Back and forth...

We hopped on a sleeper bus heading south to Pakse from Vientiene. Pakse was nothing to write home about. A small town that served as a 'jumping off' point. We spent only a couple days there, but the things that we 'jumped off' to were pretty amazing. We took a Sawng-taw about 15km outside of town to two waterfalls, both were spectacular. Tad Fane was this incredibly tall waterfall. We stood at the viewpoint looking down, down, down, into a densly forested gorge. The falls were made up of two rivers flowing out over the side opposite the viewpoint. We were very curious (which, roughly translated, means- 'Sairaa was very curious') so we decided to climb down this winding, slippery path through the jungle to get a better view. We did...get a better view. From the end of the path we could see all the way to the bottom where the waters connected forming another river that flowed along the ravine floor below. Absolutely stunning!!
We continued down the road another 5km to Tad Nyoung. This one was a whole different kind of impressive. A peaceful river flowing through a maze of grassy embankments in a picturesque setting next to a small camping resort complete with a little cafe along the river bank. The peaceful river then dropped of the side of a cliff. The path leading down to the bottom of the falls was showered with water droplets picked up by the air being displaced by the many tons of water now falling of the edge. As the sun peeked out from the clouds it created a rainbow in a complete circle. It was the first time I'd ever seen one like that.
The trip to the falls that day was topped off with a trip to a tea and coffee plantation. We saw the plants and the whole process of how tea is made and we also saw coffee beans on the tree. Pretty cool!

We left Pakse for a small town called Champasak. It was a little town on the other side of a river. It too was a jumping off point for Wat Phu. Yeah, sound it out... only, make sure that you don't pronounce the 'ph' like an 'f'. Try it again. Now you understand why Sairaa and I would laugh everytime we said it. (a side note- in Luang Prabang there was a place called Phu Si - no joke!!) Anyway...this Wat Phu ( literally meaning Mountain Temple) was the site of an ancient temple complex dating back many centuries. Although it was not as impressive as Angkor Wat ( which we will talk about later) it was still pretty amazing. One of the highlights was a huge boulder that had an elephant carved into it.

Getting from Champasak back to the highway was a gong show. We left our guesthouse, got a five minute ride to the ferry (which would take us across the river), then we got a tuk-tuk for the two to three kms to the highway to catch the bus. We told the locals there that we were going to Don Det (Don means Island). They thought we were saying 'Don Dang' so they told us to get on a specific bus that ended up taking us back to where the ferry was...we were really confused but we were told to get on a little boat (very little) and we would be taken to where we needed to go. We decide to just go with it, thinking that the locals knew best. The boat driver took us a few kms up river and started heading toward shore. (We knew that Don Det was at least a couple hours away so we knew something was wrong) We asked the driver where he was taking us. He points at the island in the middle of the river and says 'Don Dang'. Now, it's easy to read this and wonder how the two islands could be confused but when you are hearing the locals speak, they do it quickly and not every letter is pronounced so....it gets.. tricky. Anyway.. we realized what had happened and asked him to take us back to where we had started. We explained the situation to the people around the boat dock, with the help a young man who spoke some english. We were finally on our way back to road where we would have to wait...again... for the bus to Don DET!! Stupid. We wasted almost $10 US dollars going back and for the like this...it doesn't seem like a lot but it is in this country. We finally got on the right bus but it was packed and I had to hang out the back. This was fun, but I got really burnt. As if things couldn't be delayed any more, we drive by another bus...that has a flat tire... We stop. The lady who was collecting money on our bus tells us that we should go on THAT bus because it's heading straight to Don Det. So now we are sitting on the side of the road in the scorching heat waiting for our new bus driver to fix the tire that has blown so we can finally get on our way to Don Det. AAARRGH!!

trust? or trust you not?

Day 81


He was very tall, thin, and dark-skinned with an odd haircut. Short curls in the front and shaved in the back, something like a chelsea without the lengthy bangs. His fly was undone. Or maybe his boardshorts just weren't fastened at the top. Either way, since that area was more eye level to me than his face, I couldn't help but notice. I almost wanted to tell him to do up his fly, in the way a mother would scold her child. I stopped myself and tried to focus on what he was saying...

"Spare a dollar for a poor hitchhiking backpacker?" He asked us.

He looked a little rough, which made his story believable. But I still got a bad vibe from him. I felt like responding with, "Sorry man, but we're poor backpackers too". I didn't say anything. He was mostly fixed on Chris anyway.
Chris hesitated and then reached into his pocket for his wad of bills. "I guess..." he said, unsure of himself. Then he handed the guy a 10,000 LAK bill (which is worth just over a dollar).


Two hours later, at around 7:30pm, we were sitting in the back of a crammed transfer bus on our way to the Vientiane bus station to catch the 'sleeper' bus to Pakse. The truck had stopped outside another guesthouse to shove some additional travelers in the back, and then I spotted him. His tall silhouette emerged from around the street corner.
A Lao man jumped out of his tuk-tuk and followed the guy a few steps until they were standing right outside our bus. I could see the entire interaction take place. Or more acurately, the entire TRANSaction. I knew right away what was happening. The two of them quickly engaged in obvious bartering, then the guy reached into a small pocket on the side of his board shorts and took out some money from a black pouch. He discreetly palmed the folded bills into the tuk-tuk driver's hand while the driver simultaneously deposited a fist-sized package into the guy's money pouch. They parted ways, walking quickly in opposite directions. The tuk-tuk driver\drug dealer glanced my way and we made eye contact for a split second. I quickly looked toward the guy to yell at him "Hey you poor backpacker! Our money went toward those drugs!" But he was gone.



--
Travel tip of the day:

Don't give charity to drug users.

Really though, I know it can be hard not to give money to people who appear to need it, but doing so just encourages begging. I think it's better to give food because then at least you're helping the person directly. Often beggers are controlled by a 'beggarmaster' who takes a large cut of the person's earnings...

In the tubing

We did it. We went "In the Tubing" in Vang Vieng, Laos. But we didn't get the t-shirt to prove it. We also didn't get wasted, didn't act like poor role models for all the Lao children working along the river to make money to help feed their families, didn't loose any of our belongings along the way, didn't pollute the river, didn't spend all our money at the multitude of bars along the way, and actually made it back just in time for the 6pm return policy.

We were so hesitant to even go to Vang Vieng, given the reputation that the tubing experience has. You can read my friend Will's blog post on his experience to get an idea of what I'm talking about: http://goodwilljohnson.blogspot.com/2010/06/vang-vien.html

Tubing itself was actually kind of lame. In total it lasted only about 30 minutes, when it's advertised as taking 1 to 2 hours. Maybe this had to do with the fact that it's the rainy season and the current seemed to be quite strong.

Lonely Planet blatently states that it's a stupid idea to go tubing while intoxicated, though we were shocked to notice a sign posted at the Q-Bar that politely asks visitors to 'have a few drinks' before using their rope-swing to enter the river. 

We heard a rumour that someone had died the other day...

On the plus side, the area is very beautiful with huge limestone karsts lining the river.

--

Travel tip of the day:

Try to have an awareness of how your actions affect the community that you're visiting. Responsible travel is honorable.

night terrors

Day 74. July 26th

The terror rose within my stomach and into my chest. I could feel my heart pounding as if it were going to beat it's way right out of my rib cage. I could hardly breathe.
The bus fishtailed from side to side, slid backward and then came to a halt just meters away from the edge of a cliff. "OhmyGod, OhmyGod, OhmyGod" I repeated with fright. "I have to get off this bus!" I pulled open the tiny window by my seat and quickly contemplated the best way to lodge myself out. Feet first or head first? The thought of landing on my head brought me to the conclusion that feet first would be much more practical... and then Chris grabbed hold of me, "Everything is okay, don't worry. The bus is stopped."
"I have to get off" I said, then grabbed my bag and got up to follow the other passengers out into the dark night.

The bus had lost control as it was turning up another sharp curve in the road. A mudslide had coated the road with thick layers of liquid brown sludge. It was slippery.

As soon as everyone had evacuated, all the men took instinctual position behind the bus and proceeded to put all their might into pushing it out of the mud. The sight was somewhat inappropriately hilarious as their feet just slid out from under them. Some found themselves sliding down the road as if it were ice and they were skiing down the hill. 'This could lead to a new kind of extreme sport,' I thought. I couldn't help but laugh as Chris' ridiculously flimsy flip flops suctioned themselves into the mud and remained there as he tried to walk forward. He tripped over his immobile feet and almost landed on his face. The straps popped out of the sandals (for what seems like the hundredth time on this trip) and his feet slid over the mud as he rapidly tried to gain his balance. His movement resembled an awkward combination of the moonwalk and someone at the gym running stationary on a treadmill. "Stop laughing at me!" He scolded.



Side Note:

Yes I'm bitter toward Chris' fake Havaiana flip flops that he bought in Thailand. They have been the cause of him stumbling up mountains and hurting himself frequently while walking. He complains often of all the cuts and bruises he collects as a result from wearing them. He can never keep up to me either and so I try to stay behind him while trekking so he doesn't get mad at me for gaining distance ahead of him. "Stop running!" he yells after me, as if to convince himself that he is actually walking quite fast, which makes my pace appear abnormally quick. He should get a pair of good sandals like my Chacos. They have lots of straps to keep your feet in place and they have a thick sole with deep grooves on the bottom for good traction. He doesn't listen to me though, even if I do know what's best for him ;)


We had left Luang Prabang at around 2pm on the Express bus from the local bus station. Our destination: Vang Vieng. The bus trip was supposed to take about 5 or 6 hours total.

The journey started out well, with lovely scenery to gawk at along the way and lots of little roadside villages. What I find amazing about Laos is all the untouched forested mountains that seem to go on forever and disappear into the horizon. I had heard that this stretch of highway was beautiful, though very windy. I just didn't realize the full extent of what that meant until we were on the bus being jerked from side to side as the bus seemed to be in a continuous zigzag motion, propelling itself up and down steep mountain faces, navigating a series of switchbacks with VERY sharp corners. The unsteadiness is enough to give a person motion sickness. It was a little unnerving at times given that we were driving on a narrow highway that lined the edges of cliffs and huge drop-offs. I couldn't help but imagine the bus driving off the edge at any moment.

Roughly 3 hours into our trip the bus came to stop behind a lineup of other vehicles. We quickly discovered by looking across the valley that there had been a huge landslide. We had passed several smaller ones so far without much issue, but this one had caused quite the traffic jam. A backhoe was slowly clearing the road, tossing the fallen earth off the nearby cliff.

We sat on the bus waiting in anticipation for about 6 hours. The sky darkened as the sun set and we watched the full moon rise above the mountains.

Finally at around 11pm our bus made a move. We pulled out from in between some transport trucks and proceeded up the highway. We reached the site of the landslide and quickly discovered what had taken so long. There were about three landslides in a row and the dirt had mixed with rain and blanketed the road with thick mud. The bus got stuck and I wondered if we were ever going to make it to Vang Vieng. Thankfully there were crowds of people outside ready to help push our bus up the hill. Everyone cheered when we made it out, though the whole process had taken over an hour.

No sooner had we driven a mile or two when the incident occurred. Another landslide. Only this time there weren't any people waiting outside to help us. After many failed attempts at getting the bus out of the mud, we were back on the windy road at around 3am.

We finally arrived in Vang Vieng at 5:30am. My jaw was sore from grinding my teeth the entire way. I hadn't peed all day/night, and we'd only eaten one meal before we caught the bus earlier that day. My stomach felt like it was eating itself.


I'm just thankful that we made it out alive.


--

Travel tip of the day:

Expect the unexpected and be prepared.

Yeah the bus trip was only supposed to have been about 6 hours, but I really wish that we had brought some snacks for the ride. And maybe a blanket since it got really cold that night.

a little slice of heaven

Muang Ngoi is a small riverside village located on the Nam Ou River just north of Nong Kiaw and Luang Prabang. We weren't really sure of what was there, but had been told that we should check it out. So after a week of enjoying Luang Prabang, we caught a local bus (which was basically like a pick-up truck with benches in the back) to Nong Khiaw, then a slow boat to Muang Ngoi. 

We wound up doing the journey with a foursome, two guys from Finland, one from England, and a girl from the U.S., who turned out to be an entertaining group. 

The boat ride up the river was very scenic with lush mountainscapes and rain forest.

When we arrived in Muang Ngoi, we found a place to stay right on the river. Our bungalow had a balcony with two hammocks overlooking a picturesque view of the river and mountains.

The only road through the village was a long dirt path that went from one end to the other. Near the end of each day the kids would play on the road, while the adults would sit on their doorsteps just observing life in the street. 

What I loved most were all the rice hats. These hats seem to be very practical for keeping the sun and rain off your face. 

The village was full of farm animals: ducks, chickens, cats, dogs, cows, and water buffalo.

We were woken up every morning by the irritating sound of roosters crowing. They sounded like they had the common cold or emphysema because they seemed to cough out the last part of their trills. Other noises filled our bungalow each morning that consisted of kids playing, farmers and other workers going about their day, boats taking off down the river (their engines sounded like helicopters), animals, insects, birds, and to top it off: really loud annoying thai music blasting from the neighbor's stereo. Life in the village started quite early. 

There were no vehicles or fridges and there was also no electricity in the town, just between 7pm and 10:30pm, which was run from a generator. But, somehow, the people found a way to live without it. 

One day, we trekked down a muddy path to a large cave, which had a small river flowing through it. Chris managed to get a leech on his foot during our trek, which drew a stream of blood. 

After checking out the cave we continued down the path and wound up walking through rice fields as far as the eye could see. It was pretty cool. We would up at another small village called Bana and ate a quick dinner there before heading back to town just as the sun was setting.

We saw a praying mantis one day when we were strolling through the village. I leaned in close to it and we made eye contact. As I moved my head from side to side, it copied me. It was as if we were dancing. Then all of a sudden, just when I figured I had charmed it like a snake, it flew at me and landed on my  bag. I screamed and jumped in surprise. "We were just dancing" I said to Chris who was laughing at me. "Then it came on to me!"

We hung out in our hammocks for a couple of days and just chilled out for once. We read our books, talked about our dreams, and discussed the way of life in other countries. We sat for hours and just watched life happen on the river in front of us. 

Many of the villagers spend all day on the river fishing from their boats. 

It was really interesting to see the locals using the river to wash their clothing, bathe themselves, and even wash dishes. The water was brown and looked dirty, but Chris reassured me that it's just the sediment that's been churned up by the flowing river. 

Chris was especially happy in Muang Ngoi. There were lots of cows around.

--


Travel tip of the day:


Some places don't have ATMs or banks to withdraw cash from, so find out before you go to a place if this is the case and prepare to bring enough money with you. And always over-budget for those just-in-case moments.
When we arrived in Muang Ngoi we discovered that there were no ATMs around, so we had to set enough money aside to make sure that we could get back to Luang Prabang. We also had to ration out our food consumption for the few days that we were there.

slow boat into Laos

Day 61 July 12, 2010

We arrived in Luang Prabang by way of the infamous slow boat. It was a two-day long journey down the Mekong River in a slender wooden boat packed, and I mean PACKED, full of passengers.

We crossed the border into Laos from Chiang Khong, a town in Northern Thailand. Unfortunately the border had closed at 6pm the night our VISAs expired, so we had to stay the night in Chiang Khong and pay an overstay fee of 500 baht ($16) each when we finally crossed the next morning. The border officers had no compassion or understanding of the fact that we had tried to cross the night before. "500 baht" was all the officer said to me when I tried to plead my way out of having to pay. "But it hasn't even been a full day yet." I stated. When Chris handed over his fee to one of the officers, I noticed him pocket some money. I don't know for sure what the deal was with that, but it looked suspicious to me.

Because we are Canadian Citizens, we also had to pay $43 USD each for our VISA into Laos, when most other nationalities are only required to pay $30.

Chris and I hadn't bought our tickets for the boat yet, as we were hoping to find a better deal at the pier than what all the travel agencies in Thailand had been advertising. Some men at the border tried to sell us tickets for 1500 baht each. We declined and paid 900 baht each at a travel agency that claimed that this price is set the same everywhere. Of course, the actual price at the pier was only 750 baht.

We got on a tuk tuk to the pier and met a couple from Paris on the way. We were shuffled into a waiting area where Chris and I loaded up on snacks for the trip (a fellow traveler had tipped us on the fact that you can't get much food on the boat). Chris and I made our way down to the boat to try and find a good seat. The boat was already full, or what I perceived to be full, so we squished our bums onto a small wooden bench that literally had no leg room. Twenty minutes later a large group of backpackers made their way onto the boat. Everyone's packs were shoved beneath the floor boards of the boat and somehow people managed to find a space to sit. I think the boat left the pier at around 11:30am.

The ride down the Mekong was quite beautiful. The scenery was amazing with lush green jungle on either side along with the occasional small riverside village nestled in the hills. We passed many people fishing in the river, kids swimming, herds of water buffalo, and even a few elephants feeding at the river's edge. We stopped at a few villages along the way either to drop some people off or pick some up. I think the amazing views along the way are what helped us endure the pain of sitting in cramped quarters on a hard bench. I avoided having to use the toilet as I had heard from other travelers that it was basically just a small hole in the floor at the back of the boat with no walls for privacy. Eeeek!

Our boat floated into a small town called Pak Beng at around 7pm, which is where we stayed the night. Chris and I noticed right away how different this place appeared from anywhere we'd been in Thailand. It seemed to be much more impoverished, less developed, and the people seemed to avoid eye contact with us as we walked down the main street. Another thing I couldn't help but notice were all the kids - there were tons of kids and babies everywhere we looked!

The next morning we got back on the boat at around 8:30am, though it was a different boat this time. It was smaller and the seats were fewer and more crammed together. Many people wound up sitting on the floor.

Just when I thought that there was no possible way that anyone or anything else could fit on this boat, we stopped at a village where we waited for about 30 minutes as dozens more people loaded on. I kept thinking of the analogy of the jar that isn't quite full until rocks, sand, and then water fill every crevice. I was surprised when on came a motorbike, huge sacks of sugar and rice, large baskets full of clucking chickens and quacking ducks, and sacks with turkeys poking their heads out. There was one particular turkey in the front who appeared to blend in with the crowd as if it, too, was another person crammed onto this crazy boat. Once the boat was filled to the brim, people hopped onto the roof and hauled all their livestock up with them.

It was a long, sweaty ride, but we met some interesting people on the boat before finally arriving in Luang Prabang at around 6pm that night. 

Since our arrival in Luang Prabang, we've witnessed the Alm's Giving Ceremony, where about 300 monks march down the main street from their temples at 5:30 am and receive offerings of sticky rice and banana or coconut rice packed inside banana leaves from the locals. After the Monk Procession we hiked the stairs up Mount Phousi and got a spectacular view of the city as the sun rose. Then we rented mountain bikes and cycled for 3 hours (a total of 36km!) under the scorching sun, up and down rolling hillsides, and through small villages until we reached Kuang Si Waterfalls, which were beyond beautiful. As we struggled through the heat, once in a while we'd pass a group of kids who would extend their arms out toward as and give us 'high-fives' as we passed. "Sabaideeee" they'd yell at us excitedly. This made me happy and renewed my energy to keep going. We passed a lot of farmland including rice paddies and cornfields. After spending a couple of hours at the waterfalls and observing some black moon bears (one was hanging out in a hammock), we caught a tuk-tuk back to town, with our bikes strapped to the roof. We shared the ride with a group of Irish travelers who were hilarious and made fun of us for giving up and not riding alllll the way back on our bikes.