Laos PDR

Laos PDR.  PDR stands for ‘Peoples Democratic Republic’, however around here they say it means ‘Laos - Please Don’t Rush’.  In order to adopt this approach we decided to start our journey across country with the appropriately named ‘Slow Boat’.

First up was a relatively straight forward border cross.  A short five minute trip across the Mekong River and we were in Laos.  We got our visas here at the border and didn’t have to pay the obligatory one dollar passport stamp ‘fee’.  This put us in the small town of Huay Xai.  There’s really not much here, but it was a chance for us to stock up on some supplies for our two day slow boat trip down river to the city of Luang Prabang.  This sounds a lot harder than it is, although at the time it did feel a bit torturous every now and again.  The boat is not dissimilar in size to a canal boat, but is fitted with rows of minibus seats for comfort, and like the canal boats the family live on board at the back.  Day one took about six hours and day two around seven hours, we stopped at a tiny village to sleep overnight.  The boat itself affords not much in terms of entertainment except for the Mekong itself, local riverboats and fisherman and some smiling waving Laos children.  Two days is probably enough though before everything starts to look the same, it would quite literally be hours between seeing the slightest form of civilization, which at best would attend to a small selection of wooden shacks.

At around 4pm on the second day however we arrived at the city of Luang Prabang, the former capital of Laos, Unesco world heritage site and a town heavily influenced by the French Indochine occupation.  After two days on a boat and two nights spent at small sleepy riverside towns this was our first real taste of Laos living.  The town itself is centred around a daily night market which sells all manner of wares and has food stalls where you can pile up your plate with as much as you can carry/eat for just 10,000 KIP (80p) or enjoy some grilled Mekong fish and other local delicacies.  Although around here local delicacies can include a skewer of barbequed frogs.  Whilst in town we decided to check out the other local traditions.  This included a visit to a local Laos silk weaving centre, a skill which looks almost impossible to master yet they accomplish with such guile and accuracy.  We followed this up with a visit to the local evening herbal sauna where we found ourselves crammed in a 90⁰c shoebox sized sauna with a dozen Lao.  This was a very interesting experience to say the least, but was especially nice to cool off outside in the rains whilst sipping on the local tea.

From here we made our way south along an almost impassable route through the mountains to the very small town of Vang Vieng.  Although very small it’s very much on the circuit here as it plays host to the infamous tubing.  Take a big rubber tube and float down the river stopping at whichever bar you wish whilst consuming the relatively safe option of BeerLao, or the not so safe choice of anything served in a bucket.  Local spirits are cheaper than the mixer so whatever they put in there serves a means to an end.  If you’re not feeling entertained enough or have overdone it with the Dutch courage there’s plenty of rope swings where you launch yourself into the murky depths  and whatever may lie beneath.  We won’t go into much detail, partly as it has been lost to inebriation, but the sun shone, we met some awesome people and survived (just).  The town itself is a little unique in that it is geared up to deal with hungover backpackers so all the bars play Friends or Family Guy on loop all through the day.

We left Vang Vieng and continued south several hours to the capital of Laos, Vientiane.  This could quite possibly be the smallest capital city on the planet, but it was a pleasant enough place for us to spend a couple of nights.  Like most places in Laos the city is situated on the banks of the Mekong.  The more we see of Laos, the more we see of the Mekong.  It’s like the heart of the country running from top to bottom and provides food, irrigation and transport in a country where not many sealed roads exist.  Vientiane is home to some impressive temples and for something a little bit different we visited one which is home to the largest collection of Buddha statues in Laos.  It claims to be home to over two thousand, we didn’t hang around to count but there was definitely a lot.

Laos is a country which has taken its fair share of bruising in recent history and none so much as the recent Vietnam War.  Laos is the most bombed country per capita in the world.  Over a nine year period the US ran 580,000 bombing missions over Laos a country they were not even at war with. Thirty percent of the bombs dropped in this time failed to explode and still litter the countryside today.  We visited an organisation called COPE who help the locals (most of whom are children) that have been harmed by these explosives in whatever way they can.  We met a young Lao guy there who had lost his sight and both hands, he is now volunteering at the organisation and learning English from talking to visitors.  The way in which he can try to carve himself a new life after having had so much taken away from him for what are essentially war crimes committed before he was even born is a truly courageous and brave story.  For anyone whose interested there’s a very informative and moving documentary you can find online called ‘Bomb Harvest’ which follows the struggle between the fight to educate versus the value of the bombs as scrap metal, whilst struggling against a lack of trained personnel in the country.

To continue our route further south we took an overnight sleeper bus 600km further down the Mekong.  This was a new form of travel for us as the bus is equipped with no chairs just beds, and you’re provided with a pillow and blanket for you to try and get a good night’s sleep.  A pretty novel idea but the beds are very much ‘Asian size’ so you don’t exactly get ample amounts of space.

It did however serve its purpose and has got us down to Si Phan Don, where the Mekong stretches to over 14km wide.  This stretch of the river however is full of islands of varying size, so many so that Si Phan Don quite literally translates as ‘Four Thousand Islands’.  We’ve made a little home on one of the islands where we are staying in a bungalow with a couple of hammocks out front.  It’s a beautifully local place where we share the surroundings with a few roaming cattle, plenty of little roaming chicks, cats, dogs and little Lao children running around chasing all of the above and plenty of rice fields.  There’s not much to do but watch the real Laos world go by.  We’ve been adventurous enough to venture around some of the islands by bike including crossing the old Pont Francais. 

 
However for now we are happy to embrace the culture enough not to rush, to just put our feet up, and watch the sun go down over the Mekong, before we make our way across the border and into Cambodia.

Chiang Chiang Chiang

From Koh Koh Koh to Chiang Chiang Chiang.  The next step of our journey takes us away from the tropical islands and up to the temple towns of the north.  First though we had to make our way up to Bangkok via ferry and bus.  Here we were meeting Lorna, someone we meet (what feels like) a long time ago back in South America.  We both had just 36 hours or so in Bangkok before moving on.  We tucked into a few beers and then spent the following day trawling Bangkok’s markets, malls and temples.  An evening spent exploring China Town had us racing round the streets in the back of a tuktuk that was close to rolling over a few times but certainly made short work of the streets as it sped through the traffic (and several red lights) just for fun.

The next morning we were off in our separate directions and for us that meant the 14 hour train ride up to Chiang Mai.  We booked ourselves a couple of sleeper berth tickets for 500 BHT (£10), which meant that during the day we had seats facing each other and in the evening someone would come along and transform them into a set of bunk beds.  We were scheduled to arrive at 4am, but fortunately this is Thai public rail and we were a few hours late meaning we arrived at 7am after a good few hours extra sleep.

By now we're on August the fourth, Adams birthday, and ten months since we left the UK. A short tuktuk ride took us to our guesthouse, a chance to dump our bags, have some breakfast and catch a breathe before checking out the city. Chiang Mai is a reasonably sized city by Thai standards and the original old city is based on a perfect square with a moat running round the edge and in a few places the remains of the old city walls.  Quite nice but still quite big.

The food in the north of Thailands a bit different from what we've been tucking into over the last few weeks. However as it was Adams birthday we tucked into the biggest cheeseburger and all the trimmings we could find.

The following day we had enrolled for a Thai cooking course. We started at the local market inspecting the raw ingredients we were going to be using, then deciding which meals we wanted to make. We made seven courses and choose different meals for each so had 14 to make, nearly enough to open our own restaurant. Our seven courses included some spicy soups, papaya salad, fried drunken noodles, pad thai, spring rolls, a selection of curries, and of course some sweet sticky rice for desert. What we couldn't eat on the day we took away with us and were still eating it the following evening. We cooked up some of the best Thai food we've eaten, and we've now got the recipe book and experience, so if we can reproduce food half as good it'll be a great achievement.

Looking for some more action we made our way the following day to an elephant camp outside of town. Here we were welcomed by a couple of inquisitive elephants who immediately stuck their trunks in the back of our pickup and in our faces to sniff out what food we'd brought with us.

We started off learning the words required to guide the elephants. Not that this really helped much as they only really seemed to respond to the Burmese mahouts who looked after them. After a quick solo practice on one of the smaller elephants it was time to sit astride one of the larger mammals. No seat, no mats, no handles, just two tonnes of elephant to straddle and hold on to. There is no elegant way to mount an elephant but once your on the feeling of being atop these immensely sized but incredibly graceful creatures is amazing. The elephants are so surefooted even when traipsing through two foot thick mud, across a river or up and down hill that there's no worry of them falling, but still probably a good chance of sliding off yourself if your not paying attention.

Luckily for us though we made it to lunchtime and this meant for both us and our elephants.  We tucked into noodles and spring rolls before feeding the elephants banana's and sugarcane. The way they extend their trunks and hold the food is slightly strange.  After lunch it was time to cool off a bit, as we rode the elephants to a waterfall and proceeded to give them a scrub and a wash. This was however more a chance for them to spray us with water than anything else!

This was an awesome day, and a great experience to get upclose and personal with such incredible animals especially under such authentic conditions.

Leaving Chiang Mai, we made edged our way closer to the Thai/Laos border with a few days in Chiang Rai. Here we had a chance to do a bit of temple hopping and made a tour of  the small town getting to half a dozen or so temples. You do start to get the feeling that once you've seen one you've seen them all. Then they build something like the White Temple and you're left breathless again. The White Temple is a hugely extravagant structure that we were lucky to see it at it's best with a beautiful blue sky and blazing sunshine.

It is however rainy season here, and although we've so far been unaffected by it we got our first real taste of it that evening. Whilst out for dinner the rains came and after a half hour of waiting it out we decided to brave the downpour to get back to our guesthouse. Fortunately we left when we did as the rains didn't subside for quite sometime and yet we still found ourselves wading ankle dip in our flip-flops down the street.


The next morning you wouldn't have known it had rained at all, the streets that the previous night had been overflowing were dry as we made our way to our third Chiang, Chaing Kong, border town for entry into Laos.

Lifes a Beach...

The Gulf of Thailand...  we have definitely been looking forward to this part of the world for a while.  With high hopes and without any hesitation it was time to dive right in.  There are three main islands which make up The Gulf.  From South to North, and descending in size are Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao.  From Surat Thani on the mainland we were just an hour and half ferry ride to our first island, Koh Samui.

On arrival at Koh Samui we flagged down an ‘island bus’ or songthaew, which is essentially a pickup truck with two benches in the back.  We chucked our stuff in followed by ourselves and made our way round the island.  We found a nice place in an area in the north called Bangrak, and got ourselves a huge room with a balcony, connecting lounge and ensuite.  If you don’t stay directly on the beach there’s some bargains to be had, and we got this place with aircon, breakfast and wifi for just 400 bhat (£8) a night.  We spent three nights here and rented a scooter so we could get out and see all the different beaches.  It’s a surprisingly large island, and we never got around to seeing all those beaches as we kept getting distracted along the way by those very same beaches we were looking to find.  We did however also track down some very strange shaped rock formations and one very big Buddha.

As the saying goes, ‘when in Rome...’, so where better in the world to get a Thai massage than on the beach in Thailand.  An awesome experience and a world away from your traditional massage as the masseuse works away at you and literally rolls you over her knee extending and stretching muscles and tendons you didn’t know you have.  It really is too easy to get distracted here!

We did however find Koh Samui a little overdeveloped, the roads a bit manic and the island itself largely polluted by the influx of tourism which has led to resorts, restaurants and all manner of buildings being thrown up wherever there’s room.   There are obviously pockets of nicer areas on the island but how long they stay that way remains to be seen.

After three nights we made our way for the island of Koh Phangan, known as Coconut Island and home to the infamous Full Moon Parties.  Our timings were unfortunately a bit out for this, although the next one was scheduled for August 4^th, Adam’s birthday.  Koh Phangan is a bit smaller than Koh Samui and a lot less developed (it lacks an airport for one), so it retains a lot more island charm and has plenty of quiet and postcard picture beaches to discover.  We spent a couple of nights in a nice little beach front bungalow and spent a few days exploring the island and night markets on the scooter again.  From here we decided to go truly rustic and spent a few nights on Koh Phangans east coast.  Getting there was only the start of the adventure, needing a four by four which had to crawl over rocks and boulders, and up slopes that did not look physically possible.  The reward however was well worth the trials of the journey as we had a beautiful bungalow looking out over The Gulf and a stunning cove with a white sandy beach.   Due to the remoteness of the location we only had electricity for a few hours in the evening, but we did have as many fresh coconuts as we could manage!

Time still though to squeeze in one more island, as we ferried our way over to the minute (just 21sqkm) island of Koh Tao.  Famed for one thing and one thing only, diving.  More than likely the world’s largest concentration of dive centres per square mile.  People come here to get their Open Water diving certificates, and that was our goal too.  It was back to school for three and half days as we had to watch the videos, pay attention in the classroom, do our homework and pass the test at the end.  None of it is particularly difficult, and after not working for ten months it was good to be ‘learning’ something new.  We of course got to put that theory into practise and spent half the time out on the boat and did four professional dives, whilst learning all manner of scuba skills.  We got down to 18 metres and are now certified divers meaning we can do fun dives all over the world as we choose.

We saved ourselves three nights to recover from the exhaustion of diving by staying in what can only be described as a ‘quaint’ little bungalow in the south of the island overlooking the very cool ‘Shark Island’.  Quaint in the sense that we had to share it with a couple of creepy crawlies and one very large but relatively friendly lizard.  They don’t usually rent this one out but we managed to persuade them to for less than half the price of their newer bungalows.  They made it up for us and we managed to make it homely enough for a short stay.  A final chance to relax on the beach for a few days before heading to Thailands crazy capital, Bangkok.