Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Laos
(There's a post below this which I drafted a couple days ago and have only just finished... unfortunately the blog goes by the date you start drafting it, not the date you publish it...)
I've been in Laos for a few days now and am loving it. I've already missed out on so much though so this is definitely somewhere I want to come back to!
I came over on Friday from Chiang Mai by minibus to a town called Chiang Khong and from there we took a boat across the Mekong to Houie Sai in Laos. I was basically on a package that loads of people had booked to get them down to Luang Prabang. So we spent the night in Houie Sai and got introduced to my new favourite thing: Beer Lao. This is great stuff... apparently the Germans wanted to hi-jack it but the Lao wouldn't give them the recipe. But it's definitely one of the best beers I've had. Am having... whatever.
On Saturday we all herded onto a couple long slow boats to get down to our half-way point, the town of Pak Beng. We were told horror stories beforehand, about how it would be a race up the hill once we got off the boat to find accommodation because there just wasn't enough of it... and that they only had electricity from 6pm - 7.30pm each day.
The boat journey was about 6 hours or so long (I managerd to snag a couple comfy seats), and we reached Pak Beng just before it started getting dark, and raced up the hill... but there were loads of people from guesthouses there asking if we needed a room. We pretty much took the first one we found and it cost less than 3GBP. A group of us all went out for dinner and Beer Lao. Then it was back for a good night's sleep cos we had another 6-9 hour boat journey the next day, depending on who you asked.
The journey the next day on to Luang Prabang was a little less comfortable... we didn't manage to get seats at all this time so sat on the floor up just behind the captain and played cards for most of the journey. A lot of Lao people were on this bus and kept looking in to see if they could figure out what we were playing and what the rules were... We were playing Cheat and Switch and just laughing hysterically for most of it.
Once we reached Luang Prabang we were once again in a race for accommodation. This time I found somewhere a little more luxurious, with a nice soft mattress, an ensuite, and electricity! That night we all went out for dinner and Beer Lao... and I ordered a Lao Sukiyama (or
something, can't quite remember now), which one of the girls had recommended... so the waiters came over and removed the middle of the table and put a quasi-barbecue in the whole, then put a big ceramic bowl with water and onion on top of it. Next out came some vegetables and vermicelli. And then came the raw chicken with an egg on top. Well I was flummoxed... I was paying 1.75GBP for my meal, and they expected me to cook it myself! Nevertheless, it was great fun, and a really good tasty meal.
The next day (Monday), I went to the museum in town and did a bit of organising... and shopping. This town is a nightmare. It was ok during the day cos you didn't have to go in any of the shops, but at night, all the little market stalls come out into the street and set up all the way down it! So needless to say I got sucked in and came out with about $30US worth of stuff which mum and dad should be receiving in a few weeks. Hope you enjoy it all!
Yesterday I got the bus down to a town called Vang Vieng. On the map, this town is halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane (the capital, where I fly out of on Saturday) but in practice, the road is through mountains so takes twice as long to get here. It's a beautiful, if rather hairraising drive. However bad the road up to the Remarkables was in Queenstown, I think this was worse!
But we made it safely and I'm staying in a nice guesthouse called Babylon.
Van Vieng, though, is a really quirky town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Karst mountains, the town is full of restaurants that have these little booth-like things set up, which involve sitting on a raised floor on cushions around table and watching movies/friends episodes/cartoons/friends episodes... the Friends bars are the worst, they just play episode after episode after episode... but the movie bars are good fun.
And the pancakes are to die for. As I walked back to my guesthouse last night there were loads of street stalls selling pancakes... not quite like what dad does back home though! They start off with a ball of dough-type stuff and whack it down on the table and begin to flatten the heck out of it, much like you would a pizza base, until it was about 18 inches diameter. Then they chuck it into this huge flat wok and cook it with whatever you want on it... yummy!
Today I went tubing down the river... great fun... just sitting on a big rubber ring watching the world go by and hearing "beer lao beer lao beer lao" every hundred yards or so... we stopped off after about half an hour at this riverside
bar for a few hours, soaking up the sun and watching people swing on the flying fox and wondering how many swings it would take for them to get up the guts to let go! After a few hours I headed on down the river... until it got to about 4.15pm and I'd had enough of paddling backwards and having my arse grinding on the rocks at the bottom... it's the dry season so the river was so shallow in places that you had to get up and walk across! So I cheated and got a tuk-tuk back into town - we think it must've been a good 1.5kms back to town from that point!
I've been in Laos for a few days now and am loving it. I've already missed out on so much though so this is definitely somewhere I want to come back to!
I came over on Friday from Chiang Mai by minibus to a town called Chiang Khong and from there we took a boat across the Mekong to Houie Sai in Laos. I was basically on a package that loads of people had booked to get them down to Luang Prabang. So we spent the night in Houie Sai and got introduced to my new favourite thing: Beer Lao. This is great stuff... apparently the Germans wanted to hi-jack it but the Lao wouldn't give them the recipe. But it's definitely one of the best beers I've had. Am having... whatever.On Saturday we all herded onto a couple long slow boats to get down to our half-way point, the town of Pak Beng. We were told horror stories beforehand, about how it would be a race up the hill once we got off the boat to find accommodation because there just wasn't enough of it... and that they only had electricity from 6pm - 7.30pm each day.
The boat journey was about 6 hours or so long (I managerd to snag a couple comfy seats), and we reached Pak Beng just before it started getting dark, and raced up the hill... but there were loads of people from guesthouses there asking if we needed a room. We pretty much took the first one we found and it cost less than 3GBP. A group of us all went out for dinner and Beer Lao. Then it was back for a good night's sleep cos we had another 6-9 hour boat journey the next day, depending on who you asked.
The journey the next day on to Luang Prabang was a little less comfortable... we didn't manage to get seats at all this time so sat on the floor up just behind the captain and played cards for most of the journey. A lot of Lao people were on this bus and kept looking in to see if they could figure out what we were playing and what the rules were... We were playing Cheat and Switch and just laughing hysterically for most of it.Once we reached Luang Prabang we were once again in a race for accommodation. This time I found somewhere a little more luxurious, with a nice soft mattress, an ensuite, and electricity! That night we all went out for dinner and Beer Lao... and I ordered a Lao Sukiyama (or
something, can't quite remember now), which one of the girls had recommended... so the waiters came over and removed the middle of the table and put a quasi-barbecue in the whole, then put a big ceramic bowl with water and onion on top of it. Next out came some vegetables and vermicelli. And then came the raw chicken with an egg on top. Well I was flummoxed... I was paying 1.75GBP for my meal, and they expected me to cook it myself! Nevertheless, it was great fun, and a really good tasty meal.
The next day (Monday), I went to the museum in town and did a bit of organising... and shopping. This town is a nightmare. It was ok during the day cos you didn't have to go in any of the shops, but at night, all the little market stalls come out into the street and set up all the way down it! So needless to say I got sucked in and came out with about $30US worth of stuff which mum and dad should be receiving in a few weeks. Hope you enjoy it all!Yesterday I got the bus down to a town called Vang Vieng. On the map, this town is halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane (the capital, where I fly out of on Saturday) but in practice, the road is through mountains so takes twice as long to get here. It's a beautiful, if rather hairraising drive. However bad the road up to the Remarkables was in Queenstown, I think this was worse!
But we made it safely and I'm staying in a nice guesthouse called Babylon.
Van Vieng, though, is a really quirky town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Karst mountains, the town is full of restaurants that have these little booth-like things set up, which involve sitting on a raised floor on cushions around table and watching movies/friends episodes/cartoons/friends episodes... the Friends bars are the worst, they just play episode after episode after episode... but the movie bars are good fun.
And the pancakes are to die for. As I walked back to my guesthouse last night there were loads of street stalls selling pancakes... not quite like what dad does back home though! They start off with a ball of dough-type stuff and whack it down on the table and begin to flatten the heck out of it, much like you would a pizza base, until it was about 18 inches diameter. Then they chuck it into this huge flat wok and cook it with whatever you want on it... yummy! Today I went tubing down the river... great fun... just sitting on a big rubber ring watching the world go by and hearing "beer lao beer lao beer lao" every hundred yards or so... we stopped off after about half an hour at this riverside
bar for a few hours, soaking up the sun and watching people swing on the flying fox and wondering how many swings it would take for them to get up the guts to let go! After a few hours I headed on down the river... until it got to about 4.15pm and I'd had enough of paddling backwards and having my arse grinding on the rocks at the bottom... it's the dry season so the river was so shallow in places that you had to get up and walk across! So I cheated and got a tuk-tuk back into town - we think it must've been a good 1.5kms back to town from that point! Tomorrow I head on to Vientiane, the capital, for two nights before flying back to Bangkok so I can begin my tour through Cambodia and Vietnam on Sunday. Can't wait!
# posted by Sue Lambert @ 2:37 AM 
