Feb 7th, 2008
Wow Laos!
Wow Laos indeed! We sped through Laos in only a couple of weeks, but we had so much fun and met loads of really lovely people, from west and east.
There are two sides to this calm country. On the one side you find the lush green never-ending countryside, where people still work the land. Here are the wooden shacks on stilts, chickens pecking their way round the dusty tracks. Life is simple and slow. Apparently most children in Laos have never even seen a book, let alone read one.
On the other side of life you see the way the west have infiltrated this juvenile country. It’s only just reached it’s teens, hoping to catch up with it’s neighbouring older brothers who are getting rich quick and shedding their ‘developing world’ status. This is the side that caters for the extreme sport junkie and the rich holiday-maker.
Our first experience of this was in the rich ex-pat southern town of Vientiene, just over the border from Thailand. Here they’re cruising round town in their enormous Chelsea tractors and dripping with jewellery as they hold their next fancy dress party. It’s a cheap place to live and an easy commute back to Thailand from here.
Then we found a weird micro existence at Vang Vieng where all the travellers come to party. Essentially it’s only famous for Tubing, where you sit on top of an old tractor’s inner tube and float your way down the gentle river hopping off at every shabbily-erected bamboo bar for a top-up drink, a quick dance and a swing from the nearby tree to plop yourself back into the wet. It really is a good laugh (until all the bars are long behind you and you’re bored from the monotonousness of it all, cold and wet – and then it starts to rain) but it’s the weirdest experience to be floating peacefully along the tranquil river only to turn a corner and be blasted with the latest music from home. And then you remember you’re in Laos. Back in town and you’re faced with all the western food you could ask for and pretty much every bar is showing re-runs of friends. To escape this odd lifestyle we took a 30k bike ride loop out in to the nearby valley, stopping off at a couple of waterfalls and caves and saying hello to all the really sweet children (damn, why didn’t I know about the book thing before I came out on this ride).
Further north in Luang Prabang, a gorgeous town with temples and monks, we met a million French holiday-makers. We could have been in France.
Now, the best bit of the trip in Laos was what they call The Gibbon Experience and whilst it’s a complete mis-nomer, it was the most amount of childish fun we’ve had since Nepal. A few years ago, a Frenchman (there they are again) set up some zip wires high up in the canopy for people to spot gibbons and to help the local people grow a sustainable business for themselves. No need to say anymore, just watch the video.
And then it was over. Before we visited, everyone said, “Wow Laos. It’s the really laid-back and you’ve got to go before it gets too developed”. Well, it really is Wow Loas but if you go then try and get lost in the back country for a bit. We took a two-day boat ride from Luang Prabang to the Laos/Thai border and travelled through some beautiful scenery; rocks, hills and greenery were pretty much all we saw for the entire trip. Occasionally we’d see someone standing near the water’s edge, or a small herd of buffalo grazing – where did they come from?! We didn’t get to see enough of this wild side of Laos but from the air-con bus window and seriously small boat seat, it seems like a wonderful place with wonderful people.