Around the World in 174 Days - Part 4 - Luang Prabang and Onward

As usual, all images can be located:

Luang Prabang and Huang Xi HERE
Vang Vieng and Elephant Sanctuary HERE
Vientiane HERE

Sabaidee!

So, not the arrival in Luang Prabang that we had hoped for but, there we were, dropped of at The Ancient Luang Prabang Hotel. In common with many of the buildings in Luang Prabang the hotel had a very colonial French feel about it. Laos was a French Colony until 1953 and we saw more French tourists there than we have seen in any other place except France!

The first thing we saw when we arrived were armed soldiers on the street corner directly outside our hotel. We were initially concerned until we realised we had stumbled across a film set which was a relief!

We were in the grandly named “King” room which was a good size (as the name would suggest). It had the most unnecessarily large jacuzzi behind the bed and a spacious wooden balcony overlooking the street.  

We had a very brief look around the town until it got dark but, due to the massive meal we had eaten at lunchtime, we weren’t hungry so spent the evening on the balcony watching the world go by and caught up on a couple of episodes of “This is Us” (Top TV show). 

Sai Bat (Morning Alms) is a longstanding tradition in Laos Buddhist culture. In observing it, the devoted offer food to monks. Whilst this apparently occurs throughout Laos, it is a particular “thing” in Luang Prabang. The Monks parade single file through the streets starting at around 5:30. 

Our hotel was on the procession route so our wooden balcony was the perfect vantage point. 

We set the alarm for 5:30 and were sat on the balcony with a coffee when the procession started. 

It is a strangely silent affair with locals placing handfuls of sticky rice into collection buckets (I’m sure there is a more solemn name for them) carried by the monks, attired in robes in different shades of orange (we wondered whether they got a choice of shades). Some of them appeared to be no older than 6 or 7. We had been told by, the now disgraced, Cet that for many children the temple is a way to obtain an education so they are sent by their parents. I kept thinking of the grandkids and how strange it must be to be sent away at such a young age, have your hair shaved off and regular clothes removed and replaced by an orange robe. It is, of course, completely wrong to judge other cultures by our own standards and, if this eventually provides a better future I guess there is some merit in it? 

The procession lasts about 45 minutes and so we were then up and about so, after breakfast it was time to explore Luang Prabang. 5

There was the now familiar selection of temples and we visited a few. The main one is at the top of a very steep hill and we thought we might visit later that afternoon but never did get round to it. 

We had two key missions; get a Laos SIM Card and locate the Laos Travel Group (LTG) Office to check on our trip to Vang Vieng which was our next destination. 

Our booking voucher stated we would be picked up from our hotel between 6:45 @ 7:45am Breakfast at the hotel was not until 7am but the lovely staff at the hotel has kindly agreed to do some breakfast for us earlier if necessary so we wanted to see if LTG could be more specific with the pick up time. 

Once we had located the office, it turned out to be a good job we checked, because it turned out that our pick up time was 8:30am. We weren’t sure how this would have been communicated had we not visited the office. 

The SIM card proved slightly more challenging. After walking around for ages, we came across a booth by the side of the road, selling postcards and gifts. We stopped to look at postcards and I noticed a quite small sign on the counter advertising 4G. I indicated to the guy behind the booth that this  was what I was after and he directed me to a minimart a few buildings up. Whereby the SIM  card we purchased at the unpronounceable airport in Bangkok was provided by the network provider, the minimart was acting as an agent for the provider and so added their own mark up, meaning that the Laos SIM card ended up costing three times as much as the Thai one. It was still only about £15 though so well worth it for the ability to use Google Maps etc. Coverage is nowhere near as good as Thailand but you do still get a signal in some quite unexpected areas. 

So! Main missions completed (it’s tough this travelling lark you know?)   

We had been told by our German boat friends about a barbecue restaurant called “Dyen Sabai” which we decided to try that evening so set about to find it and combine the walk with some sightseeing. Luang Prabang is actually on two rivers, The Mekong and the Nam Khan and Dyen Sabai was on the other side of the Nam Khan 

There are two routes across the river, a bamboo walking bridge and a road bridge, the latter being the longest route around. In order to get our steps in, we chose the longest route. I was to regret this in the fullness of time!

About 10 years’ ago, my eldest daughter gifted me  a climb of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I am not the best with heights but completed the climb and thought that this may have cured me of this irrational fear! Since then, we have done a number of “high” things (Shard, CN Tower, Tilt in Chicago) and I have been OK. Of course, all of these, including the Harbour Bridge, were in controlled conditions. The road bridge across the Nam Khan is high and the pedestrian part is basically made up of rickety planks of wood. As soon as I stepped on the first plank, I felt my knees starting to buckle slightly and the familiar urge to get down on all fours and crawl (yes! It is irrational) I managed to resist the urge and just focused solely on the end of the bridge and concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. After what seemed like an hour but was probably two minutes at the most, I reached solid road on the other side. I was physically shaking and disappointed that I hadn’t overcome my fear of heights after all. 

A scared and lonely figure!

We found the restaurant and were pleased to find that it was Happy Hour and cocktails were 2 for 1.  We ordered 2 mojitos and, when they arrived, the waiter informed us that they were “Laos Mojitos”. “How are they different?” was the obvious question “not so strong” was the reply! Disappointing!! They definitely weren’t very strong but drinking them with an elevated view of the river was a pleasant experience. It was also probably fortunate that they weren’t too strong as our return journey involved the flimsy bamboo bridge. I crossed this with no difficulty whatsoever because it was only about two metres above the water level, confirming that it is height that I have the phobia about and not water (even though it probably wouldn’t be very pleasant to fall in!)

We returned to the restaurant later that evening and had a very interesting meal indeed. 

The barbecue consisted of a charcoal fire lit in the centre of your table. On top of this is placed a large metal perforated dome with a deep rim around the outside, rather like a large metal bowler hat with holes in (Stay with me??). A selection of raw slithers of different meats is then brought to the table, along with a huge selection of noodles, vegetables and herbs and a kettle filled with onion broth. A quantity of the broth is poured into the rim and then the rest is up to you. You out whatever noodles, herbs and vegetables you like into the broth and this cooks away and then lay slices of meat onto the dome, which cooks it and the juices fall down into the broth. This combination results in a really tasty meals and a fun experience. Oh! I forget to mention that I started the evening with a cocktail entitled “Spicy Lao” I’m not sure what the liquid ingredients were but it came in a flute glass and was infused with a large quantity of ginger and chilli. I’m partial to a Bloody Mary on a a Sunday but they didn’t serve these so this was a spicy substitute. 

The meal was accompanied by BeerLao and we definitely watched our steps very carefully when walking back across the bamboo bridge. 

We had booked a tuk-tuk for 8:30 the next morning to take us out to the Kuang Xi Falls so we’re up and breakfasted in plenty of time. 

The trip out to the Falls takes about 50 minutes and the price of the tuk-tuk included him waiting for you and taking you back into town once you are done. 

The entrance fee into the falls is 20,000 Kip (£1.75) and the first part of the walk takes you through a bear sanctuary. Some friends of ours had made a visit here a good few years’ ago and, at that time, there was one solitary bear in a cage which was pretty horrible to witness. There are now a large number of bears in a large area of the park and it feels as though they have plenty of room to roam. 

The ethics of animals in captivity is a difficult one (this will come up again later in this blog). If the notices are to be believed, these are bears which have been saved from poachers who kill bears in order to extract bile which is used in traditional Chinese medicines.

The bears are well looked after and have plenty of space (again this is according to the literature). 

If this is actually the case then it appears that they are better off than if they were prey to hunters and, to be fair, the entry fee is paid to see the falls rather than the bears so it isn’t as though huge profit is being made from people viewing the bears. They don’t dance or do tricks, they just seem to be living in the sanctuary but someone could easily convince me that this isn’t the case and they would be better if in the wild. I visited SeaWorld in Florida in the 80s and we both went in the 90s and totally swallowed that this was a massive conservation project and the sea mammals on display enjoyed the human interaction. It was only when a documentary came out quite recently, completely exposing the cruelty which took place within SeaWorld that we realised that this wasn’t a place we should be visiting so, you never really know?

Once we had been through the Bear Sanctuary we were at the bottom of the falls. They are truly beautiful! Water cascades into torquoise lagoons and pools, some of which you can swim in. The walk to the top is quite steep and slippery in parts but we ventured up and the view from the top made the trip worthwhile. It is actually more difficult coming down but we made it without tumbling down. I then had a brief swim in one of the pools to cool off but Lucy decided against it and looked after the stuff. 

We spent a good 3 or so hours in the park and then left to find our waiting tuk-tuk and head back to Luang Prabang. 

We ate that evening in the small cafe opposite our hotel. We had watched a good few people eat there whilst sat on the balcony and most seemed to leave looking satisfied so thought we would give it a try and weren’t disappointed. 

We decided to set our alarms early again for a final view of the procession of monks and to pack ready for our onward trip to Vang Vieng. 

As all of our travel plans had gone very well up to now, it was inevitable that we would have a bad one and the trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was the bad one!

We were down for breakfast at 7am. All sorted and down in the lobby with our bags at 8:15am and then we waited and we waited 8:50 cake along and I asked the receptionist to ring the company. He was assured they the van would be with us by 9am. 9am went by. At 9:10, a fairly old and shabby Toyota Hiace lumbered alongside the Hotel. I could see that it was already pretty full. The driver hopped out and then saw the two large North Face rollalongs and our rucksacks and there was an instant look of dismay on his face.  The next 20 minutes or so were spent watching the driver rearrange people and luggage and, when we finally boarded the bus, we had to climb over rucksacks and suitcases in order to squeeze into two spaces at the back corner of the bus. The next 5 hours were pretty excruciating I must say! Cramped into the corner with my rucksack on my lap. There were two comfort break stops but I couldn’t even be bothered to get out knowing how difficult it would be to get back in. 

The route was very bumpy, so much so that my Fitbit registered that I had done 10,000 paces during the journey. 

Our View for 5 Hours

Still, we made it and were in Vang Vieng. 

Vang Vieng is in a beautiful setting, surrounded by mountains all around. It built a reputation in the late 90s and early noughties as a backpackers’ party town, mostly inspired by tubing which is basically floating down the Nam Song river on a massive inner tube and, until 2012, this was mainly done in an intoxicated manner (both from drink and drugs). After 27 recorded tourist deaths in 2011, the government cracked down and shut many of the bars along the river. Nowadays, although tubing is still a thing, there are only 4 bars allowed to open at any one time along the river and tubing is a much more sedate affair. We didn’t try it but walked to the final bar on the route and saw a couple of groups coming in. 

The town however still maintains that party type atmosphere and, frankly, feels a bit like Magaluf or Faliraki in South East Asia. Souvenir shops and disco bars are everywhere and there are still a few bars with Cannabis leaf logos and advertising laughing gas hits for 10,000 Kip a go. 

We resisted the temptation of laughing gas and, after witnessing the most stunning sunset of the trip to date, we had a pretty uninspiring meal in a riverfront restaurant. Lukewarm reheated spring rolls and a pretty bland curry. 

Highlights of that particular day 

We decided that we would go to the elephant sanctuary the following day so booked the trip on the afternoon we arrived for the next day. 

Vang Vieng Elephant Sanctuary is a relatively new venture (18 months or so) and, again, the ethical issue reared it’s head (on this occasion, the head had big ears and a trunk!). We did a fair bit of research and established that the sanctuary didn’t offer rides or use bull chains so that was a tick ✔️. The elephant population in general (and specifically in Laos) has declined immensely in recent years due to a combination of poaching for ivory and the simple fact that elephants are no longer as necessary as work animals as they used to because of heavy machinery etc, meaning that previously domesticated elephants are released with no ability to look after themselves in the wild. The Sanctuary pays owners an income to look after the three females and one male resident elephants and are funded solely by visitors and charitable donations. 

So, having weighed up the issues, we decided to visit the sanctuary. We were collected at 8am from our hotel and driven about 1 hour outside the town to The Sanctuary. The first half an hour or so was spent learning about the work of the sanctuary and elephants in general before we ventured out into the jungle, armed with big bags full of sugar cane. 

After about 25 minutes walking we spotted the first magnificent beast lumbering towards us into a clearing, rapidly followed by two more (we had already been informed that we would only see the females as the male is much less partial to human company)

We fed the three ladies and it was incredible to be so close to these huge animals. You immediately get a sense of how intelligent the elephants are. Once your bag is empty, you simply hold both hands up with your palms toward them and they acknowledge with a series of nods of the head. 

Once fed, the elephants headed towards a muddy area and began covering themselves with mud which is good for their skin and protects them from insects and skin complaints. Once covered, they headed towards a pond where they washed off the mud (with a little help from their human visitors). This was an incredible experience and, whilst Vang Vieng wasn’t the favourite town we have visited, the experience certainly ranks as one of the best so far. The elephants then came with us, back to base camp, where the team of around 10 staff administered medication. We had a light lunch (which was really unnecessary, especially as money is clearly tight) of spring rolls, mango and something  which I am still uncertain of but was basically some kind of plant stem which had a rice type substance inside, before being taken back to Vang Vieng. We were back by 12:30 having had a fabulous morning. 

Two weeks’ in so it was time for me to have a haircut. The cut cost £5 and what I got was a five quid haircut but at least it was out of my eyes!! 

After I had my ears lowered,we stopped off at the Irish Bar for a few beers on the way back to the hotel. There was a good atmosphere there and they played a variety of Britpop anthems from the late 90s (another throwback to the Tubing legacy). 

Walking back to the hotel to pack we got caught in a lengthy and heavy rain shower. Once packed, we sat on our balcony listening to some tunes. There was no stunning sunset due to the heavy cloud and rain which was still continuing. After a while, we were aware of a commotion in the street outside our hotel which we could hear but not see. There were a number of raised voices and we assumed it was shopkeepers falling out over something. When it continued, we walked along the lengthy balcony to see what was happening and saw that an electrical junction box on a telegraph pole about 5 metres from our hotel was ablaze! There was a roaring fire on the pole, presumable caused by the heavy rain, and we assumed that a Fire Brigade would soon be along to sort it. (Except it soon became apparent that there was no Fire Brigade!) We sat back down and awaited further instructions until we heard a number of short explosions and thought we had better get out. We packed our valuable into rucksacks and exited back to the Irish bar for a bite to eat. We had a western meal (burger and chips) and walked back to the hotel to see what was what. The whole street was in darkness and the receptionist told us to wait about 40 minutes when they would make a decision whether or not to relocate us. We sat in our dark hotel room (thank goodness for IPads and This Is Us) and, after about and hour, the power came back on and it was as though nothing had happened. Elephants and Electricity, two things beginning with El which made for a very strange day indeed!

Our bus to Vientiane was leaving from Soutchai Travel Office at 9:30am so we had time for breakfast before a short walk to the office. After our journey from Luang Prabang we were slightly nervous about this journey but it was much less crowded and bumpy than the previous one (plus it departed and arrived on time) renewing our faith in bus travel. 

Our stay in Vientiane was short but from what we saw, it is a laid back Capital City with a French feel about it. 

We stayed at an Ibis Hotel and it was clearly training day when we arrived as we have never been so inundated with assistance. Every where you turned there was another trainee offering some form of assistance whilst bowing profusely! I wanted to shred some of the paperwork which was now surplus to requirements in order to keep baggage weight as low as possible (we packed as close to our 20kg limit as possible) and when I went down to reception to enquire, three members of staff carried the office shredder out into the lobby and stood witness to me shredding a load of paper. It was all quite comical. 

We walked to the COPE centre which is an organisation which deals with the problem of cluster bombs which still remain in Laos after they were dropped in huge quantities between 1964 and 1973 (over 2 million tons) many of which still remain unexploded in many rural areas http://legaciesofwar.org/resources/cluster-bomb-fact-sheet/  COPE carries out initiatives to clear unexploded ordnance as well as offering assistance to victims who all too often lose limbs due to these “bombies” as they are affectionately known. 

Nothing brings home the horrors of war more than people still being affected by combat missions over 40 years after the conflict has finished and the tales of children dying whilst playing with cluster bombs are really chilling. 

We walked back via the Presidential Palace just as someone important was obviously going home for his tea and a cavalcade drove out from behind the ornate gates. 

We definitely could have spent longer in Vientiane. 

In the morning, we had intended to catch the shuttle bus to the airport but, when we got to the bus stop, we had just missed one and there was over 30 minutes to wait for the next one so we flagged a tuk-tuk which strained under the combination of my weight and that of our combined luggage but got us there eventually. 

And that was that! Our trip through Laos was complete. We can truly say that we found the country fascinating and a pleasure to be in. Lao people are generally, genuinely nice. The country is poor but there is an obvious family pride amongst the people. Life is clearly tough for many people but they are extremely resourceful and adaptable. 

We left by Laos Airlines (an very short but pleasant flight) to Hanoi and our peaceful demeanour was just about to be shattered. 

But I’m spoiling the plot. More regarding our adventures in Vietnam soon. 

Thanks for reading.

John & Lucy