Mekong River Cruise & Luang Prabang & Vang Vien - Laos

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From Pai, Greg, Tara (Kiwis) and I took off for the Laos Border, where we would do a 2 day slow boat ride along the Mekong River from Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang with a stopover in this tiny town called Pak Beng.

The scenery along the Mekong River was unreal, trees and greenery I had never seen before, vines and jungle and gorgeous mountains. Small villages along the way where you can see the locals fishing and young children playing.

A small hiccup right before the boat took off though. The boats try to pack as many tourists in them as they can to the point where people need to sit on the floor because there aren't enough seats. Well, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, if enough people make enough of a fuss, they will call in a second boat and split the group in 2. So an angry mob of people starting protesting and yelling at people to get off the boat, it sort of turned into a riot and finally they got what they wanted and a 2nd boat pulled up. Either way, I had bought a little butt cushion and found the floor to be more comfortable.

The stopover was in this tiny village called Pak Beng in the middle of the jungle where the entire village runs on generators and there is a 10:30pm curfiew. I had my first experience at lao food here, trying water buffalo out, really good.

Arrived in Luang Prabang, 6 of us had become good friends from 2 days on the slowboat and we lucked out finding a large room in the attic of a guesthouse with 6 beds. It was Greg and Tara (kiwis), Evelyn (NYC), Sarah (Victoria) and David (Madrid) and we spent our 3 days in Luang Prabang together.

Luang Prabang was much more luxurious than I expected. It also had hints of french culture and architecture, left behind from the old French Indo-China period. For example, the schools, banks and other public locations all have their signs written in french. At breakfast, I was served a baguette rather than toast. This town is also very relaxed, with an 11pm curfiew and the only place that stays open late is the local bowling alley, which picks up after everything is closed. I indulged in a foot massage one evening ($4/hour) and also hot steam sauna, which was quite neat. The other night we hit the bowling alley. I guess for the locals its a big deal to go out to the bowling alley since they were all dressed up like they were going to a club, it was funny to watch.

Aside from the language, Lao and Thai culture is rather different. Lao people are much less pushy and salesy and much more laid back. They also tend to smile alot more. I have yet to see any prostitution. Its almost as though they haven't "sold out" their culture in the face of the big rise in tourism, which is nice to see.

The last thing we saw in Luang Prabang was this really beautiful waterfall, where you can swim at the base and further down there are several other pools to swim, do tarzan rope, and even swim under and behing smaller falls.

From Laung Pabang, Evelyn, Greg and I left for Vang Vien.

Vang Vien is known for pretty much 1 thing: tubing. The town is flooded with mainly British and North American tourists all there to do a 3.5 km tubing experience down a river lined with bars. Its absolute insanity. Every bar gives out free lao whiskey and they all have competitions for you to win even more free drinks. Everyone is covered in body paint and later on actual spray paint and all along there are slides, trapeze and zip lines to hop into the river along the way. Most people don't make it passed the third bar and never actually end up using their tube. That's what happened to our group. I did it 2 days ago now and I don't think I will be doing it again (no details needed). I met this Canadian guy named Trent who has been doing it everyday for 331 days straight... trying to hit 365.

Aside from the tubing, there are also cool caves a few km's away from Vang Vien. We rented scooters and took off for Pukham caves. It was a stint of bad luck that day . Two nails ended up giving me two flat tires in the span of 10 minutes and my friend Tara bailed and crashed her scooter. The day had a happy ending though as on the way back from the caves I came across this small village where there was a community center looking for volunteers to teach the local children english. I met the owners and they were very eager for any help I could offer.

My group of friends all left today for Vientiane but I decided to stay behind and see if I can firm up some volunteer work with this tiny center. I will keep you posted on my progress.