Vientiane

I had a relaxing day today my last in Vientiane at least until it is the end of my trip and its time to go home.

I went to see Haw Pha Kaew today, it was a Royal Temple built in 1565 ordered by the king to house the Emerald Buddha.  Of course it was destroyed in 1828 and rebuilt, supposedly to the original plans though there is doubt regarding this, in 1936.

Today Haw Pha Kaew is a museum holding many Buddha sculptures and other items.  It was interesting to walk around but for the first time there were bus loads of tourists rocking up and doing the rounds of the temple with their respective guides.

I Went for a walk to see Wat Si Muang, it looked like a short walk on the map, it did not turn out to be all that short still it was a nice walk but I think I’m becoming all Wat’ed out and this is only the start of my trip.

Still there is a couple of things left for me to see when I return to this city.

I asked the receptionist at my hotel were the bus station was so I could book my bus to Vang Vieng and he looked at me and said he could book me a private car.  Now knowing what type of hotel I’m in I knew that it would be expensive but I was curious so I asked him how much he thought it would cost.

He looked at me and thought about it with a very serious expression before, and I have to give the man credit he kept and absolutely straight face and told me it would cost $200 USD.  For my part I laughed and asked where the bus station was he gave me directions then asked if I wanted him to arrange the private car.

I said ‘No thank you I’ll take the bus.’

Now under the circumstances I thought the thank you was a nice touch.

I took myself off to the bus station which I found without much of a problem and the busses are a little, um, run down.  Still the price was about $2 USD.  There was a sign thanking people for travelling with Lao bus….. the bit at the end was what caught my eye it said “....... good luck!”

You know that really inspires me with confidence in the busses in Laos.  I ended up booking the Tourist bus which they assure me has air conditioning and for the massive sum of $5 USD they even throw in a bottle of water.

I’m down on the banks of the Mekong again.  Predictable perhaps but it is such a pleasant way to end the day.

Vientiane to Vang Vieng

I was picked up as promised at my hotel by a tuk tuk and   taken to the bus.  It really did have air conditioning as promised and they gave us all a bottle of water as promised.

The trip to Vang Vieng was uneventful which I guess is a good thing.  Vang Vieng is in a beautiful spot surrounded by mountains with a river running through town.

This place really is not all that big but I still ended up walking from one end of town to the other looking for accommodation.  The first place I tried while everything was open including the reception there was no one in the office which made it a little hard to ask if they had any room.  So of course the next place I decided to try was on the exact opposite side of town.

While it was a beautiful day tramping around town with a pack on it gets a little warm.  Thankfully they had room at the next place I tried.  I’m staying in a bamboo bungalow.  It is a little basic, mattress on the floor of the bungalow a fan and a mosquito net but this place has a stunning view with a small stream running down the side and behind with a row of mountains curving around the front.

This town is a little weird though.  I read one section on the town and it said you could listen to several different episodes of Friends at the same time because they play it in several of the Restaurants.  I laughed when I read it because I thought they were joking.

They weren’t joking.

So here I am in Vang Vieng, Laos sitting eating my dinner and watching Friends.  Strange.  One has to look on the bright side though.  At least I like Friends and they are playing the last season at the moment which is kind of cool since I missed the end of the series when it was playing on TV.

Vang Vieng

Well the last two days have been fun in an odd sort of way.  Yesterday I went down to the river with a whole bunch of travellers and generally we all pretty much sat around, ate, swum in the river and talked travel.  As you do.  The evening turned into a massive party at the river bar, great night.

Today I went on the river, I was number 65 so you could say there was quite a few of us, on a tractor tube and floated down the river.  Left just after lunch.  It is kind of fun and there are bars, ok places where you can buy Beer Lao, set up about every 20 meters down the river.

It is a strange sight to see whole bunches of travelers floating down the river sipping on Beer Lao.  One of the stops they were pumping out music from the 70’s and it had a tower.  At the top of the tower was a cable with a handle attached.  So of course you kind of have to climb the tower to the platform and jump off swinging across the river, let go and fall the rest of the way into the water.  Of course people are having a great time before you reach this point because there are about 3 pit stops before you get to this one and Beer Lao bottles are not all that small.

It took me a while to talk myself into it but up I went, it was a little hard to change my mind when I started up the ladder because there were a whole bunch of people climbing up the ladder after me.  Thankfully I didn’t end up doing a belly flop, from that high it hurts by the bruises people were sporting and the expressions on their faces when they surfaced.

One of the guys was so embarrassed, he got all the way up the tower, onto the little platform, was holding the swing then he chickened out and went all the way back down the ladder.

As strange as it sounds it was great fun and with all the stops on the way took all day to get back into town.

Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang

Spent most of the day, about 7 hours, on a bus travelling to Luang Prabang today.  Unlike the other trip the bus was full this time so things were a little crowded on the bus.  Still the scenery on the way was amazing as the road winds through the mountains

The bus stopped once on the way about 1100 but since most of us had just eaten just before getting on the bus none of us had anything at that stop.  After all, it’s not lunch yet….. wrong.  That was the only stop the bus made so lunch did not happen.  Just as well I had some water with me and since the person sitting next to me did not speak English the ipod really came in handy.

Strangely enough the prices in Luang Prabang seem to be a little inflated in comparison to those in Vang Vieng, though we’re talking about 0.20c here and there so it really does not make a difference.  It only seems a lot since prices are in Kip so the difference in price is in 1000’s which seems like a huge difference until you convert it.

Luang Prabang

I’ve decided that I don’t like roosters.  Maybe I should start a campaign for the extermination of all roosters in the world.  Or maybe they should all take lessons on how not to crow.

The choir of roosters started at 0330 in the morning…. ARGH!!!!

I was walking up and down the main street trying to organize a couple of trips out to the Pak Ou Caves and the Tat Kuang Si waterfalls.

Every time I walked past the tuk tuk drivers would give me a lower price, they started at USD$12.00 just for the waterfalls.  I laughed and kept walking.  After all it took me $8 to get here from Vang Vieng.  It was amazing how the price came down with no attempt by my part to bargain with them.  Every time they saw me they would just take a dollar off the price.  It ended up being $8.00, which I still did not accept.  I eventually accepted a seat in a mini van for $8 and that included both the falls today and the slow boat for the caves in the morning.

It amazes me that other travellers do not even attempt to try to find out how much they should be paying for things.  When I mentioned the, to me outrageous, price of $12 for the tuk tuk to the waterfalls another tourist told me without blinking that was what it cost and you couldn’t get cheaper.  They looked somewhat dumbfounded when I told them the price dropped to $8 with out any bargaining or me saying a word to the drivers.

There was an American couple on the mini van for a, thankfully, short period of time.  They started oh so dramatically mopping their foreheads, proclaiming how hot it was and demanding that the air conditioning be put on which meant the rest of us had to close the windows.  The rest of us thought it was a beautiful day and it was not really that hot.

The American couple waited for all of about 2 seconds before muttering and complaining because there wasn’t an instant blast of cold air headed in their direction.

“Does it work any better than this!  I’m not getting any cold air.  It’s too hot in here.  We paid for air conditioning!”, and so on the diatribe continued.

Thankfully a Swedish guy in front of them lost his temper before I did and turned around told them to shut up, stop complaining and have a little patients as they were in Laos not America.

They waited for all of 2 minutes before their complaints started up again.  They were eventually told by someone else on the bus to stop complaining or do us all a favour and get off the bus.  They got off the bus, much to our relief, demanding their money back.  It was amazing but the mood on the bus lifted considerably, the air conditioning was switched off and the windows opened again.

The falls were quite beautiful with a series of pools that were open to swimming being fed by a waterfall.

The water was a little, um chilly or perhaps you could call it refreshing….. ok so it was cold but it was still nice the worst bit was getting in.

The good part about getting in the water at the lower pools was that at the upper part of the falls you walk up a trail to on side of the falls and you tend to get wet from the spay of water and the pools of water you have to walk through.

By the winces and shocked expressions from those encountering how cold the water was for the first time I think our method was preferable!