Laos

It must be quite a regular occurrence for the buses to blow their tyres on the road as we were on our way before long. It turned out that the Laos border crossing was even more lax than the Cambodia crossing as we didn't even need to get off the bus to cross the border! We filled out our visa cards handed all our passports to our 'escort', and they appeared back on the bus with the Laos visa and a stamp without us needing to lift a finger. 

We had booked bus tickets to the 4000 islands in the South of Laos which are a group of Islands on the Meekong River. The plan was to spend Christmas and perhaps New Years Eve there depending on what it was like. Unfortunately, though, things didn't get off to a very good start as despite the tour operator who we booked our bus ticket through assuring us that there would not be any further unexpected charges we were asked to pay an extra $5 dollars each at the border crossing for exit and entry “stamps” (not sure this was at all a legitimate charge at all but what can you do) which meant that we did not have enough cash on us to get the boat to the island. We were also aware that there were no cash points on the islands (far too chilled back a place to be dealing with banks) however, we didn't know that there would be no cash points in the near vicinity on the mainland either, unless you were willing to stay the night somewhere and get a bus to the biggest town - about 1 hour away - the next morning. This wasn't really a viable option so we told the man who was hurriedly chivvying us from the bus towards the boat ticket office in the hope that he might be able to suggest a plausible alternative, but he just told us that we wouldn't be able to get any cash. We had told them on the bus that after paying the extra charge for 'stamps' we would not have enough money for the boat, but they had said that it was not a problem as they could arrange the tickets for us and we could pay them back once on the island. This was clearly not the case, the responsibility was obviously just being shifted from one person to another. 

After arguing with the man for a few minutes in front of the crowd of people from the bus also waiting to board the boat, he told us to get cash from some of the other travellers! We were only short 3 dollars but didn't really want to have to borrow it from some people we had only exchanged a handful of words with on the bus. This apparently didn't concern him because as soon as we suggested that we got some money on the island (we were told it would be possible in a cashback fashion) and paid the boat once on the other side, he quite literally, stormed off towards the harbour.

Everyone was a bit confused at the tantrum but we assumed we should follow so headed down to the harbour after him, eventually spotting which of the boats he had sped off to. Thankfully one of the guys from the bus was able to lend us three dollars which we promised to get back to him once we got to the island. We handed over our tickets - at which he had the cheek to ask if we had paid for two people, as if one of us would prefer to be left behind - and boarded the boat to Don Det. 

Dot Det – the island of the 'four thousand' that we chose to stay on for Christmas – was a very laid back and chilled out introduction to Laos. I’m not sure if there are actually four thousand islands, possibly if you count the little mounds and scrubs in the middle of the water, but there are a few main habited islands. After being deposited on a tiny beach inbetween two restaurants on stilts we began the search for a guesthouse / bungalow hoping that everyone hadn’t had the same plans for Christmas as us. Luckily it didn’t take us too long to find somewhere.

We opted for the Sunset strip side of the island as opposed to the Sunrise boulevard, partly for the fact that it would mean our bungalow wouldn’t end up becoming an wooden oven at 8 o’ clock in the morning, but mostly because we were more likely to be able to enjoy the sunset from the hammocks swinging from the porches than the sunrise at some ridiculous hour in the morning. We paid 30,000 Kip (around £2.40) for the bungalow per night but it was pretty basic. The bungalow was just a little wooden hut on stilts with a little porch out the front and, disappointingly, only one hammock. There was a shared bathroom which consisted of a couple of squat toilets, a couple of normal toilets, and a cold shower. The position of our bungalow was not great as it faced into the garden of the guesthouse but luckily the next morning someone moved out of the bungalow that was right next to and facing the river which even had two hammoks on the porch, so we moved there without question.

It was a pretty relaxed few days, we hired bikes to explore both the island we were staying on and the neighbouring island which was accessible over a dusty bridge. The main thing to see on Don Det and Don Kon was the 'island life' (not really having any major attractions) which at the time seemed to consist mostly of building. It seems like the Islands are not going to be sleepy and 'local' for much longer as everywhere along the riverbed, new bungalows and guesthouses are being built to attract the ever present flow of tourists. Other than that there was a very large waterfall to view, and some of the locals scooping the water with bamboo contraptions for hundreds of tiny silver fish. The flat sand made for a pretty pleasant cycle, except on the way back when one of Justin's pedals fell off completely and I ended up having to 'tow' him to a place where he was able to borrow a wrench to screw it back on again. Several bike fixing places were dotted along the road which was a good indicator of the quality of the bikes...

The best part of the cycle, in my opinion, was that on the way along the Sunrise Boulevard we spotted an English run restaurant advertising Christmas Dinner! The Turkeys were gobbling about in front of us as we pulled up to park the bikes and despise the heavy scent of weed and a bleary eyed English-man brandishing menus, it seemed like a bloody good idea.

Everything on Dot Det could be served 'happy' and inevitably it seemed that that was what most of the people came for. The clientèle seemed to be mainly men several of which had copious tattoos and long dreadlocks.

On Christmas eve we went to one of the bars on the livelier Sunrise side of the island and enjoyed the firepoi, buckets of Lao Lao (the ingeniously names local spirit) and exceedingly happy topless barmans entertainment until late into the evening when we decided to go and have a bonfire on the beach. 

Christmas Day we cycled down along the dusty paths for the second time to get our Christmas dinner which was actually much better than I was expecting for a tiny island in the middle of South East Asia. It didn’t really feel at all like Christmas though, until they threw a couple of random Christmas songs into the mix. My only criticism of the meal (apart from the exclusion of the below trimmings) would be that there were no crackers, but I suppose they are a little harder to get hold of. Christmas is not Christmas unless there are songs and silly hats.

Starter: Prawn Cocktail

Main: Roast Turkey with all Trimmings (except parsnips, pigs in blankets and brussel sprouts but that's just me being fussy)

Dessert: White chocolate and Ginger cake with Orange sauce.

Once all the relaxing that was humanly possible had been completed we decided to take the bus to Thakeak a small town in the middle of Laos, the draw of which being a 7km long cave which could be explored by boat. Two of the guys which we had met on the bus coming into Don Det, Chis and Anis (who incidentally was the kind guy who lent us the $3 to get the boat onto the island - which we did manage to get back to him) decided to accompany us as well. 

One of the things that I noticed about the buses in Laos at this point was that they don’t have food stops. Something which we had come to rely on and expect in Vietnam and Cambodia, but which in Laos seemed to be non-existent. A couple of times when the bus pulled up in a town to collect / drop off some of the locals, some of the local women would run to the windows brandishing barbecued meat on bamboo sticks and sticky rice in bags but although it tempted a few of the other bus dwellers I wasn't so keen. We also had a man come into the bus with all sorts of sundries for sale in carrier bags ranging from crisps to toilet roll and unmarked packets of pills, but each time I thought I’d wait for the proper food stop, which never came. The bus paused briefly a few times for toilet stops, but both times when I rushed off the bus to explore the possibility of food there was nothing to be found. The toilets also left a little to be desired (I realise I do tend to talk about the toilets a lot, but it needs to be said). The first time it was in some petrol station type place which I believe had some sort of squat toilets that I didn't go in, but at the next stop which unfortunately was the time that I did decide to get off, the bus had just pulled over at the side of the road for people to go right there. The men of course just went willy nilly (pun intended) and the women just stooped in the ditch (which some of the men were peeing in). No Thanks. So note to self: bring substantial food for the bus, and again don’t drink unless necessary.

When we arrived in Thakeak late that evening, we met another couple, Dayna and Michael, who were also heading to the cave so we suggested that all 6 of us shared a Tuk Tuk to the town center. For the first time in a few months we were not greeted by several eager drivers all fighting to get us in their Tuk Tuks first, and although that particular welcome wasn’t always a pleasant one we were suddenly at a loss as to what to do and how to get a lift. We spotted a solitary Tuk Tuk parked on the other side of the bus station, but when we reached it we found that it appeared to be unattended. Quite a phenomenon in itself. But we were not to worry, 6 westerners carrying copious amount of luggage would soon enough attract attention and seconds later the driver came hurring over.

Surprisingly even though the cave, is I presume, the biggest tourist attraction around Thakeak it remains quite a challenge to actually get there. The guide book suggests that you book a tour from Thakeak which costs 700,000 KIP per person (around £55) which we all found pretty extortionate and it didn’t really suggest many alternatives. In the end, as it was pretty late we just slept in a hotel in Thakeak (for more than double the price we had paid for a room in the 4000 Isands) and decided to get up early the next morning to make our own way there.

The next day we got dropped off back at the bus station by Tuk Tuk (if only we had thought about it we could have slept at the guesthouse at the station) and without too much trouble got on a bus to Wiengkham after which we would have to take another bus to Ban Khoun Kham, the town that was nearest to the cave. We hopped onto the second bus without too much difficulty but there appeared to be no spaces. Walking to the back of the bus I saw that there were only 3 people sitting on the back row of five seats, so squeezed inbetween them. Minutes later the conductor came over and asked why I had chosen to sit there rather than squeeze in next to a man in the row in front who clearly didn't want a fellow passenger and had heaped his bags upon the seat next to him. I answered that I had more leg room in the middle and didn’t see the problem. Well, apparently I have not been reading up enough on my Lao History and Culture as it’s common knowledge that women are not allowed to sit next to or touch the Laos Monks which I had now comfortably nestled myself inbetween. Most rude of me. So a quick swap of seats was necessary after which I was positioned next to the window and Justin acted as the ‘barrier’ between the three Monks draped in Bright Orange Robes and I. The rest of the journey to Ban Khoun Kham went without problems and we were soon dropped off in front of a rickety wooden building acting as the bus station. We were just debating whether or not we should find a hostel to leave our bags, go to the cave and come back to sleep there that evening  or whether we should try to go on to the village right next to the cave, when our question was answered for us. A Tuk Tuk full to the brim with local people pulled up and out hopped a girl that we recognised as getting the same boat as us away from the 400 Islands. She said that she had stayed in the village next to the cave, Tham Kong Lo and recommended that we went there and then saw the cave the next morning as she had done. Deciscion made. So we hopped on another Tuk Tuk to the village only 1km away from the cave, which was a quiet spot with little in the way of tourists and attractions other than several children, puppies, kittens and chickens. We stayed the night there after taking a little walk round the village and playing football with the locals, then saw the cave early the next morning leaving Chris and Anis behind who wanted to view the cave at a more reasonable hour.

After leaving the cave, we were not sure how we would get the bus back to Vientiane as we hadn’t booked anything and had no idea how often the bus would run. We got the Tuk Tuk back to the town where we had met the girl the day before and then after a little asking around were told that we needed to get another Tuk Tuk to the main road where we could pick up the bus to Vientiane. There was just enough time for a quick stop at the market to buy something mystery wrapped in a bamboo leaf (which - I was disappointed to find - was not sticky rice but raw fermented pork), some fresh spring rolls and some oranges before hurtling off along the dusty roads once more. The Tuk Tuk then dropped us off at the side of the road telling us that we could pick up the bus to Vientiane from there. We had heard that this was the case, but it still didn’t seem comforting to know that we could have just been dropped off in the middle of nowhere with no means of transport. Luckily for us though, we didn’t have to wait long, and after about 15 minutes a large coach size bus pulled up to let off some of the locals. We had to forcefully ask if the bus was going to Vientiane as they didn’t seem that keen to pick up any further passengers and when we ascertained that it was we managed to get them to pile our bags into the hold. Once I climed aboard I could see why they didn’t need any more passangers. As commonly found in Laos, it seems, the aisles were piled with 25 kilo bags of rice that we had to step on and once Dayna and Michael had sat down there were no more seats. I again managed to find a seat right at the back after one the the Laos women was encouraged to shuffle into the same seat as her child by the conductor, but like many of the other locals that got on at the same stop, Justin had to sit on a plastic stool in the aisle. Fortunatley a couple of hours into the journey the couple with the child on the back row got off the bus, and we had two whole seats to ourselves for the rest of the way.

We arrived in Vientiane late that evening and after asking around for a while and finding that several hostels were full, and more expensive than we expected, we managed to find a room for the reasonable price of 60,000 KIP. A couple of lazy days were spent here sampling the delights of the bakeries, relaxing in the herbal saunas and rushing a quick city tour on a wobbly bike before heading off to Vang Vieng.

The tour operator had assured us that the mini bus was the best option as it was quicker, however I’m not so sure myself. For short journeys maybe, as you save a little time on the journey, however, they are a lot more bumpy and the lack of headrest means that you can’t just loll your head back and sleep. But six hours wasn't unbearable and we heard later that it was nearly twice as fast as the bus.

Arriving in Vang Vieng on the 30^th gave us one evening to settle in before the New Years Eve festivities. We started the day at around 11am by the thing that draws the tourists to the town. Tubing. We hired rubber tractor inner tubes and drifted down the river between the bars. Although saying it like that makes it sound as though there are plenty of bars and much distance to drift between them. In fact the first three bars are in such close proximity that if one wanted to forgo the cost and hasstle of a tube one could just walk between them in seconds. Also the first three bars on the river are by far the busiest, and if you really want to have the drifting experience you have to force yourself to leave the bustling bars and move on to unknown territory. Although the tubes were supposed to be returned before 6pm we ended up getting back as the sun set – well after seven and a quick change of clothes later we were ready for dinner, and to see in the New Year, in Bucket bar on the little island over a precariously balanced wooden bridge.

A well planned ‘hangover day’ was factored in although in fact it may not have been necessary, but it allowed us to pretty much spend all day watching re-runs of Friends and Family guy played in nearly every bar and restaurant during the day. As well as all playing re-runs of the same shows, all of the bars had the same seating which were deep wooden benches raised about 2-3 feet off the floor covered in pillows and cusions with a little low table in the middle.To me it was one of those things that looks more comfortable that it actually is as after about 5 minutes of sitting cross legged you realise that you have cramp and you won’t be able to sit like that during your entre meal, but you now have no space to stretch out your legs as the person opposite you has already put theirs under the table.

Nevertheless, if you manage to angle into a comfy position it was a pretty lazy way to spend the time. We did manage to tear ourselves away from the re-runs the next day and took a scooter out to the aptly named blue lagoon where there was a large cave and a small deep river of incredibly bright turquoise water.

That evening we took a Minibus to Luang Prabang. We had actually booked a VIP but as after our last MiniBus experience we decided that for an overnight trip a proper coach seat would be far more comfortable for napping. However, when we arrived outside the ticket office a Minibus with two girls on it awaited us. I assumed that the MiniBus was there to take us to the bus station but upon asking was told that the bus was taking us all the way to Luang Prabang. The excuse was that the VIP bus was coming from Vientiane but had blown a tyre so they had no idea what time it was going to arrive. However, they were now kindly offering us a private MiniBus that would take us wherever we wanted to go in Luang Prabang, and it would be faster. It was not at all a glamerous as they suggested. For a start being faster was anything but an advantage as the bus was leaving at 7.30 and was aready going to get us there at some ridiculously early hour in the morning, and on top of that the Minibus should have been cheaper than the VIP bus but try as I might they were not giving us any refund for the difference. He did suggest that we get a refund for the whole ticket (full well knowing that we wouldn’t want to do that) and just catch the VIP bus when it arrived, but it might not arrive until the middle of the night, if at all. I suspect that there was never any VIP bus. We had tried the previous day to get tickets from other booking offices, however, we were told on a couple of occasions that all the buses were full. We thought we had stumbled across a bit of luck when we found the office at the end of our road selling tickets for the day that we wanted to go, but obviously it was too good to be true. I asked the man at the office what time we would be arriving, and he said ‘around six or seven, something like that,’ however, this definitely didn’t add up as I was expecting a 7 hour journey. When we got into the bus I asked the driver how long the journey took and he said about 7 hours, so to me that meant we would be arriving at about 3am in the morning.

So despite our resolutions, we climbed aboard the Minibus. It was a pretty uncomfortable journey as having no headrests means that you cant really sleep. Coupled with the fact that the road to Luang prabang is one of the windiest roads in Laos and the roads are renowned for being rutted and gravelly it was never going to be a good ride.

At around 2am the driver pulled to a stop and told us that we had arrived. He pulled up in the middle of what looked like it might have been a main road with some shops either side, but at that time of night was absolutely dead, and opened the boot in a move to take out our bags.

Thinking that it would not be a good idea to be dropped in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night we asked him to stop and I had a hurred look through the lonely planet for the name of a guesthouse that he could take us to. We picked one from the list and although he did not seem so keen to not be immediately rid of his burdens he proceeded to reverse 50 meters up the road and turned down a series of side streets until he again declared that we where ‘here’ and jumped out to take out our bags. As much as I tried to explain that we didn’t want to be dumped on a side street in the middle of the night he keept assuring us that it was ‘ok, ok, ok!’ whilst heaving our bags to the pavement. Luckily for us the owner of the guesthouse that we picked was sleeping on a (rather uncomfortable looking) wooden bench in the entrance of his guesthouse so we were able to wake him and get two rooms for the night. It really defeated the object of getting the overnight bus though as it cost a little more than he bus during the day, but was supposed to eradicate the need for accommodation, and so save a little money.

We spent two days in Luang Prabang which was a town with a really lovely atmosphere to it. There were some waterfalls and caves nearby which many of the tourists go to see when staying there but having just seen the like in Vang Vieng, dare I say, I really didn't fancy another trip, so we just enjoyed the town and its cafés, oreo shakes and the night market. In fact the night market was so good the first night where I filled up on spring rolls and spicy green papaya salad that we decided to go again on or last night to get something to takeaway for our bus to Huayxai (now suspecting that there wouldn’t be a food stop). We opted for the buffet (of which there were several to choose from) which had several platters mounded high with yellow rice and vegetables, sweet and sour noodles, tofu dishes, and many other things. You could pick as much as you wanted for 10,000 KIP (less than £1) and it was all heated on a portable stove before being rammed into a little polystyrene takeaway box. We also bought some more spring rolls and some doughnut looking pastries filled with vanilla and chocolate.

Considering the fact that we had eaten there the night before, I hadn't given another thought to consuming a large amount of the food before getting on a 15 hour winding bus ride, however, for whatever reason the second trip to the market did not seem to be as agreeable to me as the first, and I had to make use of the little plastic bags handed out to all passengers, intended I assume for rubbish.

The hellish journey ended eventually at around 8am and as usual was followed by a Tuk Tuk into the town. The Gibbon Experience had been booked for the following day, but flying through the jungle over 150meters in the air was the last thing on my mind, and luckily we managed to postpone it to the next trip which left for the jungle two days later...