Laos. - All of Laos!

Apologies to all our regulars for the delay (no Mummy Cracknell your computer isn’t broken), we have either had no time or no electricity lately but here is a full, long awaited update……

Fri the 13th – Sun 15th March Slow Boat from Chang Kong, Thailand – Pak Beng, Laos – Luang Prabang,

Two days on a ridiculously uncomfortable wooden long boat, the Mekong River, two rowdy Kiwis, two Germans, two Americans, Beer Laos, the bizarrist group of people ever in the same space at the same time, stupid games to pass the time, people watching (lots of fun considering the asylum bunch on board) and a shed load of belly aching laughs!
(the stunning scenery which we should have been observing instead of drinking beer and eating noodles and Oreos was unfortunately totally obscured by all the burning taking place in the forests of Northern Laos, Thailand and Burma instead we had a lot of smoke and ash and almost zero visibility)

Monday 16th March
Our first morning in Beautiful French Colonial Luang Prabang, A relaxed, lazy day with our Kiwi buddies Vajihta and Amanda waiting for the arrival of Glen, Arwin, Steve and John. The guys eventually found us in bar (a little worse for wear) at about 8 in the evening after some missed communications and a lot of wondering around attempting to bump in to one and other.

Tuesday 17th March
Moved the “Brits abroad team” (lol) from there shabby hostel (where we originally agreed to meet) and booked them into our much nicer, cheaper air conditioned guest house. After a leisurely breakfast at the delicious Jomah bakery (We are very much missing Bagel Eggers) we hired a Tuk Tuk and (Kiwis included) headed to the Stunning Kouang Si waterfall to relax in the various beautiful swimming pools, jump from the waterfall and swing from the trees into the pool. Absolutely freezing cold but more than welcome in the heat of the early afternoon sun.

Wednesday 18th March
Today I was unfortunately guest house bound with a case of the all too common Delhi Belly. Adam, Glen, Arwin, Steve and John all hired mountain bikes and road into the small rural villages outside the town. The local children where VERY excited to see them and spent a good 10 minutes exchanging high fives with them all.
Lunch was in a local street restaurant with absolutely no foreigners and a friendly Laos lady who didn’t speak a single word of English. After a bit of sign language they managed to order ………food and drink, finer details of what could not be established. Water arrived and a little while later a very generous portion of the most delicious soup noodles Adam has ever tasted and whats more the entire meal and drinks for everyone came to less than 1 pound!!!

Thursday 19th March
Breakfast at Jonah for another Bagel Egger and then a very winding and very bouncy 6 hour journey round the mountains in a non air conditioned minivan to Vang Vieng. Unfortunately once again the stunning scenery was obscured by the burning.

Friday 20th March

It was the day we had all been looking forward to, it was the reason the guys flew that long distance from England, that’s right, it was TUBING day!!! The principles of tubing are simple, you rent a large inflated tractor inner tube are driven 3km up river and float back towards Vang Vieng. The practice however is vastly better than it sounds, on the way down the river are many bars all of which beckon you in and once signaled through you a line and drag you in. Its difficult to explain but everyone just gets so caught up in the atmosphere on tubing day, we were all dancing before the first of many beer laos touched our lips! As further incentive to visit bars along the river they have installed huge rope swings and death slides for you to use, its such a sketchy combo, loads of beer, a shallow river and high platforms for jumping off, but it really is the most fun! Since John and I had tubed 2 years ago we and the rest of the guys had vowed to do it together and it was finally happening! The pictures will tell most the stories of the day and yes those big awkward falls into the water did hurt! To Trish’s delight she found some newly hatched chicks in one of the bars, and john not taking her advice managed to drop one! It was fine though! We cheated in the end and had to get a taxi back to town to drop the tubes back before the 6pm deadline, awesome day!!!!!

Saturday 21th March

Much more subdued day today, we most defiantly needed a break from the beer. Poor Glenn didn’t make it out of bed all day! The rest of us ventured up to the blue lagoon and caves. This is a nice chill out spot with a really deep, really blue lagoon! Chilled out in the water and a few of us ventured up to the cave, which we couldn’t explore too thoroughly as we forgot our torches!!

Sunday 22nd March

Tubing part 2! Pretty much a repeat of day one, more dancing, more swings, more mud pools and a lot more beer! We didn’t make it anywhere near the end and opted once more for the taxi back to town! Steve and John broke my previous tubing record of 11 beer Laos, 12 is now the new benchmark. Oooo but how they suffered the following day! Our friend Paul who we met in Thailand joined us tubing today as well!

Mon 23rd March
After a heated debate with our guest house owner over our bill and use of our air conditioning we traveled in the morning for 3 hours to Vientiane, Laos’s capital. Vientiane sits aside the currently very dry Mekong and is still very small by western standards and there is nothing except embassies to distinguish it as a capitol.
We arrived at about 11.30 am and after waving the Brit team off top the last available Jomah of the journey for yet another Bagel egger Adam and I hunted for an hour in 40 degree heat with our backpacks on for a clean, cheap guest house. Unfortunately neither of the requirements were available at the same time so after viewing some absolutely disgusting cockroach pits at a higher price than our beautiful, clean, stunning river view accommodation in the previous town (we even had hot water!!) we settled for a more expensive, slightly less disgusting guest house( I guess even developing countries rip people off in the capitol), dumped our bags changed out of our saturated clothes and went to join the team for a fair well lunch at the famous Jomah.
After making sure the guys were safely on there way we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. I went off for a much needed manicure and Adam relaxed by the river with a much needed Beer Laos and a good book waiting for our Kiwi friend to arrive from Vang Vieng.
Had a slap up western dinner of burger and chips to round off the day. Our Kiwi friends joined us and Roberto and Alex from Italy also. We ate alfresco while a huge storm came across and relaxed into the slight drop in temperature.
A very wet tuk tuk drive home!

Tues 24th March

Spent the day sweating by the river killing time with Amanda and Vajihta until our bus for Pakse departed at 7.30pm. After a good bye meal with the girls in a far more up market restaurant than we have been used to (comparable to Yates’s or Wetherspoons lol) we boarded an extremely overcrowded pick up truck and where whisked to the bus station with Adam standing clinging to the back and me half in half out. Fortunately the night bus was far more luxurious and included a double bed (which is only big enough if you don’t have an Adam!) and we also bumped into Svejna and Julia, the two German girls who had been on a Slow Boat from Thailand and made plans to travel together fro the next few days.

Weds 25th March

Took a bus from Pakse to a small village opposite Champasak with Svejna and Julia where we were picked up by an overweight Laos man with the biggest grin and most demented laugh ever. We understood the demented laugh when he lead us and our luggage onto a “boat” (a wooden pallet nailed between to long boats) where we stood, luggage on backs and wobbled across the river in torrential rain. As with everyone that approaches you in Asia; our fat, smiley man knew a guest house he wanted us to stay at. The guest house turned out to be his, he turned out to be lovely if a little mad and he ran a lovely little guest house with awesome river views and adorable puppies running around all over the place amongst the junk and chickens.
Champasak is a very small, local town with just one road but it is the closest town to the stunning, rarely visited by UK tourists Wat Phou ancient temple. We spent most of the day exploring the ancient temple and relaxed at our guest house enjoying the view and playing cards.

Thurs 26th March

Traveled to Don Det in the absolutely stunning 4000 island of Southern Laos. The island of Don Det has no mains electricity; no mains water (certainly no hot water) and absolutely zero luxuries. It is a very small island and the people are super friendly and helpful even though only a tiny hand full speak broken English.
The cost of accommodation was ridiculously cheap (less than a ¼ of the price we have paid anywhere else). Our Riverside bungalow at 25000 kip (2 quid) was basic but in a beautiful spot with the best views yet (finally unobscured by smoke now we have moved south). Just a double bed and a Mozzy net with a small deck out front complete with two hammocks. Also included in the price is a HUGE bath in the form of the Mekong River. There isn’t any point worrying what you might catch in the “bath”, if you opt for a shower its pumped straight from the River anyway in a steady trickle.
We spent the day with the German girls who settled into the bungalow next door just relaxing in awe of the scenery and cooling off in the “Bath”.

Friday 27th March

Big adventure day today! Had to go to extreme lengths to get hold of some more cash, southern Laos is not very developed so had to take a combination of a boat and then motor bike ride to get to the closest bank! Money in hand it was time to take to the river for our days kayaking. With our guide Mr Boun we heading down the nice gentle river surrounded by stunning views of the 4000 islands. We got the entry point to Don Khon, another island and headed off for a short trek to check out a waterfall. Mr bouns helpful staff took the liberty of carrying the kayaks! We looked upon the waterful and the rapids that came off it and joked that they would be the rapids we were to traverse, they couldn’t possible we joked! Then, down the steep mountain our kayaks were carried, towards the very rapids!!! Trish very sensible opted out and walked, myself, svenja and Julia reluctantly boarded our kayaks and headed off down river! Proper sketchy!! I capsized in dramatic fashion, thankfully out of the heaviest point of the rapid but was still swirled around like I was in a washing machine! Thankfully managed to grab the side of the kayak and survived without incident. Watching upstream I saw svenjas kayak coming through the biggest part upside down, the poor girl was terrified but was ok. We headed off again to another huge set of waves, again I capsized! This time I smacked my foot on some rocks, got a bit bruised and cut but nothing to worry to much about. Poor Trish had a birds eye view of us all been thrown from the kayaks and getting churned around in the water! It was pretty scary but an awesome experience, I wanna go back and do it again, try and stay in the kayak this time!! We carried on down river and ate lunch on a scenic rock looking for the irriwadi river dolphins that live in that area. They are very rare and only 15 or so remain. We were lucky enough to spot some but a quite a distance so no photo op’s were possible! After lunch we kayaked the final stretch, all subdued, no major rapids to contend! We were picked up close to the Cambodian border and taken to the amazing pha pheng waterfall which is the biggest in south east asia. Spent the evening having a farewell meal with our german friends, they were heading off to Bangkok the following day. We had a really good Indian feast and toasted goodbyes on the balcony under the most stunning sky of stars!

Saturday 28th March

Had a proper chilled out day today, swinging on the hammocks, taking in the views and catching up on some reading time!

Sunday 29th March

Rented out bikes today and took a cycle tour of the island! Headed across to Don Khon to check out the waterfall and rapids that ate us the other day. Still couldn’t believe we kayaked down there 2 days previous! Split our time between the bikes and swimming in the river around the islands. Took the bikes back just before sunset and sat in a restaurant watching a big thunder storm roll in. It looked amazing to see the lighting reflect in the still waters! Went back to the Indian restaurant for another great meal before heading back to the balcony for the final beer laos. Reluctantly turned in for the night knowing we had to leave this stunning place the following day.

Monday 30th March

Super early start to catch the boat and begin the epic journey to Phnom Pehn in Cambodia. Lots of ipod time and 12 hours later we arrived for well deserved showers and early nights!