Lots of Bus Travel

The last few days haven't quite worked out the way we hoped and not for the better. We spent a full day on a bus, were told our room had been booked for the next night, had laundry come back dirty and could afford to rent a motorbike to explore Luang Prabang. I guess not everything can go smoothly but hopefully our travels down to Malaysia will be smoother than all our buses in Lao.

*Look on the post below for the rest of the Elephant Conservation Center

Dec 10 – Back to Luang Prabang

We had to leave the peace of the Elephant Conservation Center to board a bus back to the Luang Prabang. The bus was one of the smaller ones with the fold up seats, it wasn't the most comfortable ride but it was relatively on time. Back in Luang Prabang we headed to the guesthouse we had been staying at before. We pre-booked a room before we left but when we got there they said they were full except for one room. They made it sound like they were doing us a favour by letting us have this room even though we had given them a deposit. But we took the dinky little room they offered. We went out for some yummy soup lunch and wandered around the city a little. It has cooled off considerably so we were all bundled up in our sweaters. We looked into renting a motorcycle to go see a supposedly gorgeous water fall in the area but they were charging $20! We couldn't believe the price so we scratched the waterfall off our list. We were hunting for a new book for Beau but didn't have too much success. We pretty much just wandered the rest of the day trying to stretch our legs after being on the bus.

Dec 11 – Biking around Luang Prabang

We rented bicycles today to try to see a little more of the city. We went to a local market that catered to everyday people. It's always fun to see where the locals shop for their wares. It's like a departments store but soooo much better. We got to try some beef and pork jerky and Laos cookie, which we bought for a bus snack. We followed the river around the town and had lunch at our favourite little restaurant. We went back to our hotel to have a shower and collect our laundry. Unfortunately our laundry did not really come clean... we have a feeling that they used fabric softener instead of laundry soap. Our hotel also told us we couldn't stay after tomorrow because the room was booked! We were essentially being kicked out of our hotel the next day, luckily we were planning on heading back to Vientiane anyways. We headed back out for dinner and to return our bikes. The guy had said to bring them back for 7pm, when we arrived at his store it was closed even though it was 7pm. We were not impressed, we had left Beau credit card with the guy as collateral. Now we needed to come back in the morning and wouldn't be able to leave the city until we had the card back. We weren't having the best of luck today. Again we returned to the waterside restaurant, the food is inexpensive and super good. We were pretty disgruntled with our hotel, our laundry and our bicycle situation!

Dec 12 – Back to Vientiane

Our day started with trying to return the bicycles right away, which didn't work since the guy hadn't opened yet. We had hoped to be on an early bus back to Vientiane but we weren't able to return the bikes till just after 8am. The guy also claimed he was there till 7pm but I don't know what clock he was operating on. We hurried back to our hotel, checked out and hopped a tuk-tuk to the bus station. We arrived in time to catch the 9am bus back to Vientiane, otherwise we would have had to wait around till 11am for the next bus. Turns out what we thought was good fortune by catching this bus was bad luck. We broke down on the side of the road in the mountains. I'm not sure how long we were there for but one of the bus guys had to borrow a scooter for a local and ran off with some sort of pipe to get replaced. We weren't sure whether it was a brake line, fuel line or hydraulic line. Some time later the guy returned, installed the part and we were on our way again. We stopped for lunch some time later, it way about 3pm now and stayed stopped for another hour while they worked on the bus again. We didn't reach Vientiane until almost 11pm. It took 14 hrs to go about 300km. They claim it should take about 8-9hrs, I thought maybe 10hrs. We hadn't pre-booked a guesthouse which was a big mistake as many places were full. We found one with a room but it was 100,000 kip we took it since we didn't have too many options. The room was sub-par to say the least. Oh well it's one night and hopefully we'll be out of here on a train to Bangkok tomorrow.

Elephant riding and elephant babies

Here's the rest of our elephant excursion.

Dec 9 – The Elephant Conservation Center

We were up early this morning for a 7:30 breakfast. Afterwards we went on a walk through the woods with the elephants, their Mahouts and our guide. It was a nice walk and our guide pointed out different plants to us and had us taste a few too. The ones he had us taste were quite sour. After our walk we were at the training center and got to not only mount the elephants but try to give them directions too. It was really cool. We had to get the elephant to go, stop, go backwards, turn right and turn left. I think the mahouts helped us out a little. The elephant I was on, Mae Kham Ohn, didn't want to back up for me. She's apparently the stubborn one. After we gave the elephants a treat of banana tree. The don't like the bark so they peel it off and then eat the insides. It was interesting to watch them hold part of the tree in their trunk while using the tip to pick out what they wanted. The trunks are amazingly dexterous. The elephants were taken by their mahouts back into the forest for their lunch while we had a little free time before our lunch time. After lunch we went with a different guide into the elephant nursery area. She told us about future plans for the area, they hope to build a platform so guests can safely watch the mother and baby elephants. We went down to the lake and got on the boat that was tied up there while the mothers and their babies made their own way down to the water with their mahouts. There are two mothers and two babies. One baby is female and about 6 months old, the other male and is only 2 months. The mother elephants share the care of the babies and work together to feed them and keep them safe. They were very protective of the babies at first, keeping themselves between the boat and the babies but after a little bit they relaxed and the little ones were allowed to romp around. The baby girl was rolling around in the water and was curious about us on the boat. The little one was a bit shy and kept hiding under mum and weaving under her legs. The two babies played together too. The little one was biting the others ear. It was very sweet and reminded me a lot of what human children do. We headed back to the center by boat and the other three elephants were having their bath time again. Mae Boun Nam was having a great time dunking her mahout as usual. There were new guests that had arrived this afternoon so it was a full house at the center. While the new people went with elephants back into the forest, we had a shower and relaxed a little with a beer. We headed up to the restaurant around dinner time and Beau played a little Boche ball (they called it something different) with the locals. Dinner was close to ready and all the lights went out at the restaurant. This is the problem with depending solely on solar energy for your power. It was very overcast today so the batteries didn't charge up enough. We ate by candle light and eventually one of the workers got back from town where I guess they picked up a new battery. The lights came back on right as we were finishing dinner. The center has a few little kinks to work out still but eating by candle light isn't so bad.

Momma with her little boy

The 2 month old male is on the left and the 6 month old female the right

The little boy

One of the mums trying to push the tree over to eat, you can see the little boy between her legs

Girl left, boy right

Us on the boat

The Elephant Conservation Center

Three days ago we had a very dusty local bus ride to get to the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayabouly. The bus ride was an amusing experience, much better than these “VIP” buses. We took a tuk-tuk to a little boat to get to the remote center. It was a lovely little elephant paradise that has only been open for a month or two. They started 11 months with a forested 100 hectares and now have bungalows and a veterinary clinic. Currently the center owns three elephants, Mae Dok who is 50 years old, Mae Boun Nam who is 17 years old and Mae Kham Ohn who is 19 years old. There are also two mother elephants and their babies which are on loan as part of a elephant nursery program. The people running the center have some very lofty goals and I hope they achieve them all!

Dec 8 – To Sayabouly and the Elephant Conservation Center

We were up early and on our way to the bus station to buy our bus ticket to Sayabouly so we could visit the elephant conservation center. We bought our ticket and had breakfast at one of the little stalls at the bus station. While enjoying our noodle soup breakfast we got to observe the bus station workers loading two motorcycles onto the top of our bus. When we boarded our bus we we noticed there was more leg room than the “VIP” bus, the seats didn't recline, and everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. This bus is obviously just a local bus, there was no A/C, the front passenger side windsheild was busted up, and everything just seemed a little worn. It also seemed that our bus would not reverse so we were pushed out of the bus terminal! It was quite an interesting ride... the road changed between paved and unpaved. The unpaved sections were soooo dusty. It fully explained the dust covering the everything in the bus. People kept opening and closing their window depending on how much dust was kicked up. It was also a very bumpy and windy road. We had to cross the Mekong to get to Sayaboury Province on a ferry. You could see they are starting to build a bridge. We reached the Sayaboury bus terminal about when they said we would. We couldn't believe our bus was on time!! Our tuk-tuk driver picked us out no problem as we were the only white people on the bus. We took the tuk-tuk for about 10min and then we met up with a boat. The boat took us for a lovely ride on the lake, Nam Tien lake. We reached the Elephant Conservation Center around 1:30. Turns out this place was only started a year ago and they have only been open to guests for about a month. It's just beautiful though. We got a tour around the center. They have a little elephant museum that explains much about elephants, mahouts (elephant drivers) and how they fit into Laos culture. The center is trying to promote elephant conservation, sustainable elephant tourism and also, in the future, a Mahout training center. One of their main projects right now is trying to increase the live births of elephants. Most elephants work in the logging industry and it isn't cost effective for an owner to get it's female elephant pregnant. It's also quite expensive to pay for the stud service of a male elephant. What the ECC is doing is called the Baby Bonus Program, female elephants who are pregnant or have just given birth come to the ECC and will spend the next three years here with their Mahouts. The owner is given a hang tractor to replace the elephants services and the ECC also pays the Mahouts salary while the elephant is at the center. Elephants have a 20-22 month gestation period and it's another 3 years before the young is weaned. The idea of the program is to allow the mother and baby sufficient time together so that the baby elephant has the best chance of survival. Right now there is apparently only one elephant born for every ten that die. After learning about the center and getting taken on a tour of the veterinary clinic (the only one in Laos), we got to meet the 3 elephants owned by the ECC, Mae Dok, Mae Boun Nam, and Mae Kham Ohn. All female elephant names start with Mae which means mother. We also got to try mounting the elephants which was very cool. After getting up on the elephants and being lead around a little we gave them some bananas as a treat and a thank you. Then their Mahouts took them back into the forest to graze for the night and we followed along. At night the elephant is chained to a tree with a 20-25m chain so it doesn't go wandering off. Each night she is tied in a different area near a some water so she has lots to eat and drink, elephants only sleep about 3-4 hours the rest of the time they spend eating. After going with the elephants we had a nice cold shower, next month they hope to have a solar water heater. All of the electricity at the center is provided by solar power. Dinner was tasty although kind of standard. We went to bed fairly early but that is typical after a long day of travel and the excitement of the elephants.

The Elephant Conservation Center

Me on Mae Dok

Beau on Mae Boun Nam

Bath time!

The internet has decided to become slow as molasses so I'll post the rest tomorrow.