Sabbaidee!!
OK, this is gonna be a very long one I'm afraid. Make sure that Eastenders isn't on in the next half hour and you haven't left the the hob on. Here goes. . .
I have to say that this is the most beautiful country that Rich and I have ever seen. Looking back, it's a shame we spent 6 weeks in Thailand and not more time here but that couldn't really be helped due to the Tsunami, but we'll know for next time.
Rich and I spent our first day just walking around the town. We went to look at a few temples (LP has 34!) one of which meant climing to the top of a hill which overlooked the whole of Luang Prabang, which is actually really tiny, much smaller than I imagined a country's 2nd largest city to be, it's more like a small town. On our walk around we bumped into Mr Leng - who we met on our arrival into LP and who offered us a room at his place for $1 as we were struggling to find a room, he hung around with us for 10 minutes while we checked out other guesthouses and hotels and then he wished us all the bestest luck and health in the world and a happy time in Loas when we told him we were going to decline his offer. - This time he asked us to buy some ice cream from his mobile bicycle ice cream shop and we just couldn't object. However, they all looked a thousand years old so we promply chucked it away as soon as we departed! Rich and I have now begun our 'get fit and loose weight' regime so we went for a run round the block a few times in the evening but then went out for a meal with Kerry and Steve at a French restaurant to indulge on Quiches, garlic bread and wine, well we gotta strike a balance!
On Sunday we went 29K out of the city to see a waterfall. Well, we've again, never seen anything so pretty. It's multi-tiered over limestone and falls into beautifull turquoise pools that you can swim in. Unfortunately the photos, as usual, don't quite do it justice. Monday we hired old fasioned push-bikes for the day and explored the city limits. The roads are so quiet that it's a real pleasure just to cylcle the streets. We ventured out into a few villages and exhausted ourselves just to go for our nightly run round the block again that evening. Earlier that day we booked a 4 day trek to Nong Khiaw and around, starting the following day. As no one else had the same idea there was just myself, Rich and our guide Keo.
At 9am the following morning we were picked up by a Keo and our driver in a large tuk tuk which was loaded with 3 mountain bikes. 110 kilometres later we were dropped off at Pak Mong a village on the way to Nong Khiaw and we set off on our mountain bikes for a 30km cycle through the villages and up and down the hills on a country road. The road was like someting out of Beatrix Potter - Loas style. If you can picture a rolling country lane, montains all around you, tiny bamboo and straw villages on either side of the road, children playing and waving and shouting "Falang!" (which means French person!), adults working, washing, talking, mother hens with her tiny baby chicks crossing the road, ducks and ducklings waddling around, pigs and piglets, dogs and puppies and cats and kittens, and this is no lie, I've never seen so many baby animals, they're all at it!, then this is what it was like. Just cute beyond belief. We were on the bikes for 4 hours in total and boy were we shattered, there were some pretty mean hills to climb, and I had to walk my bike up a couple of them. Half an hour away from our destination we stopped off at a tiny village (maybe 5 huts!) which was next to a Bhuddist monastary and we had some fruit with the locals while the monks were banging their drum. What a setting! This is the kind of travel we'd been dreaming about. I just hope Loas doesn't change too much over the next few years like it has in the last 3. I would hate to think that all the simple village life around here is going to be too catered towards tourism.
We got to Nong Khiaw about 6pm and the driver took our bikes back to Luang Prabang and told us he'd pick us up in 3 days. That night after dinner we had a well deserevd good nights sleep in our bamboo hut by the Nam Ou (Ou River in English), listening to a very loud chorus of frogs.
The next moring we got a slow boat to Muang Ngoi up the river which took us an hour. After notifying the local 'police' of the village, as Keo calls them, that we were here and planning to go and stay in a village up in a mountain, we got our stuff ready for the next day. We were informed by the 'police' that we were to ask before we took picture of the children so that they could be cleaned and tidied up "so as not to give Loas a bad name" which of course we agreed to, sitting there in our filthy travelling clothes with unwashed, greasy hair (in my case) and unshaven face(in Rich's case).
In the afternoon we took a small, wooden, narrow boat and went 'Kayaking' (I put it in inverted commers as its wooden and doesn't resemble the normal kind of light plastic kayak) but Rich and Keo ended up getting out the boat and pulling/pushing the thing up the river (Its the dry season and parts of the river are very shallow!) because the current was too strong and Keo and I, according to Rich, weren't paddling hard enough! The fun began when we met 2 Americans with 2 young local boys in a boat and we decided to race for 'Beer Lao' the local and excellent brew. They won and in vengeance we decided to splash the living daylights out of them, which resulted, once more, in us losing and getting drenched and the boat 2 inches full of water! That night we met up with them and bought the kids some Pepsi's while we got trashed on Lao Lao (a 90% rice spirit) and Beer Lao. Again we went to sleep in another bamboo hut by the Nam Ou listening to that familar orchestra of "ribbits" befor soundly falling asleep.
As Keo hadn't been to this part of Loas before and wasn't sure of the way, he wanted to get another guide to help us on our trek. Great isn't it when when you fork out $135 dollers for a trek and your guide needs a guide so that affectively your paying for his training!! C'est la vie, it just means we get to meet more people which is always a bonus! And so off we trekked for 2 hours the next day until we reached the 1st village, where we had a Coke and departed with a guide for Keo for the 4 hour up-mountain trek to our 2nd village where we'll sleep. On the way we saw a group of guys carrying an old lady in a bamboo sling. Apparently she has had sever stomach pains and they were taking her all the way to Luang Prabang to the hospital. They had come from the village where we were going to stay that night which was a further 4 hours away so in total they would be travelling for 4 hours down mountains, 2 hours across land, 1 hour by boat and 5 hours by tuk tuk or bus. Aren't we lucky to have tarmaced roads and ambulances!
On and up we went and this up hill walking in the heat ain't getting much easier, but no pain no gain! As we were just nearing the village we came across a shower which was made by inserting a large peice of bamboo into the side of the bank which collected water. We showered and walked on up to another such area where about 30 women and children were having their afternoon shower and then futher on up were the men and a dozen dogs running down with their very old-fasioned rifles to go on a hunt. Just around the corner was the beautifull village where we were to stay.
We were greated by a dozen kids who enjoyed seeing themselves on the digital camera, and happily stared and whispered to each other and giggled away.
After dinner in the chiefs hut, cooked by Keo, we explored the village. Then we went back to our hut on the edge of the village where we made a fire and looked at the billions of stars, ahhh! When we retired to bed to play cards by candle light Keo came back with a few of the villagers to ask us if we wanted to go and drink 'Lao Lao' which is a whisky made from rice and is deadly strong. In one of the largest huts I've ever seen was about 30 people sat down in the candle light passing shots of Loas Loas round. Later on out came the rice wine which was made and stored in a huge piece of bamboo which was passed around with an enormous bamboo straw poking out the top. You had to almost stand up to reach the top of the straw. When we later retired to bed we were rosey from the Lao Lao and slept soundly again, this time no Nam Ou and no frogs, just Rich and I and the stars.
After breakfast of noodle soup with green stuff, peanuts and egg, we said our goodbyes and departed down the hill, this time taking a different route, to a different village. this time we had the luxury of walking through banana plantations, (sorry, no photos as we ran out of batteries!), a kind of bluebell wood effect meadow, and 45 minutes of walking actually in the stream, with dense jungle either side. When we got to the village 4 hours later the villages had obviously not seen many foreigners if any at all as we quickly had a crowd of women and kids staring at us while we sipped our drinks and had a ciggie. I must point out at this stage that it was only me having a finely filtered cigarette as Richard the great has now officially given up smoking for the 7th day! Hip hip hooray for old dicky boy! I have cut down some what and will endeavor to stop very soon.
We charted our own boat and went down the mighty Nam Ou back to Muang Ngoi. The boat was the same as the one we went 'kayaking' on 2 days previously, this time with a small engine. It's a very long and thin boat that seats one behind the other. I was perched on my own at the front with just the tip of the boat and the water all around me. The journey was spectacular. Either side were huge mountains and cliffs and hardly a boat to be seen, just the occasional village and a few water buffalo grazing by the waters edge. I think that particular journey must be in the world's top 20 beautiful journeys to take. Again, no photos as still no batteries, but one of the finest memories so far.
Then we took another boat from Muang Ngoi back to Nong Khiaw where we were picked up by our driver and taken back to Luang Prabang, picking up villagers on the way and swapping English lessons for Lao lessons with Keo. In fact for our whole time with Keo we had taught him numerous new words which he kept repeating out loud every now and then to practice. Such as "authors" which he couldn't get the hang of at all and kept saying it in an Irish accent - Ottors, v funny. Keo was the sweetest guy ever. He is 19 and had spent 6 years as a 'novice monk' in a temple. Now he wants to get him self a girlfriend and make up for lost time. The guy has never even kissed a girl, and the sexual frustration was very apparent as every few hours over the 4 days he'd say " can i just go talk to those girls a minute?"!!
Well thats all folks, tomorrow we might go to Vientiane (the capital) and make our may back to Bangkok by train or we may stay here a few more days and fly from here to Bangkok. This all depends on if the flights are still only $100 and whether I can get my own way!
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