After a greasy breakfast experience, at “travel lodge” with eggs boiled in too much oil, we rented the motorbikes, and left together with dutch Marleen, and Maor & Bar from Israel. We counted the trip to take 4 days, if we wanted to explore everything on the way. The first stop, was at a small cave, a guy waved us in from the road, and was very happy to show us the cave. He didn’t speak a word of english, but told a lot of stories in Lao, and according to his body movements, it was about the cave. We couldn’t help smiling at him, he led us over big rocks, underneath small openings, and trough water in darkness. A very interesting trip through the cave, and stupid as we are, we forgot our headlamps (how can that even happen, when we know we were gonna see a lot of caves the next 3 days!! Still wondering), but luckily the other 3 brought theirs, so we could orientate in the dark and spooky cave. Erik lost his sunglasses in the water, but he needed some new ones anyway. Getting out in day light again, was a bright experience, and then our private guide pulled out a little Lao-English translations book, I looked him over his shoulder, and could tell that he was practicing to say fifty, in english (his price for showing us around, but off cause he’s counting on us to bargain him down, so he starts higher, than his actual price). I wonder why he didn’t use the book, to tell some of the many stories in english, instead of Lao, but he was a business man, he just wanted our money. Not shocking though. Me, Erik and Marleen agreed on paying 7 each, but apparently Bar & Maor wanted to pay him full price, so this guy who is most likely, use to get half of the price he says (that’s how it is on all markets), got a lot of money from us. After a hot and humid trip in the cave, we drove to a river nearby and had a swim. The first couple of hours we drove along, a lot of limestone mountains, and it may sound spoiled when I say, it was slightly disappointing, because we saw that already a lot of times now. Out of nowhere the scenery changed completely, into something that took both me & Erik’s breath away. It was like a fairytale dinosaur land, it looked so unreal. This were all we saw for a long time, and we were simply amazed. I remember I was thinking, that I didn’t care if the rest of the trip was good or not, but this view was absolutely worth the effort. Unfortunately hard to take pictures of, it’s a place you’ll have to discover for yourselves. We got to Tha Lang village, which was barely a village, but had two guesthouses, and was our first sleep over. The manager of Sabaidee Guesthouse, welcomed us with open arms and a big smile, he was the sweetest and most friendly person you can imagine. We got a nice bungalow with hammock on the porch, and finally it was time for the long waited beer, that we all talked about for hours. We had a cosy, fantastic night on the porch of the restaurant, with river and sunset view. Oooh sweet life!
Crawling out of the spooky cave
Happy face
Enjoying and swimming in the river
Colourfull dragonfly
Dinosaur land
Chilling with cold beers
My motorbike lesson
Thursday 14th Nov.
This day was nothing as expected, we should drive 62km. and
were told that the road was in very bad conditions for 40km. Unfortunately we should be happy, that
we didn’t went during the rain season. That was as true as it gets, roads were
really bad, mainly dirt roads with big holes, mud and big rocks. It was like
driving in a huge construction area, and apparently we can thank the U.S. army
for the impassable terrain. Well we took it as the experience it was, and we
were happy to see the countryside of Lao. Almost 3 hours on the bad roads, made
us really thirsty, so when we found a place to stay for the night, in Kuon Kham,
we ordered 5 big beers. Well deserved! The same afternoon we sadly realized
that our laptop was broken, we tried several times to restart it, but it
couldn’t start up windows at all. We borrowed the guesthouse computer to
research on the problem on the internet, but nothing worked. We were guttered,
because we lost some pictures, and a lot of blog writing, and at the same time
mad at ourselves to bring the laptop (most of our other stuff was in a storage
room back in Tha Khaek). But on the other hand, we wouldn’t leave our laptop in
the storage room. We tried not to think about it, when we went out for dinner
with the others at night, but it was really sad that we also lost all our
communication with friends and family. Now we would have to use the netcafe’s
and pay for that everytime. Really feeling sorry for ourselves!!
Ready for another day on the roads
Local gas station
Lunch break in the middle of beautilful Lao
Not every one is having clean showers
Friday 15th Nov.
Third day on the motorbikes and our butts was really
starting to hurt. It hurt to sit on the bike, and hurt even more when we needed
to get off it again. It was a bit more windy than the other days, which meant
that we couldn’t drive that fast. We still got to the big Konglor cave in good
time. We should discover the cave by long boats. It’s a 7,5 km dark tunnel
cave, that’s running beneath an huge limestone mountain. Watching the daylight
of the caves mouth disappear, was a spooky and uncomfortable experience. The
only light was from our guides, and our rented headlamps. Some places the cave was
more than 100 m. high, which make the feeling less claustrophopic. Walking
through the dark water, when the boat was going upstream, was creepy and
frightening, because we knew that snakes was a common sight in there (we
already saw 2 before entering the cave). A creepy and spooky experience, and
unlike any other caves we have seen. We survived the 2½ hour boat ride, and was
happy to see sunlight again.
Bar & Maor wanted to do a homestay in the cave village,
while we and Marleen, wanted to move on, so we didn’t have to drive over 200km
the last day. After enjoying lunch with Bar & Maor we drove another 80km,
to the next little village. Our butts were killing us at this point, and luckily
the road was really good and easy to drive, so it only took a few hours, but
sadly after 1 hour ride we saw that one of Erik’s shoes were missing from the
back of his backpack. At night we shared some beers, while talking about how
happy we were that we did this trip, even though Erik lost his sunglasses, one
shoe and our laptop broke down, it had still been such a great tour around the
country of Laos.
On the road
The mouth of the cave
Nice view from outside Konglor cave
Funny translations
Another gas station
Saturday 16th Nov.
We drove towards Tha Khek , 105km in total. It slowly began
to rain before we entered the town, and I ended up freezing, before we got back
to Travel Lodge, where our big bag packs were storages, and the motorbikes
brought back. We tried to get a little discount on the price on the motorbike,
because the speedometer didn’t work properly and nor did the trip counter. The
motorbike guy, Mr. Ku, was not in a negotiation-mood, even though we tried hard
to get some money back. Ohh well, it was quite cheap anyway (400.000 kip = 280
kr for 4 days). It was so nice to finally get some clean clothes on, we wore
the same clothes for 4 days now, so that had become really dirty and smelly. We
left for Savannakhet in the afternoon, and were a bit surprised that the bus ride
was quicker than we got told, only 2h 20min. Marleen recommended us a place to
stay, and after me being tired of walking around, and Erik trying to be patient
with me, we eventually found the right place. I was literally disgusted by the place,
it looked like a little zoo were living there, with mouse poops in the corners,
a huge amount of spiders and mosquitos hiding in the dark seiling, in general
very dirty.
I tried not to
complain too much, usually I choose where we stay because I’m far more piggy
than Erik, but he felt the same about this place. After our bad luck with the
laptop and the room, we decided to spoil us self in the evening, so we went out
for steak, pizza and red wine (even a good one from Chile). For the first time
in Asia we felt like we were in Europe, the waiters were well educated, aware
of the costumers, and we even got our food at the same time (that’s very
unusually around here). Needless to say, but the owner was French – so that’s
probably why!
The Loop video
Looking forward to another busride
Sunday 17th Nov.
As written earlier (in the last blog post) we got our laptop
fixed. Our friendly computer guy, showed us another place to stay, for the
second night, so we actually got a clean room, but only with cold water. Hot
water is a common thing that you pay a little extra for here (as well as
aircondition), but it’s really not nessesary, because we are so hot all the
time. It definately dosen’t remind us of european winter that’s for sure.
Lake restaurant
Lotus flower
Enjoying lunch with our laptop saver and his family
Monday 18th Nov.
Erik was dying to see the dinosaur museum, so we
got up early, packed our stuff together and made it to the “museum” at 8am, to
call it a museum is a exaggeration, it was just two small rooms with a few
glass cabinets, with bones from the dinosaurs, all signs were written in French
and Lao, so we had no clue of what we were looking at, some were copies, some
were not. It was disappointing, and a waste of time and money. Quickly after we
found a tuk-tuk and went to the bus station, just in time to catch a bus to
Pakse at 9am. There’s no VIP or minibuses running on this route, at this time
of the day, so our only opportunity was a local bus. Yeah jumping up and down
clapping our hands, another “pleasant” drive on monkey class!! It was a
experience as all other local buses are (and no we don’t get use to it, but
it’s getting better). Bus were loaded with sugar bags the whole way down the
isle, we sat on the backseats which was the only place, where we could fit our
legs and feet, every other seat had a sugar bag underneath it, that made no
room for legs and feet. People were squeezing in everywhere, and when we left
the bus station I didn’t think that we would make it to Pakse. After a while
the bus pulled over, and more people came in, and even more bags were loaded on
the bus. Now there were people and sugar bags in every possible corner of the
bus, some were sitting 3 people on 2 seats, kids was put in the isle, so they
didn’t take up space on the seats, one guy carried a chicken around with him,
another a bag 3 times bigger than herself. In Pakse we decided to go directly
to the 4000 islands, in southern Laos. There was only one bus going in the
direction, on this time of the day, and of cause a local one, where bags goes
on the roof, and then there’s 2 benches in the back of the truck, where we sat
together with local families and another guy with his chicken on his lap,
petting it as it was some kind of dog. We got told that the reason why they
treat them as pets, is that some use them for chick fights and earn money on
it. So that makes more sense, why they are so generous to them. When we finally
got to the pier, down by Don Det Island, after almost 4 hours “bus” ride, it
had become dark. The village was tiny and empty, and we didn’t see any
guesthouses, so we got concerned if there even was a boat sailing at this time,
and if we would have a place to stay. The first couple of guys that we asked
for a boat to Don Det just made fun of us, another guys answer was more promising, but then he left for 2
min, when he came back he told us he could sail us there for 50.000kip. We knew
that usually it should cost 30.000kip, but considering the time, and that he
was aware that we had no other opportunity, we didn’t even bother bargaining
with him, but just agreed on the price, so we could get to our destination. His
engine went off in the middle of the semi strong current in the Mekong river, it
was both uncomfortable and amazing at the same time. We were surrounded by tiny
islands, so either way we would float to one of those and get help if we needed
it. It was so peaceful and absolutely silent, until he got his engine started
again, and we made it safe to the island. Just as expected, we got met by a lot
of round-eyed young people. With empty and starving stomachs we went to eat
wiener schnitzel and enjoy one of the many beautiful riverside restaurants. Both
looking forward to another 3-4 days of relaxation, that has become our favorite
occupation.
Someone wanted to eat my breakfast
The "incredible interesting" dinosaur museum
Busses is used as transportation for anything
3 hours drive in this comfortable bus, wasn't as bad as first expected
Breaking news: As some of you know, our laptop have been broken after a wild and bumpy motorbike ride, but the great news is that we got it fixed. We were extremely lucky and found a guy, in Savannakhet that could speak prober english, and fix our laptop at the same time. We used 3 hours at his shop, and got all our saved stuff out of the laptop, before he reinstalled all programs, gave us every program that we needed, and even let us use his own computer meanwhile we were waiting. He was super friendly and helpful, and very interested in getting to know us better. Erik asked him out for beers afterwards, but instead he invited us to come to his favorite restaurant, together with his wife and two daughters. We would pay the lunch and that’s all he wanted for helping us out with the computer. We drove in their big 4 wheeled truck out of town, where no other tourist come, there was a few floating restaurants on a lake, all with small bamboo houses, that fitted a whole family, and then we sat on a carpet on the floor, and enjoyed all the food they ordered. A day full of happiness.. Well, back to where we finished last time..!!
Wednesday 6th Nov.
After swallowing our breakfast, a shared baguette with omelet, our tuk-tuk driver waited for us and should drive us to the bus station. We picked up more people on the way, and the tuk-tuk got really loaded, with both heavy luggage and overweight older english tourists. The tuk-tuk was driving very slow at one point, and we quickly discovered why – the left back tire was punctured! The driver waved us out of the tuk-tuk and said 5 min. I was waiting for another tuk-tuk to pick us up, but this guy was so use to switching the tires that it actually didn’t take longer than the 5 min, he first told us. I was impressed, and shocked to see how old the tire was, there was absolutely no grip or rubber left on that tire, but either way he was probably just gonna go and get the hole fixed, and then use it for another year or two. The new tire was normal European standard. We made it to the bus station in time, and off cause the bus were around 30 min. delayed. There’s a saying about Lao, shorted down to LPDR = Laos Please Don’t Rush. It’s a special peaceful mind they have, it’s shown in their way of living, the traffic and their general approach of life. And you can feel that people are never in a rush here. And you should always depend on being delayed, no matter what you do here.
The busride to Vang Vieng only took 6 hours, a mix between dirt and concrete roads, in mountains most of the way. I think this driver forgot the saying LPDR, cause he was driving insanely crazy at one point, and even speeded up when we drove through villages, where small kids was playing in the side of the road. We were relief when another passenger told him to slow down, after almost hitting a big truck in a curve. That’s about the first time that both me & Erik haven’t spoken up when something is wrong.
We met a german couple (Florian & Kathrin) in the bus, and since we didn’t make any research on affordable hotels, we decided to walk with them to the guesthouse they had found interesting.
It was very good looking bungalows, with bathroom, fan and terrace, but sadly they smelled of mould, like a lot of places do here, because the humidity is so high all year around. The manager quickly lowed the price from 60000 to 50000kip, so I already made up my mind and wanted to stay there, but Erik was full of energy so he wanted to have a look around, to see if we could find another place that didn’t smell, actually only because he knew I was gonna whine after a while in that smell, but I’m hard like a rock if I have already made my decision, so we ended up in the bungalows.
Now we could also hang out with the german couple, and we really needed some social life after being almost just the two of us, through the week in Luang Prabang.
Vang Vieng is known by young people for its tubing (a big inner tube from a truck that you drift on in the river for 2-3 hours). There’s several people drowning every year, because they drink too much and then get carried away with the current or hitting rocks. Last year there were 22 young people killed there, so a lot of the bars and swings have been closed down now. It’s a great party scene, which is probably also the reason why every bar and restaurant in the town shows American sitcoms, mostly “Friends”, but a few also shows “Family Guy” and "South Park". There’s a relaxed atmosphere, and almost every restaurant have the low tables and comfortable cushions, just to make you feel like home, and then of cause a lot of young tourists (and us)!!
At night when we got home to our guesthouse, we were amazed over all the geckos in the reception and outside the house, they were literally everywhere, we watched them and talked about that I actually wasn’t afraid of them anymore, they are way nicer than spiders.. So I didn’t bother the one I saw in our bungalow just a few minutes after, but what did bother me, was when Erik jumped out of the bathroom with his pants around his knee , quickly closed the door and told me I shouldn’t go out there, and I didn’t wanna see what he just saw. Now I got really terrified, because I could tell that he didn’t finish his toilet visit, since his pants was still around his knee, something really big and scary must be out there. I insisted that I wanted to see it, and it turned out that a big spider came up from the water drain in the floor, and was apparently ready to attack Erik, as the predator it is. I’m still laughing inside of how scared he looked when he came out from the bathroom. Erik poured water on it, and it began to jump towards us, I hit it with a shoe I had in my hand, and that spider is never going to see daylight again. That night none of us had a good sleep, me basically because of my arachnophobia and the cold fan, and Erik because of the noisy rooster outside (or that’s what he says, but I bet you, it was the spider that kept him awake!)
Flat tire getting fixed
Livingroom/restaurant
Bungalow with free tea, coffee and bananas..
Thursday 7th Nov.
During the night we already decided to check out in the morning, and find another place to stay. So after our morning freshness and 5 km jogging, we packed our stuff and were ready to leave. Florian & Kathrin also wanted to find another place, because of the hard bed. So we all walked towards town and rented 2 motorbikes (for our trip later that day) and then we drove around town to find a good and cheap place with soft beds and less animals. We even found a place with balcony and river/mountain view for the same amount of money. Sweet! After our big night, jogging in the morning and searching for hotels we were all starving, so breakfast was well deserved and made us all tired again.
We drove 7 km to the beautiful Blue Lagoon, had a swim there and relaxed in the area most of the day. Me, Erik & Florian also walked to the big cave Tham Phu Kham, and crawled our way through the big slippery rocks, deep in the cave with only the light from our camera, and the sound of our own breath. A really amazing experience.
On the way back onto town, we visited the organic farm, just outside of Vangvieng, its well-known for their world class mulberry shakes and pancakes, and we really understand why. In general all fruit shakes here a freaking brilliant, I never tasted so good shakes before. They are all fresh made, of real fruits, not the syrup stuff we get at home and only cost 5-10000kip (4-7kr).
I had become dark before we left the farm, so if we hadn’t brought our mosquito lotion, we would have been eaten up by them. They are most active at sunset and sunrise, so you better remember to put that smelly stuff on before it’s too late.
We had dinner at “Otherside Restaurant”, together with F & K. Lao have a special dessert, with sweet sticky rice and your choice of fruit, it’s actually just rice cooked with milk and added sugar (a’la risengrød). I hope that I can find something like this around Christmas time, so I at least can feel home for a little while.
Tuk-tuk drivers hard living style
Cave
While everybody else is just in their swimming wear, these asians are covering up as if the sun would kill them
The blue lagoon
Blue lagoon
Beautiful motorbike trip
Sunset by the river and children playing in the sand
Blue Lagoon Video
Friday 8th Nov.
We had made a half appointment with a rock climbing center in the morning, but only if Eriks knee had got better. He had trouble with it after our jogging and specially after climbing in the cave. When we woke up in the morning, we both felt tired, and wanted to stay in bed. and skip the rock climbing. Imagine that you can decide exactly what you want to do, and that no one is gonna miss you at work, no responsibility and no duty that’s needs to be done. You only have to decide which restaurant you wanna have breakfast/lunch/dinner at, remember to go to the toilet (unless you’re swimming anyway), remember to put sunscreen on, and decide whether you should do a little bit, or absolutely nothing the rest of the day. That’s how life is treating us, at the moment and that’s uncompareable to the life we lived in Denmark.
Anyway we got up, when we felt like it, and had breakfast before we were off to do the famous tubing on the Nam Song river.
At first the current seemed really strong, but when we got in the water, we wanted it to go faster. We didn’t even tube for 1 min, before the first bar turned up on the right hand side, and 2 min after, the second one turned up and we decided to check it out and have a beer, and a free shot. It reminded me most of a festival bar, with loud music, wooden furniture, basketball field, volleyball, lightly dressed young people and loads of liquor. While drinking our beer, we both mention a few friends that we would have loved to experience this with.
Well off we go.. There was some tubing that needed to be done. The scenery was gorgeous and charming, and we enjoyed it while cruising down the river. It had become cloudy, so the last part was a bit cold, from my point of view. It took 2½ hour, and just before the tour ended, Erik discovered a snake crossing the river, just a few meters away from us. It was fascinating to see, but I was also happy it was in the end of the trip, otherwise I would have been afraid for more snakes on the way.
We booked a bus to Vientiane the next morning, and payed half the price, to make sure that the guy would book it for us. We don’t like to pay in advance, but sometimes we have to.
The night went by, with writing blog and hanging out with Florian & Kathrin.
View from our balcony, 50000kip (35kr) per night
Tubing, Nam Song river
Tubing Video
Saturday 9th Nov.
After entering the bus at 9.35, we drove around town in circles, for the first half hour, to pick up more people. I don’t get why the minibus don’t make a special route they drive, instead of wasting gas. But I think it’s not the point that we shall understand everything Asian people does.
We found a good located place to stay, near by the city center of Vientiane. The room was extremely hot, and there were no windows, it was horrible to stay in there, without the fan turned on, even just for a short period. The city didn’t seem nice to us, I missed the atmosphere from the smaller towns, but anyway there was some attractions that we wanted to see, so why not stay a few days.
4 food stalls offering the exact same food.. Who mentioned copy cats..!!
Sunday 10th Nov.
So the next day we got up early, to catch a bus from the bus station to the famous Buddha Park. We got scammed by the bus driver, but only because we read that it would be 8000kip per person, so when we asked him about the price he didn’t say anything, and then Erik mentioned 8000kip, and the bus driver agreed. Quickly after another round-eyed entered the bus, and we overheard that she only paid 6000kip. Erik confronted him about the price we paid, and he quickly turned and gave him the money back. I can’t believe how sneaky they are, cause when we counted the money he still didn’t gave us enough back, so Erik had to go and complain again. Then we realized that the bus wasn’t going straight to the Buddha Park, but dropped us off at the border to Thailand, and we had to take a tuk-tuk from there. They are just trying to rip us off all the time. We regret that we didn’t hire a motorbike for the trip, that would have been less stressful and probably also cheaper in the end.
We ended up sharing the tuk-tuk with 3 german girls, and made a great deal on the price. When we entered the park, they wanted an extra fee (on top of the entrance fee), if we wanted to take pictures. We didn’t pay, but got some amazing pictures. It was beautiful and nice to see, but it was mostly a photo park. There wasn’t any stories connected to all the different statues, not that we are into the history point of view, but I expected that they would be some signs with information on. Well, less to read and understand for us.
We decided to hire a motorbike when we got back into town, there were a few things that we wanted to see, and it would be easiest and cheapest to reach with a motorbike. So in the afternoon after finding a bike, we went to Patuxai, arc de triomphe (triumfbue), which is a small version of the french one. We drove to Pha That Luang, a beautiful golden temple, where there was a big festival starting, with a big market, music and performances.
At night we went to an Indian restaurant, Nazim, mentioned in our bible, that serves the best Indian food in the city, We don’t think we ever ate Indian food before, and we definitely didn’t expect it to be that good. But we can't hardly say it clear enough. Go there if you ever get the change.
When we got back to our room, we wanted to book a flight from Siem Reap to Bangkok, but apparently we CAN’T pay with our creditcards on the internet anymore, only if we have a phone that we can receive messages on. So that was really frustrating for us, since we knew that the cheap flight would be sold out quickly. We didn’t know what to do, and sweared over the new system, cause that’s really gonna be an issue for us, every time that we book flights/hotels over the internet. Luckily this time my mom was online on skype, and we could have the code send to her phone, and she helped us out of our misery, which was a huge help. Thanks mom.
Buddha Park
My little stoned mermaid..
More Buddha park
Patuxai, arc de triomphe (triumfbue) of Vientaine
Somebody actually has a work to be done!!
It's suppose to be food, and delicious, but for us it seemed at little to syntetic..
A part of Pha Thang Luang temple
Sunset by Mekong river.. And no it's not photoshopped..
Great and modern street kitchen.. Yummi
Monday 11th Nov.
We still had our rented motorbike for half a day, so we drove to see the Cope Center. It’s a center dedicated to all the victims of UXO (unexploded ordnance). From 1964-1973 the American dropped an estimated 260 million bombs over Lao, sadly 78 million of them failed to explode, and a lot of them are still in the fields, forest and small villages, ready to explode when people are getting near them. So this center is providing clinical help, training programs, artificial limbs and rehabilitation activities, for all the injured. A really interesting visit, and yet so unreal.
In the afternoon we were in for a treat and spoiled ourselves with a day pass in the biggest fitness center in the city. We each payed 65000kip (45kr), for fitness, ourdoor swimming pool and 1 hour Lao-style massage. What an awesome deal.
After taking another 4 million kip out of the bank, we decided to watch the sunset from the riverside, off cause with an ice cold beer in our hands.
Artificial limps from the Cope center
A part of the sweet deal, in the local fitness center
Kids....
It's 30 degrees and this woman is still wearing gloves, something is really wrong..
By the way, she's offering pedicure & manicure.. And didn't take no for an answer!!
