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.
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 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.
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