Adventures in Central Laos

As Susan has mentioned, I spent last weekend on an "Adventure Tour". I left home at 5:30am on Saturday morning, hoping to get a tuk-tuk into town. Unfortunately for me, tuk-tuks were as plentiful as I had been expecting at that time of the morning, and I had been walking for almost half an hour before I spotted one. Having made it to the tour office for our scheduled departure of 6am, I met our guide, Noy, and we went to pick up the other two party members from their hotel two blocks away en route to Vientiane's Southern Bus Station. It is still a mystery to me why they got picked up for free and I had to make my own way in, but that is the sort of consistency that I am coming to expect in Laos.

The other two party members were a very friendly retired French-Canadian couple called Nicole and Gerard. Gerard spoke very little English, but Nicole's was very good. Noy's English was also excellent and we all got along very well.

At the bus station we boarded a public bus which was no more cramped than any Sydney bus (ie, my knees would extend 10cm beyond the back of the seat in front of me if the laws of physics allowed my knees to occupy the same space as the seat) so the 5 hour journey south was rather unpleasant. Prior to the toilet break 3.5 hours in, the cramps in my legs were so bad I was starting to feel like I had been travelling inside someone's suitcase, but five minutes of stretching relieved the worst of it.

Once we arrived at our destination, though, the trip was quite pleasant. We left our things in our rooms (complete with western toilets and mosquito nets, but no hot water) and set out on mountain bikes. The moment we left the road we were into some fairly serious mountain bike terrain (stretches of road covered with lots of large loose rocks, streams to cross, short but steep slopes) with no instruction in mountain biking whatsoever. Nicole in particular wasn't very confident, and came off her bike early on hurting her knee. It wasn't serious, but it did hinder her and she generally walked her bike through the trickier sections from that point on.

Halfway into this trip we left our bikes and started trekking (aka bushwalking) over some tracks that would not have been approved by NSW National Parks, but were very pretty. Along the way we passed some locals carrying what looked like short spears and some heavy sacks. Noy spoke to them briefly and then informed us that the sacks contained dead rats that these men had caught in the forrest and were taking home for dinner.

At the end of the bushwalk we reached a 5m waterfall. It was a very beautiful spot, and we went swimming underneath the falls. It was wonderful, clean, clear, cold water and it was easily worth the trip to get there. After the swim we made our way back to the guest house, with Noy and I taking a detour through the village to see the "lake". The lake was a small resoivoir no more than 100m across, but I was kept entertained by the stunning views and the presence of a hydro-electric power station upstream from the lake.

Day two began with a 45km bike ride. The itinerary we had all been shown included a 1 hour bike ride followed by 3.5 hours in a boat, but this was apparently the wet season itinerary. Since it was now the dry season, the river was too low for the boat and we had to ride. Nicole rode in a minivan, but Gerard and I toughed it out and rode the whole distance. I was happy to get through without feeling too much strain in my legs, but unfortunately the bike was sized for Lao people, so I spent the whole trip leaning a long way forward to grip the handlebars, and subsequently carried most of my weight on my arms. I had never expected a cycling trip to give me such sore shoulders!

At the end of the cycling trip we were finally able to get in a boat to travel upstream though a 7 km cave. At several points within the cave we had to get out so that the boats could be pushed up the rapids (again, low water in the dry season) but it was a spectacular ride. My main gripe was that the boat drivers' headlamps had very bright, focussed beams of light that ruined night vision and allowed only a very narrow field of clear vision (~1m diameter circle at 50m). More dispersed light would have been far better, but even if I could have explained this, we were in a very poor and remote area, so I suppose I should have been greatful that they weren't using kerosene lamps. This cave is also a regularly used thoroughfare between villages, so the locals travel it often.

At the other side of the cave we disembarked and set out on a 1/2 hour walk to a village where we stayed in a family home for the night. The accommodation was very basic (a sleeping met and a mosquito net under a holey roof with no walls on either our left or right, no electricity, and shared village Lao-style toilets) but it was certainly interesting to see how people live in a remote village. Dinner that night was some very fresh chicken (we heard them kill it), sticky rice (as always) and lao-lao (very strong rice-based spirits), but it was probably the nicest lao food I've had. (Note: My judgement may have been impaired by the 45km cycle and 4km walk earlier that day.)

We were woken the next morning at dawn (5:30am) by the roosters and a couple of village generators used for crushing the rice husks. Breakfast included a pseudo-Baci ceremony. Having been to a real one, this seemed very basic and contrived for impressing the tourists. The most genuine part of it was that it included the obligitory shot of lao-lao, which was stomach wrenching at 7am. (Our host had two shots.)

The final day included kayaking back through the cave which was a fantastic experience (though it suddenly became slightly scary when I had to navigate for myself!) and lunch on the riverbank before returning to the guest house by minivan (so much easier than cycling!!!). From there Noy and I simply had to catch the public buses 5 hours back to Vientiane*, leaving at about 2pm. Nicole and Gerard stayed at the guest house and were travelling to Pakse the next day.

The scenery throughout the trip was spectacular, with the cave, tall black cliffs rising from the plains, impressive rocky hills, thick jungle, beautiful rivers, waterfalls and green plants everywhere despite the dry season being upon us. It was a stunningly beautiful part of the world and I hope to post some photos soon. If you can get there*, I thoroughly recommend this part of the worl to anyone who is interested in natural beauty.

* We waited 2 hours for a truck-taxi to take us an hour back to the main road through Southern Laos. We then waited 3 hours for a bus. It was full. After another 45 minutes, just as we decided to give up and get a guest house, another bus arrived. We had to sit on stools in the aisle for the first half hour. We reached Vientiane at 1:30am. We reached the Green Discovery office to drop off the moutain bikes at 2:15am. There were no tuk-tuks, and Noy had no form of transport, so we began the 7km walk back to my place. We walked just over 5km before we finally got a tuk-tuk and got to my place at 3am. A supposed 5 hour journey (5.5 hours to my place I suppose) therefore took 13 hours. I am informed that this was a one-off, but that still makes Lao public transport slightly worse than CountryLink trains. (A 13 hour journey I once had on an XPT was supposed to take 6 hours, so CountryLink do come out slightly ahead. I'm sure Morris Iemma will be relieved.)