Week 14 – 21/11/09 Vang Vieng + Vientiane

Week 14 – 21/11/09 Vang Vieng + Vientiane

For those of you that have never been to Laos, which I guess is most, Vang Vieng is a place where 18-25yr olds come to get wasted. Most restaurants offer a special menu for people that like opium in their burgers or mushrooms in their shakes, not to mention the ‘tubing’ experience along the river. The tubing experience is a collection of bars that are along the river from the drop off point all the way back to Vang Vieng for approx 3km. Most people get completely wasted in the first 3 bars and don’t even bother with the tubing and take a taxi back into town. Being 38 and almost 30 (yes, I know you are in denial) we decided that trekking and kayaking down the river seemed the best option.

Our trekking, caving and kayak trip with a strange German guy was really cool. The trekking was about 3 ½ hours and we had lunch beside a waterfall. We went through a water cave below a mountain before kayaking back to town. Our guide mentioned that we should consider signing up for our national Olympic teams since he has never seen a pair get back to town in record time like us. I acknowledged his encouraging remarks but mentioned that I trained as a navy seal whilst deep under cover as a secret agent in the late 80’s.

The following day we signed up for another trek. This time we were with an Italian couple whom spoke German and a Swiss girl. Really cool trek took about 6 hours and had a fantastic barbque lunch.

We went to the elephant cave on the way back. We had now completed our Everest Base Camp training, 2 treks, a cycle ride and a bit of kayaking, no problem.

The following day we took a local bus to Vientiane which took around 4 hours. Met a really interesting American school teacher on the bus who told us a bit of history of Laos and there devoted culture to Buddhism.

Vientiane had a French twist to it, but not much was left. The city was quite low level, buildings of max 6-7 stories were typical. The Chinese seem to be investing lots of cash in Laos, so they obviously want the rape the country of it’s natural resources, it may become another Tibet, but who knows. There are various glorious buildings scattered around the city which were built by the Chinese as gifts to the government. These buildings have little purpose and the money would have been more deserving in other areas. The city itself is quite boring, we did the ‘walking tour’ for about ten minutes before Mariana was bored, so I continued in Chevy Chase style to the death. We found out that one of the cards had been scammed in Vang Vieng so made a formal complaint to the main Laos Bank. It was if this happens on a regular basis every day since the guy that took my details seem to acknowledge that this is a problem that had been going on for some while, so it made us wonder whether the bank wa raking in so much cash it didn’t want to rectify the problem?

Mariana was quite upset that we were flying to Bangkok, but I resisted the alternative of a 12 hour bus journey and we made our way to the airport at 5.30am. We arrived to see just one small café open in the departure so I asked an official about eateries through customs. He assured me that the food hall was open on the other side so we went through in true Swedish fashion 2 ½ hours before our flight. What greeted us on the other side was one closed duty free shop and a toilet…..hmmmm. For those of you that know Mariana, especially in the morning there are two important points to note to keep the mood in check. 1. Must eat, 2. Need sleep. This particular morning, Mariana was really tired and I had just convinced her to go through customs to find no food available. What’s more, as it turned out our plane was a 60 seater propeller job, with no released safety records for Laos Air. Let me just say that she was not pleased. The duty free opened at 6.30am so I was about to buy an army pack of breakfast bars for a million pounds.

The flight was ok and we landing in Bangkok at 10am in the morning……