Vientiane

Patuxai

I arrived in Vientiane two days ago and upon my arrival got a good feeling about this town. I booked into a great guest house and the place had a really nice feel to it. As I arrived after dark I didn’t explore too far but found a nice pub in the road adjacent to mine. It was showing ‘Wimbledon’ and during the course of the evening a number of people who I met in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng who obviously had the same idea, turned up and we had a good time.

I went on a walking tour the next day as recommended in the guide book but quickly found this disappointing, most of the sights were foreign embassies or just buildings and not really of much interest.

View from Patuxai... Not bad

The biggest attraction in Vientiane is a building called Patuxai, which is basically an Arc de Triomphe done on the cheap. It was up in the 1960s and made entirely of concrete, even the marketing department of the Vientiane put a plaque on the wall describing it as ‘a monster of concrete’. The interior had not been decorated and the staircases were similar to the ones found in multi story car parks.

The only other recommended tour was of the ‘Lao textile museum’ which I didn’t really feel up for. It’s probably better than the ‘museum of counterfeit good’ in Bangkok (this really does exist) but I didn’t want to pay to find out.

Love the honestly!

Sadly Patuxai was the highlight of the sightseeing tour in Vientiane. There was not much else to see or do. I’ve checked the internet and the guide book but there is nothing. Not even a bar with a pool table. I met a number of people I knew later in the evening who had come to the same conclusion and had already booked tickets to move on out of town.

Tonight is my third and final night in Vientiane tonight and have booked a bus for 7pm tomorrow. I’m really not sure what I’m going to do with my day. The only thing I can think of is to find the mayor of Vientiane and present him with an award for ‘the dullest capital city in the world’. I could even chip away a piece of the concrete monster and get it mounded in some away to present him as a trophy. 

Vang Vieng - Tubing

Vang Vieng town centre

I arrived in Vang Vieng two nights ago. Another journey, another old bus but I made it safely. The trip involved going around lots of tight mountain roads with cliffs on one side and huge drops on the other. This didn’t deter the driver from driving as fast as possible and overtaking on blind corners. There were a couple of times I had to shut my eyes and just hope we stayed on the road but as I said we made it in one piece.

Vang Vieng is another ‘party’ place but is also home to tubing which I was told is a must do activity. This involves being taken about 4km up stream then sitting in a big rubber ring and floating back to town. The whole trip takes about 60 minutes but littered along the river are many bars playing loud music so this usually takes a lot longer. Each bar has a different attraction to get people in like water slides. The staff at the various bars throw bottles tied to rope to drag you in. Getting everyone from your group to the same bar was a challenge and often involved teamwork.

The river we floated down

I started at 11am with a group of people I’d met at other points on my trips. It was very busy with people exchanging stories of how good it was to not be working and spending the day drinking and floating down a river on a rubber ring. At the second bar I played in a game of football on this sandy pitch with people from all over the world, a few minutes in we got hit by a monsoon but carried on playing. The pitch became a swimming pool but it was great fun (I scored the winning goal!!)

Bridge across the river with cliffs

The rain lasted for about 2 hours but added to the whole strange experience. One of the bars had a waterside which has been dubbed the ‘slide of death’ as rumour has it a few people has not survived it. It was the best slide I’ve ever been on. It shot you out into the river from about 4 metres up and very fast. To make sure it was safe I let this other chap I was with go first (he was a Spurs fan so it’s ok) once I saw he was ok I took that as confirmation that it’s safe.

View from my Balcony

We ended up getting back at around 7pm at which time it was very dark. It was a fantastic day, such a bizarre experience and one of the most fun things I’ve done. The scenery was again amazing with huge cliffs providing the backdrop. Unfortunately I couldn’t take my camera with me due to it not being waterproof but I’ve got some shots from around town.

I’m off to the Laos capital Vientiane later today, as I think you can have too much of a good thing!

Phonesavan and 'The Plain of Jars'

I arrived in a town called Phonsavan yesterday from Luang Prabang. I feared the worst when I arrived at the bus station and saw my bus; it looked older than me. It was a local bus so I was one of only three western people using its services. Fortunately it wasn’t too hot so the bus was relatively cool. Things did get worse when the driver turned on the TV and played what I can only think was Laos Karaoke except the same song played for about an hour at which point I think it was even too much for him and he turned it off.

At one point it started to rain outside which somehow made it rain inside, the whole bus was leaking and thoroughly soaked by the time we arrived after the 9 hour journey. Saying that as always in Laos there was some great scenery en route which took us over lots of mountains.

US Bombs

The Phonsavan region is well known for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was repeatedly bombed by the US during Indochina wars (which were around the same time as the war with Vietnam), even though Laos was neutral. Around 1.5 million tonnes of bombs were dropped over a 9 year period, killing thousands of people and unexploded Bombs (UXOs) are still blowing up people today. I went to see some films put on by the local museum about the problems facing the people in the area. Efforts are being made to clear the UXOs but large numbers are still on land which mean the people can’t use these areas for farming or building which in turn keeps Laos from developing as a country.

Very old Jars....Hundreds of em

Secondly Phonsavan is close to the Plains of Jars, which I visited today. The Plains of Jars are basically 2000 to 3000 year old Jars on hills and no one really knows why they are there. It’s a bit like Laos’s Stone Henge. Some theories are that the Jars were used to put dead bodies in to decompose and some think they were used for cooking and making Whisky.

There are a total of three sites. The third one could only be reached by going through some paddy fields which was pretty fun. All through the Jar site visits we had to stay on the marked tracks due to many bombs still in the fields. The guide told us that occasionally cattle walk into the long grass and get blown up. The fields are full of bomb craters and trenches from the wars.

Paddy Fields

We also were taken to a place called ‘Whisky Village’. We watched an old man making some rice whisky in his shed and were even lucky enough to be given a free sample... It’s not something I’ll be rushing out to buy any time soon and don’t expect to see this stuff in Tesco.

Moving again tomorrow morning to a place call Vang Vieng. More about that later.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang

I’ve been in Luang Prabang for the past two nights and tonight will be my last before moving to a place call Phonsavan which is close to the Plains of Jar, an area that was involved heavily with the Indochina wars some 40 years ago.

Luang Prabang is one of the biggest towns in Laos but what is strange is that it’s comparable in size to Swanage in Dorset. It’been a good few days as all the people who travelled on the boat from Thailand have also been staying here so there are lots of people to socialise with.

Waterfall near Luang Prabang

The town is set on the Mekong River which when added to the mountains means there are some great views. The town mainly contains small French style cafes and there is bread on sale which is nice as this was not really available in Thailand.

Yesterday I did a walking tour of the Town which involved some Watt seeing and climbing this big hill in the town centre which has a Watt on top. The best part of the climb was the views of the town and countryside at the top.

Street in Luang Prabang during the storm

Today 15 of us, after lengthy negotiations, got in some tuk-tuks which took us to a waterfall some 20k outside town. One of the Waterfall pools had a great rope swing which was entertaining.  On the way home we were caught in a tropical storm. Tuk-tuks are not the best place to be when one starts and we all got soaked, however the rain is warm which I’m still having trouble getting used to.

What else that is interesting is everything shuts at 11:30pm; it’s a bit like England before 24 hour drinking and all night supermarkets. My bus leaves tomorrow morning at 8:30am and is a 9 hour drive to Phonsavan.

Please note Ive added a new album to the right hand side of the screen.

Passed by Banking Exams!!!

Just a quick note to say that I got confirmation today that I passed the last unit of my Banking exams. The qualification is a Diploma in Higher Education in Financial Markets and Management. I'm sure it will come in useful one day and if nothing else I learnt lots whilst completing it.... Thank you RBS

Thailand to Lao - The Mekong River

Mekong River separating Thailand form Laos

I’ve now arrived at a town called Luang Prabang in Laos after travelling for the past three days from Chiang Mai in Thailand. I left Chiang Mai on Wednesday morning and took a 6 hour mini bus ride to the Thailand Laos border. I had to stay at a small town called Chiang Khong and wait for the ferry the following day that would take me across the Mekong river into Lao.

View of the Mekong River from our Hostel in Pak Beng

After arriving in Laos and completing the visa formalities I took a two day boat ride down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang, this would take a further two days. This included a stop off overnight at a very small town called Pak Beng.

On the whole the journey wasn’t too bad. Both day trips on the slow boat were approx 7 hours long and not the most comfortable but I was with many other travellers who were doing the same thing so it was good to chat to all the various people.

The Mekong River

The views from the slow boat of the Mekong River were very impressive. The route was lined with large jungle mountains and small wooden hut villages. Stopping at the small town of Pak Beng was very strange as it contained one small road with wooden hut shops and one bar selling ‘Lao beer’ (the local beer for this country). Met some interesting locals at the village who joined us at the bar. Most of them had spent their whole lives in this small town.

Snake and Scorpion Whisky

One thing they have in Laos is snake whisky. This is basically Whisky with a Cobra stuffed in the bottle (see the picture attached). It looks like they also do a variant of this called scorpion Whisky.  This stuff was being sold everywhere on our arrival at the Laos border u its not something I’ll be drinking anytime soon.

I’ll be staying a total of about 3 weeks in Laos before moving over the border into Cambodia. However there is lots of see and do before this time.

Chiang Mai - Day 3

Cooking green curry with chicken

I went to the Muay Thai boxing again last night with some people i'd met who did not go on Saturday. It was another great evening and good entertainment for the price. most of the matches were great and went the distance, it's a great night out and something I could watch more often. I'll have to see if this is something they do in Vietnam when I finally get there.

I've been on the cooking course today, we were picked up in the morning and taken to the cooking  school which was not far from our hostel.

Being shown around the market by our guide

First of all we were taken to the local market and given a tour of how it works and the various ingredients used in Thai cooking. This was really good to be shown what some of the strange vegestables are that ive been seeing over the past month and told how they are used.

I got to cook seven different dishes during the course of the day which included fried rice with chicken, green curry with chicken, fried cashew nuts with chicken, spring rolls, chicken in coconut milk soup and mango with sticky rice. I did get to choose from a list what I could cook and only realised after that prety much all my dishes were chicken based.

Sitting down to eat the fried rice with chicken

I was suprised how easy and tasty alot of the dishes were. One great thing was that we got to eat the food we cooked but as you can imagine we were all pretty stuffed by the end of the day.

I'm leaving for the Thailand / Laos border tomorrow morning. I'm booked on a 5.5hr minibus to Chiang Khong where I will stay the night before crossing the Mekong river into Huay Xai, Laos. I'll then have a two day slow boat ride down the  Mekong river stopping at Pak Beng for the night before ending up in Luang Prabang. It will be a shame to leave Chiang Mai as there is so much more I'd like to do.

I made this! Fried rice with chicken

Everyone ive met has said that they really like Chiang Mai. The hostel im in is great and ive met some great people however ive only heard good things about Laos so im looking forward to it and seeing some great scenairy on the slow boat trip.