Lovely Laos & the roads in northwest Vietnam
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2009
1
31
42
Trip End
Feb 16, 2010
Sapa, Vietnam
Saturday, November 28, 2009
So after the bus ride from Chiang Mai to the border town of Chiang Khong we crossed the Thai-Laos border by ferry, to the little Laos town of Huay Xai. On the ferry we met Steve and Lindy, an Australian couple from Queensland, who were to become our fellow travellers for the larger part of our trip through Laos. Steve is originally from England, but proved to be a proper Queenslander after killing a cane toad with a big stone during dinner (in fairness, the toad was already half dead and suffering, but still!) (cane toads are a pest in Queensland, so it is a sport over there to kill as many as possible when you see them on the road). Anyway, the Beerlao flowed freely and we discovered that even the most unsightly little towns offer a pretty decent meal in Laos - we were impressed!
The following morning our first real boat trip started as we had signed up for the slow boat to Luang Prabang, which would take 2 days with an overnight stop in the tiny town of Pak Beng. The boat was scheduled to leave at 11am (although the departure time seemed to vary ..) and we were told to be at the office at 9.30am. To do what exactly was not clear, but we were pretty chilled out and did not care. Some people actually showed up at 8am to get the best seats. The most noteworthy of these people were a French family with 3 small kids, who decided they needed 5 benches (with 2 seats per bench). As time went by, it turned out the boat was going to be rather full, but still with people having to sit on the floor the French dad still thought it would be totally unreasonable to have his kids share a bench like everyone else. Anyway, Ivo told him quite clearly at some point what he thought about his French-1-bench-policy and I am quite sure the rest of the boat was in agreement. After all this seating fuss, we finally set off around noon and an hour into the journey the engine of the boat broke down! So we had to wait for a replacement boat at a nice sandy spot in the river where we could swim. It turned out that the new boat was suitable for 80 people and we were with 120 ... Fortunately for us Ivo had a smart, unpolite but highly effective strategy of jumping ships as one of the first passengers - together with a German and a Swiss guy (who did try and put towels over their chairs) and grabbed two of the very few comfy seats on the new boat. How rude.. ;) Anyway, the french woman complained that the boat was now rather full (which was not untrue) and that all the emergency exits were blocked (which was a rather daft remark, as the boat hardly had a roof, so jumping off was the easiest thing at any point in the journey).
The overnight stop in Pak Beng was not very eventful, but the little town had plenty of accommodation to offer for all budgets. The following day we were pleased to find out that the group would be divided over 2 boats and that the French family had decided to take the bus for the rest of the journey. Ivo got us the mot comfi seats possible (see pics) The journey to Luang Prabang was rather comfortable and we managed to see some cool stuff along the way, including elephants at work, fit young men bathing in the river and hardworking fishermen. Also the views were absolutely stunning - check our pics for yourself!
Finally arriving in Luang Prabang, we were in for a nice treat. It turned out to be a lovely little place full of good restaurants and bars and bakeries and sometimes even the ATM was working so we could get cash! So we spent a few days relaxing, checking out some more temples, walking around and meeting up with almost everyone who was on our boat (apart from them 1-benchers).
On Monday we took the boat up North to Nhom Kiaw, a little village described in the Lonely Planet as a delightful little town full of happy locals etc. It was nice enough with plenty of guest houses offering accommodation in comfi bamboo huts and a number of nice restaurants with pretty views of the river. The boat trip was all pretty relaxed, but 40 minutes before arrival, the boat man decided to stop the boat at a little island in the middle of the rover. We thought at first he was making a sanitary stop, but he stripped off, got his soap and towel and took a proper bath in the river! It was hilarious and at first we did not want to take pictures as that would be rude, a couple of French girls (theme here?) were not so scrupulous and used full zoom lens, so we decided to have a go as well - specially for you ...
So Nhom Kiaw was nice enough, but if you are heading up north anyway, please move on quickly to the next village of Ngoi Neua, as this was an absolute delight! It is one of the cutest places we have ever seen, with just magnificent views from our favourite bar and a good choice of well prepared food! We had planned on hiking for a full day to a couple of surrounding villages, but as Ivo has been on flip flops for the last 3 months, he got blisters in his hiking boots from 'here until Tokyo and back' (these were his own words) and they did look pretty bad. (Comments of consolation and support are welcome on our blog.) So after 1.5hrs we turned back, but not before we had already seen some stunning scenery and watched the hard working locals harvesting the rice fields. It was interesting to see that men and women of all ages were doing the same hard work in the fields and some carrying massive bags of rice with their head (going much faster on barefeet than us on our heavy duty hiking shoes and only a bottle of water and a camera to carry).
Steve and Lindy had decided to go fishing with a few locals on the river and came back with plenty of small fish. The local guys told them they would prepare the little fish and invited the group of us for dinner at his guest house. The fish were fried as a whole (bones, heads and all the stuff - not sure about the guts though) and (after checking everyone else had done the same) I took a bite and discovered it was delicious! The guys had also made sure they had a full 1.5 litre bottle of Lao Lao (70% alcohol, its some sort of rice wine) and it was poured and passed around liberally (it is rude to refuse or put the glass one the table, so that continuous drinking is guaranteed). I can only comment that we very badly needed the fried eggs with ketchup in the morning and would have been prepared to kill a pig for some sausages and bacon for added grease if one had been snorting around...! Apparently I was so sozzled that I ... oh no, I can't type this as me mum also reads this .. Doesn't matter, we had a blast and decided no more Lao Lao for us!
After a few days of chilling out it was time to move on to Muang Khua, which is nothing special but we had to spend the night there to catch the bus to Vietnam and we were hopeful to, at some stage, get back into the world of haggling, hustling and bustling and also internet, 24 hour electricity, mobile phone connection to tell our parents we have not yet been eaten by a bear or something and perhaps even a hot shower ... However, all these goodies had to wait a little longer than we had hoped for ...! The following morning we discovered the 7 hour bus ride to Dien Bien Phu (DBP) in Vietnam would take place in a bus where even I could not sit straight as the seats had been placed so close together one could hardly stand between them! Plus the roads in Laos were still unpaved, which made it a little bumpy to say the least. Then there was some glorious tarmac on the Vietnam part of the trip fortunately. Once we arrived in DBP, we were exhausted and hungry (the bus had left at 6.30am and we had not been able to find a brekky at that time and there was obviously no lunch break!) and disappointed to find out that there were only a few rather dodgy hotels in DBP (think: sheets not changed in years, bathroom full of hairs, the walls plastered with little snotties - this was the Lonely Planet recommended option), but we had no choice! Fortunately we had our own sleepingbagliners, so we could at least cover ourselves against any unwanted visitors at night.
DBP itself is just as its hotel scene: depressing, with only 1 place in town for a half decent lunch meal (45mins walk) and no place to drink ourselves into oblivion to not notice the grimey hotel space. We decided to skip dinner altogether and ate some prawn crackers instead, whilst watching the Vietnamese version of Idols on our tv. There is some interest to the place though if you are interested in the history of French colonialism in Vietnam as the decisive battle had been fought here, but we were too irritated and hungry to care.
The next morning the bus left off at 6.30am again to Sapa, which in the end brought the civilisation we had been craving for days (especially me says Ivo, as I am the whimp). But not after spending 10 hours on one of the worst bus rides on our entire trip! Picture this: seating space so small we had to sit with our knees pulled up to our noses, the bus full of locals loadly scraping their throats and then spitting in little plastic bags specially provided (which are then chucked out of the window), some of the locals throwing up in these bags (also thrown out of the window - fortunately!) as they could not stand the winding mountain roads and of course over half of the road not paved so we bounced our heads regulalrly against the roof of the bus! Then on the road we saw a few interesting things. At some point the road was covered with big rocks, so we could not continue. We had to wait for 40 minutes for a bulldozer to come up and move the rocks at easy pace... Of course a little later a tree had fallen over the road, so there was another 30 minute wait for a guy on his scooter to arrive to cut away the trees. Then when we finally finally got to Sapa, the driver drove past our destination without stopping! We realised too late as nothing was clearly indicated and we had told the driver 10 minutes before that Sapa was our stop and we assumed he would then stop and let us out. However, once we yelled he had driven past Sapa, he got angry and wanted to kick us off the bus 5km out of Sapa in the middle of nowhere! Fortunately Ivo got really mad at him and shouted he should turn the bus around and drop us off where he had agreed and he finally gave in .. During the ride we had already been cheated as we had been sold tickets including lunch, but of course we still had to pay for lunch on the spot. When we tried to clarify noooobody could understand any English. So we were so far pretty disappointed and p!ssed off with our Vietnam experience.
Our little hotel in Sapa turned out to be bliss, and Sapa was a joy. Full of nice little places to eat, plenty of hiking opportunities through the beautiful landscape, wifi in our hotel room, English language TV channels, laundry service and oooohhh, a good hot shower! Tonight we will be off to busy Hanoi, so we will be savouring this last day of (relative) quiet!
Cheers!
Ivo & Annemieke
