Wandergaels: August 2015

We visited three towns in the northern half of Laos, starting in Luang Prabang and then finishing in Vientiane via a three-day visit to Vang Vieng. Laos is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia situated in between Vietnam to the east and Thailand to the west. It was a French colony until the 1950s, the remnants of which are still fairly obvious, especially in Luang Prabang. Rather than crossing the Thai-Laos border via the infamous two-day slow-boat along the Mekong River, we decided to get the hour-long flight from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang

Walking around the main street of Luang Prabang is like walking through a French town (albeit one with lots of Laotians). There are bakeries and French-style buildings all along the street, as well as restaurants selling tapas and traditional Thai food, and at one end of the street there is a nightly market selling any sort of souvenir and streetfood you could want (we had a consistent daily intake of fruit shakes and banana-chocolate crepes). The town itself is built beside the meeting of two large rivers, the Nam Khan and the mighty Mekong, which flows from China to the sea in Vietnam taking in parts of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Burma along the way. We spent most of our time in Luang Prabang taking it easy, but we did manage to rent bikes and go for a tour of some of the surrounding countryside around the town (I got the cheapest haircut ever along the way), during which we visited the recently-restored Wat Xieng Thong temple in the middle of the town. We also went on a half-day trip to the spectacular Kuang Si waterfall, and woke up early (5.30) to witness the one of the daily Alms givings, where locals (and tourists) offer food to Buddhist monks from the local temple. After three days in Luang Prabang, we headed by bus to Vang Vieng...

The Alms giving in Luang Prabang

One of the lower pools at the Kuang Si waterfall

Kuang Si waterfall

Bike ride in Luang Prabang

The Mekong river

Wat Xieng Thong temple

The meeting point of the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers

Aisling after crossing a long single-lane bridge with a line of scooters behind her all the way!

A house in a village outside Luang Prabang

Local foodmarket

Lots of the signs in Luang Prabang are written in French as well as Lao

A stall selling different types of rice

The Laos countryside from the air

The plane from Chiang Mai in Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos

Vang Vieng

We booked a so-called VIP bus, which I think they called all the buses (probably to reassure tourists), for the approximately 7-hour journey between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. The roads between these two towns ranged from generally new and flat surfaces to potholed dirt-tracks, but the journey gave us some great views of the rolling hills and rice terraces of the Laos landscape. At different spots along the journey, the bus stopped to load up with items that people from small villages along the way wanted to transport to Vang Vieng. At one stop, a few of the people themselves got on and sat on stools in the isle of the bus. There was a small moment of panic along the way when Aisling noticed that the man in the seat next to us had a gun and bullets on him (in a holder around his waist), but the panic quickly subsided when he fell and stayed asleep for the rest of the journey.

Once we reached Vang Vieng, we checked into our hostel and went for a walk around the town. I've heard Vang Vieng described as being like a town run by 18 year-olds, and this doesn't seem too far from the truth. The main street is home to a plethora of coffee shops (one that shows reruns of episodes of 'Friends' on repeat all day), backpacker hostels, scooter and bike rental shops, indiscreet bars openly advertising and selling 'happy shakes' and 'happy pizzas' (with optional extra mushrooms) – I don't think I need to explain those, and even a genuine Irish bar owned and run by ex-pats. Overall, it's a perfect place to laze the day away. Vang Vieng is also, and probably most, famous for river tubing, which consists of sitting in an inflatable tube on a river as you float from one riverside bar to the next. Unfortunately for us, torrential rain during the few days just prior to our arriving meant that the tubing was cancelled during our time there. So with time on our hands, we decided to rent a few mountain bikes and go for a cycle to the nearby Kaeng Nyui waterfall, a few miles outside the town. What started as a leisurely cycle ended up as a 7-hour round trip back to the hostel, due mainly to the fact that the roads to the waterfall had turned into mud after the recent heavy rain. To make matters worse, it was really hot (around 35°C) and sunny on the morning we went out, so we were roasting on the bikes! Luckily enough, there was a great blast of cold water off the waterfall once we finally arrived, and we hit the road back to the town full of beans again. We did the return trip via a different road that brought us through a local village (and plenty more muddy dirt tracks), but the heavens opened around half an hour before we made it back to the hostel. So we ended up back at the hostel soaked from head to toe after a great day on the bikes.

A smaller waterfall just before Kaeng Nyui waterfall outside Vang Vieng

Kaeng Nyui waterfall

All ya need is a few sticks! Local kids outside Vang Vieng playing a jumping game with bamboo

Intensive livestock production. Some grazing management issues here!

Bamboo, rice terraces, and hills covered in trees - also known as the Laos landscape

A pit-stop on our cycle in a small village

Vientiane

We got yet another bus journey from Vang Vieng to the Laos capital, Vientiane. Vientiane is noticeably less 'touristy' than its more northerly counterparts of Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, and is much more urbanised. We didn't do much in Vientiane other than go for a look at the presidential palace and the Victory Monument (an Arc de Triomphe-type structure on the opposite end of the street to the presidential palace). We also went for a quick walk around Wat Sisaket, a Buddhist temple. Next, back to Thailand...