Laos

Our 5 hour "bus" ride was brutal. First of all, it wasn't really a bus. It was a pick up truck with 2 narrow wooden benches in back (known as a sangthaw) which makes for very sore bums. Second of all, it was another long, winding, and bumpy road which made for bobbing necks and throbbing heads. However, we arrived at a comparitively HUGE metropolis of Xam Neau. Well, it was in fact a small city with no more than 50,000 people, but we were excited to find food, electricity and guesthouses!

First things first, we need food! We soon found a restuarant to satiate our grumbling tummies and this is where the laziness of the Laos people came shining through. So, we walk in, look at the menu and order our food; nothing out of the ordinary. But then, we wait and wait and finally after 45 minutes we receive 2 omelets which made for a quarter of our total order. Uhhh, where's the rest? The lady continued to casually cut up vegetables with her baby crying on her hip and a few minutes later another lady arrived on her scooter with a some grocery bags. This should have been an indication of a little delay, but we thought these people knew what they were doing... Of course they did, they ran a restaurant!! However, after an hour and fifteen minutes of waiting, there was still no cooking activity in the kitchen; can you believe that the stove wasn't even turned on? Oh the tummies are grumbling! It was time to step our foot down, but as we started to complain the ladies decided they didn't want to hear it AND THEY KICKED US OUT! Hang on, what just happened? Still keeps me up at nights...

The night life in Xam Neau was intense, so intense that there wasn't a living soul out after 8 pm! We could've started to chase bats as it looked really tempting when the man in Nam Soi did it, but we decided to gather in Clare and Paul's room to play Scrabble instead.

We woke up the next morning with the ambition to see the coolest tourist sites around! There were a total of two. The bigger attraction was the Pathet Lao Caves in a neighbouring town of Vieng Xai. The other was a waterfall on the way to the caves. We decided to rent scooters and see all that we can, it was going to be an exciting day! We even bought some fruit and bread to take on a little picnic.

Off we went to the waterfall... we drove and we drove and we never found it. Turned back and around, still didn't find it. The only thing that came out of it was H&M's scooter starting to fall apart; pieces flew off and were never recovered, oops. Haakon nicely repaired it with whatever we had around, hopefully we would be able to make it back home without getting stuck on the way. Still looking for the waterfall, we finally decided to ditch the scooters and walk up a rocky path that seemed to have potential for leading us to the right place, but we were a little disappointed to find nothing but steep and slippery rocks. Disappointed and dehydrated, we decided it was time for our picnic. Oooh, we had the greatest pineapple ever! And the fact that it was only 30 cents made it even yummier! After our picnic we decided to give up on the waterfall and head for the caves.

What a touristy day! We had a guide walk us around some caves which served as shelters and intricately planned homes to Pathet Lao leaders for 10 years while the United States continuously bombed the region in oppostition to the existance of Northern Vietnamese in Laos. The natural limestone caves had many bedrooms, offices and they each had an emergency room with steel doors and huge oxygen machines in case of a chemical attack.
Our guide told us a sad story of how his father, a farmer, was killed in the fields by American war planes. His father, his friend and all living animals in sight were mercilessly shot to death. He also said that during the time of war, each and every family would be responsible for making their own cave in order to acquire protection from bombs and war planes. We left the caves feeling heavy in our hearts.

We spent another Scrabble night in Xam Neau and headed for Phonsavan the following morning. The bus ride was quite normal. Chickens and pigs were constantly being loaded and unloaded at various little villages along the way, Laotians were unable to stomach the curves and twists of the road and were therefore constantly vomiting off the bus.

We finally arrived in Phonsavan, another small city with about 50,000 people and nothing to do and nothing fun to eat. Great! One thing that was quite unique about Phonsavan was all the war relics that restaurants and hotels had used as decoration. Apparently locals go hunting for bombs. They whip out their family metal detector and search for bombs buried underground. Then they obviously soak these bombs in water for about a week in order to disarm the bombs! Safety first! Some people decide to keep the bombs in order to provide tourists with knowledge about the war, while others choose to sell them as metal scraps for $200!

After a few hopeless trials at finding accomodation, Clare and Mahta were sent on a mission to find somewhere nice... Of course, a huge rain storm started to pour down on us, but don't worry! The boys were dry; Paul and Haakon stayed warm in a cafe drinking refreshing Beer Lao. Drenched from their walk around town, the girls came back with big smiles on their faces; we knew we had scored the best place in town. Cutest little bungalows at $4/night! The boys didn't stand a chance to win the "best accomodation hunters" award!

Phonsavan had nothing to offer us but rain, terrible food and some boredom. However, we managed to book a tour (yay, more touristy stuff!) to the Plain of Jars for the following morning. What are these jars you ask? Well, nobody really knows. The huge 2000-year-old jars have been found in various sites around Phonsavan and are of unknown origin. They are believed to have been used for burial purposes, either as coffins or urns, but no one is entirely sure yet.

After our 2 nights in Phonsavan and a long time since we were on the tourist trail we headed for the much-touristed city of Vang Vieng. This bud ride was also pretty normal, kids were scared of sitting near us, people were still vomiting and there was a strange man on the bus with an AK-47. Hmmm, what have we gotten ourselves into? Luckily, the AK-47 was tucked away throughout the trip and no body died! Wicked!!

The boys were sent off to find accomodation here and they did not come close beating the girls. 1-0 for the girls. YEAH! $3 for a dungeon of a room didn't seem like a winner. And Haakon's sandals were stolen the first night he left them outside the guesthouse. Good old tourist trail, travellers stealing from one another. How is a giant with size 12 feet supposed to find decent sandals in Southeast Asia? Shame on you!

Vang Vieng was our chance to load up on greasy Western food and we loved every second of it! Pizzas, pastas, burgers and fries became our daily diet and rice was long forgotten. This was also our chance to kick back, relax and bum around... We walked around town, had dinner, stuck around to watch a movie. No stress, no hassles. Really refreshing!

Vang Vieng is famous for it's tubing and the following day, we decided to see what the fuss is all about. We rented an inflated inner tube of a tractor tire and left all our valuable in the dry comfort of our room, so we unfortunately have no photos of this day! We spent 7 hours drifting down the Nam Song river, drinking beer and buckets, and swinging like monkeys. There are numerous kick-ass bars set up all along the river and they pull you into their bar with a giant bamboo stick so that you can have the time of your life! Each bar had it's very own swing where you would jump straight back into the river! Some of the swings were really high, about 10 m drop, and swimming back to the bar became more and more challenging as more and more alcohol was consumed. Ahh, wish we had some pictures!

We spent a few nights unwinding in Vang Vieng before heading to an even more touristy town of Luang Prabang. Guess what? The girls scored again! $5 for a beautiful hotel room that we still dream about! 2-0 for the ladies!!!! On a rooooollll. Luang Prabang, surrounded by the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, is a cute little town of 25,000 people and a huge number of temples. We tried spending a day touring around the temples in the scorching heat but quickly realized how tired we were of touristing around. Needless to say, temple-ing came to a sudden stop!

Clare and Mahta had to contain themselves at the night market. So many things, so little space. They decided to browse the first night and return the following night with a clear idea of what they wanted, just to avoid impulse shopping. Everybody knows the consequences of impulse shopping, oooh woe is me.

We also had the opportunity to visit the waterfalls of Tat Kuang Si some 30 KM outside of Luang Prabang. It was a treaherous ride on the back of a tuk tuk and yet we still saw some brave tourists biking up and down the dirt roads on the crappiest bikes ever. Props to them! The waterfall was beautiful and we had the opportunity to swim around and hike up to the top of the falls. Haha, there weren't many people going up there and we were curious why. Of course, we found out why.... there wasn't really much of a view up there and the hike up proved to be how can i put it? difficult..

Luang Prabang, especially our wicked hotel room, treated us nice... and soon we would be leaving Laos.