We crossed from Chiang Khong, Thailand, to Houei Xai, Laos, just the other side of the Mekong River on a small boat. We then boarded the slow boat to Luang Prabang, a 14 hour, two day journey down the river (but only about 250km!) It was quite an uncomfortable trip, but we’d been forewarned by various people to invest in a cushion before we left! Still, the seats were wooden benches that were not of the most ergonomic design, but we eventually arrived at the very small riverside town of Pak Beng, where we stayed for the night, after having dinner with some people we’d met on the boat.
The next day followed in a similar fashion, boarding the boat in the morning and spending about 6-7 hours on our uncomfortable seats. However, as with the day before, the scenery was lovely and we’re really glad we made the trip.
We arrived at Luang Prabang that evening, and made a beeline for a restaurant that was recommended in our guide as serving great Lao food. While we were there, we also booked onto a cooking course.
We ended up spending 4 nights in Luang Prabang, looking round and exploring. We visited some Wats, the ‘Grand Palace’ (not quite as grand as Bangkok!), woke up at 5 one morning to see the monks doing their alms ceremony, and spent a couple of lovely evenings wandering around the night market. The cooking course was one of our favourite parts of Luang Prabang, we learnt to make lots of traditional Lao food like steamed fish in banana leaf, chicken stuffed in lemongrass, buffalo stew and purple rice pudding! They also took us to the local food market, where we saw all sorts of local food on sale, including all sorts of interesting fruit and vegetables, bee larvae still in the honeycomb, various animal organs, jellied blood, pigs faces and also a pig foetus! They’ll eat anything in Asia!
We left Luang Prabang for the drive to Phonsavan, which took 6 hours despite only being about 200km. The drive took us through the mountains, past some fantastic scenery and through lots of little hill villages. In Phonsavan, we spent a day looking around the Plain of Jars sites, and also visited a village where they make spoons from old scrap war metal.
We didn’t know all that much of the history of Laos before we arrived, but the country was bombed really heavily in America’s war with Vietnam (700kg of bombs per person living in the country at the time, making it the most bombed country in the world. All this when America wasn’t even at war with Laos…) Visiting the MAG (Mines Advisory Group) made us realise what a problem the bombs still are in Laos, unexploded ordenance killing hundreds of people and making the villagers afraid to farm the land that could make them money, meaning they live in poverty. We were quite moved by it and donated, and Pete got a t-shirt for the cause.
From Phonsavan we travelled down to Vang Vieng, through some even more outstanding scenery (though Pete slept through most of it!). We didn’t get up to much in Vang Vieng, though it is the home of ‘tubing’. We went to see a cave, which you can swim into, but the weather was generally a bit rubbish so we gave tubing a miss and just chilled out instead. The town itself is basically just a big backpacker hub, full of drunk backpackers and restaurants that all show Friends and Family Guy on repeat!
We then travelled down to Vientiene, but we’d done so many bus journeys by then that we decided to do something a bit different, and kayaked instead! A truck took us an hour south of Vang Vieng, where we got to the Nam Lik river and began a 4 hour kayak trip to take on some easy rapids (grade 1-2). However, the water levels had risen loads due to a lot of rain, and the trip only took us just over one hour as the water was flowing so fast! The rapids were considerably more intense too, very scary high waves for a beginner like me (Pete has done some before). Our guide was surprised that we managed to stay upright and not capsize - he said that the day before the water was much lower and the rapids smaller, and everyone in his group capsized!
We are now in Vientiene, the capital of Laos. We’re really glad that we stayed an extra day in Luang Prabang as we were advised to by people we met there, as Vientiene really doesn’t have much to keep you occupied. We visited the Lao answer to the Arc de Triomphe (Patuxay, or Victory Gate of Vientiene) which wasn’t overly impressive from a distance, and the sign on it reads, ‘from a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete’ which we found quite amusing!
We fly to Hanoi tomorrow, 19th August.
