Category: Laos


The Amazing Race

Filed Under: Laos, Vietnam
Mar.01, 2010

We squish back into the bus, drive for a while, hit the border, go through the checks upon checks, visa, passport, form, passport, bags, bags, passport, passport, load the bus, get off the bus… it was very involved.

There were three old French people and they eventually gave up when we stopped for food and charted a mini-bus privately from some guy who was eating in the restaurant. We drove through what seemed like an endless city just on and on and on. I would fall asleep for a couple minutes, only to wake up as large parts of my body were senseless and numb. Amy and I ended up in some ridiculous positions trying to keep each other comfortable.

To make the title make sense, parts of the trip I recognized from out of the Amazing Race. It was kind of a double take for me. Anyways, to make a long ride short, we got to the bus station in Hanoi… eventually got a semi-legit cab, were followed to the hostel by a creepy guide that liked lonesome sally (to much to write but I will remember to tell you later.) The place is called The Drift, and it was suggested to us by a guy at the bus station in Laos. We got a 2 nights for one deal, which no matter the quality made it worth while.

We checked it out, the rooms were amazing. There was another Canadian already in the room. We headed out for some food had Italian of all things (we couldn’t find the place we were originally looking for.) Amy and I went for a sauna massage without knowing what it really was and ended up confused and laughing afterwards. Then it was time for sleep!

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Umm sorry, I don’t think I fit there.

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.28, 2010

The bus didn’t leave until 1:00 for us, so we had an easy morning getting snack and breakfast before heading to the bus stop. We piled in and it seemed like maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to take a real bus instead of a mini-bus as there was a bit more room. We were now realizing that we were missing the mens hockey gold medal game and it was bugging us so much. Canada vs. USA, in Vancouver… oh my god!

Anyways, 4 or so hours later we were in Vientiane. We then switched buses and ohh crap. It was the slow boat all over. There were no more room in any real seat. There were a couple seats which had been crammed in between where leg room really should be and we were expected to sit there (Amy and I.) Amy was all set to get off and try to get on one of the other buses until we saw the plastic stools coming in to the isle for people to sit on. At that point the seat with no room looked really good.

We bent our selves into place. My legs over in Amy’s area, Amy hanging out into the isle… it was quite something to see to people as tall as us fit in there.

I should take the chance to mention, this is a 25 hour ride ahead of us.

We drove for 6 hours and then over nighted for about 6 hours. We didn’t have a chance to sleep as we needed to get off the bus and we just played cards all night.

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Mud

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.27, 2010

Well we were falling victim to Vang Vieng. Again, even with plans, we had very little motivation to act on them. Eventually we got ourselves up to going back to the bar area of the river where we had seen a place called “Mud Bar” which had tug of war and mud volleyball. The volleyball especially interested us. It was a mad house. When we got there, there was no one. As soon as we got in there, at least a dozen other people showed up and finally a game could really start. You could hardly move without ending up in the mud. The muck was thigh deep and the bottom was an uneven, slick mess. It was fun, and it was dirty.

We tried for a swim in the river to clean up, but it was pretty much just enough to get us presentable enough for a tuk-tuk ride back to town.

Shower, food, sleep.

Oh, and my flip flops were stolen, which really bugged me because I had worn them in really nicely and the fit so nice… so I had to buy new ones. In Laos, you take your shoes off before you enter any building, and they are all just left there.

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Vang Vieng Embrace

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.26, 2010

You could say we really embraced the life-style of Vang Vieng. We did essentially nothing. TV watching, drinking a lot of water, some sort-of-planning for getting out… Friends, Discovery Channel, no Olympics anywhere…

Bus out of town in style (sleeper) wasn’t available, so we took what we could get which was a normal (vip they call it) bus which goes not tomorrow, but the day after.

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The after-party

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.25, 2010

Scootering started a little later than anticipated, as most things do the way we go. We met up with Dara (the new Canadian girl) and a new Finnish guy (no idea what his name was anymore) and had some food, got the scooters, a horrible map, and then it was off to the first cave. We got there without incident after some practice driving on the roads first (the road to the cave is a dirt pseudo-road through fields.)

Once there, Amy decided to sit it out as it was crazy hot, and the impression we got was the cave was at the top of a really steep rocky hill. Turned out it wasn’t too far up and it was a lot of fun to explore. We then hiked the hill for the heck of it/the view and met another Canadian on top… we are everywhere over here.

Back down, after a really tough but short hike and it was off to the next cave. The map wasn’t clear and the Finnish guy had a bit too much confidence in his navigation skills so we ended up spending the rest of the day in fields driving over these huge berms getting just exhausted as the scooters would get stuck high-centering.

When we got back into town (after not finding any more caves) we just went for a ride to feel we got some real distance on the scooters. After that we checked out the bars across the river.. we figured if they were making so much noise and it was coming right into our room, we might as well be out there enjoying it. We spend a good while out there, some of it in hammocks, some by the bonfires, and eventually worked ourselves back to our room. The Laos curfew doesn’t seem to apply here in Vang Vieng.

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Birthday Boy

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.24, 2010

We woke up early so we could move our stuff to the new guest house, then it was off to scarf down some food and get picked up for the tour. After a while in a tuk-tuk we got to the Elephant cave, which was another shallow, but large cave used as a temple. We then hiked a bit through farm land and got to the water cave. This was really neat, we get in a tube, light on our head, and pull ourselves into a cave by rope. The roof of the cave at the beginning was barely a foot above us in parts, but once inside it opened up a bit. It was really neat to see. Eventually we needed to just propel our tubes with out arms instead of pulling at a rope, and in all we spent about an hour in there.

After some food, we drove down to where the water was deep enough and kayaked. There were some small rapids, just enough to make it fun, and then we were in the “bar area” of the river. I tried the trapeze jump and it was a lot of fun. Back into the boats, and a very tiring paddle down and we were done.

We met up with a Filipino woman who has been teaching English in China for the last 9 years while on the tour and so we invited her to join us for my birthday dinner. We didn’t have anywhere special in mind so after some showers we wandered around until we found a place. After some food we went “looking” for dessert. I say “looking” because Amy had found a place which had birthday cakes and had snuck out the night before to order me one. She guided us into “a place that might have something” and poof there it was. Very cool. I even got to have some Will Smith music playing when the cake was brought out.

At the place we met another Canadian girl and invited her to share in the cake. She sort of worked at the place (or was while she was in the area) and so we decided tomorrow we would rent scooters (at 4 bucks for a day) and try to see as many other caves (there are tons.)

Our new guest house ends up being on the other side of the river from a bar, and the noise was crazy all through the night, but we didn’t have all that much trouble sleeping through it.

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Mountain Goat

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.23, 2010

Well, I have a lot to catch up on, so I might try and make these quicker… unless I get distracted.

We woke up, eventually got piled into a tuk-tuk which took us to a bus station… there we were crammed into the remaining seats of a really not great mini-bus. I got the center seat next to the driver, stick shift and center console are not great additions to my knees. Luckily some one in the back got car sick on the amazingly winding roads, so I was able to switch seats with them and get a cramped seat in the back, but at least no center console or gearshift to contend with.

The trip took about 6 hours, not all horrible in itself, but the constant sway from left to right, with no straight aways (no joke) was a lot to deal with even if you were one of the few not getting sick. It was like an ab workout the whole way. When we eventually got in to Vang Vieng, Amy was still pretty Gravol’d up and we ended up in the second guest house we found just to get in somewhere. Amy napped while Jen and I checked out the area. It was essentially a big dirt pile with a mess of guest houses and restaurants with seating set up so that you can watch friends on their TVs from everywhere really comfortably (lounge seats only.)

We were quite unimpressed with our guest house so Jen and I scoped out like everywhere else to find a new place for the next night. After seeing some neat bungalows we eventually settled on a guest house on the river which was apparently brand new, and looked it. It was by far one of the nicest guest houses we had stayed in and it fit the price point we wanted to.

After reserving the place we went to look to see what there was to do. The big thing in Vang Vieng is tubing, where you drift down the river and drink buckets of booze from the river side bars where there are zip-lines, trapeze things, and massive slides to send you flying back into the river. Definitely not something that would ever fly back in Canada. We found a tour that would take us to some caves, and then kayaking (what looked like the same river and area as the tubing) and it looked pretty good so it was off to wake up Amy.

After getting her, she was convinced and so we signed up. We showed Amy the new place and then we went back to sleep.

I forgot to mention, the whole way, seemingly hanging off the side of the mountain were these little villages.. amazing how some people live.

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Utopia

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.22, 2010

Well, despite best intentions, sleep won over reading to kids again. Figured we might as well eat the same amazing food as the day before, it was still good. When this happens (repeating activities) it is usually a sign we should get moving to the next spot. We asked for suggestions from tuk-tuks on things to do, but all they knew were caves and waterfall, so we looked for transportation down to Vang Vieng. After getting the mini-bus sorted, Amy suggested we check out a place called Utopia she saw a flier for earlier. We eventually tracked it down and it was quite cool. A very chilled out, relaxing bamboo floor balcony type thing by the river. We had some food and drink, played beach volleyball, mega-sized jenga, fooseball, darts, and I climbed a rope ladder thing to some crows nest kind of platform up in a tree which ended up being a lot of work and a fair bit scarier than it looked from the ground.

After exhausting all it had to offer, we showered back at the room and then headed back out for BBQ at this place I saw earlier on our walk to find Utopia which looked really nice. It was great food, a sort of make your own meal kind of thing. We even managed to make a really tasty soup out of it.

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Sleep, Food, Culture, TV

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.21, 2010

In case you want a readers digest version, the title says it all. We slept in too late to do this thing where you can go talk to some kids in school learning English, maybe help go over English papers. Instead we went to a place with the most amazing breakfast. Just food upon food. Eggs, meat, meat, baguette, coffee, tea, fruit salad, yogurt… it was so much and so good.

We wanted to check out the Buddha caves, so it was another tuk-tuk debate. We won this one right out and headed off. It was a little closer but involved 5km of dirt road in a junk box of a tuk-tuk which was not the favorite part of the trip for Amy. When we got there, there were kids everywhere trying to sell you things. It was a short boat ride across the river and then we were at the caves. We went up some stairs past tons more kids selling us things and saw the first cave combined with a temple. It was really neat and we might have some decent pictures of it too. Down the stairs and into the lower cave, then back across the river to head home. We watched Jurassic Park, then had dinner at the river. We wandered up for our crepe and headed back home again to watch fatal attraction.

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Bears of Paradise

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.20, 2010

Woke up and headed off for a quick breakfast. Our goal today was to visit a waterfall we had heard about from the guide book. We started haggling with a tuk-tuk and moved off from him, found another who would go for the price we wanted, but he wanted to find more people to make it worth his while. After like 20 minutes of driving around (and I am sure, wasting more money on fuel than he would have if he just drove us right away) we popped off in search for a new tuk-tuk. After the waste of time we settled for a different, slightly more expensive, but ultimately cheap tuk-tuk which got us to the falls 40 km later.

We bought a couple sandwiches from a vendor for a picnic later and headed into the park. It turns out there was a bear rescue place there with tons of bears. It looked like a really nice place for them actually and there we all these hammocks that they would lay in that looked really really comfy.

We got to the first pool of water and small fall and we were just taken back. The turquoise water described in the book was better than could be imagined. The water was cool, but comfortable. When we get around to getting these pictures up you will not believe it.

We checked out all the different falls and when it got to the first, largest fall Amy and Jen decided to go off to swim, while I decided to check out where a trail led. Turns out it led to the top of the fall, and it was one heck of a hike to make in flip flops. On the way down I ended up going barefoot just to get at least a bit of traction on the dirt. I ended up running into some boat people on my way up. They are everywhere. The view was nice, but maybe not really worth the amount of effort it took to get up there and down.

By the time I met back up with Amy and Jen I was just soaked in sweat and really ready for a swim. There was a rope swing and Amy teased me onto it… what a great way to get into the water. A brief swim, under the waterfall, a few swings and it was time enough for us to go back.

When we came into the room it took us only a second to realize something was off. Amy quickly noticed that the chocolates we on her bed (off of the TV where they were being left untouched.) The pyramid was open and wrappers were everywhere around it. It was very clear that some one was in there, which worried the hell out of us because for the first time ever, knowing we were going swimming and not wanting to leave our passports on the shore unattended we left them in the room along with our extra cash and other valuables. I had $200 laying on the nightstand, right in the open (stupidly.)

After a really thorough look through everything we realized absolutely nothing other than the chocolate was taken. No cameras missing, no money gone, no credit cards taken, no passports stolen… it is one of the weirdest break-ins I have ever heard of, let alone experienced.

We alerted the staff, and it was not easy to explain that some one broke in, took chocolate, nothing else, and then locked the door again on the way out. Then we went for dinner, valuables all safely back in our backpacks and bags on our shoulders. A cocktail, a crepe, and a massage later we were back to the room before curfew.

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Off Day Off

Filed Under: Laos
Feb.19, 2010

Well, I decided to take a day off to see if I could kick start myself and get over the cold or whatever quickly. Jen and Amy went off and saw the Royal Palace (possible name) which is a museum with some history related stuff in it (Luang Prabang is the old capital of Laos, don’t know if I mentioned that before.) After that they went up a hill to a little temple.

They also babied me a bit and brought me food and a watermelon shake which has become my absolute favorite thing to drink over here in Asia. Later in the day we checked out the night market. It was slightly different, but not all that unique from the many we have seen so far. We had a crepe again, it was superb.

There was a pyramid of chocolate which looked like rip-off Ferrero Roche, maybe like 30 or so making up the pyramid and it was only 1/3rd of the price of a much smaller number of ACTUAL Ferrero Roche, so I had to try it. We got back to the room and broke them open. I tried one, and had to spit it out (secretly) so I could still get Amy to try one. She wasn’t as discrete with her displeasure and so Jen never even tried them. A shame, I had high hopes for what ended up being a pyramid of lardy lumps.

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