Be Like Soldier

Laos is known as one of the most undeveloped countries on earth, as I roll in from the Thai border it becomes evident that they weren't wrong. The first stop is the capital Vientiane, as you can tell by the name the French influence is very strong here, it's a very bizarre combination, there are very few sealed roads and everything seems unfinished but then you have these old colonial building lingering around the streets with the Parisian lamp posts blotting the footpaths, you then follow the main road to the business junction and you see a rather incongruous replica of the Arc 'de Triumph right in the middle of the road attempting to appear to fit into Laos with some engravings of Buddha on each side. I hired a bike for the next day and did a complete sweep of the city and there isn't really much to Vientiane, I tried to find any sort of industrial buildings or anything that would prove it to be the Capital but was surprised to find the same terrace like buildings on every square inch of footpath. So after a couple of days it was time to make my way up to VangVieng, a beautiful sleepy town beside the local river nestled between limestone peaks and fluorescent green rice paddies. It is very cheap here, I was staying in my own room with bathroom that had hot water for 30,000kip ($4NZD), it is however very touristy, there is basically one main road in VangVieng, you can only come in from that one road and along this road is Television bars playing repeats of Friends and The Simpsons all day. VangVieng is famous for its caves found in the mountains that the locals used in the Indo China war, so I hired a bike and went exploring, the openings are so small you wouldn't even think a person could fit but once you get in it is huge and frightningly deep. These caves were all completely empty and quite surprising since they are VangViengs major attraction, I gathered everyone was back watching Friends so I hired a Guide (10,000kip = 1.20NZD) and he took me right in, as I was crawling through these incredibly small spider infested holes I was repeatedly told to "Be Like Soldier" which I think meant stop been such a pussy and hurry up. They were amazing, that night I hit the bars and drank a few Whisky Buckets, these things are like steel pales with a whole lot of ice, Lao Lao (the very strong local Lao whisky) and M-150 which is an energy drink in South East Asia that comes in a small test tube like bottle that is so strong is actually banned in most countries around the world. The next day it was obvious I had to go tubing, it is one of the famous attractions in VangVieng where you catch a TukTuk up the river and go down it in a large rubber tube, it takes the whole day not because the river is slow but because the river is littered with bamboo bars selling beer Lao ( the only beer in Lao) and pretty much everyone we came to we stopped and and had a beer, so after the 6th stop we were pretty hammered, especially since beer laos only comes in 750mls bottles and 10,000kip each. There was something really nice about VangVieng and because of it I stayed here for 6days, It was incredibly fun with all the tourists but it was once again time to move on to my present position which is Luang Prabang after of course having the worst bus ride of my LIFE. But 7 hours later I arrived in the even more French town Luang Prabang, it is incredibly beautiful and has the most amazing character to it, I haven't been to France yet but this is what I image it to be. I decided to get straight into it, that night I booked myself a three day trek up into the Laos Hill tribes, It was fantastic, this trek was much more intense then the one in Thailand and much more authentic, it had rained the entire night before to it was crazy, every 30mins the track would be overflowed by the rivers and we had to take our boots off to cross, it was very muddy and very slow, it didn't help that we had a Spanish chain smoker either whos fitness was much to be desired for. We had to carry everything with us since you couldn't buy anything in the mountains, so as well as our backpacks we had about 6liters of water each. That night was incredibly fun as the local Hmong people(pronounced Mong from Mongolia) bought us the local herbs and rice wine that we all drank out of an enormous vessel. The next day was complete rain and with it brought the dreaded leeches, these things are disgusting and there are so hard to get off, once you do get them off you just keep bleeding, then of course the nests of fire ants that hurt like hell and would stick on to you just to prolong your discomfort, the third day after another crazy night on Beer Lao and the local herbs it was down the river in Kayaks which led to me been insanely sun burnt after 5 hours on the water. As we came back into Luang Prabang I was reminded by liters and liters of water been thrown at up by the locals that it was New Years here in South East Asia, they commemorate the staring of the wet season by having a three day festival of water fights in the whole city, I then dicided to go the the lcal disco tek out of pure curiosty, the Laos people are very sexually reserved and was very amuzing watching the locals dance to house music, it is crazy here and I have to stay here for another week for my Chinese Visa to be processed, the wet season is staring so it raining much of the time but Laos so far is amazing.

Thailand to Loas

My Macpac is scuffed and dirty, my feet are blistered and burnt, I have no idea what day it is and I am no longer a virgin to the squatting toilet; this is testament to me been right on my way as a backpacker. My time in Pai pretty much ended with me reading, eating and listening to the local live music with a good chunk of it in a hammock, I then had my sights set clear on the Ancient town of Sukhothai, one of the first civilisations in Thailand and one of Thailand's most powerful but to get there I had to take the arduous journey by the infamous Thai bus to the armpit they call Phitsanulok. In Lonely Planet they call it a "Charming and Vibrant city", I first stayed in a Hostel that was more like a complex, it was enormous but completely barren, no one was there and I physically had to yell to get the managers attention, he showed me to his overpriced room and when he left to watch the awful Thai television; I made my self scarce out the entrance to the nearest Tuk Tuk, the next morning I caught one of the government buses to Sukhothai which is about an hour out of Phitsanulok, Sukhothai its self for a population of only 39,800 is very busy and has a nice feel to it so after finding a guest house I made my way to the 'Old City' (as apposed to the 'New City' which is where everyone lives). The best way to see the ruins is on bicycle which was really nice, they really put a lot of effort into making Old Sukhothai presentable as possible with man made lakes and rivers with cobble stone paths through out. These were the first ruins I had seen so far and they were something else, beautiful Buddha statues with grand stone steps and rooted pillars that were too good to touch. Sukhothai was fantastic and was a major anticlimax when I had to make my way slowly to Laos through the typical Thai cities. I had to first go through the University city of Koen Khan after holding my breath going back through Phitsanulok and it was all on the Government bus which is really cheap, about 140Baht ($6NZD) for a 6 hour ride but at the absolute expense of comfort. It was a major test of endurance and patience, packed to the rim and achingly braking down four times making a standard six hour ride into an epic nine hour back breaker. Koen Khan is the home to Thai lands largest University and is the student town for sure strife with cocky teenagers and cheap food. It seemed far more efficient then a lot of Thailands other cities with people always seeming busy and purposeful which came as a great relief to my next destination and last before Laos as the driver made a 4 hour trip into 2 and a half. I was pretty worried on that entire ride because I had no Idea if I was on the right bus, English seemed non existent in Koen Khan so I was literally shoved into a seat and pushed onto another one in transit but it worked because I ended up in Nong Khai, the border between Thailand and Laos, I spent two days there and today made my way across the 'Friendship Bridge' and $31USD later I'm in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.