11th - 19th June - Laos
The minibus ride to Chiang Khong at the Thai/Laos border was fairly uneventful - which was good! Our guesthouse was included in the ticket and was pretty crumby, but somewhere to put our sweaty swedes down for the night and try some Thai whiskey.
Unfortunately our sweaty swedes remained sweaty all night and I even started shivering I was so sweaty!
However, the next morning we were off to Laos via a short journey over the Mekong river to the border control. One girl was sure she saw an enormous snake weaving its way alongside our rickety little thing so defo no plans for swimming!!
After border control and the bank running out of money for all us tourists, we boarded our slow boat for the two day trip down the river to Louang Prabang. It was totally unlike the image we had in our heads - it was full of others like us with only a few sacks of local produce going with us and we could buy ice cold beer on board!! Something told us the two days would be fairly easy going!!
The boat stopped at villages on the way, picking up / dropping off people, chillies, coconuts and big ugly spiders..... must dash to catch happy hour - back soon!
Hmmm - good beers and good nosh had last night!! (trust us!)
However, despite the views and the cold beer we were glad to rescue our numb bums from the hard wooden benches, when we finally arrived in Luang Phrabang.
It is a beautiful town, protected and being restored by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Its streets are really pretty and very French in architecture, with lovely old colonial houses in amongst traditional Lao temples and monks, surrounded by lots of beautiful trees. Pavements are lined with eateries which obviously impressed us immediately!! Lots of bakeries also have fresh baguettes, croissants but no fougasse!
After a day on bikes sightseeing we went on an organised tour - mountain biking along the Mekong through villages selling local handicrafts (beautiful silks and gopping whisky!) Luckily for James, we didn't have any bags big enough for me to do any serious shopping! 30km later we had numb bums again!!
We arrived at an enormous cave where old and knackered Buddhas go when they've seen better days, and then canoed back down the river - stopping off at local bar for a bottle of chilled Beer Lao to keep us going. James had a quick swim, luckily the anacondas where obviously not interested in him as they let him back in the canoe to continue the journey. We also learned from our local guide that the Lao eat practically anything that moves; rats, squirrels, monkeys, cats, dogs and even live cicadas. He described with great sound effects, the chc chc chcing as they go down, but it didn't convince us that we'd want to try them. They definitely sound better in the French countryside as a holiday sound!.
We've spent the last couple of days in Vientiane, the capital, after an eventful 10hr bus journey. This seems to be a pattern in our travels as the journeys seem to double in the advertised length - this time a couple of other buses had had a dink on a mountain corner which held us up as the police took 3 hours to draw a detailed scaled map in pencil, in the rain, including distances and angles from all points of view!!
The scenery in the journey made up for this (and James cramped up folded legs in seats designed for little people) though, as we passed mist covered rugged mountains covered in thick jungle and the odd village too. Sadly, the atmosphere was trashed by the terrible Lao karaoke DVDs they played us at full volume - defo a torture technique! But in Western style, someone had got a rip off Fat Boy Slim in Brighton DVD from the market. It was a 'if you can't beat 'em' moment as we merrily disturbed the peace with that instead for a while!!
We've done the sites of Vientiane now and have booked our bus journey onto Hue in Vietnam leaving on Sunday night. This they claim will be a murderous journey of 19 hrs including a few hours stopped on the side of the road before the border opens at 8am and also arsing around at the border which others say is an event in itself - if past experience is anything to go by we'll still be on the damn thing on Wednesday!!!!!
Wish us luck - our patience will defo be tested this time!
Unfortunately our sweaty swedes remained sweaty all night and I even started shivering I was so sweaty!
However, the next morning we were off to Laos via a short journey over the Mekong river to the border control. One girl was sure she saw an enormous snake weaving its way alongside our rickety little thing so defo no plans for swimming!!
After border control and the bank running out of money for all us tourists, we boarded our slow boat for the two day trip down the river to Louang Prabang. It was totally unlike the image we had in our heads - it was full of others like us with only a few sacks of local produce going with us and we could buy ice cold beer on board!! Something told us the two days would be fairly easy going!!
The boat stopped at villages on the way, picking up / dropping off people, chillies, coconuts and big ugly spiders..... must dash to catch happy hour - back soon!
Hmmm - good beers and good nosh had last night!! (trust us!)
However, despite the views and the cold beer we were glad to rescue our numb bums from the hard wooden benches, when we finally arrived in Luang Phrabang.
It is a beautiful town, protected and being restored by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Its streets are really pretty and very French in architecture, with lovely old colonial houses in amongst traditional Lao temples and monks, surrounded by lots of beautiful trees. Pavements are lined with eateries which obviously impressed us immediately!! Lots of bakeries also have fresh baguettes, croissants but no fougasse!
After a day on bikes sightseeing we went on an organised tour - mountain biking along the Mekong through villages selling local handicrafts (beautiful silks and gopping whisky!) Luckily for James, we didn't have any bags big enough for me to do any serious shopping! 30km later we had numb bums again!!
We arrived at an enormous cave where old and knackered Buddhas go when they've seen better days, and then canoed back down the river - stopping off at local bar for a bottle of chilled Beer Lao to keep us going. James had a quick swim, luckily the anacondas where obviously not interested in him as they let him back in the canoe to continue the journey. We also learned from our local guide that the Lao eat practically anything that moves; rats, squirrels, monkeys, cats, dogs and even live cicadas. He described with great sound effects, the chc chc chcing as they go down, but it didn't convince us that we'd want to try them. They definitely sound better in the French countryside as a holiday sound!.
We've spent the last couple of days in Vientiane, the capital, after an eventful 10hr bus journey. This seems to be a pattern in our travels as the journeys seem to double in the advertised length - this time a couple of other buses had had a dink on a mountain corner which held us up as the police took 3 hours to draw a detailed scaled map in pencil, in the rain, including distances and angles from all points of view!!
The scenery in the journey made up for this (and James cramped up folded legs in seats designed for little people) though, as we passed mist covered rugged mountains covered in thick jungle and the odd village too. Sadly, the atmosphere was trashed by the terrible Lao karaoke DVDs they played us at full volume - defo a torture technique! But in Western style, someone had got a rip off Fat Boy Slim in Brighton DVD from the market. It was a 'if you can't beat 'em' moment as we merrily disturbed the peace with that instead for a while!!
We've done the sites of Vientiane now and have booked our bus journey onto Hue in Vietnam leaving on Sunday night. This they claim will be a murderous journey of 19 hrs including a few hours stopped on the side of the road before the border opens at 8am and also arsing around at the border which others say is an event in itself - if past experience is anything to go by we'll still be on the damn thing on Wednesday!!!!!
Wish us luck - our patience will defo be tested this time!
posted by Polly and James at Saturday, June 18, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home