Mekong from Phusi Hill, Luang Prabang

Wat in Luang Prabang

Here I am back again writing episode 6. I keep getting carried away with the tale of our travels! I do appreciate hearing from each of you, even if I do not get to respond personally to each note. Here in Laos email is very new and is frequently down. I write the episodes in word & copy it into Yahoo when the server is down. A hint for you prospective travelers: bring a diskette to save anything you may need. They are hard to come by here.

We left Udomxai bound for Luang Prabang on a smaller local bus, the kind that made Ray carsick last time. It was rapidly filling up with locals so we asked the driver if we could sit up front with him. He agreed & lucky Ray got the passenger seat and I sat in the small back seat with 2 other men, comfortably until the driver decided a 4th could fit in. We could, but not sitting shoulder to shoulder. But at least we were sitting facing forward. The back of the bus had seats on either side crammed with people, sacks of rice and a child on the floor, and luggage strapped on top. Our route was 1 1/2 hours up switchbacks to the top of a mountain then down the other side for another 2 1/2 hours. At least the road was in better condition than the previous day. Laos is 70% mountains, but the northern part though which we are travelling is about 90% mountains. The views were beautiful as we passed through several Hmong villages where girls and boys in traditional costume played toss the ball to each other across the road. At distance marker 11 K from Luang Prabang we stopped at a military checkpoint and the driver got out and checked in. This seems to be the procedure whenever we cross provincial or district borders.

Luang Prabang is a favourite with travelers and we know why. It is a French Colonial town that has been declared a World Heritage site and is set in a valley where the Mekong and the Nam Khan meet. It is big enough to have several good restaurants, some with live traditional Lao bands playing, and is small enough to walk everywhere. We stayed 4 nights and enjoyed the town and the surrounding countryside.

Luang Prabang is just starting to undergo renovations on many of the buildings, which is good & bad. Good because there is a lot of beauty to uncover. Bad because renovations will bring higher prices and a different clientele. We met several friends whose company we had enjoyed on our other stops & it was good to catch up on their adventures.

Two young girls, Dunya from Switzerland & Mireilla from Germany, shared a tuk tuk trip with us to visit the Kuang waterfalls. The 30 K trip took about 1 hour on dusty roads by tuk tuk, but it was worth it. The falls are a very well kept park with swimming allowed in the various pools formed by the falls. The falls themselves are quite impressive falling 100 feet in multiple streams. We followed a steep path beside the falls that led first half way up the falls and then to near the top. We found ourselves in a forest grove and went swimming in a large pool under the trees. The path down was trickier than going up, especially in sandals, but Ray cut bamboo poles for us and we picked our way down.

Well, all you bicycle enthusiasts would have enjoyed our last day in Luang Prabang. A local restaurant owner, a German named Marcus, enjoys exploring the countryside by bicycle and offers a guided tour. He only has 3 bikes, all quite new & in good condition, so Ray & I joined him and a young Lao man, Banma, who Marcus is training to be a guide as well. Banma rode his own crummy Chinese bike that badly needed maintenance & had only 1 working gear. On the way out of town we visited an interesting Stupa & Wat set on a hill with views of the valley. The trip was along the Nam Khan river and along the way we stopped to find the grave of Henri Mouhot, a French Naturalist who discovered Angkor Wat in the 1860s. He was exploring Laos when he contracted malaria and died at this site in 1866 at the age of 35. It is in the middle of nowhere, but was rebuilt in 1992 with a plaque from the village of his birth in France.

Marcus led us past several villages and down to the river where we enjoyed a picnic lunch on the sand. One of the local men asked Banma if we were interested in seeing a nearby waterfall, so after lunch Banma arranged for us to take a dugout canoe across the river. We had to make 2 trips for the 5 minute ride, one with Banma & the bikes, another for the rest of us. From the other side we rode through rice paddies and into the forest, following a path that at times required us to get off & push the bikes up rocky hills, through streams & through the mud. Banma kept asking directions from locals, so finally we left our bikes & followed 2 girls to the waterfalls. They were Ok, but not spectacular, so Marcus agreed this may not be a permanent stop on future tours.

We had to backtrack out of there & follow more forest paths to reach the 'new' road, a newly created, but good dirt surface road. The road led up and down several hills back to town. We stopped for a break in one town & sampled the Lao tonic, a semi-sweet drink with citrus overtones. We attracted a crowd of about 50 curious children while we rested. They hardly ever see foreigners in their town. Marcus congratulated us at the end of the trip on our performance. He was very impressed with Ray & my ability to handle the hills, especially as he & Banma both had to get off & walk up several of them. I don't think he had expected 2 middle aged North Americans to last on his rugged terrain. We enjoyed the day very much. Marcus obviously loves the country very much and is thrilled to share it with tourists.

Friday 17 Dec we left Luang Prabang by bus headed for Vang Vieng. This was a more normal bus with comfortable seats and the trip over the mountains was spectacular. The bus was supposed to leave at 8:30 AM, but typically, it did not leave until it was full of mostly foreigners at 10 AM. We climbed one mountain after the other until I lost count. At times you could see the road we were about to take snaking up the side of the next mountain and at times you couldn't even see where we had gone. We picked up locals along the way, squeezing them in wherever. At one village we stopped beside a farewell party at the side of the road. Several people made additional good byes to their friends, had another drink of beer or local whiskey & boarded the bus as their friends all burst into song. This was quite amusing until the bus conductor started handing out barf bags to the new passengers. One of the other passengers said that the villagers are not used to buses & always get sick, or expect to be, when they travel. Thanks.

Anyway, we finally arrived in Vang Vieng in late afternoon & found a relatively nice room with attached toilet. This became very important as in the middle of the night, Ray came down with a bad case of diarrhea. This lasted all the next day & he is only now recovering enough to try eating.

I am therefore left to my own devices. I have been exploring the town and even did a little caving yesterday. The town is on the Nam Sam river and is surrounded by karst mountains. They are steep, rocky hills that sprout straight up from the ground and several have hidden caves. To get to them you walk to the edge of town where there is a private enterprise bamboo bridge crossing the river. Two ladies sit there collecting 200 kip and for this you walk to the end of the first half of the bridge and walk into the shallow river to the 2nd half of the bamboo bridge leading to the other side. I followed the road on the other side down 1 K or so then took a side path to an advertised new cave that was 1 K further down a dry stream bed. I knew some people on bikes were ahead of me because they had abandoned the bikes when the stream bed got too difficult for riding. There they were at the entrance to the cave under a thatched roof shelter. Private enterprise rules again as 2 Lao men were charging 2000 kip to visit the cave. I decided I had come this far, so what the heck. For this fee, I received a light down into the pitch black cave. I was glad of the guide as I could never have found the way myself. There were several rooms connected by progressively smaller corridors. Some you had to crouch down and finally I was on my belly crawling into the next room. It was at this point that my light went out. Luckily the guide was able to reattach the wires that had come apart & we made it out. It was quite an adventure, but I'm glad I did it.

Today I went for a walk through the village as far as I could, then crossing through rice paddies to walk along the river. It is quite beautiful and peaceful countryside and the people are very friendly. Ray is finally recovering, so we will travel by bus to Vientiane tomorrow, the last stop in Laos.