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.

Tubing in the Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng has beautiful scenery but is very touristy. The mountains are awe inspiring with limestone cliffs the likes of which we have seen through out south Asia but still incredible. The touristiness comes from the many guesthouses, restaurants and shops. Almost all the restaurants had big LCD TV's playing either Friends or Family Guy. We were hard pressed to find a restaurant where we could enjoy the scenery in relative peace and quiet. All the shops were selling “Tubing in the Vang Vieng” or Beer Laos tank tops along with water proof money cases. Obviously the town is thriving on tourists but there isn't much Laos character to the town. We still really enjoyed our time here though.

Dec 4 – Biking around Vang Vieng

We had a leisurely start to the day today which included some breakfast just down the street from our hotel. The power was out at our hotel and the restaurant but fortunately with open air places there is plenty of natural light. We rented some bicycles and toured around across the river. The pathway took us to a cave and mountain that we could climb. And so we went up, carefully. It wasn't really a proper pathway and had some ladder bridges to take us over some of the more rugged terrain. It was quite the interesting climb but had a lovely view of Vang Vieng and the mountains around. It was an awkward, careful climb down from the top. From here were continued on to another cave but they were charging admission as well and we weren't quite willing to pay it so we headed back to town. It was well after lunch time at this point and we were famished. Once back in town we got some lunch at a restaurant with a lovely view over looking the mountains and the little hill we climbed earlier. We just relaxed here for awhile enjoying the beautiful view. We biked around town afterwards and I was able to buy an inexpensive charm for my charm bracelet, its a little happy Buddha. We went back to our hotel for a shower and then headed out again to find somewhere with wifi and dinner. It is a little bit difficult to find somewhere to eat that isn't playing Friends and Family Guy. It's kind of ridiculous how much these two shows are played at all the restaurants here. We found one that had a back area where we didn't have to listen to the TV. We had dinner and did some research on what to do in New Zealand.

The view from town, we climbed the little one on the right.

In the cave

 

Dec 5 – Tubing on the Nam Song

Today we are doing the infamous “tubing” of the Nam Song. We rented an inner tube from the tube place which also makes you put down a deposit to make sure you bring it back. And hopped a tuk tuk which took us about 3km upriver to the launch point. In theory it should take 3hrs to float down the river, that doesn't include stopping at bars. When we arrived we were blown away, every 100m there was a bar on either side of the river. At each bar there were guys throwing you ropes to pull you ashore so you could buy a beer or a bucket from them. It was crazy! Many places also had rope swings, slides and dive platforms. At one bar we went down a slide but unfortunately I forgot to take off my sunglasses so now I need new ones. We had started our tubing adventure around noon and you have to have the tubes back by 6pm. We were at our last bar and it was getting close to the time so we hurried down to our tubes and forgot our flipflops.... another purchase we need to make now. It was getting quite cool out too. The sun had gone behind the mountain and the water was chilly. We were hailed by a tuk tuk driver from the shore so we pulled over and took a tuk tuk back to town. Just in time too. We walked back to our hotel, barefoot, and I had a nice hot shower. We had some dinner, I had a delicious chicken burger. We then went to another restaurant with internet and Beau proceeded to have second dinner. We drank lots of water to try and recover from our afternoon.

On the Nam Song River

One of the many bars

Beau on the slide I lost my sunglasses to

Just a floating along

Laos and the 4000 Islands

Don Det has been a great place to recharge for a couple of days.  The quiet island life is exactly what we needed after cramped mini buses and long rides.  So far life in Laos runs at a much more sedate pace we'll have to see if this just island life or if it's like this everywhere.  It would be a nice change from the rest of the hullabaloo that is Asia.

Nov 24 – To Laos

Today we head to Laos. Our minibus picked us up from our hotel at 7am. We were one of the first stops since there was only 1 girl on the bus. As usual we picked up people till the mini bus was full and then some. The problem with mini buses is there is no room for luggage storage. They fill every seat but leave no space for bags. By the end of the pick ups there were 13 of us in a 13 seater mini bus but not everyone had a proper seat. The back seat, which sits 4 had 2 people plus bags, our row which sits 3 had 4 people with Beau sitting on a cushion in between seats, 3 in the row ahead (the older couple had paid extra for another seat but obviously they didn't get it), and 4 in the front with the driver sharing his seat. I think they need to learn about roof racks! It took about 2 hours to reach Strung Treng, we didn't actually go into the city just changed to a big bus to take us to the boarder. We were given visa papers to fill out and entrance/exit cards. We wanted to use our British passports to enter Laos, the visa was $11 cheaper than the Canadian, we were told we couldn't do it. It would be allowed. I think it would have been fine if we were doing the visas ourselves but a guy from the bus collected all the papers and passports and got our visas for us. We had to wait at the boarder while this happened thankfully under some shady tarps then walked across to a new bus which was to take us on to the ferry to Don Det. This ferry ride was infinity quieter than our last one, we didn't get stuck or anything. We arrived on Don Det and went in search of a room. Most places had very basic bungalows with a shared bathroom, we got one for 50,000kip ($6) with our own bathroom and shower. We walked around Don Det into the “town” which didn't take very long. The town is about 1km from our bungalow. We stopped for lunch and then headed back to the bungalow. We lazed about in hammock for the afternoon reading, napping and relaxing. Ahhh the island life. We went off in search of internet and dinner and found both. We ate at a nice little riverside restaurant and were able to use the internet. Most restaurants advertise free wifi since none of the guesthouses have it. So far Don Det seems like a nice little island.

Nov 25 – Don Det and Don Khon

We decided to rent some bicycles today to check out our island and the adjoining one, Don Khon, the two are connected by an old railway bridge. After breakfast we rented bikes from our guesthouse and set off to find an “ATM.” There aren't actually ATM's but you can take money out using your credit card with there credit card machines, we're just hoping this is seen as a sale not a cash advance. We were also thinking about doing a kayaking day trip but it cost abut $20 per person and upon further enquiry didn't sound that great. We biked along the western side of Don Det which was lovely. We stopped to talk to a guy (not sure where he was from Australia, NZ or South Africa) who was building tee-pee bungalows. He's trying to set up his own guest house. When we hit the bridge we ran into a few people who had been one our boat and bus from Strung Treng. The one girl was actually the girl who had been smushed on the mini bus with us, her name was Leah from Switzerland. The other two were Gregory and Loren from Belgium. We went to see Tat Somphamit, or Li Phi Falls, which were pretty nice. They were quite wide not all that high but there was quite the torrent of water flowing through. We walked along the path a ways and ended up in a sandy area where our new friends had gone swimming and met some Spanish dudes as well. It actually wasn't recommended swimming in this area so we headed off to another place with everyone else in tow. The beach was okay but the water was crisp and refreshing. The Mekong is pretty silty right now but we were told it was okay to swim. Beau had gone swimming and forgot he had money in his pocket so he had it all strewn over a bush to dry out. We ate lunch at the little beach side restaurant. The food was good but it was quite slow to get our meal, then again I don't think they normally have to prepare 8 dishes at one time. We headed back to Don Det and took the eastern route this time along the river. We had a little trouble with the bikes with chains falling off and getting stuck but we made it back okay. We had a quick shower then join Gregory, Loren and Leah at their bungalow to watch the sun set. After the sun had set, which was pretty spectacular, we headed to restaurant for some dinner, it also had a snooker table. I can't recall what my dinner was but it was very tasty and pretty spicy. Beau had some sort of Laos dish which pretty much burnt his face off, I think he liked it. Gregory and Beau played some snooker and the Spanish guys were coincidentally at the same place. After dinner and hanging out we headed down to another bar called Pai in Laos. They were open later then most other restaurants. There was a guy who put on a fire show, with a flaming baton and flaming balls on chains. It was pretty cool but a little scary too, you just had to hope he knew what he was doing. After all the excitement and exercise we were quite ready for bed so headed back to our bungalow. The stars are amazing here on the island with so little light pollution!

Beau on his bicycle

A tee-pee bungalow

Tat Somphamit, or Li Phi Falls

At the waterfall

A money bush

Sunset over the Mekong

Sunset