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Nong Khai
Entry 32 of 37 | show all | print this entry |
After three nights in Chiang Mai, I took a six-hour bus to Chiang Khong, a small town on the Laos border in the northeastern corner of Thailand. A small boat took me across the Mekong to Laos, where I got my visa and changed some dollars and Thai baht for several hundred thousand kip, the currency of Laos! I spent the night in Houayxai, the village on this side of the border. The difference between Thailand and Laos was extreme: Laos is much more poor, rural, and sparsely populated, with only about five million people.
Houayxai wasn't a bad place to spend the night, and in the morning I began a two-day trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. About 80 of us were put on a wooden boat about as wide as a car and about a half-block long (that's a bit of an exaggeration). We left several hours late and were crammed on uncomfortable wooden benches, but the gorgeous atmosphere of the river more than made up for these things. There were pristine forests, dotted occassionally by villages of wooden stilt-houses, and toothpick-shaped boats of various sizes gliding in both directions. Every once in awhile there was also a speedboat with a roaring engine streaking by us, with the passengers sometimes equipped with crash helmets.
That evening we arrived in Pakbeng, a village made up mostly of guesthouses since it is the standard night stop on this popular river journey. I got a room and then had my first genuine Lao meal, which was a curry served with sticky rice. If you haven't had Lao sticky rice before, it's different from the SE Asian sweet sticky rice dessert. This version is unsweetened, and it comes in a cylindrical basket with a lid. The rice is so sticky that you have to work a bit to break off a chunk, which you can then dip in the main dish. Delicious!
In the morning we repeated the long process of boarding the boat -- everyone has to work there way from the guesthouses down to the river, then climb down the treacherous rock/sand embankment to the narrow plank that goes to the boat. This time we lucked out with a much more comfy boat, and left earlier too. After lots of more great scenery (including a couple elephants), we reach Luang Prabang, the old royal capitol.
Luang Prabang must be one of the most beautiful, atmospheric towns I've ever visited. Two rivers wrap around the town, temples are everywhere, and facing the old royal palace is a steep hill, topped by a Buddhist stupa, with magnificent views in all directions. I spent three nights here and had a wonderful time. I even got to meet a couple of young monks who wanted to practice their English.
It's nine hours by bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, the capitol. Because much of the journey was over potholed, winding mountain roads, it wasn't one my better memories from the trip. Even though the bus was decent, I got sick within the first hour. I was dreading the rest of the trip at that point, but awhile later, miraculously I found that if I leaned my seat back all the way and closed my eyes, the nausea went away entirely, so that's the way I spent the rest of the ride. :)
The largest city in the country, Vientiane still has the feel of a small town. It has more great temples, a huge arch monument called Patouxai, and That Luang -- a large golden stupa that's considered a national symbol. After two nights in Vientiane, I came across the border to Nong Khai, Thailand, this morning (I'm cutting back through Thailand on their rail system to reach Cambodia, so I don't have to take bad roads all the way there via Laos). Like Luang Prabang, I would have stayed in Vientiane longer, except for the fact that my schedule ran into a big snag for Vietnam, so I'm pushing forward more quickly now. Here's what happened ...
I planned to enter southern Vietnam from Cambodia, spend some time down there, and then take the 40-hour train all the way up to the Hanoi area, and spend perhaps another week there. Since the Vietnamese New Year (Tet) is during that time, I contacted a Vietnamese travel agent a month in advance to get my train ticket booked (they're not sold online). But when I finally got my answer, I learned the trains were already full all the way until the end of February. So I had the option of spending a lot of time in south Vietnam, and then trying to rush from Hanoi to the place in China where I'm meeting up with my friend in only a few days. The problem was that even though I'd get to experience that great train journey through Vietnam, I'd have to take a long train across China immediately upon crossing the border, and these tickets are also not sold online. There are a couple of companies that can book the tickets in advance for you, but it seems that it's only done for trains originating from the 4-5 most common points of origin (Beijing, Shanghai, etc.). The Chinese New Year is at the same time as Tet, also. The whole time I was investigating this, the chance of even getting the Vietnam train got smaller and smaller. So the scenario in which everything fell into place and I'd manage to get trains all the way from Ho Chi Minh City to Chengdu, China seemed pretty dubious. That's why I've resorted to another option.
On my round-the-world flight deal, you're allowed four flights per continent, and I had only booked three in Asia. Cathay Pacific is part of the oneworld alliance, and they fly from HCMC to Hong Kong (their hub). I called up and found out these flights were also booked up for a month straight -- from February 17th to mid-March. But February 16th was available, so I'm took that. I'll only get to be in Vietnam for a few days, which is too bad because it was one of the countries I was most looking forward to seeing. And I won't get to ride the Reunification Express, or see the north at all. But on the plus side, I'll get to see Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and I'll be in China much earlier, which means I should have plenty of time to get a train ticket across to Chengdu, and maybe see some other sights along the way.
I sped up a little bit in Laos to make the most of the time between now and the 16th, and this morning changed my train ticket (which I'd pre-booked) to Bangkok so that I can go today instead of two days from now. Tomorrow morning in Bangkok I'll go get my plane ticket to Hong Kong printed, and hopefully that should be that!
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