Luang Namtha is a very small village in northern Laos with one road through it. For the one day we were there we decided to do a trek on foot. This turned out to be an awful,yet brilliant day. On the one hand, the views whilst walking up the mountains (to over 900m!) provided some awesome views and having lunch at the top was an incredible experience. However, the combined total of 6 hours trekking up mountains in 30oC+ left us pretty tired to say the least! But we finished the trek by sitting on the edge of a waterfall soaking our feet in the water and cooling off.
From Luang Namtha we had a rather interesting 9 hour journey down to Luang Prabang. After initial confusion over which bus we wanted, we ended up on a minivan. This may not sound too bad but when said minivan which is really old school and is designed to seat 13 small Laos people, is filled with
13 Western individuals, it becomes slight uncomfortable. Add to this the 30oC+ heat and no air con and you can imagine how this was like 9 hours of hell! To make things even more interesting the driver did not pay any attention to any 'stop' signs and almost ran over numerous dogs, chickens, ducks, buffalo and children! For more than half the journey the road was more like a big mud track with piles of rocks randomly placed in the middle of the roads.
Luang Prabang is a town with a couple of main roads alongside the Mekong river. Whilst here we visited several the royal palace and several temples, the most impressive of which is the Phu Si stupa. Despite the 400 odd steps, this was worth the effort as the views were spectacular! We stayed up here to watch the sunset but unfortunately it was quite overcast and we only just made it back down before the thunderstorm started.
The next day entailed a 2 hour boat journey up the Mekong river to the Pak Ou caves. A journey which turned out to be better than the destination, although the caves containing hundreds of buddha statues were pretty cool.
Following this we made our way to the waterfall at Kuang Si. This is a collection of waterfalls with a main one at the top of yet more stairs! There was also a lagoon for swimming and a rope swing, which James took advantage of, Em did not.
Whilst in Luang Prabang we tried out the local night market buffets which were delicious and kept up our obscenely healthy rate of fruit shake consumption! Another interesting journey took us to Vang Vieng. This was very similar to the previous one, just a bit shorter, so we will not go into the details again.
On our first day in Vang Vieng we hired mountain bikes and cycled 7km along a very rocky and painful 'road' to Phu Kham cave. Yet again we had to climb hundreds of steps to reach it but it was pretty cool with a reclining Buddha in the middle. After we had descended we then took advantage of the blue lagoon!
From here we cycled back to town and to another impressive cave, Chang cave, which was much more open but less natural. We decided to have a more relaxing day the following day and headed out to Yui waterfall which was very much worth it; a 25m high waterfall surrounded by great scenery, although we did get soaked!
In the afternoon we went tubing which was very relaxing. This is mainly because about a month ago the Lao government decided to shut down all the bars along the tubing stretch due to too many deaths resulting from people being wasted (20 deaths in 2011!). All the swings and slides etc have also been closed which was quite disappointing but fun nonetheless.
From Vang Vieng we headed to Vientiane, the capital city. Here we stayed in a shared room in a nice hostel so met a few nice people from England, America and Germany. Unlike Luang Namtha, which has a large Chinese influence, Vientiane shows more signs of Laos being a French colony. Here we visited their version of the arc de triomphe which was pretty nice surrounded by fountains and with a straight road leading one way to the presidential palace and the other way to That Luang, a national monument.
There were plenty of temples to visit here, with one containing around 2,000 Buddhas.
We also visited Cope, which is a rehabilitation centre mainly for those who are injured/loose limbs through unexploded bomb accidents. This place was very interesting especially as watched a 50 minute video on the bombs themselves and how they are removed from different areas. However, it was also quite sad hearing from people who had been affected by these accidents or lost friends and relatives from them.
Whilst in Vientiane we tried to watch the sunset from two different locations; over the Mekong river, and at That Luang. Unfortunately the smog here is so thick though that it is not as good a sight as we were hoping for.
On our last night in Laos we decided to sample some of the local delights, mainly laos laos rice whisky and fried ice cream, both of which were pleasantly nice.
Now our time in Laos has to come to an end and it's time to say goodbye and move onto Vietnam, but before we leave we thought we'd give you some interesting/amusing things we've learnt whilst being in South East Asia so far:
1) If you ask for a strawberry fruit shake it will be most likely be made up with a huge dollop of strawberry jam.....yum...
2) Anywhere that says 'foreigner ticket' actually means 'white person ticket', anyone else from other parts of Asia can get in for free!
3) Road rules do not apply.
4) Everything happens in Laos time.
5) Tuk-tuk drivers find it hilarious when they drive across bumpy roads at high speeds and you are flung from your bench continuously.
6) Any map that says 'dirt road' actually means a rocky/stoney pathway and should not be cycled down!
I'm sure we will have more to come but that's it for now so we hoped you've enjoyed this blog post and everything is all well.
Take care!
x x
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