I've got a lot of catching up to do...
From Thakhek I decided to get an overnight bus to Vientiane, which is the capital of Laos. It isn't actually that far though, so the bus didn't leave until midnight. The tuk tuk drivers were being jerks and overcharging that late at night so I decided to walk. It was only 2km.
I started on the route maps.me suggested but didn't get far. Amongst the darkness in these photos was a pack of dogs which attempted to surround me:
I threw a rock at the dog that was blocking my retreat and backtracked. There was another slightly longer road to the bus station. I armed myself with a brutal looking stick and a handful of decent rocks and tried the other way. There were dogs that way too but they generally kept to themselves. I went past a pack of 4 without dramas until the littlest of the bunch tried to attack me. I got him with a rock and so the other 3 turned their attention to me. I flailed the stick around and the eventually stopped following me.
After a km or so I turned down a road which backs on to the bus station. There were no houses, just scrub and I didn't get bothered until I got closer to the bus station. Again I had to throw a rock at a couple of dogs to deter them. Another one wasn't deterred so it got a fairly good whack of the stick. It was the most stress I've had on this trip!
Probably the second most stress was the sleeper bus. I was up top, right against the windscreen. The air horn was directly below me. I'd be awoken by the horn, which was loud enough to shake the bed, and open my eyes to see a oncoming truck heading right for me. Every bump launched me into the air as well. I was lucky though. Generally they book 2 people to a bed so some people woke up with a strange person sleeping next to them!
We arrived at Vientiane and I decided to head straight for the other bus station and go to Vang Vieng. I met some people on that bus; a couple of gap year girls from Norway, a Canadian guy named Rocky and the most German bloke you'll ever come across.
The Norwegian girls had just spent 30 hours on a bus from Siem Reap with the German guy and one of them was openly hostile towards him. He couldn't seem to take the hint. He'd constantly ask really stupid questions and didn't seem to have a sense of humor. When we arrived in Vang Vieng we all sat down to get our bearings and the map said we were right next to an airport. The German couldn't get his head around how there could be space for planes to land in that part of the town (the airport is abandoned and covered in stalls) so Rocky, taking the piss, said they probably land on the road. The German guy looked around and said "No, I think the power lines would get in the way". No shit Sherlock. The rest of our time with him mainly involved him trying to understand how Laos isn't efficient like Germany and the people aren't as good at rules. He hung around with us for a couple of days then he just disappeared.
Actually, the last time I saw him he was in a tube on the river, so he possibly floated a little further down and drowned. We had also been in a tube on the river. The tubing in Vang Vieng was notorious in years gone by but after the President's son (or perhaps Prime Minister's son) joined the list of drownings it was shut down. It has recently come back to an extent.
We hired our tubes and got a tuk tuk to the river. As we jumped in we could already hear music. We floated for about 30 seconds then the ropes flew out and we were being dragged into the first bar. I expected more floating than that. A big group of people came down to the river and waded over to that bar, saving themselves the cost of a tube. We stayed at that bar for about 4 hours and admittedly the party games were pretty fun. Musical tubes was a highlight.
We left again and floated for maybe another 25 minutes to another bar.
We ate at the next bar and everyone kind of wanted to call it a day as it was getting dark. I vaguely remember chucking my shirt over this girls headland she just sat there like it for about 5 minutes.
The next day Rocky and I rented bikes and went to a couple of blue lagoons. The first one was a bit of a fun park for Chinese tourists. They were jumping out of trees, fully clothes (jeans and long sleeve shirts) with life jackets on. The highlight was when one guys toupee came off. Although when the Aussie guy I was chatting to got out of the water with only one foot it was a close second. I'd have made a joke about sharks in the water but I didn't want the German to return to tell me the lagoon isn't big enough and it was probably a prior injury.
We made a pretty steep climb up the hill to a cave entrance. It didn't look like much from outside but going in a bit it opens right up. We went a couple of hundred metres in, just using my phone for light. I would love to explore it properly because it was still massive and went on further than my light could shine when we turned back.
After that we went out to blue lagoon 3. It was very quiet, less pretty and seemed to be artificial. It was only when we took a wrong turn after leaving that we discovered the real blue lagoon 3. Some enterprising locals had made their own one 200 metres before the real one! It was too late for us to go to the real one so we rode back.
The next day I was getting the bus at 9am. While I was waiting out the front a somewhat dazed Rocky wandered up the stairs. He'd been enjoying the many free drinks on offer the night before and somehow ended up lost a few kilometers away. He was just getting back.
I got into Luang Prabang a few days ago. I dropped my stuff off and went around to visit Pom. Pom used to be the President of my football club in Australia. He is known for maintaining high levels of hatred for Coffs Harbour and hurling some excellent insults at George Negus. We had many beers and he told me about his new job here managing a hotel that had been run into the ground by previous sticky fingered staff. He's done a fairly good job turning the place around. It was definitely too high class for me to stay at!
I went and visited the night market the next night. It was fairly boring. The most interesting thing were the bracelets and bottle openers made from unexploded ordinance. The sign said "buy back your bombs". I thought about pretending to be an American and having at go at them for damaging US property.
Yesterday I met up with a couple I met in Vang Vieng and we went to the waterfall. It was very pretty but not much of interest happened.
I haven't been awake at this hostel much at all so last night I met the other people staying here. The people from my dorm all wanted to ask me something: "What the hell happened the other night?"
I didn't have a clue what they were talking about so they explained. Apparently I fell from the top bunk, sat up, ignored everyone when they asked if I was alright, stood up and left. I came back and went back to bed some time later. I have no recollection of this, nor was I sore. The floor is tile too. I sleep walk sometimes but I was also fairly drunk. It beats me, but they had all been waiting to ask for a few days.
After that awkward introduction we all decided to go bowling. It is the only place that stays open past 11pm. I bumped into some people who knew me from Vang Vieng at bowling. Two groups actually. They seemed familiar but I couldn't for the life of me remember them. I'm really puzzled by that. Bowling was awesome and we got back at about 3am. I won.
The only other thing I'll mention before I end this mammoth post is that it is Laos New Year at the moment. I think it is tomorrow but they've been partying since I've been here. The tradition is to wash away the previous year with water and start off fresh, like the Thai tradition of Songkran. This is conducted literally, involuntarily and by strangers. Groups of kids and teenagers (and adults today) stand on the side of the road and chuck buckets of water at passing motorbikes. They have been somewhat wary of me the past few days. I'm big, bearded, foreign and carrying a phone and bag. I've used their reluctance to sneak up behind them, grab their buckets and splash them back into them. It starts an all out frenzy and I tend to lose the fight. Today they didn't care if I was foreign or not. I was getting wet whether I liked it or not. I actually got done yesterday by 2 westerners in a full blown v8 black convertible gangster car being driven by a local. They did a proper drive by on me. It is the best fun. I'm bringing this tradition home for our new years celebrations.
Tomorrow I'm going to stock up on water guns and go get some revenge. The people that wet me today asked me what part of England I'm from so I'll attack them first.
I'm flying out from here on the 23rd. I'll probably do a trip further north before then. I fly to Hungary and will make my way to the Czech Republic to stay with my friends there for a week or so.
Then Charles and Ernesta's wedding in London!
From Thakhek I decided to get an overnight bus to Vientiane, which is the capital of Laos. It isn't actually that far though, so the bus didn't leave until midnight. The tuk tuk drivers were being jerks and overcharging that late at night so I decided to walk. It was only 2km.
I started on the route maps.me suggested but didn't get far. Amongst the darkness in these photos was a pack of dogs which attempted to surround me:
I threw a rock at the dog that was blocking my retreat and backtracked. There was another slightly longer road to the bus station. I armed myself with a brutal looking stick and a handful of decent rocks and tried the other way. There were dogs that way too but they generally kept to themselves. I went past a pack of 4 without dramas until the littlest of the bunch tried to attack me. I got him with a rock and so the other 3 turned their attention to me. I flailed the stick around and the eventually stopped following me.
After a km or so I turned down a road which backs on to the bus station. There were no houses, just scrub and I didn't get bothered until I got closer to the bus station. Again I had to throw a rock at a couple of dogs to deter them. Another one wasn't deterred so it got a fairly good whack of the stick. It was the most stress I've had on this trip!
Probably the second most stress was the sleeper bus. I was up top, right against the windscreen. The air horn was directly below me. I'd be awoken by the horn, which was loud enough to shake the bed, and open my eyes to see a oncoming truck heading right for me. Every bump launched me into the air as well. I was lucky though. Generally they book 2 people to a bed so some people woke up with a strange person sleeping next to them!
We arrived at Vientiane and I decided to head straight for the other bus station and go to Vang Vieng. I met some people on that bus; a couple of gap year girls from Norway, a Canadian guy named Rocky and the most German bloke you'll ever come across.
The Norwegian girls had just spent 30 hours on a bus from Siem Reap with the German guy and one of them was openly hostile towards him. He couldn't seem to take the hint. He'd constantly ask really stupid questions and didn't seem to have a sense of humor. When we arrived in Vang Vieng we all sat down to get our bearings and the map said we were right next to an airport. The German couldn't get his head around how there could be space for planes to land in that part of the town (the airport is abandoned and covered in stalls) so Rocky, taking the piss, said they probably land on the road. The German guy looked around and said "No, I think the power lines would get in the way". No shit Sherlock. The rest of our time with him mainly involved him trying to understand how Laos isn't efficient like Germany and the people aren't as good at rules. He hung around with us for a couple of days then he just disappeared.
Actually, the last time I saw him he was in a tube on the river, so he possibly floated a little further down and drowned. We had also been in a tube on the river. The tubing in Vang Vieng was notorious in years gone by but after the President's son (or perhaps Prime Minister's son) joined the list of drownings it was shut down. It has recently come back to an extent.
We hired our tubes and got a tuk tuk to the river. As we jumped in we could already hear music. We floated for about 30 seconds then the ropes flew out and we were being dragged into the first bar. I expected more floating than that. A big group of people came down to the river and waded over to that bar, saving themselves the cost of a tube. We stayed at that bar for about 4 hours and admittedly the party games were pretty fun. Musical tubes was a highlight.
We left again and floated for maybe another 25 minutes to another bar.
We ate at the next bar and everyone kind of wanted to call it a day as it was getting dark. I vaguely remember chucking my shirt over this girls headland she just sat there like it for about 5 minutes.
The next day Rocky and I rented bikes and went to a couple of blue lagoons. The first one was a bit of a fun park for Chinese tourists. They were jumping out of trees, fully clothes (jeans and long sleeve shirts) with life jackets on. The highlight was when one guys toupee came off. Although when the Aussie guy I was chatting to got out of the water with only one foot it was a close second. I'd have made a joke about sharks in the water but I didn't want the German to return to tell me the lagoon isn't big enough and it was probably a prior injury.
We made a pretty steep climb up the hill to a cave entrance. It didn't look like much from outside but going in a bit it opens right up. We went a couple of hundred metres in, just using my phone for light. I would love to explore it properly because it was still massive and went on further than my light could shine when we turned back.
After that we went out to blue lagoon 3. It was very quiet, less pretty and seemed to be artificial. It was only when we took a wrong turn after leaving that we discovered the real blue lagoon 3. Some enterprising locals had made their own one 200 metres before the real one! It was too late for us to go to the real one so we rode back.
The next day I was getting the bus at 9am. While I was waiting out the front a somewhat dazed Rocky wandered up the stairs. He'd been enjoying the many free drinks on offer the night before and somehow ended up lost a few kilometers away. He was just getting back.
I got into Luang Prabang a few days ago. I dropped my stuff off and went around to visit Pom. Pom used to be the President of my football club in Australia. He is known for maintaining high levels of hatred for Coffs Harbour and hurling some excellent insults at George Negus. We had many beers and he told me about his new job here managing a hotel that had been run into the ground by previous sticky fingered staff. He's done a fairly good job turning the place around. It was definitely too high class for me to stay at!
I went and visited the night market the next night. It was fairly boring. The most interesting thing were the bracelets and bottle openers made from unexploded ordinance. The sign said "buy back your bombs". I thought about pretending to be an American and having at go at them for damaging US property.
Yesterday I met up with a couple I met in Vang Vieng and we went to the waterfall. It was very pretty but not much of interest happened.
I haven't been awake at this hostel much at all so last night I met the other people staying here. The people from my dorm all wanted to ask me something: "What the hell happened the other night?"
I didn't have a clue what they were talking about so they explained. Apparently I fell from the top bunk, sat up, ignored everyone when they asked if I was alright, stood up and left. I came back and went back to bed some time later. I have no recollection of this, nor was I sore. The floor is tile too. I sleep walk sometimes but I was also fairly drunk. It beats me, but they had all been waiting to ask for a few days.
After that awkward introduction we all decided to go bowling. It is the only place that stays open past 11pm. I bumped into some people who knew me from Vang Vieng at bowling. Two groups actually. They seemed familiar but I couldn't for the life of me remember them. I'm really puzzled by that. Bowling was awesome and we got back at about 3am. I won.
The only other thing I'll mention before I end this mammoth post is that it is Laos New Year at the moment. I think it is tomorrow but they've been partying since I've been here. The tradition is to wash away the previous year with water and start off fresh, like the Thai tradition of Songkran. This is conducted literally, involuntarily and by strangers. Groups of kids and teenagers (and adults today) stand on the side of the road and chuck buckets of water at passing motorbikes. They have been somewhat wary of me the past few days. I'm big, bearded, foreign and carrying a phone and bag. I've used their reluctance to sneak up behind them, grab their buckets and splash them back into them. It starts an all out frenzy and I tend to lose the fight. Today they didn't care if I was foreign or not. I was getting wet whether I liked it or not. I actually got done yesterday by 2 westerners in a full blown v8 black convertible gangster car being driven by a local. They did a proper drive by on me. It is the best fun. I'm bringing this tradition home for our new years celebrations.
Tomorrow I'm going to stock up on water guns and go get some revenge. The people that wet me today asked me what part of England I'm from so I'll attack them first.
I'm flying out from here on the 23rd. I'll probably do a trip further north before then. I fly to Hungary and will make my way to the Czech Republic to stay with my friends there for a week or so.
Then Charles and Ernesta's wedding in London!
No comments:
Post a Comment