Bird’s Nest Bevarage – 25% bird’s nest

For days we debated what to do. Visit the Plain of Jars or not.
Should i visit another archeological site of world importance or take the stunning journey back to Vientiane. It’s not often in life that one is faced with such choices every day. These are the stresses i am faced with while travelling. How awful i’m sure you’ll agree.

The Plain of Jars is a large group of historic, cultural sites consisting of thousands of ancient stone jars, some two metres tall, scattered over large fields. Archeological authorities are still unsure of their raison d’etre, but it has been hypothesised they once contained the cremated human remains.

Sounded fascinating. Unfortunately this mysterious site was situated eight hours east of Luang Prubang and required backtracking that eight hours to Luang Prubang when we were already travelling 12 hours back from LP to Vientiane to reach the south of the country – all because the road from the Plain of Jars (Phonsovan) down south is a notoriously dangerous Special Military Zone where a low level insurgency and secretive counter operations are being waged.

Moreover, the Plain of Jars remains a dangerous site of unexploded bombs which still cause injuries every week. I did not trust my feet.

So we spent another day in Luang Prubang and visited the Royal Palace Museum. Originally, as the name suggests this building was the royal palace, residence of King Si Savanguang. Since the revolution it has been converted into a museum.

The museum pieces were a mixture of Laos art and Buddhist relics including the Phra Bang (from which the town takes its name), a Buddha cast of a gold, silver and bronze alloy. The secretary’s reception room is filled with diplomatic gifts from a variety of countries grouped into “socialist” and “capitalist” countries.

The palace, a museum piece in itself, surprised me. Built in 1904 and reflecting the dominant newer styles of the time the buildings is a hybrid structure commissioned by the French colonial administration, mixing French and Lao architecture. Fleur-de-ly emblems and french mirrors, three headed elephants and Lao embroidered silk; a deliberate synthesis to cement the (unequal) relationship.

For the rest of this post please go here.

Walking around Luang Prubang we came across a sign – 10 things to do in town.

High up the list was a visit to one of the three waterfall in the surrounding countryside. Originally we planned to combine elephant riding with a trip to see Kuang Si (the most spectacular of the falls) but that entailed a tour groups and timetables which i try and avoid as much as possible.

Instead we hired a tuk tuk. Ten dollars to rent the entire vehicle for the 32 km trip along a bumpy, dusty dirt track, across rickety bridges and through the rolling green scenery which is standard in Laos.

Kuang Si waterfall is the archetypal tropical waterfall. It was straight out of a Herbal Essences shampoo ad. Yelling out, “Yes, YES, OH YES” and mimicing an intense, organic experience took up most of my energy for the rest of the day.

Surrounded by lush verdant rainforest Kuang Si is a many-tiered, multi streamed waterfall cascading in large frothy volumes, across mossy rocks, through shrubs and trees, and down into clear turqoise pools.

We stood on the bridge linking the two banks of the main pool for ages admiring this cliched paradise. Ruth and I suddenly found ourselves repeating the same words. Our vocabulary had shrunk.

“Amazing”.

“Beautiful”.

“So amazing”.

“So beautiful”.

“Really amazing”…and so on.

For the rest of this post please go here.

Wats are peppered liberally throughout Luang Prubang. Down every alley, side street, hidden behind small walls and gardens of frangipan and palm lie small, rustic temples. The wats house a large number of monks who are heavily present thoughout town – hence hence the ubiquitous flashes of orange robes as you walk the streets.

On our first day in town Ruth and I hired bikes to explore the town. Luang Prabang is small and pleasant enough to tackle on two wheels – we had to dodge only a few kamikaze taxis.

Wat Xieng Thang is the towns most magnificent, and the country’s most important, temple. Until 1975 and the (polite) communist revolution Wat Xieng Thong was a royal temple under royal patronage; an important site of political and religious ritual where the kings of Laos were crowned.

We arrived to find no crowds and little to distract our attention from the ambience and architecture. A few monks sat by the bank of the river uninterested in us – the only tourists present.
So we strolled aimlessly around the site, a cluster of small buildings set around a square of trees set at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers.

Wat Xieng Thong is the Alpha and Omega of Lao religious architecture. Despite this the temple is small and slightly worn, lacking the gawdy, glittering excesses of larger Thai Wats as would seem to be a feature of most Laos temples.

For the rest of this post please go here.

Luang Prabang is universally loved; a small, charming town in the north of Laos boasting “an outstanding example of the fusion of traditional architecture and Lao urban structures with those built by the European colonial authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries” according to the report which placed the town on UNESCO’s world heritage list in 1995.

Luang Prabang blends French villas, ornate buddhist wats and traditional lao teak buildings; an architectural mix that UNESCO declared a “unique”, “remarkably well-preserved townscape”. It is often referred to as a living museum, with numerous historic sites from colonial and precolonial times (though none from Days of Yor).

For the rest of this post please go here.

Route 13. Sounds ominous doesn’t it?

Unfortunately it lives up to its name. This thoroughfare in Northern Laos witnessed violent and bloody ambushes of coaches and cars by armed bandits in 1997 and 2003, claiming 17 lives including a French tour operator and two European travellers. (Please note – I isolate these cases only to clarify that locals were not the sole targets and that there was good reason my face displayed a permanent grimace for six long hours).

As we departed Vang Vieng it was reasuring to learn there had been no attacks since. All public buses however are still posted with armed guards wielding AK47’s.

Our minibus was demonstrably lacking in such security; all we posessed was a driver who saw no urgency in speeding to our next destination and my pocket knife – one of my leaving presents from my Kccc chums. My heart-rate, low since i entered Laos, was now galloping at a rate similar to the time i popped too many Pro Plus to finish my undergrad thesis (which remains unfinished to this day)

The rest can be found at the following page – Route 13

After enjoying tubing so much how could we pass up the opportunity to take similar tyre tubes through a water filled cave?

Ruth, Nat, Phil arrived at the nearby Tham Phou Kham cave on the edge of town which had been directed to us as the location.

“Is this the cave you can tube in?”
“Yes yes. Tube cave. Yes.”

No! The lack of water and tubes provided the initial clues. We had clambered up a huge flight of steep steps, had our ticket verified and stamped, double checked and clipped (they love inefficient jobs in nominally socialist countruies – why have one person in a job when you can have five? Full employment!) only to find an unimpressive cave of little interest.

The rest of this post can be found here.

It’s taken me five years to reach this point. I can remember (barely) a particularly debaucherous party at a uni mates house at the beginning of my second year. In the morning i sat chatting to a friend called Martha who has seemingly been everywhere possible to travel. She told a me a tale of a particular river pursuit in Laos and i never forgot it.

I’ve wanted to ‘tube’ ever since and Vang Vieng was the place to do it. The whole morning i acted as if i constantly needed the loo, i was just so excited.

Tubing is the most fun you can have with the inner tube of a car tyre which is certainly saying something – some of my best childhood memories involved car tubes!

The rest of this post can be found at the following page on my new blog – Vang Vieng

Ruth and I left Vientiane by minibus. The bus departed according to Lao time, i.e. when the driver desired. For an average westerner Time has long been commodified and clocks are simply another master to be obeyed, but we were slowly acclimatising to the legendary Laotian patience (which is arguably a product of their beliefs of reincarnation). For an hour or so we baked in a rusty, cramped pile of metal on wheels before trundling off at a relaxed pace for an unremarkable journey through lush green scenery.

Our destination was Vang Vieng. We were dropped off, but not before the driver and his companion handed us cards for their preferred guesthouse (read – the one that paid him the highest commission). Haggling for a tuk tuk to our hotel of choice involved the usual faux eye-rolling and gasps of disbelief before a price suitable to both the driver and us was established. We found a room for a reasonable eight dollars a night in Orchid guesthouse which was situated right on the banks of the river. A newish place, if a little tatty, but it was fine for our purpose – sleeping. The only problem was the double bed. I would always wake and find my eyes unable to focus because Ruth’s nostrils, earlobes or other parts of her face would be pressed up against my eyeballs. We have slightly different views on personal space.

Now, depending on your backpacking ‘raison d’etre’ Vang Vieng is either paradise or purgatory. Some travellers find lazy days morphing effortlessly into lazier weeks. Others beat a hasty retreat as soon as possible, shaking their heads in bewilderment and quietly muttering words like “soulless”.

The rest of this post can be found here.

Sorry everyone but i ran out of picture space on this blog so i have defected to another one for my main blog. http://www.planetranger.com/legon/

So no more comments on this blog please.

My legs have been getting such a workout these past few months thanks to all the walking and cycling i’ve been doing – they have almost stopped resembling knitting needles with apples spiked halfway down (my knees). Almost.

Vientiane is such a small capital that most of the sites can be tackled on foot or bike. We chose the latter because at least it provides some modicum of relief from the sweltering heat.

On our first day of sightseeing we visited Wat Si Saket. Built in 1818 this is surprisingly the oldest temple in the city. In 1788 Vientiane became a Siamese vassal state, pledging loyalty to its stronger neighbour to the south-west. 1827 witnessed a failed rebellion against Siam led by King Chou Anouvong. The uprising was crushed with impunity, effectively razing the city to the ground. Thanks to an architectural similarity to early Thai temples Wat Si Saket was spared whilst all around it was levelled.

For the rest of this post please go here.