Cross the border into Laos...

Annnnnnndddd its gone! No more Thailand, well at least not for another few months. Tammy and I will head back there eventually to hook up with Nicola again and do some more stuff we never got around to like scuba diving, meditation courses and maybe go back to Ko Phangnan for a Full Moon Party.

We left Nicola in Phuket and met back up with Kev in Bangkok to hop on a sleeper train to take us to the Thai/Laos border at Nong Khai, polishing off our time in Thailand with large bottle of 100 pipers whiskey, almost as a tribute, or at least that was our excuse. Suffice to say we had our sore heads on when we eventually reached the border, so the first few hours in Laos were a little hazy.

Sorting out our visa's at the Thai/Laos Border

We made our way into the capital of Laos, Vientiane, which was vastly different in comparison to any city we had experienced in Thailand. Not different really in how it looks and feels, but different in very subtle, not immediately obvious ways. The first difference became clear to us at 11pm on our first night, when the bar we were in shut up shop, so we strolled around to find another one, only to find, to our horror, that everything was closed. They say some cities never sleep, well Vientiane it would seem treated every night like it was a school night.

Street Vendor pushing her stall to the Market down by the Mekong

The other differences became clear the next day as we strolled through the streets and every local we walked past wasn't trying to sell us something. Hell, we even walked past some tuk tuk drivers who let us go without a hussle. Also the heavy French influence on Laos society is ever present and odd signs were everywhere we looked.

French street signs & the amusing no (French) horns sign in the background

Kev and I chose to ignore this one....

All in all we realised Laos was a much more relaxed place than Thailand. I understand how this can be very appealing to people, but we had Kev with us and the man was desperate. Desperate not to spend his last few days in South East Asia sampling good coffee and going to bed early. So without hesitation we were on the bus north to Vang Vieng the very next morning.

Vang Vieng is only about a 4 hour bus journey from Vientiane and yet again its like another world. Where in Vientiane rules are everything, in Vang Vieng it would seem there are no rules. Primarily a town for crazy western foreigners to go nuts and aging hippy ex-pats to find refuge. The main two things in Vang Vieng to do are to fill your nights with making friends with like minded people and fill your days with going TUBING!!!

Vang Vieng is set along the banks of the Nam Xong river, and the locals have set up about a dozen bars along its shores. Some of the bars are themed, such as the Mud Bar and the Slide Bar, others are not. Some of the bars are close to the town while others are about 10km up river. The idea is that you leave you shoes in your room and brave the hot tarmac all the way down to the tubing station. When you get there they supply you with a tube, which is basically the inflated inner tube from a tractor tyre. Next they squeeze you into a tuk tuk and take you, and your tubes, up river to where the bars start. Leaving it up to you to make it back down river again in your tube.

Kev going down river in his tube

As you float down the river, locals throw you lines and pull you into each bar. Each bar has swings and zip lines to launch people into the river, just like in a water park. Like I mentioned earlier, some of the bars are themed. Like the mud bar, which I'm sure you've guessed by now is basically a big muddy mess, where people attempt to play volley ball but end up just rolling around in the mud instead. The other main attraction is the Slide bar, where if you buy a whiskey bucket (Not as strong as you might think), they paint your nail, which gives you the right to use the huge slide, that again simply launches people into the river. Simple, yet incredible effective, its a great way to spend your day. The only downside being the unavoidable bumps, bruises, cuts and in more unique circumstances sore tail bones (ask Tammy), that you pick up during your time on the river. Its a great buzz, buts it rough!

Tammy at the Mud Bar

Vang Vieng seriously is the most fun place we've been to so far and I would go back there in a heart beat. There was only three of us this time, I can only imagine the fun we'd have if about 12 of our friends were with us. But this is by no means necessary to have an amazing time. We met so many good people while we were there, people we'll make the effort to meet again. To mention a few there was the two Scottish boys Rab and Decks, the crew of heads from Pans Guest House Dave, Rich, John and the others (sorry I can't remember all the names), Sean from Finglas, Chris from Blanchardstown, Moli and Adam from Birmingham, Dale from Blackpool, Jen from Scotland and last but most definitely not least Mark from Belfast. All great people, who alone made our time in Vang Vieng worthwhile.

Tammy, Richie, Jen, Kev, Dale

Mark and a very patient bull by the river

One of the most amazing things about Vang Vieng was the fact that the town is set in a valley surrounded by breath taking lime stone karsts. These majestic formations dominate the skyline and make tubing more that just a mere float down the river.

View that greeted us at the front our guest house each morning

About half way through our visit to Vang Vieng, Kev and I decided to take a day off and rent some motorbikes and do the so called loop of Vang Vieng. Which would take us off the beaten track down rough dirt roads, through local villages, over rickety bamboo bridges and past holy caves and blue lagoons.

Our crappy 110cc bikes at the bridge leading out of town

Near the beginning of the trek, good Samaritan and all around trusting guy Kev Conway picked up a hitchhiker, supposedly looking for a ride back to his village. Though after we stopped about three times while he looked for his friend, it became obvious that we had picked up a con man, looking to be our guide and make some cash out of us. We told him we'd rather continue on our own and as a last gasp he assured us that he was a christian and that he could be trusted. This meant nothing to us of course and we drove away. We would see him maybe another 5 times in Vang Vieng hanging out at the bars trying his hand at other cons and pretending like he had never met the two guys who were wise to him.

An unamused Kev Conway and the christian Laos conman

Once on our own, we tried to find our way to the holy Pou Kham Cave with its famous blue lagoon. Our map was proving to be more than useless, when we stumbled across an old flatbed truck acting as a sign post and found ourselves on the right road. We had forgotten to take our swimming trunks so unfortuantely couldn't go for a dip in the lagoon, but we dismounted our bikes and climbed up the side of the mountain to the caves mouth. Worn out after the climb, I was looking forward to a nice cold cave to cool down in. This I would soon find out showed my complete lack of knowledge of how caves work. Inside the cave was like a dark, slimey, oven. The walls heated up from the sun outside and there was no wind inside to cool you off. We found ourselves sweating more than we had during the trek in Chang Mai. Due to the serious discomfort, we didn't hang around in the cave for long, but it was still a worth while diversion from the main trek.

Old school truck let us know we were on the right road

Kev checking the map just to be sure

Kev making the ascent to the mouth of the cave

Inside Phou Kham Cave

Prayers next to the shrine inside the cave

Sunlight leaks in from outside

Back outside we hit the road again and were determined to reach the end of the loop and back. The end was the secluded village of Nampue. To get there we had to cross through many other villages, through a quarry and funniest of all past big schools of little kids, who I guess see a lot less of people like me and Kev than the people who live in the towns. Everytime we drove past a school, dozens of kids would run over, all of them screaming "sabai di!!", which means hello in Laos. You try to wave back to all of them, but the roads were so dodgey, we were more concerned with not crashing than waving to each and every one.

We also had to cross over many rivers and each one had a nice, hair raising, rickety bamboo bridge in order to do that. Bridge's which the locals have wisely turned into toll bridges, charging 10,000 Kip for each motorbike to cross. When you're thinking in Kip and you cross half a dozen bridges it can seem like its all adding up. But really 10,000 Kip is about 80 cent, so you get over it when you think of the people you're giving the money to and how much it means to them.

Kev crossing a bamboo bridge

Kev in Nampue, the end of the road....

Richie just taking a moment....

As much fun as Vang Vieng was, it can get pretty tough to keep it up. We lasted 12 days before we had to pack it in. Having been some of the loudest voices to be heard during the regular day to day chanting of "ONE MORE DAY! ONE MORE DAY!", we eventually had to ignore the call and leave. Apart from us needing to relax for a while, we were also finally losing Mr. Conway. He had to head back to Thailand, back to Betsy. She needed to be drove to Malaysia and put on a boat home. And then Kev needs to continue on to Singapore and get his ass on a flight to Austrailia. Where he's all set up to work on a farm for three months and put some new life into his travelling fund, before it drys up completely.

Tammy and I returned to Vientiane. Having left it because we found it boring, isn't ironic that we return there in need of this same trait. We shacked up in a nice mid range guest house, with no bed bugs, unlike the place we had in Vang Vieng, and lay back and watched "The Wire" for a few days. Spent our nights in search of good food and eventually our days in search of just interesting stuff to do.

After a few days we caught the local bus, number 14 out to Xiang Khouan (Buddha Park). A field along the banks of the Mekong, about 24km outside Vientiane, full of comtemporary buddhist and hindu sculpture. The brain child of a very eccentric, self styled holy man named Luang Phu Bunleua Sulilat. The park was built in the 1950's after Sulilat returned to Laos from Viet Nam after spending years as the desciple of a cave dwelling Hindu Rishi (Sage). He fled to Thailand during the during the 1975 Communist revolution in Laos.

Various pieces of sculpture in Xieng Khuan

Boys who followed us around the park for no apparent reason

Big Reclining Buddha and Ong on the right

We also met Ong on our visit to Xieng Khuan, a local Lao guy who happened to not only have lived in Vang Vieng for 6 months last year. But worked in the guest house we stayed in and knew all the people we had met. You can't simply look past weird coinsidences like this, so we had to invite the guy out for a drink in Vientiane, and so ended our Vang Vieng recovery period!

As a result of meeting up with Ong, the next day in Vientianne was another right off. Tams had a sore on her foot that wouldn't go away so she stayed in bed for the day and I went about exploring the temple district for a nice chilled out day with the monks. I managed to find most of the more important temples even if the local sign posts were a little misleading at times. I ended the day with climbing up the "Patuxai" (Laos Victory Gate), another French inspired piece of the city. Reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, except for obvious asian symbols. The thing is though, they never finished the dam thing! They started it in the 1960s and then stopped after the communist revolution and for some reason have never bothered to finish it. So from a distance it can look fairly impressive, but up close its horrible. A sign on the monument actually reads "From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete", talk about brutal honesty.

Wat Mixay, Vientiane

Useless Sign Posting in the Temple District, Vientiane

Wat Inpeng, Vientiane

Wat Chanthabuli, Vientiane

The Patuxai (The Monster of Concrete), Vientiane

So now me and Tammy are going to head further south in Laos to a place called Pakse, and then further on to the 4 thousand islands where the Mekong meets Cambodia.The next few weeks should be very relaxing, which is the whole idea of Laos I guess. This in a way is the start of a new leg of our travels, as in we're now two and not three. I'd like to say good luck to Kev and to Betsy (Kevs van for those of you who have forgot) and we hope to see them both again soon. We'll see Kev again in Austrailia and hopefully Betsy again in the near future when we eventually get back to Ireland. Kev hopes to fix her up and turn her into the official party wagon. I look forward to hitting some festivals around Europe in her. Take it easy Mr. Conway!!!

Richie and Kev on the roof of the Dragon Lodge, Vientiane

Kev......