Laos continued...

Vang Vieng

This town is an oasis of depravity in an otherwise sedate and cultured country (ok it's not actually that bad) It is however the first time I have been embarrassed to be English abroad, to be fair to my fellow Brits I was expecting to have witnessed drunken and offensive behaviour before now but had been pleasantly surprised. Not so in Vang Vieng. Almost every raucous bellow and act of idiocy was an Englishman/woman, still, at least I behaved myself! the first day consisted of finding a guesthouse- was delighted that Chris found the Tony Guesthouse (very nice and clean), getting some dinner and adjusting from the cultural splendor that is Luang Prabang to the decadence of VV. So we decided to fully embrace the experience and resolved to go tubing the following day. This is the activity that makes young folk flock from all over the area, when I first heard about it I was not taken with the concept at all: floating down the river in a tractor innertube, stopping at bars along the way to imbibe quantities of BeerLao. Hmmmm flowing water and alcohol. Didn't sound very clever to me; but the rest of the gang were up for it and if it were to be done, with a group of mates would be how to do it.

The next day dawned wet and grey and we weren't sure what to do, a few episodes of Family Guy and some shakes later and the sun began to peek through the clouds so it was on! Half an hour later we are standing by the edge of the Nam Song river and could see/hear the revelries just a few metres down the river. The water was slightly chilly but tolerable with the sunshine. The first bar is the best demonstration of the other form of entertainment on offer: rope swings! Everyone apart from me had a go on this one (it was VERY big!) Most managed to land fairly gracefully (Seraina did do a fairly good faceplant however) and safely then it was on to the next bar to be hauled in by the obliging Lao and offered free shots of Lao whiskey. It was now, with a smaller swing on offer, that I decided to give it a go. Was a real thrill, only slightly marred by the fact that the force of the impact pushed my contact lens somewhere up my eye, a few frantic blinks later and it was back in place. And so the afternoon continued and unfortunately so did the rain from this morning, which put a slight dampener on events (!!) We all made it back safely despite it turning dark along the way; all in all a really fun day; even better, over dinner, the rest of the group decided to come rock climbing with me and Chris the following day.

At 8:30 am we were all ready at the Green Discovery office, with 2 Germans there were a total of 8 people in our group, all beginners apart from me and Chris. A short tuk-tuk journey took us to near the climbing wall and then the most challenging approach to a climbing wall yet, at least it could be looked at as a warm-up, I think some of the others saw it as actual climbing! When we got there, another group had already nabbed the easiest route so Chris was sent up a long and rather exposed route to set up the rope for us, he made it with no problems but I think it had been rather a scary climb! Two more routes were then set up, all quite technical and most found it difficult to get to the top (me included!) but I manged it on two of them and gave it a jolly hard go on the others; Chris of course sailed up most of them and even manged the 6a+ twice (the show off) I think everyone had a good time, they were all completely shattered by the end of it that's for sure!

The following day was a rest day, nearly everyone's forearms were out of action given the exertions of the previous day so Chris and I hired a moped and went exploring. Around VV are several acclaimed caves so we went to check them out. A visit to Klang cave was neither here or there really, we were the only ones there so it felt quite eerie but was nothing special. We also upgraded our accommodation and moved into a much posher room for only 10000 kip more (that's about 60p to you and me)

The next day we had planned to go climbing on our own; to just hire some gear and find another climbing wall but the comfy bed had greater charms and so another lazy day followed. We said goodbye to Erik (who had suffered a nearly completely ripped off toenail and a trip to hospital the night before) who was off to China via Bangkok. We lay in hammocks by the side of the river and watched the world (and tubers) go by, Fred made friends with the local kids and we admire a small boy's catch for the day. However, no more lazy days, the next day we booked to go with Adam's Rock Climbing School, a small independent shop, for a day's climbing followed by a day caving and kayaking.

The climbing was just the two of us with our very young guide and instructor, Apo; a Chilean couple were going to the same site but climbing on their own, they told us about a fantastic sounding wall near them in Chile that needs 36 pitches to ascend- crazy!! This wall was 22 km away,another difficult approach, this time crossing a river and having to deal with leeches, luckily most of the leeches were very small and easy to get off (unlike before!) The climbing itself was quite difficult again, especially for me because I had a bit of a freakout on the first route, some hauling on the rope by Apo and a few cheats here and there and I was up. The other routes were much better for me and I was really pleased to get up a 6a, the highest grading I have managed so far.

The caving and kayaking the next day was good fun; our guide, Lee, had good english and was able to give us information about Laotian culture. We visited Elephant cave, so named because a rock formation resembles an elephant- which it did, not much to see here then we went on to Water Cave. This one was much more interesting; you start off by putting on a head torch, we had our own which I wore) but Chris used one of theirs which involves a large battery pack hanging around your neck- a little worrying when you have to submerge yourself in water to get into the cave but we were assured that it was perfectly safe! To enter the cave we had to sit in tubes and pull ourselves in along a rope, further in you beach the tubes and then crawl on hands and knees deeper and deeper into the darkness. I thought I would hate it because I can be a bit funny in enclosed spaces but I loved it (I was pleased to see daylight again however!) the final part of the day was kayaking down the river for about 10-12 km and stopping at some of the bars along the way for a drink and a swing. The kayaking, although on a fairly gentle river, was still really physical and I quickly got tired despite sharing my kayak with our guide (I was at the front and I think he was making me do all the work-that's my excuse!) We stopped at a couple of bars and I chickened out of swinging but Chris had a couple of goes.

Final thoughts on Vang Vieng is that whilst it can be seen as a disgraceful party town, at odds with the rest of Laos it is also one of those few places where there is lots to do, cheaply and it is set in amongst the most beautiful countryside. If you want culture then go to LP but I would strongly recommend VV, give yourself a day to get over the constant blaring of Friends on the tellies and the semi-naked people staggering back from tubing and you'll love it too!

Vientiane

To get to Vientiane we planned to take a local bus from where we had seen one the previous day but like most thongs in Laos, the day we wanted it there it wasn't. So we decided to the 150 km journey in the back of a songthaew (a pick up) as we got on at the start of the journey we had seats (albeit highly uncomfortable ones) but at various points there were 6 or 7 people hanging on the back pushing the total number up to about 20 or 21! We had it (just about, bums and bladders about to give out) and got a tuk-tuk into the town centre. Now it was my turn to go searching for a guesthouse but I was soon to discover that Vientiane is at odds with the rest of Laos in terms of accommodations. There was very little that was nice at all and even the most hideous places were more than we paid anywhere else; in the end we went for a nice hotel at $20 a night. Coming out of it later we bumped into Keiso (he, Fred and Seraina had moved on from VV few days before us) and it was decided that we were going to visit a discotheque and party Lao style! The best discotheque is in one of the poshest hotels and at 11pm when we went completely empty; we were reassured that it would get busy at midnight and it duly did. The music was a mix of western and Thai and ranged from quite good to seriously awful but it is all part of the experience, as was having random Lao youth coming up to you and having their picture taken with the falang- felt a bit like an exhibit in a zoo! A slight sour note was having one of my flip flops go missing, I'd kicked them off to boogie good and proper and found out a little later that one was gone. Chris was suspicious of a group of young Lao girls near us and sure enough as the lights went up at 2am one of them handed it back, bold as brass. I think they thought it would be funny and I'm sure it was for them but it was a nastiness I hadn't expected or experienced in Laos till now.

We didn't get up to very mush else, the rainy season is truly upon us now and this usually means several hours of very hard rain, making it tricky to get out and about. We did see a free show at the National Cultural Hall which featured a group of Korean breakdancers, it was a very entertaining couple of hours. After a couple of days more or less killing time we decided to head back to Thailand to hopefully visit Kao Yai national park en route to Bangkok then on to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Nong Khai

This is the Thai border town with Lao and to reach it you must cross the Friendship Bridge, we did this with a German couple who directed us to a really nice guesthouse called Mut Mee right on the banks of the Mekong. We hired a couple of bikes and made our way to the Sculpture Park, one of the craziest places in the world! The guy who set it up was a real character and it is full of massive Buddha statues and other Hindu deities, well worth a visit. We had only planned a day here but a fairly lethal attack of dodgy guts kept us here for a few more days to aid recovery. Once better, we booked on to one of the well regarded night trains to Bangkok; the seats get changed by a little man into a bed so you (in theory) can get some sleep. In fact the train is so noisy that it was quite difficult to get any sleep but at least it was more comfortable than sitting up all night.

Bangkok 11/06/08

Back in Bangkok and in the Ko San Road area (good for sightseeing) we're not too sure how long we will be here and what we are going to do, probably see some of the key sights that we missed first time round (although to be honest, neither of us are that fussed by it) I think we will use this time to have some cheap food and good shakes before heading to Cambodia.