Scary buses

The Laos driving techniques are slightly risky to say the least. They thnk nothing about piling stuff on the roof which more than doubles the total height, including things like motorbikes, chickens, pigs, rice,etc. And then they do the same thing inside the bus till its practically bursting. Then they do things like overtaking on blind curves or hills on mountain roads with cliffs down the side. Half the roads are hardly built, and dirt tracks and you are kind of sliding off the edge as you career around the corners. If you can handle the fear it can be quite entertaining and everyone seems very cheery and no-one ever complains! Plus they don't actually drive that fast (most of the time-they seem to speed up for 20 min and go nuts for some unknown reason, then go back to snails pace), and everyone is very accommodating and stops to let you past and stuff!

The one to Luang Prabang was bad- hairpins bends, on mountain road the whole way, plus all the above. Stunning scenery though! Unfortunately that seems to be directly propotional to the scariness, we've found... Anyway, we arrived happily in one piece!

Luang Prabang's a lovely town- the ancient capital, with loads of wats, set on the Mekong. There's lots of nice old streets and its very atmostpheric to just wander round and relax (and recover from your journey i imagine!). They had a great market there with loads of beautiful handicrafts- amazing duvet covers! and silk scarves and lots of other lovely things...

There's lots of expensive hotels but right now we can't afford $100 a night! So we ended up in some right of weird bamboo house where i don;t think they'd ever cleaned the bathroom, the cockerals started crowing at 1am and the kids woke up around 5 and insisted on screaming right outside the window...Still, it was cheap and right on the river, so we survived!! Another really cool thing we found there was called "Le Cinema" - you could hire out DVDs from an amazing collection, with loads of good comedy and non-blockbuster films, and go into one of the little rooms filled with cushions and blankets and comfy things, then sit all night and pretend you were in you're own living room and you had an amazing DVD collection...! We hired out Father Ted, AliG, and Pheonix Nights! It isn't very cultural but there isn't THAT much to do at night there! And actually, I think the very next night we went back and watched 'Paris, Texas'...oh dear-its sad isn;t it?!

We also took a boat trip along the river to the waterfall.It was a lovely day- beautiful scenery along the river, and the waterfall was gorgeous, with a series of blue pools at the bottom where you could swim and sit under the waterfalls. They also had a baby tiger there, rescues after its parents were poached, and amazingly for once in Asia, it had a big enclosure and looked very happy. OK time to go again-we're back in Thailand now by the way!

Vang Vieng

Another lovely place- a dusty town on the river, surrounded by mountains and cliffs. So picturesque.To get to our guesthouse you had to cross one of several little bamboo footbridges. Our little hut was lovely, set in a beautiful garden, with loads of flowers and butterflies, beside a little stream with views of the mountains. We liked it very much!!

The town itself has got pretty touristy (by laos standards!) and was quite funny in that all the bars seemed to be showing various episodes of 'friends' at any moment throughout the day.One advantage of that tjo, was that we managed to get a lovely roast dinner!! yeayayay! Down by the river tho, there were a cluster of cute little bamboo bars with separate 'rooms' on stilts onto the river. You could sit there watching the kids palying around, and the sun go down over the mountains, then the swallows coming out and swooping over the water-just sooo nice!

Did some lovely cycling around the area too- one day we did 26 k ( !!!!) and visited some of the caves. One of these was filled with water and you floated in on a rubber tube along a line with torches-quite scary but fun!

The main attraction in Vang Vieng is the tubing- driftng down the river on these big rubber tubes, stopping off along the way at bamboo bars which are scattered the whole way along, playing music and zip wires into the water- too much fun. The day we did it we did it we were enjoying it so much that we'd only managed to do about 1k out of the 3k route by the time the sun was setting and had to paddle ourselves the whole way back (the river was hardly moving in parts-not exactly white water at this time of year!). It was freezing and pitch black! Bit of a nightmare but at least we didnt have to worry about crocodiles or other scary things in the water! The next day, Marc and I decided to do it again- a day relaxing on the river for $3- we couldn't say no! and this time made it the whole way down just in time for sunset. Lovely! We had a great time there. Proper relaxation!!

ele-fantastic...

...as chris wrote in the comments book- terrible, but i had to use it!

Ban Na is a small village about 80k out of vientiane . One year the farmers changed their crops from vegetables to sugar cane, but a herd of elephants from the surrounding hill came down and started feasting on the crops. Needless to say the villagers weren't too happy about this and changed back to growing veggies again pretty quickly. However, the elephants must have decided they liked this area and decided to stay and eat vegetables instead - seems they aren't too fussy! And they proceeded to demolish pretty much everything in their path whilst doing it. They aren't the most delicate creatures! So at this stage someone must have stepped in with a very good idea-there's only about 500 or so wild elephants in Laos and these were about 30. So instead of shooting the elephanst, which they did start to do, they started a project to try and bring tourists there, and hopefully regain the money they were losing on crops.

So off we went on a little bus that dropped us off on the main road in the middle of nowhere. The village was about 1 k off down a little dirt track and we just had instructions to go and ask for Mr Boonthanon. It was funny! Eventually we found the place and within half an hour we were off into the forest. It was beautiful- lovely sunny paths and bamboo everywhere. All of a sudden teh guides stopped and signalled to listen ...and you cdould hear them cracking the braches and stomping over the bamboo. Then another on the other side of the path, and then another, somewhere in front. It was seriously scary- it seemed like they wee really close but was hard to tell! Also, a villager had been killed in 2005, so all of a sudden i felt very very vulnerable.

We carried on and from now on its seemed like they were just everyuwhere, all around us. Eventually we reached our bed for the night- a hide by a salt lick, where the elephants come to feed (as if they hadn't had enough already!) and wash. This place was amazing- about 30 foot up, and we had to climb 2 ladders to get up there. It was open sided with gorgeous views all around of th e forest and hills, and complete with sounds effects of lots of munching elephants!

After maybe our most horrible meal in laos so far (sticky rice with crawly things, some pig fat?, and something like kidney maybe? ug) we headed off into the forest for another hike. Personally i was quite happy out of trunks reach, up in the hide, but i didnt have much choice! We went down and had a look at all the dung, and footprints (way too big!) and broken trees down at the salt lick, then we headed off in the direction of all the noise....oh dear. it seemed like they were right over the bushes and as we walked along they just seemed to be walking alongside us. I cannot tell you how scared i was!!! Everywhere there were just huge pathways with broken down wood where they just taken out everything in their path. It didnt help that at one stage the guide just stopped, looked really scared and practically bolted right back where we'd just come from! We weren't too far behind him! I was happy to be heading the opposite direction, but after a while there were more- didnt think my heart could take much more! I dont know how many there were but there certainly sounded lke a lot more than 30! We arrived at a dry river bed, stopped and rested and actually heard one elephant uprooting a whole tree and throw it aside! Then it was back to the hide, to relax and enjoy the views. While we were there we read how the first elephant tower they had built was useless and that was why this was so well done- concrete, high up, and you could haul the ladder up. No mention of what exactly happened to the old one, or its occupants but maybe at this stage was better not to know!

Dinner was lovely! Then as soon as it got dark they sent us to bed-7pm! Sometimes the elephants don't come and of course they aren't predictable as to time, so the guides would wake us up if they came. Just a minute after I was thinking that there was no way I 'd get to sleep at that time, I was awoken to the noise of elephants showering themsleves with water from the salt lick! It was, er, 8pm! It was really exciting, the moon wasn't up yet so you could just make out a shadow, then we heard more crashing and another one arrived, then another. Amazing! One came right under the hide and you could see it more clearly. They are so loud and snuffly! I have to admit that even tho i was 30 foot in the air, i was convinced it was going to reach up and grab one of us with its trunk! I'm so hard, me. But it really was huge. We went down to the first ladder to get a better look, then he went off, another came along, and so it went on for maybe an hour (? maybe 10 mins- not sure!). Lots of noise and destruction going on anyway! All i can say is that even this tower seemed fragile against these giants!

Next morning we had a lovely hike back through more forest, round the farmland and back to the village for breakfast. It was a fantastic experience, and we were so lucky that the elephants decided to come. Have to hope it all works out for the village and the elephants-such a unique thing, and amazingly untouristy- we were the only ones there (it doesnt help that the tour companies charge 5 times as much as if you do it yourself). Anyway, the whole thing was altogether brilliant!

Sabadee!