After Vang Vieng, we headed to Luang Prabang which is apparently the most photogenic city in South East Asia. It should also be in the category of most touristy and most expensive! We arrived pretty late and were in a rush to find a room before it got any darker. We finally found a room at Sok Dee guesthouse which is a very fancy guesthouse, that has rooms for around $50-60USD a night. I guess when the day comes to an end, they still had empty rooms and wanted to get some backpackers in. We got a room for less than $13. It was pretty big, with a nice bathroom. The only unfortunate thing (which they didn’t tell us) was that they were doing minor construction right by our room. Every morning we woke up to the voices of workers and their shovelling. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers in this case.
Luang Prabang is supposed to be where you do all your trekking and exploring of the mountains from, but it’s pretty expensive to book tours. Joey and I decided we were going to wait until Luang Namtha. We met up with our friend Ian again in LP which was nice. We met up with some other travellers to go to Kuasi Waterfall which is about 35 km out of town. It was such a beautiful sight. The water was crystal blue like the blue lagoon in Vang Vieng. We hiked up to the top of the water fall and got a great view of the surrounding mountains and the plummeting water. I’m glad there were fences up there to prevent falls!
Although it was quite pricey to eat in the fancy restaurants in town, the markets are dirt cheap. We walked down the Night Food market alleyway and found a vegetarian buffet for $1.25 for one plate. You get a plate and fill it as much as you can. Oh my god. The food was absolutely amazing. There were perfectly seasoned noodles and rice, coconutty squash, tons of veggies and tasty tofu dish. (I don’t think this would be appealing to you Rej) I ended up eating dinner here all three nights we spent in LP.
Every night in LP there was a night market where hundreds of women came to sell beautiful crafts, fabrics, jewellery and nick nacks of all shapes and sizes. I was so so so to buy a bunch of stuff, but I really don’t want to have to put it in my bag for the next 4 months. I guess we could always send stuff home, but this stuff is nothing we really need. One thing I’ve really liked about Laos so far is that they aren’t pushy. I walked through this market a bunch of times and only heard a couple of “Sa bai dee’s” (Laos for hello) from the sellers. None of them are saying LADY WANT TO BUY? HOW ABOUT YOU BUY SOMETHING?! If a seller says that to me, I pretty much want to run away from their stall. I don’t want to be called lady, and no I don’t want to buy your junk. Laos is new to tourism so a lot of the locals have not caught on, and have yet to become greedy from western money. It felt nice to be at ease and not feel obligated to buy something just because I glanced in that direction.
One thing about Luang Prabang that made it extremely difficult for Joey to work, and to contact our familes, was the fact that they shut down the power from 10am to 6pm every day. We were never told this. Talk about an inconvenience, especially because the ATM’s also shut down. We were stuck with only 40,000 kip ($5usd) and still had to have lunch and dinner. We ended up scrounging up some Chinese Yuan in our backpacks (that NO ONE has ever wanted to exchange for us) and brought it to the exchange place. We were surprised they actually accepted it.
On our last full day in Louang Prabang we wanted to rent bikes. We chose this one place to rent bikes from, and the seats on the bikes were so low that I had to have my knees stick out to the side to ride it. We went back to the shop and asked if they had tools to change the seats to a higher level. She didn’t seem impressed and tossed a bag of mix matched wrenches at us to figure out for ourselves. After we adjusted our seats it was time to the hit the road. I braved the bike for a while, but after a few km, I couldn’t stand the flat tires, the rusty chain and the wobbly wheel. Joey and I went back to the store and got our money back. I felt kinda bad, but if you’re gonna charge a lot of money to rent a bike, it seems reasonable to keep air in the tires and oil on the chain... maybe that’s just me?
That night we decided we must be the perfect tourist and go bowling in LP. We went with our new found friend, Tory who is Canadian/American. In all of Laos there is a curfew, but it varies from town to town. In LP, the bowling alley is open until 3 am, so after the bars close this is where everyone goes. It was fun to bowl for once. I really miss having a bowling alley back in Victoria.
The next day we were on our way to Luang Nam Tha. Instead of taking public transit, we opted to spend a dollar more for a mini bus. I am soooooo glad that we did. The mini bus gets you there 2-3 hours sooner, plus there are less people on the bus and you can stop if you really need to. That was probably one of the most brutal busrides of my life. Both Joey and I were near puking our brains out the entire time. Most of the road is paved, but there are huge patches that have been washed out by mudslides. It was incredibly bumpy and windy through the mountains. Of course I scored the best seat in the bus... not. I don’t know how I manage it, but I always get the back seat. This usually occurs because the tuk tuk supposed to be taking us to the bus, usually forgets or is extremely late. Gotta love living on Laos time. While the guy beside us casually read his book the entire time, Joeys and my face are green the entire 8 hour ride.
The ride just wasn’t enough for us, we also decided it was a good idea to go to the night market and get food poisoning. We have eaten at a lot of food stalls and markets and have never felt sick. In a lot of ways it’s actually safer to eat at a market because you can see them prepare the food for you. You don’t know what the heck they might do to the food or the way they prepare it in the back of a restaurant. Two days later we are still feeling the effects. Nothing that a little electrolytes, probiotics and antibiotics can’t help.
Since we spent most of our day in bed yesterday watching movies from the 80’s on HBO, it was really nice to get out on the river in a kayak. We signed up for a tour with Green Discovery which is an eco tourism company that really helps the villages in the surrounding areas, and also the environment. The pamphlet and office looked really fancy, so we had high expectations. I think that is our downfall when it comes to tours. We went to the office this morning and met up with our guide. I don’t even remember his name because we spoke so few words during our 6 hours together. It would be one thing if there were 6 other people on the tour, but it was only Joey and I signed up for the day.
Getting on the water was amazing. Once we got the hang of the boat and the river, it was really beautiful. Joey and I motored along because we hadn’t exercised in a couple of days and were feeling restless. Our guide was lost in the dust. We finally let him catch up with us a bit later down the river when we stopped at a village to look around. The village was the home of a tribe that are of Chinese descent. I would love to tell you more, but that’s all our guide told us. We continued kayaking down the river until we made it to a hut on the river side. We stopped there for lunch. The tour provided us with food made from local ingredients such as pumpkin and chicken, beef and bean and sticky rice. The villagers provided us with even more local cuisine.... rat stew. Both of us are still not feeling 100% and me being the chicken I am, only dipped my sticky rice into the broth. Joey actually ate some of the rat, and didn’t mind it too much. It definitely wasn’t anything he’d cook for himself or company!
During the meal we were accompanied by a very cute puppy. The people who owned the house kept on tossing scraps to the puppy to devour. Outside there was this old dog looking longingly at the food. Little did we know that he was the lucky one. He was the family dog. The puppy we had been feeding scraps to, was going to be dinner in a few weeks time. They were just trying to fatten him up! Poor puppy!
We headed further down the river to see more villages. These villagers have been living the way they do for hundreds of years. It is like going back a thousand years, minus the plastic, the cellphones and scooters. It is truly amazing to see how little people can live with, but can manage to be so happy. They are hard workers in Lao because they need to survive, but you can tell that they still have fun and enjoy eachother’s company. I think that is really important and what keeps their culture so strong.
By the end of the journey, Joey and I were pooped from all the paddling. We were excited to get back so we could start planning our trip to Thailand... more of that to come.
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