Over the Hills and Far Away

The next part of our journey was truly a tongue-twister - Viv goes to Vientiane via Vang Vieng.

We left Luang Prabang on a VIP coach for the twelve hour journey to Vientiane, Laos' capital city, and were fortunate in being allocated the front seats upstairs on the bus.

The trip was a scenic roller coaster ride; up, up, into, and round and round the mountains for mile after mile. The villages of the ethnic tribes cling to the sides and into the folds of the hills, the thickly forested jungle rolls up and away to distant horizons, and it is not difficult to believe that tigers and wild elephants still roam those dark secret places where no man has ever trod. Traffic was heavy on the road, and our bus scattered smaller vehicles aside as we bumped and clattered our way along what is surely one of the finest road journeys in Indochina.

These mountains were surprisingly heavily populated; the roadsides were crowded with villagers unconcernedly living their lives, as always in Asia, out of doors. Hard-working women cooking, weaving, gathering fuel and crops; bare-bottomed children playing in the mud; hens, ducks, dogs, and pot-bellied pigs fussing over their broods; men smoking, chatting, and drinking coffee - everything more or less as it has been for generations.

The karst scenery was just breathtaking; even from the bus window we managed to grab a few photos that demonstrate its magnificence. From the roadside across to these awesome limestone escarpments huge swathes of strawberry blonde pampas grass swayed in the breeze, intermingled with green bamboo and brightly coloured wild flowers.


Even a blurred snap through a smeary bus window gives a hint of how good this scenery could be.

After seven hours on the bus we broke our journey by staying in Vang Vieng for a couple of days.

Vang Vieng, a pleasant enough town set beautifully on a river below more dramatic karst outcrops, is a magnet for hordes of young backpackers who spend their days tubing and kayaking on the river, and caving and climbing in the mountains, before partying loudly all night long in the many bars and clubs. The noise was not a problem - it was easy enough to escape the din simply by strolling along the riverbank and along the rural footpaths, or dip into one of the quieter outlying bars for a civilized drink.

Brian has an inexplicable and disturbing fascination with primitive barber shops.

Me, I just can't get enough Buddha images - I'm compelled to look at them all.

This is a pretty courtyard at the most ancient temple in Vientiane. We met up with Chris and Enrique again in Vientiane on December 31st, and spent another copule of days with them, happily celebrating the New Year, before we continued our travels in opposite directions.

Rhapsody in Blue

Feeling the need to stir from our sloth, and unable to self-drive in Luang Prabang, we hired a car and driver to take us into the hills to visit Kuang Si waterfalls one day.

An unexpected delight was to stumble across a rehabilitation centre for moon bears (so-called because of the distinct white cresent moon-shaped marking on their chests). These poor creatures had been held in captivity in appalling conditions so that bile from their stomachs could be harvested for use in Chinese medicine. Although this evil practice is illegal, poachers are still willing to hunt these beautiful bears, and charity rescue centres such as this one are doing a great job in protecting the bears and publicizing their plight.

Once in the rescue centre, their nightmare is over, their wounds can heal, and the bears can play and recover in peace.

Reluctantly dragging ourselves away from the bears, we didn't have to walk far into the forested hills before we found ourselves gawping at an unbelievably scenic series of turquoise pools set against a backdrop of bamboo and ferns.

The water falls from a great height, then flows across huge boulders and natural rock formations to form a placid stream and a succession of smaller, gentle waterfalls. No-one else was around, the early morning air was clear and still, and it wouldn't have been surprising if Bambi had stepped from behind a rock to drink from the sparkling waters. Magic.

If you'd like to see this pristine Paradise, go soon - heartbreakingly, the footings for a massive restaurant are already down only yards away.

The Way we Were

The People's Democratic Republic of Laos is one of the poorest countries in South East Asia, and although signs of poverty are not much in evidence in the tourist haunts of Luang Prabang, you don't need to travel far afield to find ethnic minority hill tribes living in primitive conditions.

We were fascinated to step back in time and walk round this Hmong village, chatting to the residents and observing the rituals of their daily lives. Everyone was cheerful and happy, despite the lack of consumer comforts that we Westerners regard as essentials. We're all entitled to our own priorities, but I'll never understand how a satellite dish is more desirable than a flushing toilet, or how a motorbike has more appeal than indoor cooking facilities or a washing machine.

Bamboo and palm -walled thatched houses nestle in clearings in the jungle.

Water buffalo thrive here, always looking strong and healthy, and they taste much better than the local beef.

Washday with Mama at the communal water supply.

Buy a handwoven bracelet and you can take my photo.

Chillies drying in the sun.

Aaaah, how cute. Sadly, many such contented babies will die in early childhood from malaria, just for want of inexpensive medication that is beyond the reach of their families.

Back to Luang Prabang, where pavements aren't for walking on; they're for parking motorcycles.

Tradition meets progress - check out these Hmong babes on their brand new wheels.

Saffron and Silk

One of the classic journeys in South East Asia is to take the fourteen hour, two day slow boat from northern Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos, and this was our intention when we planned this part of our trip. However, after hearing the experiences of other travellers who recommended it ("someone had a guitar, we drank beer the whole fourteen hours, it was great"), and who advised against it ("there were no seats, we sat on planks, someone was bitten by a rat"), we chickened out, and in true flashpacker style we jumped on a light aircraft to Chiang Mai, and from there a small jet to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang gets our vote for the most laid-back, totally chilled, quietly appealing tourist destination in South East Asia. Though it's undeniably geared up for visitors, as the centre of Buddhism and former royal city of Laos it has a life and rich history of its own. The people here are gentle and softly spoken and even the traffic is quieter than elsewhere in Asia.

Take a walk down any of the main streets and admire the rows of beautiful shop houses, slip into a quiet temple courtyard and enjoy the serenity, drift back in time while gazing at a gently mouldering pagoda - the options are endless. You can eat authentic Laos food cooked at the roadside, or world-class cuisine at a fancy restaurant (either way you will probably pick up a bug and suffer, sanitation standards being as they are in this part of the world, but that's another story).

Monks in their bright orange robes are very much a part of everyday life in Luang Prabang, and it's hardly possible to walk out of your door without observing them going about their business in time honoured fashion (for example, praying at the temple, gathering alms, making calls on their mobile phones, visiting the ATM).

At night the main street is closed to traffic and becomes transformed with the pavement stalls of the night market. As I wander along under the stars, stroking the beautiful handmade silk scarves and colourful woven bags, Brian breaks the spell by calculating how many thousands of ethnic minority villagers are huddled in the mountains, frantically weaving and cross-stitching to keep the tourist hordes supplied, and concluding that everything comes from one big sweat shop. Regrettably world travel hasn't yet softened his cynicism.

It was very easy to fall under Luang Prabang's spell and totally relax while we looked forward to Boxing Day when our close friends from Norwich, Chris and Enrique, would be arriving for a few days as part of their Indochina tour. After six months it was great to spend time with people we knew well from home - beer and football in the Sports Bar for Brian and Enrique, gossip and shopping for Chris and myself.

Monks going about their daily business on the Mekong.



Buddha images in one of the temples.

Beautiful laquer and glass decoration on a temple building.

Cute temple courtyard.

We stayed in a small bungalow made of tongue and groove wood, rattan panels, and palm-thatched roof on the banks of the Nam Khan river. Our verandah looked over the scene above, where villagers make the most of the fertile silt/soil left behind when the floodwaters recede. From dawn to dusk there was always activity on or around the water; people bathing, catching fish, gathering water weeds to eat (a special delicacy), and endless weeding, digging, planting, and gathering. We found life on the riverbank endlessly diverting, and were often content to sit there for hours at a time making sure the locals weren't slacking.

The daily procession of monks gathering on the main street of Luang Prabang to collect alms, (mainly rice and other food items) from each house in town.

Brian felt that being a monk could be a good life - no real work, free food - and regretted that he wouldn't be able to do it because of all those 4.30am starts. He also offered a theory that no female monks would ever be ordained because there wasn't a woman alive who would wear nothing but the same orange dress every day of her life.

Luang Prabang is a peninsula nestled in the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, which means lots of scenic spots to sit and ponder when you're templed-out.

Clip clop clip clop over the rickety bridge. We crossed this precarious bamboo construction and walked along the Mekong river bank to a village where we could watch ladies weaving beautiful silk garments and fashioning lanterns, cards, books and bags from mulberry leaf paper.

A lovely serene temple courtyard right on the main street.

Boys will be boys, even when they're novice monks.

Sunset on the Mekong.

Snaps from Siam

A Chiang Rai street this time - "same same but different" as they say around here.

A quiet little monument marks the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos meet.

The lovely deserted road following the Tha/Burmese border up into the mountains.

Burma lies beyond the bamboo fence - a reminder of more troubled times.

A glimpse of one of the many hill-tribe villages in these parts.

Brian playing soldiers on the border.

A few hundred people on their way to work in the fields. (The other thirty were on a motorcycle).

Who knew fishing could look so peaceful and appealing?

Natural hot springs in a national park in the mountains. Local people on a day out take eggs and boil them in the water for a picnic lunch.

And now for something completely different - an all-white temple near Chiang Rai.

Around Chiang Mai in Pictures

Street scene outside our guest house inside the city walls of Chiang Rai.


"Confused of Chiang Rai" - Buddhist or Goth?

Temples, pagodas, and chedi at every turn in Chiang Mai.

Re-painting the age-old stories on the interior walls of a temple.

Catching the lovely evening light at our local temple.

The King and I!

We bumped and rattled in the back of a very uncomfortable pick-up truck, through 36 kilometres of smoggy built-up traffic, to visit Chiang Mai's flagship temple. We then climbed the 306 steep steps in very hot sun to view its golden pagoda, only to find it sheathed in golden scaffolding!

This very old temple in Chiang Mai was voted our favourite.

Lovely layered roofs on one of the smaller temples.

A very special emerald Buddha.

Buddha images appear from every angle.

Finally, as the Eagles didn't sing, "it's a Buddha my lord, on a flat-bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me".