Luang Prabang, Laos

I woke from my top-tier front bed on the overnight bus to an incredible sight at 5:30am. We were above the clouds and I could see peaks for miles; I reached for the camera but as soon as I'd dug ity out and set it up we'd dived back into the clouds. We reached Luang Prabang at about 6am. I got off the bus and hooked up with Alfonso the Italian; grabbing a tuk-tuk to the town. No dorm's here so we ask around and are recommended a lovely little guest house called Sivilay (80,000 Kip for a twin).

The town is a UNESCO heritage site is wonderfully nested at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. French colonialism is rampant; walking around the quiet old part you feel like you've actually stepped into the past; mentally aided by the old cars that seem that they were placed on purpose. I couldn't help myself but switch the camera to black and white for a few shots.

The town was very quiet when I was there, due to low season; a lot of the restaurants were closed but there's still some great places to eat. One small outside cafe on the Mekong side (I don't think it had a name) seemed popular with the locals, and did an all-you-can-eat cook-it-yourself BBQ where you get a metal dome with a moat around it, over some coals. You cook the meat on the dome and the noodles and vegetables in the moat - most satisfying! You can do this at other restaurants like the Lao Lao garden also, but they're more expensive, and not all-you-can-eat!

Wat Xleng Toung is lovely and peaceful and well worth a visit (I went there twice). It's 20,000 Kip to get in and you can sit and watch the Monks repair or paint the Wat and surrounding buildings. The Laos lonely planet cover was shot in one of the smaller buildings so you have to re-create it!

We decide to do a multi-trip (150,000 Kip) to the Pak Ou caves, the whiskey village and the Kuang Si waterfalls and bear rescue centre. The boat took about an hour to get to the village against the mighty Mekong current; I think we were moving at walking pace max. The tiny village produces a super-cheap cheap super-strong (50%) whiskey called LaoLao and it's packaged in cute little potion bottles; I bought one as a present for my friend Anna who I will be meeting in Thailand. The village also sells fabrics and clothing and dead animals in jars of liquid; of particular note were the baby bears feet. Further back is the village Wat, containing a massive durian tree and some bizarre sculptures of animals with red lips and baseball caps!? Leaving the temple and back on the boat lots of kids came down and entertained us with backflips and fighting.

Fighting the current

LaoLao

Bears feet

Another 20 minutes upstream are the caves. They don't go particularly far underground but they're large and decorated with what must be over 1000 statues of Buddha, from 1cm to 10m tall! The caves are maintained by the villagers over the river and you have to pay extra to get in, on top of the price for the tour which is basically just a water taxi. I'm sure you could source this cheaper, but for convenience it's good.

The journey back took half the time it did to get there, whizzing down the river with the current at an amazing pace. At one point the engine cut out and the driver looked concerned as we continued towards a bank at a great pace with no control; but he managed to get the engine started again and you could hear a collective sigh of relief!

Occasionally flying past us were longtail speedboats which take people to and from the Thai border in seven hours. I considered this as an option but bail out for five reasons:

• 1 - It's twice as expensive as the coach. 
• 2 - You're on a bouncing speedboat for 7 hours. 
• 3 - There's no shelter from the sun. 
• 4 - There's no shelter from the rain (for you or the bags). 
• 5 - The Mekong is an angry river and bubbles and boils with rocks under the surface, and every so often you'd see a massive log floating down! I'm getting sensible with my age :-/

The caves and village took up the morning, then we had just enough time for a baguette and we're picked up to go to the waterfalls. Not what I expected at all; they're quite small waterfalls (you can climb up them) but there's lots of them, and there's lots of pools to swim in at different levels. There's even a rope swing into one of the pools. The water is an emerald green and cold. We spend a couple of hours here before having a quick look at the bear rescue centre on the way out. I don't think I've ever seen a bear do anything but sleep, and here is no exception! They were all lazing about but one was lying on it's back, in a hammock! You can't see from the photo too well but it was quite a sight.

Spot Alfonso Buddha?

Bear in hammock!

The night market is one of the best I've seen since India; selling all sorts of clothes, bags, shoes, souvenirs, antiques, fridge magnets (which gave us an amazing business idea!) and tasty local food. You could easily spend many hours (and Kip) here. In all Luang Prabang is a beautiful place to spend a week relaxing. I met several older couples who've been coming here for years. This is my last stop in Laos and I have an overnight bus booked to the Thai border.

Here's a final picture, of a ridiculously cute cat that owned us for an hour in Lao Lao gardens;

 You can view all of my Luang Prabang photos here

Don Det, Laos

Saying goodbye to beautiful Cambodia we pile into another minibus (which had some strange smoking mushroom graffiti on the windows) and head off to Stung Treng, a nice little border town perched on the Mekong, where we have to wait for the next bus. We have some noodles from a street stall while hanging about for a couple of hours then our minivan turns up. By now there's far more people than seats in the van. Taking up the back two rows are some bags of things heading to Laos; the seats in front of that contain Talitha, another girl and two guys from Denmark; in the front is the driver then me and a Monk sharing the passenger seat. Although not comfortable in any way it was certainly another journey to remember.

We pull up at the tiny border post - there's no-one else at all here, just a few police in small buildings and a few sitting around in the shade. We fill out a quick form and give it, with our passports and two photographs, to the hand in the window. They shuffle the papers about for a while then hand the documents back, gesturing us to the next hand in a window. The visa costs $35 for 30 days. There should be no other charges but they decide they're going to charge us $2 to stamp the visa! Not wanting to pay this unofficial fee out of pure principle I tell them that I only had enough for the $35 entry, so they tell me I should go back into Cambodia! What can you do?? I root about in my pocket, produce $1 in change, put it on the counter in front of the hand and tell him that is all I have. He takes the change and stamps my passport. I head over the border and into the waiting minibus with a ridiculously BLUE roof.

Our Cambodia minibus - Monk having a quick smoke

The Cambodia / Laos border

The customs windows 

Access granted

The BLUE roof of our Laos minibus

On the road again we get settled... for 10 minutes then we stop in a little town. The driver ushers us out to walk but doesn't really explain where we're walking to. The road in the town is under repair, and is non-existent, so we assume we're walking to another minibus at the other side. We dodge the building materials and the residents dodging the building materials, walk a little further and there it is, the Mekong, flowing lazily around 4000 little islands, one of which is Don Det.

Our little long tail boat nips through the islands and lands on a sandy shore framed with quiet restaurants. We jump out and have a quick drink in one of the restaurants, admiring the beautiful Mekong. I'm approached by a tiny kitty when leaving the restaurant, possibly the smallest cat (that's not a kitten) I've ever seen. I name him Oscar and promise to see him later with some food (I never found him again). There's no roads on Don Det, just dusty paths between shops and bungalows down each side of the river bank. You can walk from the eatst to the west side of the island in under five minutes. We look for accommodation on the sunrise side, but find nothing. We find the kind of place we're looking for on the sunset side; two little bungalows right on the river in a resort called Tena, for 30,000 a night. Extremely basic, literally a bed in a hut, mosquito net, a fan and a hammock on the balcony; toilets are in a separate block. Talitha only stays one night and moves to a nicer place, preferring to have a toilet in the room. I'm a tramp, and will sleep anywhere (as long as there's a mosquito net). We dump the bags, have a shower and relax in the melting sunshine. That night we meet a Canadian guy, who's wearing a t-shirt with a logo that later becomes a big part of my life (keep reading for more on this ;) - he's travelling with a half-Vietnamese girl who puts to rest the little mystery of the little question-marks on some Vietnamese characters. We laze about drinking with them for ages. Later we come across a little cinema where you slob out on the floor with a beer and "happy" chocolate brownie; we watch Pineapple Express; which was extremely entertaining! (because of the brownie?). You can get anything "happy" here: shakes, cookies, brownies, pizza - you name it. It just means it's had a liberal sprinkling of cannabis when made. Take it slowly though they're pretty strong; half a brownie each was more than enough!

Everyone out the minibus! walk this way.. 

Arrival at Don Det

Laos Laos (Whiskey) and coke and some mint and lemon drink

I'm going to take you home

This is where is spent most of my time in Don Det

Laos sunsets are spectacular

  The next few days for me are spent reading, writing and relaxing; literally doing nothing. Don Det had a strange effect on me: I'm not sure I've ever been that lazy in my life! Talitha was, on the other hand, in party mode, so she darted off here and there! One day we hired some bikes and cycled to the waterfall on the next island down, paying a small charge on the bridge to cross. The waterfall's not like any I'd seen on the trip so far, it was a powerful Mekong monster crashing over sharp rocks. You can't get particularly near it for the "DANGER" signs! Truly awesome; and this is in the dry season; it must be scary in the wet season. After this we ride over and check out a viewing spot for the rare Mekong dolphins. We didn't see any, despite the many suggestive, badly photo-shopped pictures of tourists frollocking with them, so we head back to Don Det.

That evening we tried a little tubing, with one tube. We tried on the west side of the island, attempting to swim upstream with little progress; constantly aware of the raging waterfall 5km down the river! We leave the water and walk up the north side, hoping we can get into the current at the top point; and float with the current down the west side, to our bungalows. This also failed as the fast current splits on the north west side pushing us east around the side of the island with no places to exit the river. Still, it was great fun splashing about for a while, and at least I can say I did a little tubing in Laos! 

Our last few days together before we part company

The beach a little further down from the waterfall

FROLLOCK WITH THE DOLPHINS LIKE THIS!

Deforestation

 

Totally tubular

Here's the sunset from our final night - no words can describe it, and these pictures certainly don't do it justice.

Ban Lung, Cambodia

We try and wake Emily up to say goodbye, as she's heading back to the UK, but it's impossible so we just leave. We're picked up by bus #1 at 5:30am (without checking our tickets) and we're taken to a hub where the main bus would leave from, where they decided to check our tickets. Wrong bus! We're quickly whisked back on bus #2 to where we started just in time for the correct bus to collect us. Quite a relief! We get on bus #3 (making sure they check our tickets) and we're taken out of town to a dirt patch, where we switch to bus #4. This has all the usual features you could want while bus travelling through Asia including Arctic aircon and deafening Thai karaoke DVD's. The countryside up here in Northern Cambodia is barren; scorched trees and burning land make way for huge rubber tree plantations for the Chinese, who help by building roads up and through Laos to China. This journey should take us 12 hours in total at a cost of $16 and at 3pm we're already nine hours in and we stop at a town called Kratie. A standard town with a simple bus station, beautiful temple, and some street vendors and cafe's - I like it. We're told bus #5 isn't going to leave until there's enough people to fill it so we head out and grab some delicious pork and rice from a little family home/shop around the corner.

Bus #5 - with driver waiting patiently for people (bus #4 behind)

Once done we head back to see the situation; some more people have gathered but still not enough to go so we wait. There's a family waiting also, and their 3 year old driving his toy truck around in the dirt. The wheel falls off and Talitha pops it back on for him. We have a drink, pet the local wildlife and chat to a local who told us he's contracted malaria in Ban Lung and wouldn't go back there.Well, he's still alive, so that's good!

I  think around 6pm we finally get enough people crammed into the back and cabin of the bus and we set off with the setting sun. Inside at the front is a motorbike (of course) and strapped to the back is another motorbike. To exit the bus for toilet you must use the back windows. I'm right at the back-left corner, pressed up against the seat in front; luckily I have a window and I can put my head out in my usual dog-like fashion. Poor Talitha is crammed next to me so I have her bag on my lap. Next to her is a stocky English chap we met on the way; equally as crammed. I truly love these journeys; they're far more memorable than an easy journey on a comfortable coach; I find myself smiling at the sheer ridiculousness as the bus bumps its way along the unlit road through Northern Cambodia. I had a great moment with my head out of the window, trees dashing past, wind massaging my hair follicles, looking up at the brilliant stars and listening to Rano Pano by Mogwai - everything was perfect.

Everything was perfect, until we arrived at Ban Lung and the bus driver (after dropping everyone else where they wanted to go) decided to take us to his friends hotel. Bearing in mind it was now midnight and we'd been travelling for 17 hours we firmly said thanks but we're good, and we'd like to go to the place we'd booked. He refused to take us, so having no idea where we are we refused to leave the bus until we were there. Reluctantly the driver eventually dropped us off and we unloaded the bags and woke the lodge owner up. We'd booked a room for two but had now adopted Josh. Luck would have it they had a triple cabin (double and single bed) for $15 where we crashed out, big style.

Treetop eco lodge - triple room

Ban Lung is a busy working town with a friendly feel, the occasional tourist can be seen wondering about. It's pierced by an unusually wide main road and surrounded by lush green forests. The eco lodge is perched on a hillside above a valley amongst the trees. The walkways to the cabins weave through the forest. Taking breakfast on the open wooden balcony is lovely. The owners, their kids and their pets all hang out there with you. The dogs are particularly cute.

The mother - Ludu

Walkways

Communal area

We meet an Australian girl and grab some bicycles to head to a volcano lake for a swim. It's a quick jaunt up the main road to get there then off a side road, down some steep hills then up, up, up! Working up a little sweat on this 7km ride feels great - it's been a while since I've done much cycling. We arrive at the lake much to the happiness of some local kids who hug our legs and laugh hysterically! The lake is a perfectly circular 3km surrounded by thick shrub and forest. There is a path all the way around with main bathing points, all containing happy locals having picnics. We find a spot a little further around with some fallen trees we can jump off into the clear warm waters. I've not been fresh water swimming for a while; you dramatically notice the extra work required to stay float when not in salt water! 

Josh in a tree 

That evening we get a now typical Cambodian thunderstorm followed by a beautiful sunset, we sit about in the communal area and catch up with emails, chat and be entertained by the children and animals. Earlier that day we'd seen the family eating a delicious looking feast and we asked if we could have this for dinner, over anything on the menu. They agreed and went to the market to get the ingredients. It was huge plate of vegetables and edible flowers, with some smaller dishes of spicy fish and cooked vegetables with rice. Very delicious and filling.

Next day Josh has left for Laos leaving the three of us. We ask the Australian girl if she want to move to the single bed in our triple room, but she declines, needing her own space, so we move to another double room, nowhere near as nice in a series of rooms but still good for $5 each. Later we're back on the bikes again, this time searching for waterfalls. We have a basic map, which looks good, but turns out to be quite misleading, missing junctions and it completely not to scale! We have fun exploring though and get lost in some dusty friendly villages; everyone would say hello to you! Eventually we find the right track to a particular waterfall; we cycle past cleared land ready for rubber tree planting and down through more dusty villages before the heavens open and we take shelter in a tiny shop in the middle of somewhere. We have a quick peanut snack and drink then say bye to the shopkeeper and head down to the waterfall when the rains stop.

Little Hoochie, little Hoochie, on the dusty road... 

Land clearing 

Quick e mart

  The Cha Ong waterfall is big and rocky! You can't swim in the base but you can stand under it like a power-shower, although it feels like it's removing a layer of skin. There's also a huge overhang behind the waterfall, it's not often you get to see waterfalls from this angle. It's slippery to walk about on the mud and rocks. As far as waterfalls go it's a beauty! We sit at the bottom for 20 minutes gathering up some scattered sunshine then slip our way back up for a quick photo in some (we're told) matrimonial huts then it's back to the bikes for the journey home. On the way I ask some local kids, who ran over, if it's OK to take a picture; they all said yes, but one didn't seem too happy when I started snapping.

Matrimonial huts - roles reversed  

Not happy!

Relaxing beer after a hard day 

Our last stunning Cambodian sunset