Laos

May 24th 2016

I landed in Vientiane at around 10am in the morning and was quite tired from the over night flights and switching planes but I was looking forward to seeing Dylan. I grabbed a cab from the airport with a French girl and headed towards the hotel. The French girl was making a big fuss at first about grabbing a cab inside the airport so we decided to exit the airport and look for a cab outside but none existed. She complained about the high price of the cab to get towards the area of the hotels, which was $5. I was just about to leave her when we found a van driver to take us. I paid for the cab and she didn’t have anything to give me except Indonesian money so I took it hoping that it would come in handy again soon. As I walked towards to hotel, I heard Dylan’s voice calling my name. I was relieved to see that he was there. We met up and picked up instantly where we left off, by getting a beer. Those following days we explored Vientiane, which was a city that didn’t have much to offer tourists. We ate at some of the lovely French café’s, explored the night markets, ate local street foods, watched a movie, went to the local bowling alley, went to the Laos Beer Brewery, and explored Buddha Park. The brewery wasn’t a tour as a guidebook had informed us but we went anyways and sampled some of their beers. Buddha Park was an interesting collection of statues and artwork of both Buddhist and Hindu gods and creatures. Since Dylan was only there for a few days we had to end our adventures together. He had back home to Delhi and I decided to take a bus to Vang Vieng.

I decided that taking the day bus to Vang Vieng would be a safer option since I was travelling alone again. I booked a hostel and did some quick research on the town before getting on the bus. The bus arrived into Vang Vieng at around 4pm and my hostel was luckily only a block away. As soon as I stepped into the hostel, I realized I had entered a “party” hostel. My dorm room consisted of 6 beds and as I entered, I met the 5 Dutch girls who were friends already there. They were extremely drunk and slightly obnoxious. They told me that there was too much rain today to do the site seeing tour they booked so they decided to get day drunk by purchasing many bottles of rum. One of the girls was puking, another was crying as she was an emotional drunk, and the other girls were taking care of them. Oh boy, I thought. It would be a long night. This hostel and town definitely had a younger party crowd and I felt like it would to make friends here but told myself to be patient. That night, all of us in the dorm room went to bed early, maybe around 7-8pm. I woke up to a loud noise outside our dorm room at around 2am. I could hear a guy screaming for help. I figured this was a drinking related accident and his friend had passed out from too much booze. One of the Dutch girls ran out to see what was happening and then came back inside asking if I was a doctor or had medical experience. I told her no and to take him to the hospital. I’ll be honest, I felt bad for the guy but since this town is known for drugs and drinking, his overdose didn’t surprise me. The guy was released from the hospital the next day and told us that he really didn’t think there was a possibility that he could die. I thought he was stupid. He apparently drank alcohol, did some shrooms, and heroine. What did he think was going to happen with that combination? Madness, just madness.

The rains these next few days in Vang Vieng were terrible. The hostel had flooded everyday with severe thundershowers.The next day I made friends with Camille, Anthea, and Janik. Cami and Anthea were from France and Janik from Germany. I didn’t know then but these three people would become very special people for me during this world trip. At first I had spoke to Cami for a few hours and she told me I could join them the next day on a tour. We decided to coordinate the tour by ourselves to save some money, which ended up being a funny disaster. We were dropped off at some random place, which was suppose to be the entrance of our tour. We were unsure if the driver was our guide but he insisted he was not and that we would have to hire another guide. We had paid for a guide that was included in our tour so we knew something wasn’t adding up. Some nice people throughout the village led us to the “Elephant Cave” which was a complete waste of time. We paid money to see a rock inside this tiny mountain cave which resembled an elephant’s trunk. The next stop was through a local village but the mud was quite uncomfortable for us to walk through. We got to the cave on the river we were going to explore with no clear instructions on what we were suppose to do so we watched what a Chinese tour group was doing. They looked like cute children bobbing around in the water, giggling, while trying to get into their big black water tubes. They put headlamps and helmets on, pulled themselves into the cave with a rope, and came back 10 minutes later. We tried asking the owners of the near by outdoor restaurants what we do, who we rent things from, where we could find a guide, etc. No one spoke English to guide us in the right direction and it seemed like everyone who was there had arrived in an organized tour group. We gave up and went back to where our driver was. When we got back to the hostel we approached the front desk and told them what happened since we paid for a tour we didn’t get. He refunded us some of the money back and apologized stating that he doesn’t know where the guide went and would approach the tour company and let them know if this mess.

Anthea and Janik headed out to do the most famous activity there was in Vang Vieng. This was river tubing down the great Mekong River. A few years ago about 20 foreigners a year were dying/drowning on this river because there were mini bars set up along the river banks that would sell drugs and booze. Lots of people would fall off their tubes and drown or dive off of areas head first into rocks. The Laos government decided there was too many deaths and closed down all but two bars on the river. The bars would throw you a rope to hold on to while they pulled you in for drinks. Cami and I decided not to participate in this activity because the rains had been so aggressive that we figured the river current would be too strong. Since I’m not the strongest swimmer, even if they had an option of a life jacket, I figured it would be in my best interest not to join them. They had come back and said they had a good time except they were quite cold since it didn’t stop raining and mentioned you really had to pay attention to where you had to get off on the side of the river bank because you could easily miss the exit and continue down the Mekong. I heard of one story of a guy who fell asleep, missed the exit and ended 30 miles down river. A farmer who offered him a ride back to town for a large sum of money awaked him. Crazy times in Vang Vieng! The next day the four of us decided to take the night bus north to Luang Prabang. We were really shocked when we got onto the night bus. We thought it would be seats that reclined back but they were actual single beds on the bus. The driver drove erratically for what seemed like 5 hours. The road was suppose to be 8 hours long which would mean we would arrive in the city during daylight around 6am. Instead we arrived at around 3am. The three of them hadn’t booked an accommodation yet but we grabbed a tuk tuk towards where I had booked a room in a guesthouse. A man who was up told them they could stay at a hostel he owned so we split up ways but met up the next day. It was the first time I stayed in a “dorm” room with only me and another person. A bit strange since it was two separate beds but I hope the person who was next to me wasn’t a psychopath and wasn’t going to try anything “funny” at night. I woke up and messaged the “team” to see where they were. They had rented bikes and were eating breakfast at a nearby café. I had breakfast included at my guesthouse so I grabbed a bike and rode to meet them. We decided to spend the day site seeing around the city and visiting temples and other sites of notable mention. We hired a boat on the river to take us across the other side to begin our temple hoping tour. We got to the other side and climbed quite a few stairs to get to the top of the temple. We needed to pay a fee to get in which we were ok with. The temple was simple and not so impressive to me but the view of the Mekong from the top was beautiful. We walked towards another temple and realized everyone wanted us to pay fees to enter their temples so we turned around and head back towards to boat. We got to the other side and explored the old town and night market. The night market was very impressive but the same repetitive vendors appeared everywhere selling the same wears. We sampled the local treats and ate a lot of Vietnamese sandwiches, which were made on delicious French breads. The influence of the French was quite noticeable everywhere in Laos from the food to the architecture. The next day I had a new roommate Renato, who was originally from Brasil but lives in London. He was a pleasant guy who was travelling something like 12 countries in 2 weeks and would spend not more then a day or two in one country. I thought it was quite odd at first but he explained to me that he gets quite bored in one place and needs to get keep moving. We had built a good friendship in the small amount of time we spent together and talked about all sorts of things.

My favourite day in Laos and one of the most memorable days of my life was visiting the Kwangsi Waterfall Park in Luang Prabang. Renato had already been to the waterfalls the day before but was keen on joining us to visit it again as he said it was one of the most beautiful things he had seen. We arrived to the park and first went to the bear conservation sanctuary. I think these were sun bears, a species I had never seen before. They were smaller then a black bear but much bigger then a dog. They were very cute bears. They were there for awareness purposes to show us that their habitat was becoming harmed and deforested and how to help. We walked past the sanctuary and entered the waterfall park. At first I thought it was one bright blue pond but as we continued to walk up we saw multiple waterfalls and pools of beautiful bright green waters that flowed effortlessly. They were breath taking and absolutely stunning. I hiked to the top of the waterfall by myself (probably not a good idea). The rest of the gang thought it was too steep but since I had just came from Nepal I was a bit over confident. I did the hike up and although it was tiring, I was happy that I could do this by myself. The “Old Julie” wouldn’t have had the confidence to do this. I got to the top, explored more pools of water and different land formations and then realized I am completely by myself and what a stupid idea this was incase I went “missing”. I turned back to start my descent and met a group of people who were struggling to hike up the mountain. We exchanged a few words and I slowly went back down to meet the group. I saw Renato taking photos and joined him in a small photo shoot of us, ha ha. We met everyone else and went swimming in one of the pools. It was cold water but very refreshing since it was extremely hot outside. I loved the colours of the water and how beautiful all of it was. I never wanted to leave. We had spent another night in Luang Prabang exploring the night market and a lovely viewpoint on top of another temple.

We decided what our next move would be as a group. Janik and I wanted to head up north to do some trekking but the rains were relentless and it would have made no sense to trek in torrential down pours and sticky humid weather. We said good bye to Cami and she had a volunteer opportunity in the south of Laos and needed to be on her way. Janik, Anthea, and I took a 2-day slow boat up the Mekong river up north near the Thailand border. The views were really beautiful from the boat the weather was at times very clear and sunny. Our first stop was Pak Beng a small town on the river. The second stop was Huay Xai a small town which was across the river from the Thailand border. Every time our boat docked, we would have to get off the boat on a very rocky, unsafe and unstable area. The last dock we approached, I got off first and headed up the rocky hill. I didn’t realize that Anthea had stepped off the boat and misplaced her footing causing her to what we thought was to break her foot. Janik picked her up and carried her to the top of the hill. We immediately took her to the hospital to have x-rays and confirm if the foot had broken. The hospital showed us the x-rays and told us it was 100% broken but I wasn’t convinced because you couldn’t see a strong break line anywhere. They put a caste on her and she was very upset thinking that this would be the end of her trip. She contacted her insurance company and they told her that she would be flown out of this town and into Vientiane where an ambulance would be waiting for her to take her into an international hospital in Thailand. Janik and I toured around the city and tried making the best of the situation. We had heard of a Gibon experience tour that a lot of people were doing in the area but it was a few hundred U.S. dollars and I thought it was too much money for a day tour. Janik and I decided since the rains wouldn’t stop, it would be best to head back to Vientiane where he would catch his flight onwards and I would plan what I wanted to do next. Laos was really not that impressive and didn’t have too many activities for tourists to do except those stunning waterfalls. I was thinking of joining Cami in the south but was starting to loose motivation to go down south and not have a ton of new activities to do. Janik and I took what ended up being a 24-hour bus back to Vientiane and oh my god, I have never been in a bus that long. We had sleeper bed seats, which were extremely uncomfortable that were made to accommodate shorter and tinier people from Laos but definitely not Westerners. We squeezed in with all of our bags and awoke to the bus being empty wondering what was going on. The bus had broken down a few times during the journey but this time it could not be fixed. They had alerted all of the Laos people and put them on shuttle vans. They woke us up last and put us on a pick up truck outfitted with benches. Janik was quite upset with this arrangement and asked why locals were getting better treatment then us. They tried to flag down another bus but it was full and options were limited. I told Janik let’s forget about it and endure the last hour of our journey on this pick up truck and at least to get to where we needed. We checked into our hostel in Vientiane which was lovely. I spent a few days there just unwinding and relaxing but still not sure where to go. I decided it would be best to fly back to Bangkok the next day, which was a city, that I was familiar with and enjoyed. From there, I would decide what my next country would be and what I wanted to do. I grabbed a tuk tuk at 4am and headed to the airport saying good-bye to Laos and hello to Bangkok.

GALLERY PICS OF LAOS