Luang Prabang - Waterfalls, Temples and Relaxing

The drive to Luang Prabang was spectacular. We went through the jungle in the mountains. Pity we weren't awake for more of it. Niamh managed about twenty minutes of non-snoozy time during the eight hour journey. We arrived in Luang Prabang to torrential rain in the dark, as the bus was late, not exactly unexpected. Emmet went on a food run and we settled into our sweet guesthouse called Alounsavath Guesthouse that Jerry and Aisling booked for us. The next morning we met them for breakfast and planned our day.

The four of us got a Tuk Tuk to a waterfall called  Kuang Si falls, an hour outside the town, which ensured sufficient quantity of brain shake for the day. We walked past the random bear conservation park first. They looked healthy enough. There was a nice hike up to the waterfall with swimming and picnic spots along the way. The waterfall was beautiful. It was really high and has lots of smaller falls beneath it. We went swimming in a pool, but ended up getting out quickly to get away from the fish sucking at our feet. Except for Jerry who braved a few rope swings into the water as well as an impressive dive off a rapid.

Later on, we climbed Phousi hill for sunset. We left a little late so had to sprint up the hill to make it. The sunset was a bit of an anti-climax but the views over the town were worth the sweat.

There is a good food market every evening which serves barbecue for ridiculously cheap prices and bottles of Laos beer. We figured it would be rude not to indulge. We went with Jerry and Aisling and two Kiwi lads they met in Vietnam, Nick and Dan. We then went to a great bar called Utopia. We sat at a low tables on cushions on the floor drinking more Laos beer.

We decided to go to a small rural village set in limestone karst mountains called Nong Khiaw for a couple of days. It is only just over two and a half hours away by bus. We stayed in Nam Ou River Lodge. The rooms were grand, but I wouldn't recommend that people stay there. We didn't trust the owner and felt quite ripped off by the end.

We arrived early and had most of the day to play with, so decided to go for a walk. We walked a couple of kilometres to Tham Patok Cave where locals hid when the Americans bombed to country to shit. Laos is the most bombed country in the world. It was used as a supply route by the Vietnamese, which gave the Americans significant incentive to drop masses of cluster bombs, many still in the ground unexploded.

The cave was a little less developed that we had anticipated. We first had to walk across, or rather through, the bridgeless river to the "guides" (ie some lads who hang around all day waiting for people like us). This was doubly fun since Jerry had just seen a water snake in a nearby stream. There were five or six fellas so we planned how we take them if they turned out to be opportunists. It mainly involved letting karate Jerry do his thing. We then climbed up a rickety stair case until we hit a gate half way up. So, a gate as an obstacle, what is the normal thing to do? Open it? Not if it is padlocked with no key. Instead, we climbed over this gate 20 foot up. The cave itself was quite small, and like most other caves in the world, paled in comparison to Khong Lor. The "guide" told us at one stage five hundred people were camped in it. They even had signs showing were the governor, communications unit etc congregated. Getting down the gate was less troublesome than we expected.

Emmet showed his steely determination in the face adversity on the way back through the river. Something started sucking at his foot (I am glad this is not a problem we have in Ireland, although I have heard it is known to happen in Coppers), so he started screaming and thrashing his leg about. It gave up and sucked somewhere else and Emmet bolted across the river faster than I have ever seen him move.

That evening after dinner, Jerry and Aisling introduced us to the joys of Liverpool Rummy, an addictive card game that we will be having parties centred around when we get home. You have been warned. We attempted to drink a few beers but the fella working was more determined to sleep than we were to drink apparently. He went for a snooze in the beer storage room and was not bothered by our incessant knocking.

The next day we rented out some bicycles. You would think in Asia of all places the bikes would be suited to people of smaller stature. You would be wrong. Niamh struggled to find a mountain bike small enough and Aisling hadn't a hope. Aisling ended up getting a city bike with no gears instead. We cycled out the road, which was a lot hillier than necessary for leisurely cycle. We went through beautiful scenery and quaint little villages with small wooden stilt houses.

The people were very friendly and every child shouted Sabadee (hello) to us. At one stage Niamh was waving to a child and pulled on the brakes to slow down a little. Unfortunately, she pulled on the front brakes and ended up going over the handles bars. It was just what she needed, more injuries. A few villagers were standing around not really knowing what to do and just to add to the embarrassment, sure why not, a few more villagers came out of their houses to see what the commotion was. Other than a sore wrist, she got off lightly, especially considering what could have been.

We booked a boat back to Luang Prabang. We arose early in the morning to the mother of all rain storms and reconsidered our mode of conveyance (we have been playing a lot of scrabble). The owner tried to convince us that the rain wasn't too bad. Unfortunately for him we have eyes and therefore were not fooled. We lost half the price of the boat fare and then he took advantage of the fact that there are limited transport options and fleeced us on the bus ticket. Nice little earner for him. Sneaky fecker.

That evening we went to the market again for food and a gander. The market is much more low pressure than many of the markets in Asia and full of colourful tribal handicrafts. However, like the other markets, sells a limited range of things, with loads of stalls selling the exact same product. I don't know how they make a living selling the same things. But it is nice to walk around and Niamh got craft envy looking at all the embroidered bags.

That night we went to a really nice bar called Icon. It's run by a Hungarian lady. It is really nicely decorated, kind of French boudoir style. It was expensive though. It is twice the price for a Beer Lao than anywhere else, which is the bar you set on prices over here. But she has a good selection, the cocktails look good, so a second visit will be done. Did someone say White Russian. Nice!

Jerry and his Aisling were to head off on their boat to Thailand the next morning. This was not possible as the rain had been so bad, there had been a mud slide and full trees were floating down stream. Basically half a forest, so no boats that day. Unless of course your a mental Laos lad who loves a bit of fire wood and chooses to jump into his rubbish row boat that he has to empty the water out several times a trip. Then jump into said fast flowing river and tie ropes around the massive tree trunks to haul them to the river bank. Health & Safety would have a shit fit if they saw these lads. One trunk took one of these boats from under one bloke, who happened to be beside one of the larger boats. He jumped and grabbed onto the side of the other boat and swung out of it while looking up at me and laughing. Barking mad I tell ya. I stayed firmly rooted to the footpath and figured I'd leave them to it.

So that day Niamh, Jerry and Aisling all went to the National History Museum. Emmet wasn't feeling the may west, so he stayed in bed watching awful Asian TV and even worse HBO. They are the equivalent of an echo with amount of repeats. I've seen Transformers, Dark Side Of The Moon four times this month. I mean it's good but come on. The one decent movie channel they seem to have is dubbed. Terribly dubbed at that. One woman does everyones voice, without emotion. Ah well, at least the Olympics is on and good aul Katie Taylor won the gold medal. She is amazing, and probably our best ever athlete. PROUD TO BE IRISH!!!!

Myself and Niamhington have decided to stay in Luang Prabang for the week until we get our first flight of the trip to Thailand.  It is a very pretty town, full of French style colonial buildings, temples and lovely cafes, bars and restaurants. It is one of our favourite places in South East Asia and a great place to just hang out. We moved to a cheaper but still nice guesthouse called Sikoukhone Guesthouse. We have decided that for the next five days doing stuff is over rated. So instead, we will chill on the balcony, read, drink lots of cups of tea and play scrabble on the computer (Jerry's fault). We will also gorge ourselves on lots of great meals for under a fiver before we resort to living on cheesy puffs in Australia and New Zealand. We need a rest, I know, I know, go and f*#k ourselves, but traveling does take alot of energy. Your nearly always on the go. A couple of fourteen hour bus journeys on Asian roads, mixed with humidity and you'll soon see what we mean. Beats working though.

Well that will be all for now folks. Thailand next. Then onto New Zealand. You know, the closer we get, on quite nights, I swear I can almost hear O'Dowda snoring and other times the sound of a knee being slapped rigorously with echo of ah man, ah man......

For more photos follow the link.

Northern Laos - Spooky Caves, Cappuccinos and Black Eyes

Our next destination was Tha Khaet which we traveled to in a mini van without suspension. Great craic altogether. We arrived in at a reasonable time even with the obligatory unnecessary stops.

The main reason for stopping in Tha Khaet was to go see a deadly cave. The cave is a little difficult to get to so our first job was to find out from the guesthouse if they ran any tours. A simple task I hear you say, but alas this was not the case. The three members of staff behind the counter told us they didn't have tours. I have highlighted the fact that there were three members of staff for a reason, which will be explained later. The options were to get two public buses out (we think we have made the bus situation in Laos clear at this stage) but would need to stay over night or get a mini van and do a day trip for 100 euro. Neither of these options suited us cause we didn't want to stay in a crap hole for a night and are not loaded, so instead we rented a moped so we could buzz around the local area ourselves. We were disappointed thinking we would have to give the caves a miss. We then got chatting to some other people in the guesthouse bar who told us they were going on a trip organised by said guesthouse the next morning and it was a reasonable price. Apparently, it was one of the first things the staff told them about. Three members of staff told us there was none, what is wrong with these people? Apparently giving you false information is not relegated to the bus drivers in Laos. We ended up booking the tour even though we had already paid for the mopeds, as it was the reason we had stopped in the town to begin with. Gobshites of the highest order.

The cave was definitely worth the trip in the end. It is 7.5 km long and accessed by boat. We floated in a little wooden kayak steered by some locals. We had head torches as it is pitch black inside, as caves generally are. It was quite spooky with loads of rocks shaped like ghost heads (you can see what ever you want in cave rocks, I chose ghost heads) and bats flying about. There were branches hanging from the ceiling that had gotten caught with high water in rainy season. There is one section that you can walk through, which is full of huge stalagmites and stalactites. Apparently, there are spiders the size of your hand, which luckily we did not see, although another group saw some mad scorpion spider type hybrid - almost like a spider baby.



 

The journey on the way there was uneventful, but the way back was true to Laos style. The driver first stopped to buy some mushrooms, slightly strange but each to their own. Then he stopped to buy a phone for his kid. We didn't complain. They didn't have the phone he wanted so he stopped at a further two stalls in different villages. Once he had his phone,he stopped at a different location to make a phone call and talk to a bunch of blokes who were flat out just sitting around. Later on, he then stopped in the middle of the road, as did some other bloke across from us. Out he got with a plastic bag with something in it for him, had a chat for a while and then made yet another phone call. Off we went again. Then he decided he didn't have enough mushrooms and stopped once again to buy two massive bags from some fella at the side of he road. He then got a phone call and everyone knew what that meant, another pitstop. He pulled over,as went through a herd of cattle on the road and he sat there looking at them in his mirror. We had lost patience at this stage. The Scottish lad, Daniel, said to him 'why do we keep stopping, can we not just go to Tha Khaet?'. He mumbled something back and started driving. The first two stops were grand, but he really started to take the piss. We were worried because we had to have the mopeds, which we didn't use, back by a certain time. It would be great if we got a fine for bringing them back late on top of it all! I like the relaxed pace of life in South East Asia, but not when it crosses the line to a disregard of people's time to the point of complete disrespect. Mushrooms, phone calls, deliveries, chats. This bloke is meant to be at work!

The people we went on the tour with were sound. There was a french-Irish lad, a Scottish couple and and Dutch fella. It was Natalie, the Scottish bird's birthday, so we headed into the town for some grub. The food was only mediocre, but the company more than made up for it.

We had an early night to prepare for our bus journey to Vientiane and rose once against six in the morning, a time that no sane human being should be awake at. The bus was quite comfortable and after a shaky start (45 minutes to go about a mile) the driver actually started driving continuously. We amazingly arrived in an hour early, happy as Larry.

We got a ridiculously overpriced TukTuk the ten kilometres into the city centre, yes they built the bus station ten kilometres from the centre, planning at its best!

We wandered to a guesthouse recommended to us by the Scottish couple, but it was booked out and so began the fervent search for cheap but not infested with cockroaches/bedbugs/other insecty type creatures accommodation. We found one a few places down called Mixay Guesthouse, although the staff could of done with a bit of customer service training, not the friendliest bunch, especially the lad that sat on the Internet all day playing games and downloading shit, clogging up the bandwidth. As Aideen thought us deanfaidh se cuis (it'll do)! The long bus journeys and early mornings got to Niamh, so we just got some food and had an early one.

After a good nights sleep we were right as rain again. We found a great coffee shop called Joma with the best cappuccino that we have had since leaving Dublin (Cafe Irie is still number one, they even give you a flake for Christ sake, what more do you want? Nothing). They had free WiFi so we sent long overdue emails and Facebooks to friends and family.

Then Niamh went off and got a massage. It was one of those mad Asian massages where they pull you apart. At one stage I was lying on my front while she was squatting with her feet on my thighs thumping my back. It helped my weary, travel beaten muscles though. And I smelt like essential oils for the day, bonus.

We decided to visit the local market for a bit of a gander and some food. Unfortunately, they have now converted half of it into a soulless depressing shopping centre. We looked around for a food stall, there was none, and stuck our noses in a couple of shops before buying a packet of crisps to tide us over till we could find somewhere for lunch.

We went on our own little city tour for the rest of the afternoon before going to a great restaurant for dinner. It is run by a french man and is decorated with Toulouse Lautrec style pictures and lots of curios. We had a great Italian style pizza. After that it was on to play a game of pool and a beer Lao, we are determined to acquire enviable skills by the time we get back. Emmet won this round, but I would like to point out that I beat him in Siem Reap. Let's not forget that, ever. It has even been recorded on a blackboard. (Niamh's favourite form of communication/lists/orders).

We traveled by minibus to Vang Vieng, which is famous for all the stupid drunk people that float down the river on tubes and end up injured or dead. One of the great things about this town is that the eateries have sofa beds and play friends or family guy on massive screens all day.

We decided to give the tubing part a miss as we are not eighteen year old English gap year students or mad yolks with a death wish. We just visited the bars. We had a really good time in the beginning. Everyone was really friendly and we got chatting to loads of people, including a girl from Roselawn called Caoimhe, what are the chances, quite large evidently, but still. We were given bracelets and whiskey shots at each bar and joined the A&D team, which meant someone wrote A&D in marker on our arms. The place was crazy, people were jumping from ropes into the river, getting very very drunk and dancing to ridiculous music. We even saw someone dancing to the spice girls. We judged...a lot.

Once it got dark, we decided to head to the town for some food with friends. Niamh got a pizza baguette. It was delicious but painfully hot. I got a really bad burn from the cheese that subsequently scabbed over and was quite painful. This, unfortunately was only the start of the pain. Up until this point we had conducted ourselves very well and felt superior to the drunken messes floating about. Then we headed to the next bar, the bucket bar, which incidentally was giving out free buckets. This was the start of our problems. We had one bucket, went dancing on a make shift stage, watched people limbo dancing under fire and had the sense not too and then blank. Our plan had been to go on a night bus to Luang Prabang, but we decided that Vang Vieng was not for us and left that morning...more Jerry and Aisling time as well!

As can be imagined, the eight hour bus journey was incredibly painful , but we arrived in Luang Prabang safe and sound, and quite happy as the place looks great. We will fill you in on our adventures next time as your probably bored silly reading a this stage.