Back from the wilderness

A long long time and many long cramped “bus” rides ago, we left the lovely little town of Luang Prabang for an eight and a half hour boat ride to Nong Khiaw. A highlight of the trip was the glimpse it provided into the lives of the people who live on Laos’ rivers. All the way there were people puttering by in little wooded canoes, fishing, searching - with scuba goggles - for shell fish and children bathing, playing and backflipping off the sandy banks into the water. There were also loads of water buffaloes, who wallow in the water like fat Roman senators in the baths. About halfway through the trip we stopped for a break and made our way up to a town to find a toilet, on the way startling a poor old lady who was having a shower “Oooh sabadeeeeeeee” (Oooh “helloooooooooo”) . In town we found a party going on and asked them if they had a toilet we could use, instead they tried to drag us inside and offer us beer and food – gotta love this country! The latter part of the boat ride had spectacular scenery, with mountains jutting out from the river (pictured), and in this setting we arrived at Nong Khiaw.

Nong Khiaw is a peaceful little town snuggled between the river and the mountains (Second picture). During our day there we walked out to see some nearby caves. Laos is absolutely covered in caves, which came in really handy from 1964 to 1973, when America waged a secret, unofficial war against in the hope of stopping the spread of communism. During these nine years, the Americans dropped an average of one plane load of bombs on the country every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, making Laos the most heavily bombed country on earth. There are still loads of unexploded ordinances in the country and we heard that four children were killed by one just a couple of weeks ago. So, during the war, Laos’ caves were an important refuge. The two we saw near Nong Khiaw served as a hospital and the bank of Luang Prabang. The bank cave in particular was very cool – a narrow passage that spiraled down into the ground.

From Nong Khiaw we traveled to Muang Ngoi Neua. Muang Ngoi is an hour upriver from Nong Khiaw and is only accessible by boat. It is a real backpacker haven. But still feels authentic and isolated (only one phone in the town). From Muang Ngoi we decided to do a two day trek and booked it with a guy called Saang. The trek started pretty uneventfully, walking through some rice paddies for about an hour, then stopping at a restaurant in a village for another hour (very frustrating – we wanted to keep going!!). Things started to get more interesting when we stopped at a village for lunch and one of the things they served was snake. In the early evening we arrived at the village where we would spend the night (Third picture is Niels and Phil at the village). For dinner, we started off at one hut, where they served up, with the standard sticky rice, fried grubs (looked like big maggots) and squirrel, all topped off with obscene amounts of lao lao. Lao lao is alcohol distilled from sticky rice, it is very strong (we heard it ranges from 20 to 80 per cent proof) and they drink it everywhere at anytime. They offered it to us constantly and it was pretty much impossible to refuse. In the dish that contained the bbq squirrel, was the squirrel’s head, and after the rest of the meat was eaten, Saang got the head, put it in one bowl, covered it in another bowl, then shook it around. When the top bowl was removed, whoever the head was pointing to had to drink a shot of lao lao – crazy. After we exhausted that hut’s supply of lao lao we were taken to another one – for more lao lao – then, to a third hut, which had a TV. According to Saang, it is only when tourists come to the village that they have the money to buy fuel to run the generator to power the tv, so the whole village packed into the hut to watch Thai and Lao karaoke videos. Before the karaoke, however, Saang sang a song himself. At first it was in Lao, so we didn’t pay much attention, but then we noticed the word America kept popping up, and the tone of the singing. After Saang finished singing in Lao, he sang the song again in English. It was asking America why they kept bombing Muang Ngoi, because there were no soldiers there, only farmers and fishermen, very moving.

The next morning, after breakfast, we were taken to the “spin the squirrel head” hut for, you guessed it, more lao lao – these people don’t know when to stop! Then we set off. We had a couple of extra companions with us on the second day. The first was a young boy – the chief’s son – who was walking to Muang Ngoi for school for the week (it was a Sunday). The kid carried with him a sack filled with rice and bamboo, which would be his food for the week. Our second companion was a dog. The day before, the other backpacker on the trek with us, Phil, mentioned in passing to Saang, that one food he hadn’t tried yet, and would like to, was dog. Saang said, alright, we’ll have dog for dinner tomorrow night. Little did we realise this would entail getting a dog from the village and walking the poor thing all the way back to Muang Ngoi with us. Needless to say, we didn’t eat any – a bit too personal!

The walk on the second day was a lot prettier than the first day, and included about 45 minutes of walking in a creek. When we got to the river we floated down for an hour in big inner tubes, then did some traditional fishing with nets. For lunch we had fish that the fishermen had caught earlier in the day (Fourth picture). The freshly barbecued fish was one of the best things we had ever tasted and, after it was finished, we played the lao lao drinking game with the fish head!!

The next day we began a marathon journey to Sam Neua. First, we got a boat back to Nong Khiaw, then we had two days of tuk tuk travel. Tuk tuk is a name that can be used to describe pretty much any type of vehicle used for public transport. In this case, they were basically utes of various sizes with a bench down each side of the tray and a roof over the top. One thing that we learnt very quickly is that they are never full. No matter how tightly you are crammed (benches packed, sacks of rice and more people in the middle, more people, luggage, chickens and ducks on top and people hanging off the back) you can ALWAYS fit another three people, a sack of rice and three wicker baskets full of live chickens. All the while the driver is hurtling at breakneck speed around blind corners (after a while, Niels actually told the driver to slow down as we didn’t want to end up at the bottom or a huge ravine, or plow into another tuk tuk driving in the same manner). But we made it. And some of the scenery along the way was amazing - on the morning of the second day it was really foggy and as we drove up into the mountains and above the fog it was clear and sunny and we could see the other mountains rising out of the fog like islands.

In Sam Neua we felt like we were really in the middle of nowhere. Wide, dusty streets, and very little English spoken. One of our favorite charades (which Niels has mastered) is squatting on the ground to mimic going to the toilet – it never fails to provide a laugh. The main point of going to Sam Neua was to visit Vieng Xai (fifth picture) – a pretty little town surrounded by limestone karasts, which is home to the Pathet Lao caves. There are about 200 caves in the area and they were home to the Lao army during the American war. Some of the caves are still decked out in furniture, and include rooms with airtight doors and Russian air filters in case of a biological attack. One cave even includs a theatre.

From Sam Neua, we caught a bus to Phonsavan. This was the first vehicle we had been on in Laos that was recognisable as a bus (sometimes they call tuk tuks busses). Still, the only place you’d see a bus like this one in Australia would be in an antique motor show. And of course, being Laos, there were live pigs on the roof.

The main reason for going to Phonsavan is to see the Plain of Jars (Sixth picture). The Plain of Jars is, funnily enough, a plain covered with big stone jars. The largest are about 3m high and weigh about six tonnes. They are about 2000 years old and believed to have been used for some sort of burial ritual. Of just as much note as the jars is the bomb craters that are visible everywhere. Of this heavily bombed country, Phonsavan is probably the most heavily bombed part. We also saw a hole where an American plane had crashed and the locals had dug up the scrap metal to use for things such as cutlery.

From Phonsavan we went to Vang Vieng, THE backpacker mecca of Laos. Vang Vieng is a super touristy town. The main street basically goes pizza shop, internet café, guesthouse, pizza shop etc. Most cafes have tvs showing episodes of Friends and the Simpsons, or DVDs. The thing to do in VV is go tubing down the river, so that’s what we did. All the way down the river there are bars selling Beer Lao and most bars have a flying fox or rope swing to lure the customers in (the deal is, you buy a beer, you get to swing). Between beer and swinging, it took us about eight hours to travel 3km.

From VV we took a kayaking (last picture) tour to the capital city, Vientiane, which is where we are now. After spending three weeks in the wilderness it is so nice to be in the city – not that it’s much of a city – no high rise buildings and really quiet and laid back but with really obvious French influence in the architecture and cuisine. Lovely cafes and boutique shops side by side with Lao markets and noodle shops. It’s been great spending a few days here, now tonight off south to the 4000 Islands, then Cambodia!