Day 2 Floating Down the Mekong River + Luang Prabang, Laos
That night’s sleep was hot. The fan shut off around 1030PM and went back on around 4am or so. I seemed to sleep alright but the sheets came off the bed and as I tried to get up my back literally was stuck to the plastic mattress. I had to pry myself off it to get up, it was pretty funny. So we had brekkie from the hostel, the same dude was there waiting to take my bag back to the boat for the same 10,000 kip, no worries and we were off. I decided today to break open the book that mom had gotten me for the trip. I nagged her for days about this book so I figured it was time to read it, and what better time than when you are floating down this magnificent river with nothing better to do. I should also mention that any electronic thing I owned was dead. Batteries could not be charged as Morrie hogs the only outlets charging his batteries and fiddling around with the computer. He brought an extension but only has australian adapters, only one of which I have on my trip. Anyway the book is called “A Long Way Gone,” it is by Ismael Beah. It is a tale of a young boy in Sierre Leone Africa who grows up and is part of the war in the middle nineties. At that point I had only read the first 16 pages of the book but was really captivated by it and was waiting for the perfect time to read it. It is a short book only about 220 pages, so I knew once this book was gone there would be nothing left to read with a lot of traveling still left to do.
This was also the time where I had a lot of time to think, which meant grades! Grades from school were going to be due in a few days and I started to get that nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever the thought of grades came to mind. I quickly got over it, and went back to my book so I didn’t have to think about what would happen if I didn’t do well. At this point I also had to go to the bathroom. But number 2, not number 1 which was easy on the squatter. Up to this point on my trip I have yet to use a squatter for number 2. A squatter is basically a nonexistant western toliet with a hole on the ground where you have to literally squat to use. It is hard often as there aren’t handles around so it is all about the leg muscles. I will take a dump in one of them before I leave South East Asia that is a promise.
Our first stop of day 2 on the Mekong was at the 1000 Buddha Caves. Chan again gave us a very extensive background and history of the caves which was nice, we walked around, snapped photos, visited the upper cave where I walked around with the son on the boat named Li and that was fun. Interacting with locals is the best part of the trip especially when I don’t speak Lao and he doesn’t speak english. We just joked around, I took a few funny photos of us and it was back on the boat to Luang Prabang. I got through about 85-90 pages on the boat. I am a slow reader, plus I kept falling asleep as it was so peaceful, perfect weather and just really easy to nod off. My two days consisted of eating, reading, peeing, sleeping. Tough life I know!
We finally arrived Luang Prabang around 430ish. We met our driver BK, short for something I don’t know and we were off to our guesthouse. It was a little bit out of town but Andy said it was worth it. Well it was. The guesthouse was basic but amazing. Beautifully decorated in rustic village and jungle type things. Our room featured a fan, a big bed for myself, a refrigerator, and a huge bathroom. We dropped our stuff, I took a quick shower, as it had been 3 days since my last one, haha and we were off to town. Andy gave us a little time to walk around and we all decided to meet at this lovely little restaurant called Khmu. Andy said they had awesome steaks and I was keen on some beef, because “hey it’s whats for dinner!” I checked my email and stuff, wrote a quick blog entry and email and met the rest of the gang for dinner. The steak was lovely. I had beef steak with mustered sauce, bread, and veggies, hmmmm. I was really full but still ordered sticky rice to top it off and shared some of Elizabeth’s mango and sweet rice which had become our trips favorite dessert. I was really full and could not eat anything more. I had a sharp pain on my side and was so stupid to be so full because I really did not want to do anything besides go home. A few of us decided though to walk around the town at night and check it out. It was pretty quiet, a few bars scattered throughout, some really expensive shops which only wanted American Dollars (I felt exploited as a tourist personally), and that was really it. Deb was itching for a cool brew but I told her I couldn’t fit anything else in my stomach, she said alright and then we took a tuk tuk/jumbo back to the hostel. I negotiated the excellent price of 5,000 Kip each or 50 cents each back to the hostel. That was sweet.
I got back and really did not want to go to sleep as it was only 10pm, but decided that since it had started to rain that I should just get some sleep and be ready for tomorrow. I took some nyquil and was ready for bed before the giant spider! I went to take my nightly urination and there he was. This huge spider in the corner of the bathroom. Before I could take a photo I shouted for Morrie to come in to take care of this huge spider. He grabbed one of his flip flops and came running in. He tried to slap it with his flip flop but that did not work. He said it ran out of the bathroom and that was that. That was part I of the animal/insect/reptile experience of the night.
During the middle of the night I heard this extremely loud and shocking noise similar to a fire alarm or a tornado warning alarm. I popped up and Morrie popped up as well. We both said “what the hell is that?” I thought it was some sort of animal in the room, but as it turns out it was a secada. These are not your ordinary run of the mill secada’s we get back in America. These produce the loudest noise you have ever heard from such a small bug. We heard it one more time more towards the sunrise of the day, and that was it.
Today is Tuesday and I am finally up to date with my blog, well for now! Today I had nothing in the immediate morning planned so I had a bit of a sleep in and read my book. It was lovely to sit out on my porch in the morning, reading my book, and getting breakfast brought to me around 915am. Omelette and pancakes it was, with some freshly squeezed orange juice hmmm. The book is amazing. Again it is a biography of this child’s journey through Sierre Leone during the war. Eventually he gets taken in by the army and turned in to a child soldier. I have about 55 pages left and cannot wait to finish it.
At around 11am Andy, Meredith and I headed in to town, driven by BK. We stopped at the bank so we could exchange some money. I turned in 50 USD. I hate exchanging USD and would much rather take out from the bank, you get the better rate, but had no choice as there were no ATM’s in Luang Prabang and I needed some cashola. I ended up getting a better rate than what we got at the border. About 9550 KIP to the dollar. I ended up getting about 477,000 Kip, and coupled with my remaining money I had over 500,000 Kip, pretty wild, I know.
After that we were off to some waterfalls about an hour outside of LP in the mountains. The three of us rode in the rain in the back of the open Jumbo for about an hour. It was really uncomfortable but cool at the same time as we got to see a lot of local villages along the road, water buffalo etc…
We finally arrived and met the others who had trekked to the waterfalls, which took them about 2.5 hours, led my Chan. I was still happy about my choice to read my book and enjoy the morning and take the Jumbo to the falls.
The falls were breathtaking. We saw like 5-6 falls which culminated with a huge falls. Mom you would have loved it. We had a swim at the second falls for a while, and the water was cold, but refreshing. We also saw some bears that had been nursed and saved from the bear trade and a tiger named Phet. A few of us bought a shirt from this girl selling shirts that supposedly were to benefit the bears for 5 USD or 50,000 KIP which is a lot of money in Lao for a shirt. Andy was skeptical that the money would go to the bears as she had never seen this girl selling shirts before. Nonetheless we bought them, I liked it and just had to hope that the money would get to the bears for food and supplies, plus it was a cool shirt and yes 5 dollars was expensive. I hadn’t paid 5 USD for any one item on my whole trip I don’t think!
After the falls, and the others eating at the local market, we had to all squeeze back in to the Jumbo and head back to town. It was raining pretty hard and we elected to put the covers along the sides of the open-aired jumbo. I was still getting wet but had brought my anorak with me so I was alright for now. The ride was really uncomfortable again but I managed. I got dropped off in town and the others headed back to do whatever before meeting for dinner at 7. I was keen on buying a sim card for the remaining 5 nights and checking out the town. It started to pour but I didn’t care. I wanted some free time to myself to just wander and whatnot. So here I am all caught up with my blog sitting in an internet shop paying 100 kip a minute. I even called Nate on Skype in Australia just to say hi as I saw he was on. Always nice to chat with him.
Ok well that is all for now. I have run for well over an hour at the internet cafe and the bill is running up. It might be a whole dollar by now! Everything is good. I will be here for another two nights before flying to Vietanne the capital of Laos. There for a few nights then it is a 2.5 day drive all the way to Halong Bay in Vietnam.
Hope all is well back home. Picture count is well over 4000 and going, yikes
Thanks,
Josh
Tags: Travel
Josh
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