Vang Vieng and Vientiane

Sorry for the delay folks, it was so hot we couldn't write anything. We'll try to catch youse up as best we can. For your information we were in Lao PDR until 21.04.2009.

Vang Vieng is a small town inbetween Luang Prabang and Vientiane. That is the only reason it exists. We arrived in town with the Irish couple who we teamed up with. We found a cheap guesthouse after the Lonely Planet recommendation was taken. It wasn't as good as Lonely Planet stated anyway. Who pays to sleep on a 1 inch mattress, honestly! FYI a cheap guesthouse in Lao is 100,000 kip which equates to AU$16.00. This included AC and bathroom. Not really that cheap in the middle of nowhere and a country that lives on 100,000 kip/week. But that's the absurdity of the place, tourism lives in a different world to what the locals do.

Anyway, enough. Vang Vieng has two things going for it. It has caves nearby and a river that tourists since forever have gone tubing down. So the day after we arrived in ridiculous heatwave that was Lao for the entire trip we went tubing down the river. The tubing business is run by a mafia crew of Lao guys who have stitched up the whole operation. They rent you a tractor tyre tube and drive you about 3.5km to the start. If you get back after 6pm they fine you for being late. Yes, they charge you because the river flows too slowly...genius really. In the last few years a number of bars have set-up on the side of the river to tempt tourists to stop and have a drink by giving free shots of Lao whisky and various other illegal substances. Back in the 70's it was apparently easier to get opium than beer and some tourists still think it's that way. But believe you me they stand out a mile. (I'll tell you about my two favourites at the end of this blog) So the big attraction of these bars is the zip wires they have constructed from bamboo and steel lines. To be safe they have dug the river deeper. On the other hand they haven't thought about tourists drinking and jumping off 5 metre high bamboo constructions which at the start of the jump have rocks sticking out of the water. As Em put it when you arrive in Lao you sign away all insurance claims just by entering the country. So with that in mind we both had a go. Note to self: 5 metres is a long way to drop into a moving river when you haven't done it before. I did survive so much so that Em had a go on a slightly smaller zip wire. Unfortunately we don't have any photos of her being unusually brave because she said it was too risky to take the camera. But not too risky to jump off a ramshackle flying fox that was being operated by a 12 year old!

After a few jumps off we moved on down the river and came across lots more bars, one had a huge concrete slide into the river and the biggest zip wire on the river (about 10 metres). We didn't try that one. Em and I weren't drinking on that day and you get a real impression of why most people who visit Lao. They are there to drink very cheaply and a lot to procure said illegal substances. It is illegal in case you were wondering but there are plenty of offers to tourists.

The best part of the journey was the huge party the local people were having down the river a bit, with tables and chairs in the water and everyone having a blast. Unfortunately nobody invited us to hang out but we still splashed lots of kids with water.

We floated down the river some more and realised we were getting perilous close to being fined for missing our deadline. We started at 3pm and had to be back by 6pm. The river did us no favours, at one point it seemed to be floating the other way. We had to walk the last kilometre because the river was too shallow to float on and ergo were fined for the privilige. I did complain when we got back that they didn't turn the river on fast enough, but I think it was lost on the guy.

It was a lot of fun none the less. When the river is flowing fast it's apparently 4x faster, which would be really cool.

The next day we convinced the Irish couple to come with us to visit a huge cave six km from town with a blue lagoon inside the cave that u could swim in. Lonely Planet said it had a blue lagoon so it must have right? We hired some bicycles and knocked over the 6km quite easily considering it was about 37C. So get to the cave and there are about 200 people celebrating NY. Now when I say celebrating Lao style that involves the biggest speakers you can find and turning them up until the entire countryside is reverberating. Then everyone stands right next to said speakers and jumps up and down while everyone sprays water in the air. Think gentle mosh pit with mudbath.

So we head on into the cave to escape the mayhem and get about 20 metres in when we realise that even with headlamps you can't see a thing, so we got a kid to guide us around with the express instruction to show us the blue lagoon. He showed us the buddha statue, the bats (which we didn't ask to see), a second chamber but no blue lagoon. Then when we get out he asks for his money and we ask where is the blue lagoon? His reply "No lagoon." Backed up by the adult next to him. The only lagoon within coeee of the cave was a pitiful little kiddie pool right next to one of the biggest speakers. I can't wait to write to Lonely Planet about their exhaustive research policy!!!!! Hence the 6km journey back to town wasn't so exciting.

So all four of us decided to exit the town and booked a bus/kayak trip to the capital of Lao, Vientiane.

The tour involved being put in the back of a truck with said characters: 2 Aussies, 2 Irish, 1 English, 1 Canadian, 1 Austrian and 2 somewheres (they didn't talk to anyone). It seemed like a good crew till I asked the Pom how long he had been in Lao and he stared at me like I had provided him with some esoteric secret to join Oprah's book club. He told me he'd been there about a month. And he had really enjoyed it. Now I don't care who you are you can't enjoy Lao for a whole month without being drunk everyday (BeerLao is possibly the nicest beer I've ever drunk, and at AU$2 a 660ml bottle whose arguing) or smoking yourself into paranoid oblivion. In this poor boy's case both was the answer.

My suspicions were confirmed when I asked him what part of England he was from and he told me central London. Yet he had never heard of Chiswick!!@! After an hour and a half of being buffeted by water buckets and hard plastic water bombs (Part of Em's brain came out her ear at one stage) we arrived at the start of our kayaking expedition. Now I say expedition, I mean kiddie river floating. It was an 8km stretch and had one rapid, very small rapid. Surprisingly the English guy and the people who dare not speak still managed to capsize their kayak. We stopped at the rapid for lunch (wonderful Lao bbq of skewered vegies and chicken). The English guy further confirmed by suspicions of him being an idiot by rolling a joint that would have needed a tripod to maintain structure had it been any bigger. We continued on after lunch and a strange thing started to happen. The English (I know, he's my blog writing dream come true) guy on two seperate occasions jumped out of the kayak and floated behind for a few minutes. Maybe it's a cure for constipation in England but when there are other people in the river, it's just weird.

Just before we finished our kayaking trip the guide asked who wanted to do a cliff jump into the river. Now I know I shouldn't say yes before finding out what it involved but I did anyway. I thought it would be a relatively easy 3 metre drop into soft, cuddly water. It turned out to be a 10 metre suicide drop over a blind edge. My first look over the edge resulted in legs that went so weak, modern science hasn't yet found a way of replicating. Oddly enough my good friend the English guy jumped without a hint of concern. His Olympics sanctioned urine test comes back next week. My guess is...

While myself, the Irishman and the Austrian girl were up there panicking and hoping we would get the courage to jump, the English guy jumped again. After I had backed away the second time, the Austrian girl decided to walk to edge and I just reassuringly said, "I'll let your mother know you loved her." To which she replied "She's dead already." So not to be outdone I replied "Well, that'll save time." She gave up jumping soon after I said that. I don't think she was offended, but you can never tell with these Austrians, they always sound so upbeat, like their skipping along to the Sound of Music soundtrack.

Eventually I fell over the edge by accident, it did take about ten minutes to remind myself that I probably wouldn't die. Em got it on video, hopefully I'll have a chance to put it on youtube/blog before I do something stupid again without the camera. Falling ten metres into water does sting, don't let anyone tell you different, especially if their English.

The last section of our trip to Vientiane was by minivan, which was very fortunate considering how many people were out throwing water at cars nearby. We saw the most awful post-accident on our way into town. A bunch of people sitting in the back of a ute had been thrown out after the driver ran into two scooters. The ute was upside down but we don't know if anyone died. One ambulance did turn up to help and check everyone but medical services aren't very advanced in Lao. It's surprising more people didn't end up in accidents considering how wet the roads were during the NY celebrations.

My two favourite Tourists

1) The first one was the little guy we bumped into at the tubing zip wire. I was behind him in the line climbing up and had the fortune of being on the platform when he took off. Except he didn't take off and let go, he held on so he could push off the platform on his way back. Now I'm not the biggest fan of heights and I'm sure it appeared strange to everyone that the next guy about to jump into midwire was crouching down to hold onto the platform. The guy did eventually let go but he did have a severe case of wanting to chew his face off. He really needed a chuppa chup but they are hard to find in Lao.

2) Number two and my favourite space cadet tourist in Lao comes from Ireland. Not to be mistaken for the Irish couple we spent a few days travelling with. He was orginally from Cork but had spent the previous three years in Japan pretending to teach English. How can anyone from Cork teach English to Japanese students, they can barely speak English themselves! This guy was a redhead with a beard and the reason he wins my favourite tourist award is because he as straight as a post told me about the suit he had custom made in Thailand just a few weeks before to coincide with his return to Ireland for the wedding season. He had paid a bit more than he wanted to for the suit but as he said, " I got it just the way I wanted it." Now what you think when he says that is not what he was thinking when he said that. His perfect suit was a green velvet with thick purple pin stripes and a silver tie. I repeat a red headed with beard Irishman in a green velvet suit with purple pin stripes and a silver tie. I need say no more.

Vientiane was a low point of the whole trip. It was hot humid and didn't cool down at night. It was also overpriced (NY), booked out and the entire city was closed, presumably to recover from one massive collective hangover.

The highlights of the stay were:

1. The air con cafe called JoMa which was a wall of cool as you came in. The made a great banana cake and a lovely cuppa.

2. The buddha park which Mum you would love but would need to get a few buckets of colour and throw them around.

3. Minor highlights were the Arc de Triumphe and the shiny gold temple.

Oh and you can arrange a visa in less than 24hrs which we did and promptly left this place.

The international airport was the most laid back airport we have seen, even comparing to Hobart which is only a fake international airport anyway.