Asian Diary... Laos, February 2003.

This is the town in the newspapers. Apparently some Opium growing guerilla types are holding the government to ransom. They want less restrictions on opium growing... naturally!! The government wants to crack down (pun intended although very wrong). 2 weeks ago, the bad guys shot a bus up and killed a lot of locals. 2 Swiss dudes were apparently cycling by and got caught in the crossfire. The guerrillas issued a 2 week deadline, whih in fact ended today.

Since then, nothings been heard, except the army have said not to travel into the mountians. Ok.

Text by: Anna

Ahhhhhhh...................................... The beautiful Vang Vieng (or "Vieng Viang" as Carl likes to call it!).

Described as a traveller's haven in our blessed lonely planet and you cannot fault them.
Where else in the world can you drift gently down river, taking the best part of an afternoon and be presented with endless opportunities to grab a Beer Lao, from one of the many floating bars on route?! Because lets face it - it would be a nightmare to be relaxing in the inner tube of a huge tyre on a glorious summers day with impressive limestone caves as a back drop and be Beer Lao-less!

However, we choose the harder option - we kayaked! A 10km down stream adventure. Just $7 for the privelidge of:-

Lunch (size of which depended on whether two of the accompanying guides actually managed to catch some fish)
The opportunity to jump of an 8metre high cliff (none of the guides were willing to demonstrate first)
{Carl: As we were jumping for the 2nd time (I know... stupid idea!), we heard a low rumble in the distance. Well, actually not that far away. Then the rumble became more distinct until it was clearly a very large machine gun (our guide later told us a 50mm, anti-helicopter gun) firing off rounds somewhere quite close. Our guide surreptitiously ambled away from the cliff's edge and back to his fellow guides to have a quiet "word". He looked rather plae when we swam back to him a few minuteds later and we went quickly on our way downstream soon after.}
A Tour of one of the very impressive limestone caves - "sleeping cave" (involved distortion of body on several occasions in order to get through some very small and oddly shaped gaps)
Several shots of a local whisky (compulsory!)
{The 2 Korean girls got so drunk on 2 shots that they quickly fell asleep on the riverbank and an hour later, stumbled and fell into their Kayaks giggling inanely! They sooned sobered up when we tipped their kayak in the shallows!}
To be capsized at every given opportunity (essential that more time be spent in river than Kayak)
The inability to move arms (or indeed any part of part body) on the following day after hard day's kayaking (or as a result of severe bruising from smacking rocks on rivers bottom).
But, despite the pain which followed, we had a great day. And as if we hadn't fallen into the river enough, just as we approached our point of exit a couple of the local boys came splashing through the river and had a great deal of fun capsizing Carl again, and again, and again, and again, and again.................................................. etc.

Vientiane

You can't beat spending the best part of an afternoon on a hot summer's day in the tropics rammed into a local's bus and watching with dread as they put a bucket of fish into the same little compartment as your rucksack!! The journey to Vientiene was a rough one but at least we were lucky enough to get seats for the 4 hour duration.

The capital city of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos bares little resemblance to a capital city and has suprisingly little to offer the traveller. And, being permitted only 2 precious weeks total in Laos we find ourselves spending 6 days here when in effect you only need a day or maybe 2 days max!
We needed to get our Cambodian visas and being hardened travellers the concept of time (minute, hour, day, month, and at times the year) goes right out the window. Apparantly embassies close at weekends (what are they?!!), so trying to get a visa in a day on a Friday is beyond the realms of possibility, thus giving us a few extra days to while away in Vientiene.

So we spent the time aimlessly ambling the streets, having herbal saunas and massages, perusing several of the many Wats, shopping and bartering at the morning markets, visiting a meadow full of Buddha and Hindu statues (Buddha Park) and making conversation with Buddhist Novice monks who are desperate to practise their English (or at least the same few sentences, in the same order, that they have all learnt in school!). For those with a slightly more advanced knowledge of the English language there is nothing like asking some more personal questions. One monk asked of Carl,

"Do you love her? "

"Why do you love her?"

"Are you married?"

"Are you getting married?"

"Have you met her parents?"

"What are they like?"

Its not been a bad way to while away 5 days but at last we have our passports back with Cambodian visas stamped inside and we are off to the south tonight. Our VIP bus leaves at 8.30pm and we should arrive in Pakse by 7am. For $13 and lots of leg room, it beats taking the local bus which takes two days and one night!!

And just in case you wondering, thankfully the bucket of fish was actually put in the little compartment next to our rucksacks!

Text by Carlos:

One morning, whilst Anna shopped, I took a cycle rickshaw to some unnamed, part of town, where I quickly became conscious of the fact I was the ONLY westerner in the whole area! Made a nice change!

Unperturbed I wandered the streets and local markets for a while, before coming upon a temple and going inside. A quick wander round showed me it was nothing exciting, but as I was about to leave my stomach cramped and I had to use the monk loos! (very nice they were too!)
On leaving the loo, I was suddenly accosted by the local monks, practising their English, again. It turned out in the past 4 years I was the only "Falang" (foreigner) to ever come to the temple and hence they were all a bit over-excited! After 20 minutes of English I was about to leave when the oldest monk (23yrs old!) asks me

"Do you want to see my room?"

How can you turn it down? The next minute I'm crammed into a small wooden room with about 20 other novices and the monk discussing more English, families, monk lifestyle and pop music! A strange day indeed...

The VIP bus journey with all its leg room, food and drink service, quality action films (in Laos), and early morning Laos Karaoke also came with:

a minor crash (a pick-up truck pulled out in front of us oblivious to bus and horn)

and skillful manouvering we passed an overturned lorry! But despite the minor mishaps we arrived, all in one piece, just 1 hour later than expected in Pakse.

And with a number of other travellers we jumped straight onto a longtail boat which took us on a beautiful journey down the Mekong to Champasak. A sleepy town with little to offer apart from a couple of noodle stands and guest houses, but makes a good base for a visit to Wat Phu's ancient ruins. These ruins which have just recently become recognised as a world heritage sight are from the same era as Angkor Wat in CAmbodia, built in trhe same style and everything. They start at the foot of a large hill and rise up steep staircases to rouyghly half way up the hill and they look very impressive indeed! Originally Hindu, they're now Buddhist, but there are all sorts of ancient carvings around in the natural sandstone. They even used to sacrifice people here apprantly!

From Chamapasak we wanted to head a further 100km south to the 4000 islands (specifically Don Det), which lie in the magnificent Mekong just above the Cambodian border.
Rather than do the 6 hour boat journey we decided to jump on a local's bus and do it in 3 hours. It seems however that our efforts to do it the "local way" were both more uncomfortable and more expensive and also ended up on the wrong island! However, being the only two farangs on the bus, the locals were absolutely fascinated by us and so we lapped up the attention even if they were saying,

"why aren't you wearing long-sleeved tops and wooly hats on this cold (35 degrees at least) day"!

We ended up spending one night on Don Khong (the largest and most civilised of the islands), which was very pleasant, before moving on to Don Det the following day. Don Det and Don Khon (not Don KhonG) are another 12km south and (I think!) the only other two islands with inhabitants. They attract the travellers "on mass" , since their location brings us not only closer to the Cambodian border but also to the biggest waterfalls in southeast Asia.
There are also rare fresh water (Irrawaddy) dolphins to be seen and the islands have more of a relaxed "Thai island" feel about them lined with bamboo huts and hammocks - paradise!

Once settled into a guest house on Don Det we hire some bikes and set off around the islands of Det and Khon (linked by an old, disused French railway bridge) absorbing local life and finding our way to some smaller (but still impressive waterfalls). At last we stopped for lunch and discuss how we will get to the biggest waterfalls in Southeast Asia and to see the dolphins.

Perhaps, like an angel answering our prayers (or perhaps not!) a Yank appears from nowhere, approaches us, and asks if we would like to

"white-water raft our way over the big waterfalls to the border town of Voen Choen"

for a discount price. And why the discount price I hear you scream? This is special price because they have never run the trip before (we will be the first clients!) except for a couple of trial runs with their mates.

This solves a number of dilemmas for us since it means we get to see the big water falls (CLOSE-UP and PERSONAL!) and get to the border town in one fowl swoop the following day leaving them to take care of our luggage. So, not ones to say "no" to adventure we book ourselves on for the following morning, pat some dude to take our bags to the border by bus and try and get some sleep. Of course, we've chosen the only bungalows on either island that plays reggae till 11pm on max volume.

Next day, we jumoed into the raft, niceand early and spent the next couple of hours floating down channels towards "the safe" channel to the waterfall. And then you hear it! It's pretty bloody big! So what do we do?? We head directly for it in our wee raft and beach just at the top, on small island. The locals ar out in force around us on the normal, accessible islands, and are staring at us, wondering how the hell we got to where WE are! even the local fisghermen are too scared to come out here. We start to think again about what we're doing...

Thankfully, we don't have to go down the waterfall. Apparently, thats pure suicide! What we do is carefully send the raft down some smaller rapids and climb down the falls till we reach the swirling mass of frothy water, just underneath the actual waterfall.

"Here, is where we're gonna put the raft in after lunch. Then we'll paddle directly into the waterfall and then hopefully, without overturning and all dying, we'll go swiftly (no kidding!!) down river into the huge whirlpools over there. It should be fun! I did it the first time 2 days ago!

What are we doing??!

After lunch, we sit around next to the waterfall, discussing "the PLAN" and letting the locals gather for our demise. The fishermen keep coming voer and telling us we're all going to die. I even offered to let one ride instead of me, but he ran away. This is only the 3rd time this has been done and locals are very keen to watch. The crowd gathers...

Suddenly, it seems as though we've all just jumped in the raft and we're paddling like madmen (and women). The water is thrahing us around and all we can see is the white, gushing rapids underneath, beckoning us in for a fateful swim. In the background theres ourn guide shouting instructions, such as

"Paddle harder!! paddle FASTER!!!"

And then he shouts "STOP!"

we almost hit the rocks, slide into the bank and turn around a few times. We've missed our path by a few feet, failing to get into the central current. everyone takes a breather and then we paddle back to the starting point again... against the floe of the mekong!

The second run goes as the first. The people watching on the rocks are shouting encouragement, but we just miss again by even less fo a distance. We paddle back and get out of the raft for a breather. The locals, disappointed we didn't die fade away. 30 minutes later our local guide tries to get out of another run. He's actually scared to try again. That doesn't encourage us, but we try again. And again we meet failure. We're just TOO heavy for the amount of power we have. We all get out, except the guides, who have one last go... and with the banks full of mad Laotions, they finally make it out to the waterfall and get swept downriver where we meet them. Hoorah!!

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