We entered Laos via northern Thailand – an adventure in itself -although the bus journeys always are!
Nat and I didn’t have a clear picture of what of what Laos would be like. We were in for a treat.
We left Northern Thailand behind – well only just! I couldn’t find my departure card or some form or other but luckily found it tucked away in my bag!
We boarded a small boat and in a matter of minutes we’d entered Laos and were sitting on the ground filling out documents to obtain our visas.
One stamp in our passports later and we were on the move again. The heat was quite intense that day, we trudged along to the cafe we’d be told to go to. It was next to the river where we would board the Slow boat to Luang Prabang. We got our money changed into the Lao currency, bought a pillow for our bums (recommended by the cafe that sold loads of them!) and bought a supply of food for the journey!
It would take us 18 hours to float down the Mekong on our way to Luang Prabang. Everyone had a stopover half way, and slept the night before boarding the boat for the remaining 9 hours.
Although the Mekong was beautiful and we got some pretty cool snaps the boat was layed out in a ridiculous way. I was expecting to lie on the ground with my jumpers and pillows to make the whole experience comfortable but the boat was crammed full of hard wooden chairs with no leg room whatsoever! It got very hot to say the least. So the next day we went prepared and sat at the front of the boat and had space to lie down and generally move around! We mingled with the locals, played blackgammon, connect 4 and drunk a couple of cold cans of Beer Lao!
Once we’d arrived in Luang Prabang we wandered around the town to find a decent place to kip. Our place was good value and centraly located. Lunag Prabang is a small town with lovely buildings, shops, temples and French restaurants and patisseries!
We ordered a picnic to take to the waterfalls on Lao New Years Day and it was so delicious we did it again for our journey to Vang Vieng! Mozzarella and pesto ciabatta…mmmm.
In fact we have been getting a lot of picnics for our bus journeys – and not just ham sandwiches; more along the lines of porcini pate, ciabatta bread, cheddar cheese and wine! What can I say we can’t help being ladies of lesuire!
Anyway, we had been sad to leave Chiang Mai (not because we looved it there that much!) but because it was the start of Thai New Year (Songkran festival aka. waterfights garlore!) so we thought we’d missed it but to our delight as we stepped outside our guesthouse in Luang Prabang on our first proper day there we got soaked by a number of lao children chucking buckets of water at us – then quickly refilling it from the mains, by which time we were making a dash for it!
From the 12th-15th was non stop water action! We were invited by locals to join their team as they splashed the poor motorbike drivers with buckets of water, we sat down for pork strips (like sausage) with tomato ketchup, pork bites (that tasted like prawn crackers)..with tomato ketchup and beers were handed out all round! Flour, black oil was smoothered other passers by not to the delight of some! Well it did take ages to get off in the shower! Lao locals squeezed intotrucks that circled L P, jumping up and down, music pounding out, waterguns aready to shoot at unsuspecting victims! Amazing times!
Our day out at the waterfall was another great day, expecting the waterfight antics to be over they certainly weren’t, as we boarded our tuk tuk to head 15 k out of town we were soaked by many many people along the road (took 1 hour!). That 1 hour journey will always be one of my favourite things about my travels, we passed through the most scenic landcape; lush green mountains, fields with bamboo villages, huts on stilts and schools set back among ancient trees. The waterfall was beautiful and it was busier than we expected it to be but still a great time was to be had, we were invited to sit down with a massive family – celebrating their new year! All were rather tipsy but were once again very welcoming and shared their food and drink with us! Later a cute couple came over and talked to us – well the boy did, the girl seemed a little shy) but it was nice to exchange stories of how different our culture is!
Next stop on the trip was Vang Vieng…where we ashamedly? spent about 5 days in! Main and pretty much the only attraction here was the tubing! We met a group and other randoms and had mucho fun floating on our black tubes, stopping off at bars, drinking whiskey and generally having an awesome time. Must admit I’m not sure I have ever drunk so much in my life – night time action was pretty top too – well sometimes…if that didn’t float your boat then it was possible to watch endless re-runs of bloody Friends and Family Guy at the many SHITE restaurants. Seriously, the food there was less than to be desired!
On our last day in Vang Vieng we went to a childrens library near the Organic Farm (where I had a great curry, mulberry shake etc! Where they use organic ingriedients) we read to them, taught them how to play snap which they pronouced Snaff (but they loved it!), and we went skipping and Nat, Dave and I came out in sweats! Sexy. Also taught a local girl to pout with my sunglasses on – we’ll make a diva out of her yet!
We boarded the local bus to Vientienne (Laos capital) where we met up with the others and had the best food ever!! At the french restaurant none of us could decide what to blooming eat, but our dishes all came out to be fab! The supermarket was great too! It had mine and Nat’s fave: Pink Guava juice, apricot juice, apricot jam, garlic cheese, pate, cheese, chocolate, cheese, apricot danish and more cheese! Regardless to say; another picnic was in order for the 24 hour bus journey to Hanoi!
Actually this bus journey ended up being pretty amazing as there were only 7 people on our bus sowe managed tospread our legs. The border crossing was crazy, smelly locals not knowing the meaning of the sentence please stand in line.
So we waved goodbye to Laos! 
