Halfway thru laos written halfway down vietnam
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
28
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Hue,
Vietnam
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
sunday 12 october
we wake, have breakfast in JAMO cafe, pack our bags again, dump them at reception with the sleepy guesthouse owners' kids and head off, in the scorching heat, to check out the temple everyone's been raving about! now, i have the lonely planet guide right infront of me here, and i could flick through to find the name of said temple, but i cannot be bothered! all i can say for those who have been to this particular temple, or for those who are going is that it's the one sat opposite the boat port with the erect-penised, gay-looking cats, and described as luang prabang's most magnificient of all temples! and it is! the main temple is as old as the hills, really looks like the wooden structure might buckle for sure if there were high winds, and on every wall there are gold painted scenes from laos life, while at the end of the temple sits one hell of a majestic looking buddha, again looking down shamed faced at all us falang and evil laos folk who have done wrong in their lives! i should say i stood for hours studying every nook and cranny of the place, but my camera was very much out of battery at this point and so i spent a fair while in between takes concentrating on rubbing the batteries between my palms to wake them up and get another photo out of them - good trick and it works! i too, after watching many a tourist pap a monk that week, had become fascinated with tourist behaviour, and so was spending time watching (east asian / southeast asian) tourists taking arty snaps with their posh SLR cameras. after picking up our shoes and walking across the way, we came to a second gold studded temple building containing a funeral carriage, i think?, and a whole collection of cool, thin, and squinty siamese-eyed buddha statues, which i would have very much liked to pick up and take home, because they were ace. i have photos, and one day, when it's raining again and i have the time, i will try to decide which ones to stick on here! anyway, after taking several more shots, we wandered around the rest of the 'complex', and i watched more tourists and some monks help build a long boat for the forthcoming boat festival. before getting back to the guesthouse to collect our bags, we headed to the tour agency, where we'd been told to go to confirm our bus departure, in the next half hour, only to find the doors well and truly shut, and only an old lady sat watching tv, who could tell us absolutely nothing! so feeling stitched, it was a relief to find a man on a jumbo - a sawangthaew with a roof - stop right by us, get out a bunch of keys and head into the agency to make some phone calls and say that he had come to take us to the bus station, no extra charge. phew! at the bus station we buy snacky nims and jump on a bus, with many a local, realising that this was no mini bus that we'd been promised and that there was nothing we could do about it! yes, we had been ever so slightly scammed, but thank god not out of all our pennies! the bus journey - despite the likes of the man at the back of the bus spitting every five minutes; the other man at the back playing his own music aloud while the radio was on; the crazily loud, indian restaurant sounding music; the many stops to pick up more passengers, more bags of rice, a wriggling beaver looking creature, maybe for someone's tea; and the fact that there was a guard on our bus, carrying a rifle looking gun - i don't know about these things! - was actually pretty good! no worries about bandits, no worries about falling off the side of a cliff! and i don't know about sean, but any edge that was there was most certainly taken away by the likes of kt tunstall, michelle branch, and girls aloud blaring from my mp3 player! so thanks matt! ok, and so maybe i should have added some male music for sean to listen to as well, but there was no time before, with all the malaria tablet planning and packing and saying goodbyes! anyway, after a short stop-over for people to get buffet food, which did not look good and so was rightfully rejected, we arrive at vang vieng - home of the tube and many a water-borne party! it is 10pm and time to navigate our way to the hotel we wish to stay at, which turns out to be near impossible for the tuk tuk driver who said he'd take us into town from the football pitch sized gravel 'blank space', where we'd been dumped, as well as for the bar owner we asked, and a slightly tipsy aussie, who looked a little sleazy and like he was out on the pull for someone far too young for him! after giving up and apologising to the german - was it? - who we'd advised to come follow us to find this place too, we walked back over the tiny bamboo bridge we'd crossed onto the 'island' where we'd meant to be staying, in search of some other hotel, because if you don't get a quaint bungalow in vang vieng, a hotel is what you end up with! as is the case with most of vietnam, as i speak! anyway, we find somewhere - i think it was called saysong hotel? - and head out to another lonely planet recommendation, the nokeo restaurant, which does traditional food at tiiiiny prices. after, we head back to our balcony for more shithead; to listen to the party over at the bucket bar, on the island, and bed. done!
monday 13 october
so we wake, and it is hot! and people are already out and about, the men topless and the women strutting about in bikini tops and board shorts! hardly the demure sight the laos folk are used to, but then this is vang vieng! we decide there is no better way to start our time here than to start with a proper western breakfast of beans, bacon, sausage, toast, egg etc, in an aussie sports bar. well, if this place is tourist party central, then you may as well do as the locals - that's us! - do, and indulge in some western pleasures of too much greasy food, beer, and loud party music! after breakfast, i 'internet' before sean comes to find me to take me off to get a snack - fries! - at one of the many 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' showing restaurants and cafes. later, after dropping off our valuables with the hotel reception, we head over to the tubing station, spitting distance from our front door, where we sign in and leave a 'late-return' deposit - which we later discover we probably won't get back because no-one gets back into town before the last return time of 6pm - get a tube, and hop onto a tuk tuk, which takes us to the launch point 3km out of town. after watching those who have done this before and mastering the skill of kicking our tube into the shallow waters, before lowering ourselves into the tube, and pushing ourselves away into the middle of the nam song river, we find ourselves having to learn to steer ourselves away from the reeds on the banks of the river; as well as away from those bars we don't want to stop at; and towards the inflatable or stick tossing men on the edges of those bars that we do want to stop at and who we'll need the assistance of, if we've any chance of hauling ourselves out of the river to settle down for a beer or two! ok before i go on, for anyone thinking what is she talking about with this tube device, it's basically the inflated inner tube of a tractor tyre. does that make sense? if nothing makes sense in this passage, i apologise. i wish i'd been able to take a camera with us to take even one photo of us with a tube, or to show exactly how amazing these bars were, or to show the streams of people bobbing along this river, but we really didn't trust the dry bags provided. anyway, all of the above, such surreal sights! the latter made more extreme if you happen to tilt your head upside down, while floating along the river at dusk, to witness whole camps or 'rescue' groups of tubing fanatics link arms and legs and tubes, to sing 'ten green bottles' and chat about all things travel, and make their way to the end point - much the same - apart from the merry singing and chatting - as you would see in any film documenting people hooking up, following a disaster at sea, or any movie recorded where people are left stranded after their tour boat has gone following an hour of deep-sea diving OR that one where the friends jump off their yatch only to discover they've left the rope ladder on the deck! anyway, back to the early afternoon. so we stop off at several bars, the most popular of which included rows of wooden shacks, a bar, a flume into the river below, a swing and volley ball pitch, football pitch and ping pong table. here, the drink was most certainly flowing and people were throwing themselves about like they were invincible. and i too really wanted a go on the zip line, but after reading that people have died fooling around, i couldn't bring myself too. here, we also saw the american girl who we'd travelled between luang namtha and luang prabang with, and she was absolutely off her face! she had clearly been one of the early risers who now wasn't thinking about how she was possibly going to get back safely! at another bar, we stopped to take in the impressive view of the towering limestone hills beside the bar. an absolutely amazing sight and one which i would have definitely wanted to get a photo of, had we brought out the cameras. here was also where i desperately had to take a pee, though i was able to sit and still see out of the window cut in the door, at the bar! at the last bar, we stopped to sit around the camp fire, which only worked to prevent any of us wanting to get back into the cold water and float home, although by now it was most definitely pitch black on the water and the last moment possible to get back safely with the rest of the crowd. downstream we hooked up with two other couples to make our own little rescue mission, and bobbed along talking about our travels, until, much later, we hit the banks of the 'island', and had to haul our 'drowned rat' looking selves out of the river to walk through into town. here was where everyone lost contact with everyone else they were with, only to later forget, as we did, what those people looked like in the dark! and as we'd been told, we lost our 'late return' deposit! back at the hotel, i really need sleep, having probably suffered sun stroke, but instead we drag ourselves up to go back to nokeo for some tea, and onto the bamboo and bucket bars for beer and whisky! i love their whisky and coke! oh yeah, and sean got excited at the array of good bands being played, and danced! most certainly had a little too much lao lao whisky!
tuesday 14 october
another day of tubing! get up, with a hangover, and so have another great english breakfast in the aussie bar, where the owner is still walking around shirtless! not good news, though he's an alright type of bloke! after walking back to the hotel to prepare for the waters, one of the couples from the night before, len and joe, call us over from a cafe having recognised us. how, i don't know? it was pitch black! anyway, they say they're just going to chill out today and seem a little shocked that we're going out there again so soon, but it's not everyday you get to bob along a river on a tube! back on our balcony, we watch the long boats FINALLY compete against each other, after months of training, as part of the boat festival taking place today, and the swarms of kids running up and down the river. back at the tube station, we read the signs saying that only bad people disrespect the rules and return their tube late, making every single one of us, one the devil's own kind! back out on the river, it appears less busy than the previous day, still we stop off at four bars, play some ping pong and meet some fellow brits - cerys, gareth and ben(?!) - who we later lose contact with, after it suddenly gets dark again. this was also the moment that sean and i fall out, he kicks my tube away from his, and me believing i'd like nothing more to do with him for the time being, paddle for all i'm worth and end up realising i've gone too far and i don't know where he is, i'm a fool, at any point tribesmen are going to wade out into the waters and take me hostage, and kill me! thank god for the bright lights and banging house music pumping from the 'island' that guides me back to safety, only to haul myself out to see that no-one else is returning at the same time as me, and that the only people around now are respectful locals and monks chanting and setting off candle lit boats onto the water, as part of the festivities. after a little panicking that i can't see sean, i get back to the tubing station only to be told that sean or no. 152, as he was, has already returned his tube. so what happened out there on the river, whether he paddled passed without seeing me, or what, i have no idea? anyway, back at the hotel, he seems baffled that i hadn't returned sooner, while all i want to do is go to sleep again! after setting off for the evening, we watch probably most of the town, one by one, set off their own candle lit, flower adorned boats onto the water, before having tea at nokeo again, and sean going off to the bucket bar, alone, leaving me to sleep! until he comes in after midnight and wakes me, and after that, at 1am, an almighty crash waking me AGAIN! this didn't wake sean at all, but basically the crash came from a drunk girl walking across 'the red roof' we were signposted NOT to walk across, and landing on the toilet in the bathroom belonging to next-door. how i came to be involved was simply down to my opening our door to the hysterical screams of said girl's friend, who thought she might be dead, wanting to check our room, our bathroom, our balcony, anyway and everywhere incase her friend may be there. during this time, said girl's friend walked through our room, next door - the girl from which was half naked! - and the third room down all walked into our room, and yet sean did not wake! he could sleep through a tornado, that man! whether the third room and said girl's friend ever did get passed the language barrier at reception to explain what happened and whether help ever came, we will never know. i fell asleep again!
right, the time now is 7pm, time for the rain to stop, and for me to get some food! be back tomorrow, hopefully, if the rain continues! speak soon! xxx.
