Scribbles Abroad

Laos (Lao) is a land of contrasts.  On one side you have the natural beauty of untouched forest and then on the other hand you’ve got drunk travelers floating down a river and launching themselves off of ridiculously huge swings.  Both have their positives, one has some painful negatives (hangovers).

After flying from Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat we landed in Vientienne a bit hazed.  We stayed a night in Vientienne and it was a beautiful town, wouldn’t really say city.  While we were there we got pages added to our passports because we were out.  We really wanted to do the cliche scene in the movies where we would run up to the gate yelling, “LET US IN WE ARE AMERICANS!” but it wasn’t set up that way maybe next time.

We only had a two weeks in Laos so we took off to Vang Vieng the next day. We spent our first day spelunking.  Yeah, spelunking, its a great time and exciting for the whole family!  (Spelunking: cave exploring).  There were guides available but we decided against it.  To engage a cave with no guide makes it that much more satisfying, but actually we were all scared shitless.  The caves go back further and further and further, you try to remember whether you took a left there and then one there and then a right turn but we couldn’t afford to forget.  If you go too deep you end up stuck for life!  Needless to say, we survived but Liz lost a leg.

This river cave goes back really far.  If you lose the rope you could get lost forever.  At the end of the rope you could hear a flowing river and it got really scary.

After the spelunking we went on a bike ride down a random road and ended up getting to see about 5 traditional Lao villages.  The communities were all working together farming the lands and actually bringing water from the river and walking it back to the garden to water the goods by hand.

We ended up going too far and couldn’t figure out how to get across the river to the road.  We were lost until a group of boys helped us out.  One of the kids knew where there was a boat.  These kids spoke no English and my Lao stopped at “cold beer please”.  We managed through the language barrier and got across, no money was requested, but we hooked the boy up with a huge amount in his land but nothing in ours.  It was the equivalent of a days work and we were worried that we would set a bad example by encouraging charging for good deeds, but if you saw the way the families lived you know they were very appreciative.

That night we spent it at the local bonfire clubs and Louise had a few too many.

The next day we engaged in the South East Asia tradition of tubing in Vang Vieng.  You hire a tube, float down a river, stop at every bar, and indulge in the libations and HUGE SWINGS!   We’ve never encountered this before.  We were awestruck that this place existed.  It was like Disney World for adults!  Louise and I love to launch off of things and this was the usual on steroids, plus ALCOHOL!  Don’t worry Mom and Dad, once we got to the point where we shouldn’t have done it anymore we stopped. 🙂

check out the video footage we took.

After a night of tubing we headed back to the bonfire bars.  People get sauced at these things, especially those that power through and try to go straight from the river to the bars. I saw a guy fall on his face when he forgot he was standing on an elevated drinking area.  I also saw WALDO!  Or as they call him everywhere else, Wallie.

We enjoyed it so much that we did it two days in a row!  There was a guy on the river that had written on himself, 61 of 70 days on the river, meaning he’s been in the area for 70 days and spent 61 on the river and I believed it.  Some people come here and get stuck partying.  But we lucky needed to get back to the ocean and the river life just couldn’t hold us.  We were off to the North to go exploring the next morning.

The hangover we had going to Luang Prabang was bearable but barely.  Our main intent was to go on a trek.  In our world its a hike but in SE Asia and Europe they call it a trek.  Its a great word, sounds cool, trek.  We signed up for a three day two night trek.  Just Louise, Liz, our guide, and I trekking through Lao checking out how the locals live.

The view of Luang Prabang

Pancakes with bananas and a hell of a lot of butter.

The morning before our trek we went to watch the monk procession at dawn.  Every morning the monks in the area walk the streets uniformly and the locals hand out donations, usually sticky rice.  If anyone wants to see this in LP be sure to avoid the areas near your hotel.  Its sad because there end up being all these tourists surrounding the monks taking photos and flashing their flashes in their faces.  It seemed humiliating so we tried to avoid the masses, but in a sense we are just part of that problem.

The trekking was fabulous, we packed the bare necessities and headed off.  The first day we biked all day, the second we hiked/trekked, and the last day we kayaked.  Biking allowed the girls to learn how to use the gears and I tried to teach our guide Noi how to bunny hop the bike.  It was a long ride but not too hard.  The hike took us through a bunch of villages.  We’d stop, say hello, relax, check out the animals, walk around, and usually they would want to drink alcohol with us.  Not ones to be rude, we always obliged.  It made the walk a bit easier as well.  The last day we kayaked to an elephant sanctuary with awesome waterfalls and then continued down the river till sunset.  One of our friends that we made ended up jumping onto our kayak because his was crap and our other friend took that one solo.  We made it our goal after that to go where you weren’t supposed to go, take the wildest rapids, and launch waterfalls.  Ok maybe not the waterfalls.  We were surprised we didn’t break the kayak.  We hit so many rocks and even flipped over on one little rapid.

The people of Lao were so warm and accepting.  They would always be willing to talk to you, starting off with a “Sabaidee”, give you directions, or share whatever they had with you.  We never saw a homeless person in Lao, we saw entire villages farming the same land in cooperation.  We had complete strangers, (boys in a field playing around), help us cross a raging river, and we got drunk with fellow travelers.  It was a great time and although the country is landlocked it remains one of our favorites of SE Asia.  We wish we had had enough time to go further into the North because it is supposed to get even more rural and the trekking is claimed to be some of the best anywhere.  But you gotta save some stuff for later, or at least thats what we tell ourselves.

FUNNY STORY: So we stopped in a village and saw what we thought was a siamese dog.  These dogs were stuck together and Louise and I were shocked.  But Liz quipped, “ah just throw cold water on them and they’ll seperate.”  We were like “huh?”  But then we looked close and realized they were stuck together because one dogs dingaling was stuck in the others pooonannny.  Look close and you can see yourself.  His redrockets firing.