For some reason the capital of Laos reminds me of Young, which is not really fair since neither city is like the other. I was travelling at this point with Roger, my friend. Fortunately he had a better idea of where we were going than I did. The roads in Laos are atrocious, which is hardly surprising considering it’s a third world country. The biggest challenge when driving in say Vien Tian is simply to avoid all the mile wide potholes. We didn’t spend very long in the Capital but instead rushed through down to Luang Prabang. The trip down is an experience in itself.
As mentioned the roads in Laos are pretty bad and the motor vehicles are not much better. We all piled into this rickety old bus that soon became chockablock full of people AND their luggage. There were no goats or anything like that on our bus, but I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if someone had brought one on. The crew for the bus consists of three people. The driver, the back up driver and the mechanic for when the bus breaks down (which it did four times on our ten hour journey).
To give you some idea at one point we were driving along the road and smoke started coming out of the engine compartment. One of the Lao men noticed it and pointed it out to the driver. He glanced at it, shrugged and muttered something in Lao before continuing driving. It wasn’t until the bus broke down a half hour later that they fixed it.
To say the bus was cramped is like saying that there are a few people in China. (Sorry getting ahead of myself) For ten hours I was unable to move my legs as I was surrounded on all sides by peoples luggage. The worst of it is that the Laos people are not used to travelling and hence become ill quite easily. This being said the scenery on the way down is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
We travelled past flooded rice paddocks where Oxen and similar herds animals grazed, before ascending up into the mountains. The mountains are almost blueish and are surrounded by whispy clouds that snake around them in thin coils. It is by far the most enchanting and mysterious countryside I’ve ever seen.
As we travelled through we drove past wooden Mountain huts from the various hill tribes who have set up their homes in this area. The huts are primitive made from bamboo or neighbouring plant-life and lacked anything in the way of chimneys despite the obvious small fires built within. Although exhausting and uncomfortable the trip was very rewarding based on these features of the landscape.
Luang Prabang itself is absolutely gorgeous surrounded by bushland as far as the eye can see. Luang Prabang sits on the Mekong river, and we took a boat trip down to the Pak Ou caves. The caves themselves are not terribly interesting. They held a number of buddhist statue’s which were fairly tame by South East Asian standards. The trip however was glorious. The scenery is so beautiful almost untouched by human hands and as we cruised down the river, Lao children would come out and wave to us. Smiling and yelling “Sabadaii” (hello) A quick stop at a local village gave us the opportunity to buy some Lao Lao which is Lao whisky. Moonshine would be a more apt description. |  |
 | A large buddhist temple stands over Luang Prabang on top of a small mountain that can be climbed from either the front or the back. The back way takes you past a small shrine where numerous Buddhist monks spend time in prayer. I encountered one who was incredibly friendly and spoke a little English, and a few more on the way up the stairs to the top . The people in Laos are incredibly friendly. Unjaded by the number of tourists who pass through. Sadly this little piece of paradise wont last long since more and more travellers find out about it daily. |
Laos is also INCREDIBLY cheap. Its not difficult to get by on $100US a week and that is living like a king. Pancakes with the richest banana milk shakes you have ever tasted, (Laos is in the tropics after all) Accommodation and chinese for dinner every night with as much beer Lao as you can drink.
Roger and I fell in with an excellent group of people and together we partied every night. Three of the guys we met up with were from Scotland and had befriended a local woman from the bakery down the road. She had ten “daughters” I use the term loosely since I’m pretty sure they were not blood kin, but I don’t really know exactly what the nature of their relationship was.
Anyways all ten daughters were looking to get married. This was a little bit difficult for us to take seriously because of the fact that none of them could speak English and that they ranged between 14-18year of age. But every night they figured out where we were eating and tracked us down. This was a little bit awkeward but pretty funny on a certain level. After a few nights of this we decided to get going and they were very sorry to see us go. It was a little bit sad because they were intensely interested in their attempts to court us, however, because of the circumstances it was impossible to take them seriously.
Next we all headed to Vang Vien another town on the river. The highlight of this part of the journey was a three or four hour tire ride along the river. With about 12 people in our group this was easily one of the highlights of my trip. As we screamed and paddled about the river trying to catch up with each other. I remember at one point we passed some villagers picking fruit and asked them to throw some to us, which they did. None of us caught any of it but it was just that sort of day.
After that Roger and I travelled back to Vien Tian before journeying back to Bangkok. Roger had decided it was time to leave Asia and head up to London. My trip however had just begun.
