Entering Laos
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2008
1
30
49
Trip End
Jun 30, 2008
Vientiane,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Up fairly early the next day to do some wat-hopping around the city, squeezing in a bit of shopping in the afternoon. The Wat Si Saket (see photos) is the only wat that survived the Siamese and so it's believed to be Vientiane's oldest temple. Becky bought a pink paper umbrella to keep the strong, hot sun at bay, she was still a sweaty beast though.
Saturday morning we were picked up and taken to Houey Hong Vocational Training Centre for Women. This centre trains disadvantaged rural women in the art of natural dyeing and traditional silk-weaving processes. First we sat down with two ladies who showed us how to fold and tie the scarves to achieve the tie-dye patterns we had each chosen for our two scarves.
We were taken over to the dyeing area, we had chosen different colours for our first scarves so they each involved different processes
Becky and her new pink umbrella
. Luke had to don rubber gloves and an apron (he still managed to get it all the way up his arms) to dip and squeeze his scarf in the blue dye. Becky had to sit and stir her scarf in a bubbling brown liquid. We each then rinsed them out, undid the ties and hung them to dry. Our second scarves involved stirring them both in a bubbling pink liquid, some of Luke's ties came undone in the process (the woman did those ties though he says). These were also rinsed and hung to dry while we toddled off to do our trial weaving.It's hard to describe. We sat at a big thing and it involved pushing a wooden spool between stuff, pushing pedals and moving sticks. We both got little scraps of material with our weaving efforts on and are rather chuffed with them.
We spent the afternoon reading as we both have thick, good books.
Sunday we were up and off to a nearby village called Ban Na, on the outskirts of a national park, in a bush taxi. The bush taxi dropped us on Route13 and we had a 2km walk down a dirt-track to the village. We were greeted and sat down, before going through what we wanted to do. A few years ago 30-odd elephants came down from the mountains and decided to make the lowland forests, bamboo belt and fields around Ban Na their home. The destruction they cause is significant and so the only way the village can live in harmony with the elephants is by making them pay their way through this scheme. Guides come from the village and our money went towards Ban Na village fund, elephant conservation and other nearby villages affected by the elephants
Becky at the top of the Patuxai
. We decided to trek to the Elephant Tower and spend the night there before a trek back in the morning. The elephant tower is constructed overlooking the elephants' favourite salt-lick. Our two guides took us off down the track just as it started to rain. Becky and her guide donned the two raincoats we had, Luke said Becky looked like a blue moomin, Becky felt more like a teletubbie. Our guides were very friendly and eager to talk to us and improve their English. It was a short trek to the elephant tower and they cooked lunch for us when we arrived. The food was lovely - fried pork, omelette and sticky rice with a spicy dip. It was here we were introduced to jiggers of Laos Laos (rice whiskey), it was very warm inside and strong! We wiled away the afternoon and Luke taught his guide how to pronounce words out of their Laos-English dictionary. Becky's guide was like a big kid, he kept making noises at the birds and bouncing around the place. We went for a wash in the stream below.
They cooked us tea and night fell, we constructed the mozzy nets on chairs and arranged our sleeping bags. We dozed off in the dark dreaming of being woken by elephants. Alas instead Becky woke herself saying 'Ow ow ow ow' and sat up wondering why her toe hurt so much to see a small rat climbing up the inside of their mozzy net. The rat had bitten me, but not broken the skin phew. Woke Luke to get him to get it out, it darted about quickly before we succeeded. We could hear a few moving around in the tower and put things around the edges of the net to hold it down, couldn't hear any elephants, went back to sleep. We each woke a few times during the night but never to any elephant noises.
Our trek back in the morning was SWEATY. We walked across a stone riverbed (dry of course) and threw stones to see who could get them in the natural pot-holes with a plop! Becky's guide was really good at it and had obviously spent too much time practicing, we had to drag him away....
Back at the village they gave us lifts on their motorbikes to the main road, it was fun! Got a bush taxi back to Vientiane, spent the aft being lazy. We spent today being lazy too. Now we're going for tea before catching an overnight bus to Luang Prabang xxxxx
Comments
nice brolly
Enjoy another new country...i take it the brolly was to keep off the sun...think yourselves lucky....its freezing here and very miserable (Town won 1-0 again though!) Love Mum and Steve xx
rat
Pity you didn't see the elephants but did see a rat! Like the pink umbrella, don't think it would last very long here at the moment with all the rain! love ac&ud
You need a pork pie
Thought it was about time that we said hello, now you've had time to settle into your little trip.Rebecca I've noticed from the photo's that you appear rather thin,you are clearly not eating enough, and as the title suggests you need to find the local pork pie supplier, make sure Luke checks that they use pork and not rat!, that should be followed up with a large piece of chocolate cake, ask the locals if they know of Gran's recipe.PS I went to look at a job in Bradford the other day and I told the proprietor Mr Singh about my niece and her friend being Bollywood stars, he got very excited and said that on your return he would like you to open his new fish and chip shop, The Punjab Chippy, while I was still there, he rang his 75 cousins to tell them about you, who in turn rang their 75 cousins, and before I knew it there was a crowd of some 18,000 people chanting we want Luke and Becky, together with a few Town fans who thought they were shouting for Town's not so star striker Luke Beckett.Anyway the whole thing turned into a bit of a riot when they realised you were n't going to show up, and I had to make a hasty exit by the back door!.Talk to you soon when you've gained a bit of weight. Uncle Ant.