The Long Lao post!
Trip Start
Apr 05, 2006
1
21
31
Trip End
May 26, 2006
Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
And excuse my typo's, I think someone spilled some coke in this keyboard.
Upon arriving in Bangkok, we tried to check back in to our beloved guesthouse, Lamphu, but it was full. We ended up on the other side of Koh San Road (the main westerners travel hub street), in a place our swiss friend Sebastian had used (we met him on the bus to Cambodia and traveled with him for a week, you'll hear more about him from Shein). We threw our stuff down, took a nap, and headed out for the night. We of course bumped in to our Canadian friends we met the first night in Thailand, Britney and Britney and one of their brothers who had joined them, Drew, and we all went out and caught up. All of the traveling and no sleeping caught up with me with avengence, and forcing down breakfast the next morning, I crashed in bed and didn't wake up all day and night. I didn't go out that night to say goodbye to Seb before he flew home to Switzerland. We missed our planned exit that night to Chiang Mai because it filled up before we paid for our ticket. The next morning we again discussed how to get to Chiang Mai, either bus, train or plane, but they all filled up as well as we decided to finally book them. We were frustered, and made a spot decision to go to Chiang Mai via a round-about route.... Through the country of Lao. (If you look at a map) You can take a bus in through Thailand more eastward of Chiang Mai toward the Laotian capitol of Viennetienne, then loop through the major cities of Lao, Vang Vienne, Luang Prabang, and pop out in Chiang Mai. We excercised the Thai-buddhist principle of "Jai Yan," "let it flow, have a cool heart" and took the hint from the Gods, and booked a ticket to Lao. About 20 minutes before we left, the 2 British Kates we met in Cambodia (again, more from Shein), walked in to the guesthouse we reccommended to us. Asia is incredibly small sometimes! We argued for 20 minutes about changing plans to hang out w/ one another, as they tried to convince us to change our tickets, wait a night and go to Chiang Mai, and we tried to convince them to head instead to Lao first. Nothing was decided as we jumped on the bus, but it was great to see them. We could get our Visas at the border, and figure out what exactly there was to do and see in Lao on the way there frmo our guide books.
We reached the capitol city of Vientienne by bus after a 12 hour journey, including a stop at the border for immigration. A quick survey of the town left us with the impression that there wasn't much to see or do. Being the capitolof the communist country, rules were strickly enforced, including a nationwide 10pm curfue. We were advised by fellow travelers that Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang wer the best cities to see. We took their advice and hopped a bus to Vang Vieng after 2 hours in the Capitol.
If we had no clue what to expect of Lao, the bus ride to Vang Vieng gave us a pretty good idea. Our bus pulled through tiny little villages set beneath rolling mountains in every direction. Farm land and rice paddies covered much of the landscape, including up steep mountainsides. The occasional limestone cliff would interrupt the skyline, placed at seemingly random across the country side. Our guidebooks short descriptions of Vang Vieng calls it an "adventurers paradise." World class kayaking, rafting, treking and rock climbing could all be arranged within range of the small town. If you're looking for a change of pace, one can spend the day in a tube gently floating down the Nam Som river. Arriving in Vanbg Vieng after 18 hours of travel, we were tuckered out. I split a room with a Swiss guy we met on the bus- "Mike" and Shein grabbed a single instead of sharing a big bed with me (we couldn't find triple beds). We unpacked only long enough to grab our swimsuits, cameras and set off for the river. You rent an innertube and a dry bag, and a tuk tuk ferries you up the river for about 30,000 Kip (the money is basically worthless in Lao. 10,000 kip = $1 USD. We took cash from an ATM in Vientienne- the only ATM in the country- and all had wads of cash like gangsters in a drug movie. Incidentally, a ploive officer with an AK47 watched me withdraw my stack of cash taller than it was wide.) We got the lowdown from another guy on the way to the tubing push-in point. For every 5 minutes of floating, you actually spend 15 minutes stationed at one of the riverside "bars", really just bamboo platforms on the shore barely sturdy enough to hold a group of westerners, the operator and a cooler full of Beer Lao (the only beer made in the country is excellent and cheap; the communists got something right). Oh yea, and each of the nearly dozen litle platform bars on the river comes equipped with a rope swing, zip line, or other vertigo inducing device. Our relaxing day on the river turned in to a wild display of courage, acrobatics, and general stupidity. 40 feet above the river, standing on a bamboo platform supported by little other than a tree branch and a rope, you grab the handle and decide how you are going to impress the crowd with a death defying stunt. Backwards? One handed? Hanging updsidedown? Do a flip on the release? We did it all, and have the bellyflop bruises to show for it. We ran in to a guy at one of the stops that we had seen a couple times before that looked EXACTLY like one of our best mutual friends from home (Justin Trauben). It was scary how alike they looked, they even act similar, minus this guy's british accent. Well, his name was Dan, and he was traveling with his best mate, Dan. No joke- 4 Dans! We spent the rest of the afternoon with the Dans, which basically means we shouldn't be alive right now to tell of it. At one point, they convinced me to jump off the top of the highest tower in to the river below w/o any swinging device at all. Next, they rallied a large group of guys to pull back and spring load another swing that Shein and I both jumped on, and sent the two of us catapolting in to the river. All in all, it was a very relaxing day, obviously. That night, we received emails that the 2 Kates had decided to join us, as well as a 3rd girl we met in Cambodia, Vicky (an American, but Vietnamese roots). We met up with them and they all got rooms in our guest house. Now Shein and I were trailing a group of 4; Kate, Kate, Vicky and Mike. We HAD to take them all tubing and show them the "ropes." The girls were all very tough and didn't shy away from the swings. Vicky did one of the first rope swings with our incessive "encouragement." We didn't really believe her when she said she couldn't swin, and Shein actually had to rescue her from drowning in the river. Hah! It got dark while we were on the river and we watched an incredbile storm rage over the mountains as we lollygagged back toward the city.
We all feasted over dinner, and planned a more active day for tomorrow. The Kates bailed on us, and opted for a relaxing day of massages and lounging around. I had a chat with the owner of the guide company we used. He had offices in Vientienne, Vang Vieng, and Luang Prabang. He spent 5 years in teh states as a backpacking and vier rafting guide in Colorado. Very cool guy- Mr. Toh. We booked a guide with him that morning for the afternoon. Our guide's name was Lay, a 27 year old Lao guy who was a former body builder. He showed us his muscles on the way to the cave. The first cave, elephant cave, was a smallish cave with a big shrine inside to Buddha. Vicky put her foot on one of the Shrines and the guide nearly had a heart attack and had to stop and say a prayer for forgiveness. One of the features in the vace was a stalagmite that looked strikingly like an elephant complete with tusks. The cave was about 10x20x20 meters, and we weren't incredibly impressed, but it was interesting. We had 3 more caves on our tour to see. I figured it would be more of the same, and we'd be home early for dinner. We reached the second cave and stoped at a local village to pick up headlamps. The headlamps were a giant battery with an exposed wire leading up to a small bulb you could attach to your forehead using the elastic. Very high tech. The wire got pulled out every 10 minutes, or the bulb would burn out. Anyway, we wandered in to the next cave and started feeling our way along in the dark. We keep going and going and going through the tunnels of the cave, following Lay. Our meager bulbs, if covered, revealed the utter and absolute darkness of the cave. The inside of the cave was generally about 10 feet high and maybe 20 feet wide. Every so often it would open up to a large cavern, or close down so tight we had to crawl one by one on our bellies through the muck. Crawling through a tiny litle passage like that is a particularly unnerving experience, but the 5 of us pressed onward. We encountered 1 other group the whole time in the cave, and hid along the wall covering our lamps to scare them. Jumping out and roaring, they yelled over their backs "Having fun, are we lads?!" as we giggled away in the opposite direction. We walked for almost an hour in one direction through the cave before turning back. Even the locals could not say exactly how long the cave was, but it was obviously VERY deep, at least a couple miles. Quite amazing to explore. The next cave was much smaller, but had incredible stalagmite and stalagtite formations. At the end of the cave, there was an enourmous ampitheathre type room that we bounced around in for a while. We were all a bit caved out, but the final cave had a new twist for us. This cave held a long underground river. We were provided innertubes from a local stationed at the mouth, threw our cameras in a dry bag, and set off in a human chain in to the waterry darkness. Shein nearly caused the whole chain to flip when he thought a bat was flying directly at him for the kill. The chilly water was a nice treat after a long day of sweating through the other caves. We had such a good experience caving with Ley, we made a spot decision and booked the same company again for a 2 day trek leaving in the morning. The owner of "Green Discovery", Mr. Toh, totally sold us on the trip. They only mapped it out a few weeks earlier, and had taken only 1 other group on it. No other tourists had ever seen the area we were going to. We were pumped.
We made it back to our guesthouse and met up with the group just as it began to rain. Here I must interject an editorial comment and break the flow of my narration. I've heard the word "Monsoon" before and thought "ok, so that's like Asian for storm, right?" Wrong. We watched the storm approach from the 3rd floor of our 4 story guest house (the only one in town that tall). It began as a drizzle of rain drops the size of walnuts, and rapidly turned to an all our downpour. I've seen some serious storms in my life, but nothing compared to this. Picture the ocean.... upsidedown. Kind of like that. In S.E. Asia, most places aren't built close in but open so the wind can flow through the complex and down hallways. Everything is open to the elements. We were standing in the hallway and there was a WALL opf water coming down in front of us. The steady roll of lighting and thunder left the skies bright and the walls shaking. And then the wind picked up... To say it was raining horizontally woul dbe innacurrate. It was in fact raining UP. As in the ceiling was getting wet. We felt like those silly weather reporters reporting live from the eye of a hurricane, standing diagonally against the wind, struggling to maintain balance. The tile was flooded with a couple inches of water on the hallway and became very slippery. You couldn't stand in one place without holding on to something or the wind would slide you down the hallway. The wind may have been around 100mph. And then it began to hail- and it was still probably 90 degrees outside! Chucks of ice came rolling like dice down the hallway at high speeds, stinging your feet and legs. The rain was so intense that water was pouring like a river down the hallway and stairs. The guesthouse workers were madly scrambling about with towels and brooms trying to control the river. I grabbed one, pointed outside and yelled over the roar of the storm "monsoon?!" "Yes!" "Big or small monsoon?! (and I motioned with my hands)" "Not big" he yelled back at me. If this was a "not big" one, I can't imagine a large one.
Mike and the 2 Takes were moving on to Luang Prabang in the morning, so when the storm settled after about an hour, the 6 of us all went out for dinner for the last time as a full group.
The next morning as we prepared for our trek, Mr. Toh showed up at our guesthouse with some bad news. He informed me that he had canceld the trek because the previous nights monsoon would make the already difficult trail even more treacherous. He didn't want us to take the risk. He refunded our money and apologized profusely. The three of us were upset, and decided right then to purchase tickets on the mornings bus to Luang Prabang. We sulked over breakfast about what could have been. An idea suddenly swept over the group... We ran back to Mr. Toh's office and sat him back down. "We understand the danger, but we want to do the trek anyway." With a bit of convincing, we sold him on the idea and he scrambled to make all the arrangements for us last minute. We would be leaving in 45 minutes. Yes!
We again switched our bus ticket, said a rapid goodbye to the other 3, and set off. It was an hour ride by tractor to our starting point. Our first cool story was us having to jump out of the tractor out of waist deep water to push the tractor when we got stuck in the middle of a river crossing. Vicky, Shein and I were accompanied by 3 guides; Ley, our guide from caving, Phan, who spoke better english and was a very cool, very knowledgeable guy, and Low, a Lao local they hired to come along who spoke no english but was the most comfortable with the land. Low was only 18 years old and was an absolute riot to trek with. He was all smiles and expressions, you would turn your head for 10 seconds and he would be halfway up a rock wall that took the rest of us 10 minutes to tackle with help. He would just bounce of the most difficult terrain, singing Lao songs the whole way. Speaking of difficult terrain, we spent most of the first day hiking up a river bed. The river would run during rainy season, but was dry and rocky during the dry season. We were just on the front of the rainy season, and it was now steep, rocky, slippery and occasionally small pools would form that we had to wade through. The river was flanked by dense jungle on both sides. Often the trail would be blocked by fallen trees, massive boulders, or steep rock walls. We spent much of the day helping each other scale the various obstances so we could continue onward. The rain slicked the rocks and often made hiking extremely challenging and generally downright dangerous. Each of us took a couple spills, slips and tumbles, including the guides (except Low). The river shoes Shein and I purchased were inadequate for the demands of the rocky sections, but were perfect for the wet sections, where the guides would sometimes walk barefoot through the rocky pools. Small blisters encouraged me to go barefoot for a few hours, and I still have the cuts and bruises on my feet to prove it, but it felt cool bounding through the jungle barefoot, so I didn't mind.
When we eventually sat down for lunch, our leaders produced a large bag of fresh vegetables, fruit and raw meat. Within minutes they had skewered a beatiful set of kabobs over a small fire. We dined like kings. The sun was hotter than you can imagine, and the humid mountain air had us all sweating like pigs. We dried out our sopping clothes in the sun and pushed onward after a short rest. After lunch, we came to the foot of a large cave that the river would cut thyrough during the wet season, when the tunnel would be impassible. The rain had left the cave dripping wet, with moderate size pools of murky water hidden in the darkness, some maybe a couple meters deep. We did our best not to fall in, and were able to navigate through with the use of our trusty headlamps (the LED bulbs were nicer than the previous day's lamps). The dank smell and grimy, sticky walls and floors of the cave we assumed to be dirt, mud and mold. Shein fell in to a pool of water up to his waist, and halfway through I lost footing and fell flat on my back. Emerging from the other side, we discovered that we were not in fact muddy, but rather covered in Guano. I had bat shit covering my whole body. Noticing the landscpae on the otherside of the cave, I qauickly forgot about my olefactory condition, however. We had emerged nestled in to a massive hollow of the mountain. Limestone wall towered 100 feet over our heads, with dense vegatation covering the wall and dangling over our heads and to 3 sides. The track of the river bed led the only way up and out of the hollow, through dense vegetation. A gentle mist settled in around the hollow, and light beamed in through the trees and leaves in sharp lines through the mist, adding to the peaceful ambiance. The long, stark fissure of the cave opening ran up the wall behind, while cliffs framed the cave on both sides. It is a difficult scene to describe, and the 360 degree view is even more difficult to capture with a lens (I tried some video, that might help). Basically, we had discovered the most pristine, perfectly peaceful settings imaginable. It was utterly gorgeous. Shein and I were absolutly sure an ancient, lost temple lay just out of sight behind the vines, but to find it surely meant getting nabbed by poison darts and squashed by massive rolling boulders. We took a few minutes to wash ourselves in a pool, and pushed on with good pace throughout the late afternoon, moving ever upward through the mountains. We didn't see anohter soul all day long. We reached our campsite just before dusk at the base of 2 intersecting riverbeds. 100 meters away, a 3rd stream bubbled quietly through the woods, and formed pools just large enough to lay down in and bathe in the frigid mountain water. We took turns washing off the days filth; a toxic blend of mosquito spray, sweat, bat poop, dirt and smushed bugs. We put up 3 small two-man tents and began working on a fire just as the rain began. Low sprang in to action, racing off in to the jungle with a machette. In 2 minutes flat he had returned with an armful of supplies, and another 5 minutes he had thrown up a canopy of bamboo, with a banana leave roof (a single banana leaf can be as tall and as wide as a person, and are quite useful for a variety of chores if you brush off all of the ants, including as plates, wrappings, roofing, and a host of other things). Freshly cut vine rope held the structure together. The structure was tall and wide enough for the 6 of us to stand up straight under, and sturdy enough to stand up against hte strong winds to keep us and (more importantly) the fire dry. We had instant coffee, bread with tuna and cheese, and noodle soup for dinner. After dinner, Phan brandished 2 bottles of Lao whiskey he had hidden in our packs, and tought us how to drink Lao style. One person mans the bottle and pours a shot for every other member of the group, one at a time. Each time you drink, everyone yells "Sok Dee!" When you have poured one shot for each person, you take one yourself and pass the bottle to the next person. You repeat this process until all the whiskey is gone. We washed our dinner down in this fashion with the Whiskey- which tastes like a blend of gasoline and battery acid- and then went to sleep early. I shared a tent with Phan and taought him how to sing "Hail to the victors" until we all fell asleep. And by "fall asleep," I should more accurately say "spent the next 8 hours trying to get comfortable sleeping on rocks. I found a nice big one to cuddle with, and fell asleep. I woke up a daybreak and actually wrote this entry while the guides prepared breakfast. The enourmous pineapple and watermelon we dined on for breakfast was extra sweet because I had lugged them up a mountain myself. We broke down the tents and set off early toward the peak of the mountain. After another hour trekking along the riverbed, we took a turn and headed directly up the mountainside toward the peak. We were to hack a path through the jungle vertically up the mountain. We spent the next few hours climbing with our feet and hands in the mud up through the jungle, following the path machetted by Lay in front. The rain had softened the soil, and for each 2 feet upwards, you slid 1 foot backwards. It was slow, dificult climbing, but we had the feeling it was going to be worth it.
Arriving at the top, we had to turn down the other side for a few minutes before we found a clearing in the trees. The view was stunning. We were standing on the rim of a large valley, framed by steep mountains on all sides. Directly in front of us, two mountains met at groundlevel and formed an enourmous, perfectly symmetric V. In the point of the V was a small village, maybe 5 huts total, owned by a single farmer and his family called Mr. Cowboy. The mountain side was carved up in to impossible seteep rice fields. Tinmy bamboo stands peppered the mountainscape for farmers to nap under and get out of the scorching afternoon sun. I have long since run out of superlatives to describe all that I have seen, but the view was breathtaking. Our goal would be to reach the village miles in the disance by afternoon. We descended quickly dwon a trail alternating between jungle path, rice field and naturally growing bamboo forest. At one point, we ran in to a local hunter in the woods who had stopped to rest. He spoke no english and carried a rifle one might have used in the civil war. He would stuff the gunpowder and round bullet in the top with a ramrod, and fire with a flint trigger. We eventually all stopped for lunch in one of the bamboo huts and devoured our remaining food.
We pounded our knees and backs for hours down to the bottom of the mountain, enjoying the scenery all the while. We rested in the village at the bottom under the late afternoon sun and cooled off in some water from a nearbye stream. The last leg of our trek would be all flat as we meandered through dry rice paddies back toward a main road to get back to the city. On the way back, we stopped at 1 more cave. The cave was the most cavernous we had been in, and it only took 20 minutes to hike easily through. There were thousands of enourmous butterflies fluttering about the entrance to the cave, which was very cool, but we were all a bit "caved out" from our previous couple of days' exlporations.
Another hour of hiking deposited us at our final obstacle. In a [another] scene taken right from Indiana Jones, a long bridge spanned 100 meters long over a river and between two steep rock walls. The bridge was 3 bamboo rods tick, maybe 1.5 feet wide. There were metal guide wires on both sides to hold on to, but the bridge was extremely shaky and did little to inspire confidence in the sturdiness of its construction. 100 meters below, bloodthirsty crocodiles snapped and thrashed, waiting for one false step to send them their next meal. OK, it was only 20 meters high and there weren't crocodiles, but little Lao children swimming in the river, but it was scary nonetheless. We managed to all cross safely, and our tuk tuk awaited us on the other side to take us home. Back in Vang Vieng proper, we took quick showers, changed our clothes, and made a B-Line to a local Lao massage parlor. A one hour Lao massage ran $3.50 a person. Our soar muscles were treated to a smearing of tiger balm (Icy hot on steroids) and deep tissue massage. Lao massage is all about forcefull pulling, kneading, yanking, and popping your bones and muscles in to proper alignment for relaxation. The high point of the massage for me was the masseuse anchoring his foot on my hip, stretching out the length of my leg while massaging the muscles in my feet and legs with his elbow. The low point is when he flipped me on to my stomach, stood on my legs and tried to make my head touch my legs by snapping my spine in half. The whole thing felt amazing, but we were undecided as to whether it left us more or less soar. That night, we took our guides out for Beer Lao at a local restaurant and had an awesome time teaching each other drinking games.
Long story short, we had maybe the 2 best days of our trip. The trek was incredibly challenging and rewarding for all of us. We left Vang Vieng the next morning on a bus toward Luang Prabang.
*I'm taking a break and will post the rest of my handwritten entry, picking up in Luang Prabang, tonight or tomorrow. The internet is good here, so expect pictures soon as well. Hope you're enjoying all the writing. Enjoy!
