyed farang watching the T.V in stoned silence washing down a burger and chips with a "Happy Shake" - a local delicacy that we didn't partake in…..

Vang Vieng is notorious for its "tubing" - an activity whereby you get as plastered as possible whilst sitting in a giant inner tube and floating down the river. We opted for the safer and more sober version and spent a pleasant day kayaking instead. With a very brief introductory instruction, we were told not to worry about falling in as the water was shallow - which was good 'cause within 5 minutes we're both flailing about in the river scrabbling for our upturned kayak. After kayaking to the unimpressive Buddhist "elephant cave", we walked to a smaller water cave where we were fitted with a head torch each and told to sit in a big inner tube and pull ourselves along a rope. We slid under the narrow entrance with the roof just above the water line which opened out into a larger network of pitch black tunnels. The beams from our head torches picked out stalactite formations from the low cave ceiling and other visitors' headlights bobbing in the water, but I spent most of the time trying not get freaked out in the small, wet, dark space.

After lunch we continued our gentle paddle seeing life by the riverbanks. A water snake swims urgently past and terrifies Katy, boys in goggle masks and armed with small spears watch the water intently for fish, women in hats with nets by the banks, children playing, people washing clothes or themselves. We pause for a while to recover after another rather panicky dunking in the river and appreciate the quiet and peacefulness before it gets ruined when we continue round a bend in the river to come across the section reserved for the tubers. Ridiculously loud sound-systems blare out dance music to pissed farangs wearing next to nothing, perched precariously on bamboo platforms high above the water. All of the bars on this section advertise various methods of drowning yourself, such as "free shot of whiskey" before a "waterslide" or a "free joint" whilst you "rope swing" into the river depths. Several people have died doing this activity, but still the insanity continues juxtaposed against some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

We rowed past the party bars, negotiating our way around the young things lying prone in their tubes trailing beer bottles and hash smoke behind them, under low bridges and through very minor rapids until we reach the finishing point slightly exhausted.

Later that evening we meet a new friend Louise at "Jaidees" a slightly seedy place with slightly drunk bar tenders, and free shots of something, which attracted us for being one of the very few places NOT showing "Family Guy" or "Friends". A nice evening spent sharing traveling stories was followed by having to reschedule the bus the next day as Katy was feeling so hungover!

On the bus to Vientiane there are chaotic traffic scenes along the dirt roads. Toyota Hi-luxs and minivans kick up dust into the faces of the hundreds of cyclists and mopeds on the road. Shop keepers slop water onto the road in a bid to prevent the dust flying up. Some pedestrians and those on bikes wear face masks or shield their faces from the sun and dirt with their hands. Some carry brollies to act as sun shades. Our driver constantly beeps his horn - there are no lanes, just a vague notion of discipline of driving on the right which frequently stretches to 3 lanes as vans overtake mopeds honking to get them to move over. Most of the mopeds don't have mirrors and those that do don't use them. We reach the city around 6pm amidst army vans, trucks transporting livestock - a pickup overloaded with pigs fighting for space, trucks carrying bags of rice with tired looking workers sitting on top of the sacks.

The capital

We hadn't pre-booked accommodation and ended up in the depressingly drab YMCA type "Youth Inn" in a dreary room with paint peeling from the damp walls.

After one night we check into the much nicer "Hostel Mixay" just around the corner with a nice clean room and friendly helpful staff. We complete a self-guided walking tour of the city in baking heat the next day, starting at one of the many French patisseries for breakfast and ending with watching the sunset over the Mekong river. There's not that much to this capital city but a few Wats, Victory Monument that looks quite spectacular from afar but upon closer inspection is a drab ugly grey edifice with plenty of graffiti and obscured views over the city and some pretty old French colonial style houses. So far, Laos is more laid back and charming than Thailand, with not as much pushy selling - even the tuk-tuk drivers seem non-committal - lazily murmuring ""tuktuk?" as you pass by sounding as though they hope you'll say no…

The place is also surprisingly full of loud mouthed wideboys dressed head-to-toe from topshop - we really didn't expect this kind of lout in Laos, and we see quite quickly why white westerners have such a reputation. Everywhere we've been in S.E Asia we've been frustrated by the way tour agencies, hostels or taxi/tuktuk drivers automatically assume that because you're white and/or from England that you want to go to the nearest, loudest party and get wasted.

Oh well, more disorganisation sees us waiting by the roadside for an hour for our onward journey to Thakhek and hopefully slightly off the "beaten path"……

Dean x