Asia: Laos

Laos
Off to Laos. This is an area of the world that neither shell or I haven't been to before so it is new for both of us.

The flight (12/03/2015)

We were flying Laos airlines which I have never flown before and for some reason I had got it into my head that it was an eight seater plane (it wasn't). In fact I had the perception that it was going to be spit and sawdust (it wasn't). So when we initially couldn't find the check in counter my brain was going into overdrive. The reason we couldn't find it was that we had been dropped off at domestic and not international . We sorted that out and got checked in. They accepted our massive bags, no problem. Then we got a sticker to identify the flight we were on. This has never happened to me before and I was confused. I said to shell if a monk sees this sticker and comes over and starts blessing me, we're walking. As it turned out everything was fine. Laos airlines were very professional and we were on a turbo prop plane with about 100 people. Turbo props are a lot quieter than big jet engines. The stewardess were immaculately dressed in very elegant dresses. We were a couple of hours delayed but airports have a lot of interesting people watching so it wasn't too bad. Shell had a foot massage which is not a bad way to wait for a plane. The sticker was to ensure that we got on through the right gate because they were all very close together once we got past security. Interestingly enough, over 50 percent of the plane were foreigners, a lot with the backpacker look about them.
Arriving at the airport we had to apply and pay for our travel visa. Strange thing about Laos was that one can't get Laos money (the kip) outside of the country. They do accept thai baht and the U.S dollar and the three are used interchangeably. When we arrived we joined the queue to purchase the visa with U.S dollars we had brought with us. As we were queuing there was a board listing the US equivalent of what each nationality had to pay. There were variations of the amount which prompted Shell to ask why it was different. I joked that it was a Laos likes you index, the countries they liked the least had to pay more. This immediately sent us into a who pays the most and who pays the least and where do we stand search. Australians were paying the least and Canadians were paying the most. Why the Canadians? What have they done to have to pay the most? We never found out, entering into a discussion about these things with an immigration official didn't seem like a good idea (ever).
Passing through security we joined two more queues, one to exchange money and the other to catch a taxi. Exchanging money resulted in us becoming instant millionaires, hurray! As of today the exchange is $1 AUS = 6115 kip, so it didn't take much to put us into the millionaire category. Catching the taxi we were sharing with a Canadian guy who said that why he got on the plane it was -8 and when he got off it was 38 degrees Celsius. Huge difference.

Arriving in luang prabang
Luang prabang is really quiet, a sleepy place. I really liked our guest house, it was right by the river with a nice view. The room was a good size with a roomy bathroom. I thought it looked pretty, it had timber furniture which gave it character. We had a shared balcony and we spent many an hour sitting, writing and reading. We took a day to explore our surroundings and make our plans for our stay in Luang Prabang. A lot of practical things got done such as booking our onward journey and booking trips to see the surrounding area. It's quite competitive for tours so it pays to shop around, the way it works is that it is cheaper the more people are on the tour. The tour operators are quite keen to sell you lots of stuff so you have to be on the ball a bit.

Pak ou cave, boat ride and villages.
We signed up for a full day trip to see the Buddhist Paku Cave which involved a boat trip up the Mekong river stopping off at various local villages on the way. We joined the tour and met our fellow passengers, two girls from Ireland who were on a six month travel experience. We really enjoyed their company, they were interesting, engaging, fun and really great company. We couldn't help ourselves we told them all about the meditation centre and our experiences. One of the things I enjoy about travelling is the interesting people you meet. We must have spent the best part of the day chatting about all about life and travel.
The boat trip was really cool, it showed off some very pretty scenery of Laos, best way to describe the Mekong is mighty. Part way on our journey to the cave we stopped off at a local village to see how the local Lao Lao whiskey was made. We find ourselves drinking moonshine whiskey at 10:30am. We were given sampler glasses rather than straight out of the bottle which was a smart move. We sampled three whiskeys all different in taste and all different in alcohol content. The first was what the locals called lady whiskey which was about 14% alcohol and very sweet in taste. The second was red in colour about 15% alcohol, sweet with a strawberry taste. The third was a blow your head off, clear looking, over 50% alcohol whiskey which was really strong. I joked this was the wedding anniversary and birthday whiskey. After a short discussion about whether we should sip or skull we chose the decorum option and sipped our way through the tastings. We bought a small bottle of the strawberry one as a night cap for later. After a quick discussion of how it was made we were shown the rest of the village and presented the opportunity to purchase many silken garments. It's not the first pre-sales meeting that has started with alcohol. With a nice warm glow inside us we continued to the cave via boat.
The cave itself is a sacred space dedicated to Buddha, there were two caves upper and lower. The lower cave is jam packed with Buddha statues whilst the upper cave about half a dozen dedicated spaces. We needed a torch for the upper cave as natural light was restricted.
The upper cave can only be reached by climbing many steps. The general rule in this area of the world is, if you have to climb a lot of steps there is likely to be a temple at the top. We spent time looking through the caves and hearing about the history from our guide. Crossing the river we had lunch with a view of the caves and on the way back to the boat we had an elephant cross our path.
On the way back down the river we stopped off to see at a silk worm farm to hear about the life cycle of the silk worm and how silk garments are produced. Big surprise for me was that a silk worm's last action in this world is an act of procreation. Both male and female silk worms die after they create the egg. To prove it we were shown a basket full of silk worm butterflies in the process of creating the next generation. They were going at it full throttle, almost as though they had been locked up in a meditation centre for seven days , denied any romantic activity and had just been released. Keen for kisses. I did think as a way to die it is a pretty good way to go.
Having enlightened ourselves about the silk worm lifecycle we returned back to our starting point. We climbed to the top of the highest point of Luang Prabang and watched the sun set.

We spent time in luang prabang was split between slow days reading, writing etc. and doing tours.

Kuang Si Waterfall day
One of the star attractions of the area is the Kuang Si waterfall so we hired a minibus to travel the 26 kilometers to the site. This is a very popular tourist destination so we were expecting crowds.
The waterfall site is made up of a number of pools at the base of the waterfall. Each pool is at a descending level in a stepped fashion. Think canal lock. The pools are fairly large with beautiful clear water that has a bluey emerald green colour.
We took the time to go for a mini trek round the waterfall. There were two paths both ascending up and over. The one on the left was a more gentle with steps and constructed walkway. The one on the right was steep with only rocks and tree roots to help the adventurer down or up. We went up on the left and down on the right. It was a nice trek up but a bit treacherous on the way down. An interesting observation was we were one of three couples making our way down. All the blokes were gung ho lets get it done and all the girls with them weren't happy. Not really surprising as the only way to get down was to slide down on your bum across dusty rocks. Not exactly every girls dream.
When we got to the bottom we spent some time at the largest pool. There were a lot of tourists and a lot of young backpackers.
I really felt for a couple of local Laos tour guides that we saw at the pool. In Laos culture in order to see any girl in a state of undress they have to marry her and in order to marry they have to pay a dowry. This dowry usually consists of a buffalo/cow, a goat and a pig or other similar contribution to the family. These boys spent a good couple of hours of watching many young 20 something girls in bikinis frolicking in the beautiful pool water. They saw more flesh in one afternoon than they should have seen in a lifetime without even having to pay a chicken. They really didn't know where to look. I too had to endure this.

Food in Luang Prabang.
One of the really nice things about Luang Prabang was that we found some really nice restaurants. One restaurant called tamnak lao did an awesome beef casserole type thing which was delicious. Michelle really enjoyed the steamed fish. All in all we had shared the entrée, had a main course each, a dessert each and had a beer each and it cost us about 30 $ AUS. fantastic.
On our last night we went to a restaurant called tamarind which specialised in introducing Laos foods to new audiences. They had created a range of tasting plates of the local cuisine for patrons to sample. It is a great idea particularly as they were perfect for sharing as a group. What was really nice was the waiters introduced the food and explained the flavours. They even taught how to eat with sticky rice. I had the steamed fish in banana leaf because shell's looked so nice from the previous night and we got a vegetarian plate to share. We had a very enjoyable meal which expanded my knowledge of Laos cuisine.

Vang Vieng : the bus journey.
We had paid for the services of the vip bus service to take us to our next destination. I am glad we went with vip because if that was vip then I would not have liked to be on anything less prestigious. Long story short was it was an old double decker that had seen better days. That's ok, it is what it is ,so long as it doesn't break down it's all good (it didn't). I have to say the driver was excellent. Given the condition of the roads he picked his way along the roads carefully, slowly and safely. The roads were steep both up and down and in some places poorly maintained. He navigated them with great skill, I was really impressed. The journey was picturesque as we wound our way through the mountains of laos. The driver's skill was particularly commendable given the situation he was placed in by some passengers. Brace yourselves because this is different.

Wow, really
We were queuing up to place our bags on the bus with 52 other western backpackers. All the passengers had big backpacks as you would expect. Please take note of the number of people, 52, because its precision is significant and relevant later in the story. The bus had a large storage area suitable to accommodate passengers and luggage under normal circumstances. About a third of the passengers had loaded their luggage on, and shell and I had just loaded our bags on when captain narcissism and his family rode up on their motorbikes. Without a word or acknowledgment of the huge queue of people patiently waiting to load their bags he jumped off his bike. Striding purposefully with his cape of arrogance flapping in the wind he stuck three fingers in the face of the driver, who was loading our bags on, and said "three motors". Yes, that's right he wanted to load three motor cycles into the storage area of the bus. I could not believe what I had just heard. This guy then proceeded to push his bike towards the luggage compartment with the rest of his family, four in total,unsaddling to do the same. The bus driver quite understandably was concerned to the point of distress. He was saying repeatedly in Laos "can not, can not" (laos is close to thai which Michelle understands and she understood can not). These people didn't care one bit. Then a local girl with a clip board turned up and spewed out something which made the driver change his mind. You know things aren't going to go your way or are going to get worse when a person carrying a clipboard turns up. Doesn't matter what country you're in a clipboard is always the nemesis of common sense. As you can probably tell I am on the side of the driver here. Putting aside the colossal arrogance of the man for just 2 minutes. There are some practicalities to consider. First, would they even fit through the door. Second would there be enough room for everyone else's luggage if they did and third how is this less than perfect bus going to cope with the extra weight. Particularly as most of the journey is going straight up or straight down. These were the responses from the selfish family. First point solved by forcibly taking the wing mirrors off, second didn't care, third didn't care. I did take a moment to look at the crowd to see what they thought. They had a mix of bewilderment, shock and rising anger on their faces.
This guy got all three bikes on and climbed on board. We took our seats as well. I was talking to one of my fellow passengers about this incident and he pointed out the following.
The road we are traveling on is windy and hilly perfect for bikes (which is why the locals use them.) and not great for buses.
Why would you buy a bike and not ride it. Isn't that the point of having a bike?
Everybody got on board. We discovered that there were 48 seats. I know that there were 52 people on the bus because I can see three young lads sitting in the stair well of the double decker bus and a pregnant local lady sitting in a half seat behind the driver. Yep, that's right because of the motorcycle family who didn't want to ride their bikes they are taking up four seats and forcing three lads to sit on the floor with a pregnant lady in a uncomfortable position. Unbelievable but these guys haven't finished.
After driving for 7 and a half hours over mountainous terrain , we stop for food. It's at this point they make the driver unload two thirds of the bags to get the motorcycles out so they can drive the last half an hour, on flat roads into town. Of course the driver had to load the bags back onto the bus again. Ultimately we arrived in Vang Vieng having been treated to a lesson in human nature.
It is because of this incident that I have created the 'narcissism, it's all about me award.'
In third place.
The barely dressed girls, who think going to a temple is going to be like a disco, we encountered wandering around the monk's quarters at the meditation centre.
In second place
Mr happy snaps who shoves cameras in monk's faces and thinks that centuries old honourable traditions of charity are there for his entertainment and amusement.
But first place has to go to
The clown family on their scooters who think they are more important than 52 other people and don't know how to correctly use their motorcycles.
It's at this point I think I should have had stayed in the meditation centre for two weeks not one. Do I hear let it go playing?

Vang Vieng
Vang vieng is the adventure spot of Laos. It's the go to destination for caving, tubing (floating down a river on a giant rubber ring usually in a cave), kayaking etc.

Not a good start
I've got the shits! Literally, and metaphorically. First night arrival we went out for dinner to a western style backpackers. Like an idiot I thought I would be ok to have western food. I was wrong, very wrong. When I consumed my tubing burger (beef, cheese, bacon) I didn't expect it to open my arse like a cave. I spent the next day playing the vomit or poo game. Trying to guess whether it was going to come out of the top or bottom. I got double points for both at the same time. I won't give you details of my purge just to say that it took me out for almost all of the time we were at vang vieng.
Given I spent most of the day in bed for the time I was here it would be unfair to make an assessment of the place. Shell went out and had a look around and reported back that it was backpacker central. Lots of bars selling cheap alcohol and partying. It's strange because there is a real polarisation in the town. One end are boutique hotels attracting the 'we want to look at the scenery' crowd. At the other is the 'party hard' backpacker crowd. It's the backpacker scene that dominates the feel of the town.
Our boutique hotel was nice, it had a little balcony and a fantastic view. One day when I was lying on the bed in my undies recovering from a bowel evacuation I heard the roar of a dragon. I looked outside and saw a hot air balloon right outside the bedroom window. There were a dozen tourist faces looking right in at me looking my absolute best. Bit of a surprise that I must admit.
I did recover enough on the last day to take a trip to the blue Lagoon and cave. The blue Lagoon was nice and the cave was huge.
All in all I didn't really get to see much because of illness but by all accounts I didn't miss much.

Bus ride to Vientiane
Our bus ride to Vientiane was a little less eventful than the last. We were having a massive stress about getting to the bus station on time but as it turned out the bus waited for our taxi driver to drop us off before departing, so it was all good. Vientiane is the capital of Laos so we were expected a bigger place than Luang Prabang and a more varied place than vang Vieng.

Flashpackers
We arrived at our hotel and were delighted to find that we had a huge room with a four poster bed and two writing desks. This is more like it, definitely a step up from a mattress on the floor. We are also right next door to one of the biggest temples in the city so I expect we'll be paying it a visit sometime soon.

Vientiane

Arrival Day
When we arrived we decided to have a look round the place by walking down to the river. Shell wanted to have a look at the local night market and get some food. The market hadn't been set up properly so we were able to quickly bypass it and go down to the river. Standing on the road we could see Thailand on the other side which is a bit weird. Having spent very nearly all my life living on islands (Australia, UK) it's a bit strange to see another country over the water. This automatically generated a conversation about human need to put a boundary round everything and classify it.
Continuing our tour round the capital city we discovered a nice little bakery, obviously, a product of the French influence over the region. We spent a nice afternoon drinking tea and eating pastries. Shell likes the citron lemon tart and I have a soft spot for pan au chocolat (posh French for croissant with a bit of chocolate in the middle). At the end of the day shell wanted to see the night market so we went down to the river and walked through it.

The next couple of days
We spent the next couple of days were spent walking round the city seeing some of the local landmarks and buildings. Just round the corner from us was the presidential palace and a large temple called Vat Sisaket, one of oldest in Laos. It was in a pretty run down state both inside and out but thanks to the German government and other agencies they were carrying out restoration work. During this trip round the temple we overheard a fellow Australian (old mate )discussing the virtues of the Laos bee, a tiny insect he had spotted on a flower. After a short conversation comparing Laos and Australian bees he moved on to take a look at the temple. I was actually quite impressed that he had researched so much about Laos (or bees). No joke here I just thought it was commendable.
There was a big Stupa just round the corner from our hotel, which is not, as shell told me, an upside down ice cream cone.
We spent a nice couple of hours visiting Wat that luang tai which was a site containing a collection of temples, statues, gardens and buildings dedicated to the Buddhism. It was a little way out of the centre of town, about 3 km so we had to take a tuk tuk. It had an absolutely massive reclining Buddha, the biggest outside one I have ever seen. The main building had some very intricate carvings on the doors and some beautiful paintings of Buddha's teachings on the ceiling. It was the most impressive site that we have seen in Laos.
We also spent way too much of the day going to handicraft shops which shell absolutely adores. When I say too much of the day I mean over one minute. I lost track track of the total amount of time because I brought I book with me, found a seat in the corner and just buried myself in it.
When we went out that evening shell wanted to go to the market.

Dealing with frustrations in a mature manner
As previously indicated we were getting frustrated with certain behaviour in the temples so we have decided to find a way of neutralising these feelings. Shell has a song she likes at Zumba that is very catchy. It is called "mi mi mi" by serebro where the chorus is "me me me me me me, only me me, me me me me me me, sexy me", so every time we see someone putting themselves before a cultural requirement we sing this song. Fun, definitely. Mature I'll let you decide.

Cope centre
"COPE opened a Visitor Center in 2008 with the aim to increase awareness about disability in Laos and highlight the amazing work that is being done to help people with disabilities lead full and productive lives. It also presents the unexploded ordnance (UXO) problem in Laos and how it links in with disability." Cope website.
Laos, like Vietnam and Cambodia is still dealing with the legacy of america's foreign policy. As a result of being part of a supply route for the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, president Johnston authorised a bombing campaign of Laos. Two outstanding statistics are relevant in this context, firstly, there were more bombs dropped on Laos during the Vietnam war than in the whole of world war. Secondly, there is estimated to be 80 million unexploded ordinance littering the countryside of Laos. As a consequence the people of Laos are losing lives and limbs when they step on unexploded bombs particularly cluster bombs (http://www.copelaos.org/ban_cluster_bombs.php ). So, everyday activities like a child playing, a farmer working his fields or the construction of new buildings can have tragic consequences.
We spent a somber morning going through the cope centre educating ourselves of the problem, their work and their mission. It was something I wasn't aware of when I came to Laos but that's what travel is all about.

Last Night in Vientiane
Walking down the road we passed the Laos Plaza Hotel which stands out head and shoulders above everything else, not just hotels. It is big , imposing and outstandingly wealthy. It's quite hard to articulate how exceptional it is when the majority of the buildings are austere. As we were walking past we kinda found ourselves in the middle of a lot of military personnel and police officers. Taking a closer look at our surroundings I saw that this was the outer ring of a police/military cordon, the inner rings consisted of a convey of parked expensive cars, more uniformed personnel, lots of people in smart attire and lots of people in elegant looking traditional suits and dresses. I thought, this is nice I wondered what sort of event this was. Thankfully, just before I whipped out my camera to start taking photos ( which may have been the last thing I would ever do) I remembered reading in the paper that the Vietnamese president was visiting Laos for two days. Now, I am feeling incredibly self conscious and moving swiftly we got out of the area very quickly with a lot of official eyes watching us as we went. Pretty ironic, given that I have just been bagging people out for being clueless of their surroundings.
We had our meal and shell insisted on going to the market.

Our time in Laos had finished. Next was our return to Thailand.

Here they come.
We have caught many buses throughout Thailand and Laos and there is a consistent theme to the arrival at a bus station. There are two variations to this story and this is the first.
We are finding that when we arrive into the bus station between two and six locals with songtows have decided to corner the market on local transport into town. They know that loads of people are going to get off the bus and their plan is to load everyone onto the back of their truck and charge each individual a fixed price for a ride into town. The good side is that everyone is getting a ride into town which they do need. The bad side is that you have to wait to be dropped off for your accommodation you might be first or you might be last; it is not up to you to decide there is no a to b. Anyway, the point of the story is that they are guaranteeing themselves a big pay day because they can get about 16 people plus baggage on the truck (it really is a skill). In the west there is a phrase I think accurately describes the situation. It is called "shooting fish in a barrel". There is no bigger fish than a white one and they know it. White fish/people are particularly good catches because they don't know what their doing and they have developed scales that protect them from an awareness of overpricing. In this group situation there isn't much one can do, here fishy, fishy.
The second variation of this is when instead of a group herding you are approached by individual tuk tuk (motor cycle with a trolley on the back to carry humans) driver. They are so excited when they see foreigners. As soon as the barrel/bus opens, they start verbally shooting with a chorus of "hello, tuk tuk". Now, I know I need a ride into town, he knows I need a ride into town, I know my bag is ridiculously huge so I am not walking, he knows I am not walking, I know I am about to get overcharged and he knows he is going to overcharge me. What he doesn't know is that I have a wonderful wife who can speak the local language and has lived in the region so she knows the tricks. Now, all of us know that we are paying an overpriced cab ride but it is a much smaller percentage of rip off than it would have been if shell hadn't surprised them with some of the lingo. She is awesome.
The other thing worth mentioning is that when the driver of the songtow asked everyone where they were going, all of them without exception pulled out their phones and showed either the email confirmation or the destination on Google maps. A couple of people were tracking themselves to their drop off point using the gps on their phones. The driver, of course had no such sat Nav and periodically stuck his head out of the window to shout to his mates on the side of the road to ask for directions.

Travel observations
More bombs were dropped on Laos during the Vietnam war than in the whole of world war 2.
80% of the Laos population work in agriculture.
From observation about 80% of the monks in Laos are under 20 and there are a lot.