Althugh I only spent about two weeks or more in Laos, I found it absolutely charming. I entered Laos via a river crossing from the North part of Thailand. I did one of the “bucket list” backpacker epic journeys spending about 16 hours floating on a huge house boat down the Mekong River to reach Luang Prabang. The border crossing was very relaxed and there were no surprises unlike Vietnam. Paid the fees, attached the necessary documents, and was admitted. After being admitted I made my way to the house boat dock. Despite taking the first bus out of Chiang Rai, I still barely made it in time for the house boat. I didn’t have a ton of time to stock up on food. I did grab a sandwich… which the rest of my trip had these delicious sub sandwiches on every corner! Thank you France for the bread influence! Unfortunately my seat on the houseboat wasn’t super comfy and my neighbor had her head phones in the whole day. There was a group of rowdy kiddos at the back but the engine was soo loud back there! I decided to just take the day in and enjoy the sights and sounds of the experience. The river was generally pretty calm but there was one point where I had a lovely splash get all over me, my bag, and my book from going over a rock! it was pretty unpleasant the rest of the time as I was pretty cold since it was raining on and off as well. After a full day on the boat we docked in some random small town famous only for being the stopping point of the house boats. Very touristy, but I stayed in a room over looking the river. It was the first place during my travels to have a mosquito net.. I had totally forgotten how to use it, but I slept well and it was super refreshing to get a long good nights rest. A second day chilling on the boat was lovely, a little less crowded and a bit warmer! The house boats were very interesting though. Seats were mostly made of car seats and the bathrooms and everything else on the boat was very janky! There were defnitely a few times I thought we would hit a rock and sink! There were also some locals on the boat who were going to different places so we would have to stop the boat to go up current, drop them off, then continue on our way. The houseboats were a way for the families who owned them to make a living. They did everything on that boat, you could see their laundry, and cooking utensils in the back.
Luand Prabang was a really charming city. It was surrounded by a river, and everyone was really friendly and English was pretty good. I found a hostel for really cheap, I think the cheapest during my whole trip, a whopping 2 dollars a night. There were definitely reasons for it, but it was a great atmosphere almost like being in someones house with an awesome front yard. I met up with Canadian Andrew who i’ve mentioned in previous posts. We got hotpot.. which to me was like Korean Shabu Shabu.. well I’m not sure if it’s actually Korean but thats what we called it in Korea! It was really good, but I am spoiled and had already had a lot of shabs in Korea soo these people had no idea what they were missing out on. Then we went out. Bars close very early, if I remember correctly it was 12, then we headed to a bowling alley to continue the night! The next morning I met a Brazilian girl who was after the same sort of thing as me.. I wanted to explore around Luang Prabang.. Originally we decided we would rent a motobike and head to the waterfalls, then it worked out that taking a tuk tuk was easier, faster, and probably a bit safer. We went to Tat Kung Si Waterfalls.. I remember seeing pictures from several friends here and was so intrigued. It totally lived up to it’s standards from the pictures. The color of the water is so perfectly teal.. We hiked all the way to the top, and then back down for some lunch and a swim. The water was a bit chilly and there were some little fishies biting our feet but it was still awesome. There was also a rope jump from one of the awesome trees. Unfortunately the girls that we shared a tuk tuk with witnessed a thought to be Chinese man, drown or die somehow. He seemed to be alone and was swimming in the water. I’m not sure of much other details. Only a little bit later everything was completely cleared out they said after they took him away. Some mentioned that the people who were helping to carry him stole all the money from the mans wallet, which is incredibly sad. That definitely put a damper on the day for them. Luckily they decided not to tell Laura, the brazilian girl and I about the situation until after we had already gotten into the tuk tuk to head back home.
The next morning I made the journey to Vang Vieng for some tubing! The drive was long and windy in a tiny crowded van with a man who was a world traveler for many many years and didn’t have enough stories to tell. Another girl had just been fired as a bar manager from NZ. So it was definitely an interesting ride but her and I ended up sharing a room together and hanging out for a few days until I left. Vang Vieng has a reputation for partying but also many people dying while tubing on the river. Because of this the police had cracked down on things the bars can do. Therefore scaring away tons of backpackers and making people believe that they should skip this beautiful place. I definitely disagree but didn’t mind that there weren’t thousands of others around me.
The first day in VV I did a kayaking tour which was a bit disappointing because the hours they told us we would be doing actual things was much much smaller, but went with some french guys staying at the hostel with me. It was incredibly beautiful the views and lots of fun. We went down the same route where the tubers were so we got a little sneak peek of what would go on tomorrow. The restaurants in VV were all the awesome sit on the ground with pillows lounge ish!
My first tubing trip reminded me a lot of tubing down the Salt River in AZ except instead of having a cooler, you got pulled out to the bars. The bars were a lot of fun, with volleyball, BP tables, games, free Laos liquor (usually with a snake, scorpion, or other item inside the bottle). There were only three bars, apparently there used to be 20 or so. The water was pretty chilly but the sunshine def made it okay. Depending on what time you return your tube, is how much of the deposit you get back. A girl told me that everyone is late, seeing that we started at 11am I didn’t believe that we wouldn’t be back by 6… I was wrong. We were also late and missed some of our despoit we had so much fun. I did another tubing trip the next day because Andrew & Franklin arrived. My last day in VV (while waiting for my passport to return with my expensive Vietnamese visa in it) I went on motobike adventures through the rice fields with a new friend from Oregon. I rode on the back and we took these dirt roads to an beautiful waterfall and incredible cave. The water was soo blue and again something to jump off and also a rope swing.
One thing I will never forget in Laos.. is waking up one morning and having to go downstairs to use the shared bathroom at the hostel.. and noticed I hit my head on something. I turn around and there is a huge spider web and massive spider the I just walked into.. It is really early so I do my very best to not start shrieking… and go to the bathroom and realize I have to walk past this thing again! I manage to get underneath it without any problems and snap a picture. I go back to sleep and later on hear a girl shrieking and I knew exactly why. The girl I was rooming with goes downstairs and insists they do something about it.. The owner runs upstairs and grabs the spider with his hand and throws it over the ledge, and grabs a broom to get rid of the web.. We all died in shock!
The next day I packed up and headed on a very very long journey to Vietnam! It was 6 hours to the capitol, Vientienne, then from there another 30 hours to get to Hanoi. You can read all about that bus trip in the Vietnam entry!
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