Laos, Luang Prabang: Streetside Sightseeing

So here we were thinking that our second bus journey in Laos would be just as harrowing as the first one, primarily because we had already been through the experience. Boy, were we wrong! The second bus journey in the country was longer, twistier and bumpier than the first, and therefore had its fair share of "on the edge of our seats" stories as experienced on the road from Huay Xai to Luang Namtha.

On this second journey from Luang Namtha to Luang Prabang, we again bonded with several travellers sharing the experience with us, including several Israelis we had seen on the bus a couple of days before and a couple of New Zealanders we had seen eating at Boat Landing Guesthouse the day before. A couple from Israel, Nati and Avishai, were deaf and several of our conversations took interesting turns with us either trying to sign what we meant (neither of us know sign language so this consisted of our poor charade techniques) or writing it down on paper. On a 10+ hour bus ride, it was actually a welcome distraction to have conversations dragged out over longer periods than normal. Plus, the satisfaction of us understanding what they meant, or vice-versa, was really rewarding and we all shared many laughs!

We think one of these gave us both a problem which starts with a capital D

As we had plenty of time to spare, we decided to break out the cards and play a game that everyone could play. Kyle ended up making up a game which was a combination of "Go Fish" and "Old Maid" and made up rules on the fly; the game was named "Old Fish" and went over well, being easy enough to play with 8 people. It was also easy enough to explain to a couple of deaf people whose native language was not English. With the game being such a hit, we decided that we will be marketing it over the summer and selling it to our friends and families in order to fund our travels for the rest of the year...

After playing several rounds of Old Fish, we moved onto a more serious game of "Blackjack" with Kyle being the dealer and both Dan and Kyle giving everyone tips on how to play the game when you are in a real casino with real money (incidentally, we did not play for money as it is illegal in Laos and we preferred not to get our heads cut off or for us to be thrown in jail). A couple of Laotians did listen in when we explained to game to our new-found friends, but we aren't sure they really understood anything we were saying; they were probably just trying to pass the time as we were.

Southeast Asia has been much more developed than we initially expected and many things have surprised us, both good and bad. We had the first "shock" of our trip in Laos, and that was when we stopped off at a roadside market for a lunch and toilet break. The very first stall we stopped at had some very interesting items on display, and we found the most interesting items to be the bbq RAT and bbq PIG INTESTINES. Yes, you read that correct, you could saunter up to the market stall and order fully cooked - but with some singed hair, teeth and skin intact - rat, as well as curled up pig's intestines. As much as we both were very curious about what the rat would taste like, we decided to go for fried rice with vegetables instead, and our lunches turned out to be quite tasty, even if they were cooked in the same dishes as the bbq rats!

One thing we had noticed about Laos by this point in our trip was that the scenery just kept getting more and more amazing. The only thing we regretted, however, was that the scenery in many places in northern Laos would have been so much better had the tribes not been practicing slash and burn techniques to clear forests. It had also been quite some time since we had seen a blue sky, so we hoped our upcoming trip to Cambodia would provide us with the necessary glimpse we were longing for.

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a town with a French colonial influence that is quite vibrant and busy from early morning until the evening, with morning activities including residents giving monks their alms and evening activities including setting up and running market stalls in the town's large night market. Each morning, ever so faintly, the bells, gongs, and drums of local temples reach a peak of noise around 5:00 am, thus sending Luang Prabang's estimated 1,000 resident monks and novices on their morning alms rounds. Making a circuit around the small peninsula formed by the Nam Khan and Mekong, the crisp column of barefoot, orange-robed figures collect rice for their one daily meal. Visitors can even take part and do their good deed for the day by giving rice or treats to the monks as they pass, but we were unable to arise this early to do so - maybe next time. We did, however, manage to make it to the night market each evening and wandered along the street to look at all of the goods on offer from the local and nearby village streetside craftsmen.

The town is very quaint and cosy with its French feel, but in some ways, we feel that the Laotians there are paying the price with regards to the treatment of backpackers and tourists. There is a very close resemblance to the Thai market vendors we were faced with in our month in Thailand, whereby we feel that many of the Lao vendors are after making a lot of money in one sale rather than giving many people good bargains to release their goods. Laos, as you may remember from our previous Huay Xai journal entry, is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, if not the poorest, and one would expect products sold in markets to be very cheap for westerners on holiday there. What we found, when making our way through the night market, was that the market vendors started off with extremely high prices (in US dollars!) and many of them would refuse to do any sort of hard bargaining to drop the prices to more realistic ones. The products they sold were of good quality, but in some cases, the prices for items were the same had we bought them in Camden Market in London! After many stops at many stalls in the market, we were able to see some items going down in price, but on the whole, this was a rarity. Suggestion to travellers in Laos - bargain hard and check every stall along the main market road, as you will find the bargain you are after if you are patient!

Well, we have told you about us trying to bargain at the night market. Now comes the best bargaining we have done on our trip yet, but also the most painful. As they are deaf, we decided to help our new friends Nati and Avishai find a room and we set out on a mission to find a guesthouse which could accommodate all four of us, and at a very low price (their budget was $1 each). We must have tried to wheel and deal with at least eight different guesthouses for an hour and a half, and although each of the guesthouses were reasonably priced, we felt we couldn't stop until they were satisfied. We ended up finding a place called VongChamPa Guesthouse, which was on a small lane in town. The owners of the guesthouse offered us two rooms for $5 each, and we ended up settling for this price. Not a moment too soon, either, as we were all very dusty from the bus journey and we were extremely tired and hungry. The family running VongChamPa was very friendly and they even had free bananas, drinking water, tea and coffee all day.

Our favourite part of Luang Prabang was walking around the cosy streets admiring the remaining French influence on the buildings, particularly in the old town area. The town is very laid back, despite the high number of tourists. Watching groups of men, both young and old, playing the French game "boules" on the side of a road or lane was really fun; it was good to see that some of the French influence on the country still remains. For those of you who have not heard of boules, it is a game where players throw a few steel balls (their "boules") towards a target, which is a smaller ball called the "cochonnet". The player who gets their balls closest to the object ball wins the game. Or, something like that... The other French influence, which seemed to be the most prominent in all of the Indochina countries we visited, is the baguette. Baguettes are served pretty much everywhere as the breakfast bread of choice.

A very good concept for a city which cannot justify or afford to run a full-blown cinema (yet) is something we ran across in Luang Prabang, "Le Cinema". The place was basically a large house with five decently sized rooms that all contained large, widescreen televisions equipped with DVD players and surround sound speakers. Each of the rooms was also furnished with a large flat mat covered with several comfortable cushions. When we walked into the "cinema", we were faced with a few walls which were completely covered in DVDs which could be watched. We had some DVDs from our time in Malaysia and asked the owner of Le Cinema if we could watch our own DVDs at her place. She was absolutely fine with that and we paid a small fee (around $4 or £2) to rent a room and watch a couple of movies.

In Luang Prabang, we didn't enter any sights as they all seemed to require an entrance fee (having a UNESCO stamp on the city seems to allow them to charge for everything) and we were both trying to recoup some of the money we overspent in Thailand. Instead, we took a look at everything from the streets and still got our fill of many amazing temples and beautiful colonial architecture. As we got a good view of the large golden stupa atop the hill Phu Si, we opted to forego the steep climb up several steps; our streetside "viewing deck" was adequate enough for us. One thing we did do in the town was actually outside the town. We booked a half day tour to see Kouang Si Waterfall, which we thought would be appropriate since we hadn't seen a waterfall since Borneo.

Being in Laos in the dry season meant that we both shared a worry that the waterfall would be dry. As you read on, you will see that luck was certainly with us that day, with regards to there being enough water at Kouang Si. When we arrived at a small village where the trail leading to the waterfall was located, the sky darkened in a matter of five to ten minutes. We thought that a large cloud was just passing overhead, but we started getting really worried when all light was shut out by this cloud at 2:30pm in the afternoon. We walked a little bit along the trail and came to an Asiatic Bear Rescue foundation, which has a bear enclosure with about ten bears.

The large black bears could hardly be seen as the sky was so dark, and as the wind picked up very strongly, we could hear branches breaking off some of the nearby trees. It wasn't until a few minutes later, when the large black cloud above opened up and dropped buckets and buckets of water on us, that a nearby tree fell right in front of us. At this point, we started worrying a bit for our lives as the storm began turning into a ferocious one. Luckily, just as the rain started pelting down, we were able to seek shelter underneath a small hut which sits right outside the bear enclosure. A few other people sought shelter there, too, and we soon found out that it was a couple of Laotians who worked at the rescue centre, as well as a very friendly English woman from Derbyshire named Jane.

Rain fell for about an hour and in this time, we discussed the charity that Jane and her partner have been working for over the past year. They have many big plans to increase the size of the current bear enclosure and there is a similar rescue centre in Cambodia, an hour outside of Phnom Penh. The main object of the rescue centre is to rescue and protect these endangered bears from poachers, and their secondary aim is to work towards the goal of being able to send offspring back into the wild. As we talked during the hour of the storm, the light gradually returned and we were finally able to see who we were talking to. It had been so dark at first that we could only go by voices, and that made the beginning of the storm very scary!

With rain having slowed to a slight drip, we decided to venture to the waterfall as we only had half an hour left before our transport would leave to return to Luang Prabang. We were then not at all concerned about the lack of water in the waterfall, and true to its fashion, it was gushing water when we arrived. The waterfall consisted of about seven different falls and was an amazing sight. We bumped in Nati and Avishai at the waterfall, who had gotten the same idea as us and booked a similar tour. After spending a few minutes at the waterfall, we headed back towards the Bear Rescue Centre with Nati and Avishai and upon arrival, Jane let us in the bear feeding area, where we could see the bears up close. We were still standing our distance, though, as the creatures were extremely strong and could reach out and slice us open with their sharp claws if they wanted to do so. We were able to reach out towards the "baby" bears as they were being quite playful with their arms reaching through the bars of their cages. Even the young bears had more strength than us and as soon as we felt their paws, we could feel the power behind them. Note to selves: if you see a bear in the forest, run like mad!

Food in Luang Prabang was pretty good, and there were many choices for Lao food as well as western food. On the very first night we arrived, we had built up quite large appetites searching for a place to stay and we chose to eat at a really cheap vegetarian stall in the night market. Nati and Avishai joined us and as soon as we sat down with our food, a mischievous dog decided to chase another dog and a cat under our table. Nati has a thing with dogs (she hates them) and all of a sudden she freaked out and was screaming as loud as she could - she didn't realise how loud she was because she is deaf, remember - and all eyes around us were on us. Finally, the poor dog was beaten off with a large broom, and this made both of us very sad as there seems to be very little respect for dogs in the countries we have been visiting.

Back to the food: the vegetarian food was good. We all had Lao noodle soup (good) and some spring rolls (better). The price was super cheap (spring rolls were only 8p each, or $0.15) and we were happy to find such a good bargain. The atmosphere was cool, too, as we sat on very low stools on the side of the road, along a long short table, and all the while we were able to watch the passersby shopping in the night market. The night was cool and we could have sat for hours, but sleep started calling all of us and we went back to VongChamPa guesthouse after finishing our meal and a quick stroll through the market. Other food we enjoyed in Luang Prabang included a few western dishes, and we think one of these gave us both a problem which starts with a capital "D". Even though we had some "problems" for quite a few days, our stomachs of steel are still hardening up and we considered this as good exercise for future dodgy meals we may eat.

When we left Luang Prabang, we decided to treat ourselves to VIP bus tickets that would make our journey more comfortable, e.g. because of air-conditioning and larger seats. You'll read about our journey in the Vientiane journal, but we can tell you now that the journey was more pleasant. We hope that you have enjoyed this journal entry, and that you have actually made it to the end of this one. We think by this point in our trip, most people skim the entry or skip to the photos (if they have even clicked the link from the email!), and if there was some way we could reward the steadfast for sticking with us, we would do so. :-)