The Journey Back South and Vang Vieng

I've been away for a while now, so I've completely lost the ability to remember which day of the week it is anymore. I'd forget the day of the month, too, but my camera and my watch remind me of that. I expected this to happen, so I'm not alarmed. I could use a calendar to reconstruct the days of the week when I write these blog posts anymore, but I'm lazy, and there's no point. Since the day of the week isn't affecting my life anymore, I see no advantage in reporting it back to you, either.

April 1

It was time for us to leave the north. We were kinda hungover from the festivities the day before, but it didn't matter! It took us three boat trips over four days just to reach Muong Khuoa from Luang Prabang, but it would take us only one day to cover the same distance in a bus. It also cost 80,000 kip instead of like 330,000 kip. However, as you'll see, the boat journey was MUCH more enjoyable than the same one on bus.

We attempted to take the 9:30 AM bus from Muong Khuoa to Odomxai (a town on the road in between Muong Khuoa and Luang Prabang), but it was full when we got there. Ack. Luckily, there was a second bus that day at 12:30 PM. Whew. In the meanwhile, we did what we did several times before over the previous few days... we sat on the patio at Nam Ou guest house, drank something (this time -- water and coffee), and wasted time. I learned how to play Rummy from the girls. Playing cards is fun!

However, the bus ride was not fun. It was a local bus, filled with locals. I use the word "filled" loosely, though. The bus was the size of your average cube van at home stuffed to overfilling with about 30 people. Some men had to stand up in the open doorway for a few hours as the bus barreled down the mountainous roads. The bus was filled with sacks of cargo, too. The old man who had to sit on a sack in the aisle beside me had a puppy in a burlap sack. It was cramped, to say the least. The seats weren't really sized for Westerners, so my knees were squished the whole time.

I learned that day (and over several other bus trips in the succeeding days) that many bus drivers in Lao like to play Lao music while driving. Some drivers play it quietly as to not overwhelm the passengers. Some play it VERY LOUDLY because they wish to anger me. Some drivers seem to prefer particular tracks and skip and repeat them. From my experience on these bus rides, the music is typically very painful. Women singing in ululating high pitched voices with men crooning counterpoint. Piercing trilling flute solos punctuated by overly dramatic Carlos Santana style guitar riffs. The music sounds pretty ballady, and I don't really enjoy most ballads sung in English, let alone in an incomprehensible language. It's VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY IRRITATING. I dislike it greatly. If it's not too loud, then I will try to drown it out with my iPod. Often it's much too loud for that. Le sigh.

The bus ride to Oudomxai was three hours. I couldn't get out once during that time.
When we got there, I paid 1000 kip (about CA$0.12) to use the toilet at the bus station and grabbed some food. We learned, to our luck, there was another bus to Luang Prabang that left in less than an hour. We didn't want to spend the night in Oudomxai and wanted to get to Luang Prabang as soon as possible, so yippee.

The second bus was even smaller than the first. It was really just a minivan filled with seats. It had about 15 people squished inside. I felt bad for the person sitting in front of me since my knees were digging straight into their seatback (and her own back as well). There was no choice... the seats were not designed with Westerner's in mind. I have never been more squished in my life. Also, the road south of Oudomxai was in terrible condition. Potholes, washed out sections, hilly, and curvy. It was the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my whole life. The first three hours were the worst. After that, a few of the locals were dropped off and we were able to stretch out a bit.

We reached Luang Prabang at around 9 PM and headed back to the guesthouse we stayed at our first time there, the Nock Noi. I took my own room for 100,000 kip/night (about CA$12) -- double bed, private bathroom with heated shower and sit-down toilet. It was pure luxury, and I felt that I needed it! Chris and Alex split their own room -- same price and features as mine, except two beds instead of one.

April 2, 2008

Weather was warm and sunny most of the day, with light rain in the evening.

Today was a nothing day -- just recovering from the pains of our journey in the rustic regions. We went to our favourite cafe, JoMa, in the morning, spent six hours on the internet, shopped, and did little else.

April 3, 2008

We woke up early, went to JoMa for breakfast, and caught a bus going south to Vang Vieng. It was only about seven hours straight over and down a mountain range. The bus driver was much more merciful with the music this time around. The hills were very steep and the bus definitely struggled on its way up them.

In Vang Vieng we quickly found a guest house with a triple room (two big beds) for 90,000 kip (about CA$10). Pretty cheap, especially when you divide it three ways! We went to find dinner. Chris found a couple of people that she met in India: Jocelyn and Nathan from Vancouver. It seems crazy that you could run into people in Laos that you met in India, but it seemed to happen to Chris and Alex a few times (since they both went to India prior to S.E. Asia). We agreed to meet up with Jocelyn and Nathan the next day at 10 AM for breakfast and tubing!

After dinner, we went back to our guest house and started to chill. While were were there we discovered that our room was literally infested with a zoo of insects: fleas, cockroaches, ants, mosquitoes, and beetles. All these things were somewhat bearable (though both Alex and Chris fled the room until I slayed the cockroach), but when we discovered the BED BUGS we had enough. We quickly packed up and ran out of the guest house in our pajamas to find a better place. One of the guesthouse staff tried to stop us on our way out, but we were not to be reasoned with. If THAT room was so bad, we wouldn't feel comfortable ANYWHERE in that guesthouse.

We ended up another place a bit down the street. This place was even cheaper... 40,000 kip (about CA$5) for 3 people. It wasn't the cleanest, but we didn't find bed bugs, so we went to bed.

April 4, 2008

We decided to spend only one night in the second seedy guesthouse and seek better accommodation in the morning. While we were getting ready in the morning, some guy just opened the door to our room while Alex and I were waiting for Chris to get out of the shower. It was the owner of the guesthouse we fled the previous night. He said that he wanted us to pay for the night before. We said, we didn't stay there over the night, so why should we pay? He said that we held the room for about four hours before we up and left, so he didn't have a chance to rent out the room after we left and owed him for it. We said that it's his responsibility to provide a clean place for us to stay and his place was definitely not clean. He then said something like, "Okay, if we can't agree then get your passports and we'll go to the police." Alex then said, "Okay! We need to wait for our friend to get out of the shower, so we'll meet you downstairs. Wait for us."

Apparently the guy was bluffing, since he wasn't there when we showed up 15 minutes later. I guess he didn't want to deal with the police even more than we did. Ha! I give props to Alex for calling that slumlord's bluff.

After that we found a new place to stay that was MUCH NICER. It was a bit pricier, but after all that stress it was worth it.

All that stuff happened before breakfast. We needed good food and coffee.

We met up with Jocelyn and Nathan at Luang Prabang Bakery -- a cafe recommended by our guide books. It was somewhat pricey, but delicious. After breakie, it was time for TUBING.

TUBING in Vang Vieng is fantastic. The idea is that a tuk-tuk drives you 5 km up river and drops you off. You float down the river in an inner tube. Sounds simple? There's more to it then that!

Approximately every 50 meters down the river you'll find a bar. If you want to stop, you signal the dude on the river side and he'll throw you a line and pull you in. Most bars have rope swings that you can use to jump into the river. Some swings are low. Some are high. Some are very high. Some bars play good music. Some play bad music. Some have DJs and you can request your own music! Many offer free shots of Lao Lao (rice whiskey). There are hundreds of other tourists there doing the same thing as you. It's literally a huge party.

Sadly, there are no pictures of us on the river. We bought a cheapo waterproof camera in town, but it busted after taking only four pictures. With so few photos, we decided it wasn't worth developing me. I decided that I would return the next day, on scooter, to take photos with my own camera.

One moment on the river really stands out in my mind. We had built up a chain of about seven people in their tubes down the river. With beers in our hand and feet dangling in the water we tried to figure out which day of the week it was. Some people guessed Tuesday. I think I guessed Saturday. It was really Friday! We then looked around us and and watched the sunset over the really gorgeous mountain scape. I was really happy at this point. Alex said I was "a romantic" because I'm often savouring moments, places, foods, whatever and declaring them to be most fun, most beautiful, most delicious, most awesome ever. I think she's right. Looking back on my blog, I'm often found describing things using superlatives like that.

It's supposed to take about two hours to cover the 5 km of river to get back to town -- if you don't stop. We seemed to stop at almost every bar and I took advantage of almost every rope swing, so it took us more than seven hours to get back to town -- after dark even. Traveling down a rocky river in the dark while wearing sunglasses isn't the best. Thankfully, I didn't drink a huge amount, so I made it back only semi-drunk. Chris and Alex got carried away and got mega-drunk.

After dinner, Chris and Alex went to bed, but I went to Smile Bar with a couple Italian guys we met on the river. Smile Bar is an outdoor bar built around a bonfire. Drinks were pricey. Music was decent. Sadly, because of the curfew, the party shut down at 11:30 PM. The Italians went to an after party, but I was too tired so I went to bed.

April 5, 2008

Alex and Chris were out of commission today. Our guesthouse was awesome enough that it actually had a TV with satellite, so they decided that they would sit around all day and just watch movies on HBO.

So, I headed to a motorcycle rental place to find some wheels. I had never ridden on a scooter before. However, you don't need a license to drive one in Laos... they don't even check your driver's license before they'll rent you one. Sweet.

The driver showed me how to ride the thing, but.... I wasn't very good. I kind of ran into some bushes and bent the foot rests on the thing. Oops. I told the guy that maybe riding a motorcycle wasn't the right thing for me, so I walked away. Ack.

I found a mountain bike to ride instead. Definitely more my thing! I don't even like motorcycle anyways. Noisy, pushy things that just get in your way. Blecks! Bicycles for me!!

It was super hot that day and I rapidly built up a dripping pool of sweat around me. I stopped for some (nonspicy) curry at the Organic Cafe for lunch and drank a whole bottle of water. I visited the river again and took pictures of people tubing and jumping from the swings.

Near the river I found a sign leading to a cave. I knew that I wanted to try out going into a cave, so I decided to go for it. I parked by bike and left it with the people selling admission tickets (10,000 kip (CA$1.20)) and headed towards the cave entrance. Little did I know that the cave entrance was like halfway up the mountain. I carefully picked myself over sharp limestone boulders and rickety ladders made of bamboo. Since I was only wearing flip-flops, I was exceedingly careful on my way up. I didn't want to fall and get a huge scratch on the sharp limestone... that would ruin my day!

It took me like twenty minutes of climbing to reach the entrance of the cave and was even sweatier than I was when I was biking. When I got there, I stood for like five minutes to enjoy the cool air flowing from the interior of the cave. The people at the cave entrance gave me a flashlight and I went in!

For the first fifteen minutes in the cave, my glasses kept fogging up and I had to keep wiping them off. I climbed down over more limestone boulders and iron ladders (felt safer than bamboo!). It was kind of slippery in there. It was hard to keep my balance in my flip flops. At one point, I slipped and fell. I scratched up my left leg pretty bad. I used the rest of my water to wash off the blood and mud and decided to cut my first self-caving adventure short. One of the kids who worked at the cave came across me on my way out and helped me out.

When I got back to the cave entrance, I didn't really relish the descent over sharp limestone boulders to get back to my bike. I finally got a good look at my injury. I had a lot of scratches and my legs were covered in mud. Thankfully, the scratches weren't deep at all and had already stopped bleeding. They didn't really hurt much either. I scoff at pain!

There were a couple of monks sitting at the cave entrance. They walked down the mountain with me. One of them spoke fairly good English and we chatted on the way down. When we got to the bottom, the one monk said he enjoyed talking to me because I was "funny," whatever that means.

I cycled back to town without stopping. I was only about twenty minutes away by that point. When I got back to the guesthouse, Chris and Alex were still watching movies. When they saw me covered with mud with blood on my leg they thought I had gotten into some kind of motorcycle accident! Ha!

Overall, our impression of Vang Vieng wasn't a really good one. Sure, tubing was super fun, but the rest of the town was kind of seedy and gimmicky. As one of the well known "backpacker havens", its actually more expensive to visit than many places. If you ever make the assumption that they typical backpacker havens are probably cheaper because backpackers like them, then you're wrong. Just like Byron Bay in Australia, it seems like they're more expensive. That's backpacker exploitation! That, and the seedy guesthouses we saw, and just the "hippie" vibe of the place, we liked it much less than Luang Prabang. Oh well, it's a good thing we only stayed there for three nights before moving on!