Laos, the city

We have tried to do as much overland travel as possible during this trip, to keep both financial costs and environmental costs to a minimum. But there are some times when it just doesn't make sense to take the bus. Traveling between Siem Reap, Cambodia and Luang Prabang, Laos was one of them!

Laos is bordered by Vietnam along the east side, China in the north, Thailand in the west and south, and Cambodia in the southeast. Overland from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang is only XXX km. However, due to the scarcity of roads and the condition of those that are there, the easiest way to get there would be to go all the way back to Bangkok (one full day traveling) then take the bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos (10 hours by bus or even longer by train) then another bus to Luang Prabang (another 11 hours to go only 350 km). So we had the choice; three days on buses, or a 2 hour, $180 flight. Easy choice, I think.

Laos was our only communist country on this trip, and only my second one to ever visit, having been to China a few different times, for a total of about 40 hours. And for some reason, I was a little anxious. Our guide book also mentioned that, in the past, Laos has cancelled all visas-on-arrival with no advance notice. So I didn't really know what we would do if we landed and were refused entry to the country. But no worries, we were given visas and went on our way. An interesting note, Japanese citizens are given a 14-day visa free of charge, as are most South-East Asian countries. Most European countries are charged between $30-35 USD for a 30-day visa; the USA is $30. And Canada has the distinction of being the single one charged $42 USD; what did we do? Probably Japan has invested a lot of money in the country or lent money to government projects; but the US dropped literally millions of bombs on Laos during the "Secret War", many of which are still left unexploded (UXO) around the country today. I guess they've forgotten about that.

Luang Prabang was a breath of fresh air after Cambodia. We kept ourselves pretty busy visiting temples and seeing the town while in Siem Reap, so we were ready for a bit of down time. And LP was the perfect place to do it. Set on a small peninsula where the Nam Thon River joins the Mekong, the downtown can be toured in less than half a day.

There are restaurants and guesthouses lining the bank of the Mekong, offering standard Lao dishes for less than $2 and fruit shakes for about 60 cents, and standard rooms from about $8 a day.

Yoshi on the balcony of our guesthouse.

Yoshi was still fighting a cough he picked up in Siem Reap, from either a musty hostel room or dusty streets, or a bit of both, so he took the chance to rest up before it turned into something more serious, as it has tended to do in the past. I spent time just wandering the streets taking pictures of all the beautiful old buildings. LP is a UNESCO World Heritage designated city for its great architecture left over from the days of being a French colony.

Furthermore, in Laos there is a government-imposed curfew at midnight. So all bars and restaurants have to close at 11:30 pm to allow people time to get back to their registered address. And after that, it is literally like a ghost town. A few straggling tourists taking their time (the curfew is rarely enforced for tourists), but other than that, empty, silent streets. So that factor really helped in getting well-rested!

One afternoon, we joined a minibus tour up to a waterfall. It was a popular tour that took us 35 km along up-and-down roads and included a sanctuary for Asian black bears that have been rescued from poachers hunting for the Chinese market. We spent about an hour at the waterfall, jumping in from the top of the falls and from trees along the river.

A few times, we ate at the local night market. Every night, they set up stalls along a small street where you could buy things like beef noodle soup, whole roasted chickens, vegetable stirfries, and little coconut dumplings that Yoshi fell in love with. After dinner, we wandered through the streets of people selling souvenirs.

We would have bought a lot more than we did, except that we had a lot more travelling to do and couldn’t lug everything through five more countries.

Also while we were there, we enjoyed the festival which marked the end of Buddhist Lent, on the full moon in October. All the monasteries and temples were decorated and lit up at night, and everywhere, there were bamboo boats decorated with flowers, bright cloths and candles.

So we stayed a couple of days, then another day, then another day, simply because we didn't want to leave. But eventually we knew we had to make a move if we wanted to make it out on a trek before we had to leave Laos.

Yoshi with some goats.

We caught a tuk-tuk to the bus station and bought our ticket to Luang Nam Tha, the province in the north-west corner of Laos, bordering China to the north. The ticket cost about $7 (57,000 kip) we all piled onto a rickety old bus. And when the seats were full, people sat in the aisles, on the floor, anywhere...and they kept selling tickets! The bus we were on was actually continuing on to Huay Xai, on the Thai border. So due to the numbers, they decided to take all the people going to Luang Nam Tha and send a separate, smaller bus so they could fit everyone. Initially, this sounded like great news, as the first bus looked like it would be just a terribly uncomfortable trip; LNT would take around 9 hours, then another 3 or 4 hours on to Huay Xai. So we got onto our second bus, making sure our bags got off the roof and came with us. But the second bus was just as full as the first; four people sitting across the back seat designed for three; that is, me and three Laotians- who are significantly smaller than myself!

We finally left at 6 pm, and for the first 2 hours, it was terrible! We were jammed in together, with me holding onto the edge of the open window to keep from pushing into the person on my left every time the bus careened around a corner. Then we stopped to let 2 people out, and I almost cheered! Suddenly I could face the rest of the trip, being able to move my legs and even put my bag on the floor in front of me. We stopped, possibly for dinner, although none of the foreigners ate anything. The original bus was traveling with us, and so there were quite a few people at the “rest area”. But as the buffet choices were limited, and we couldn't really determine just how long we'd be staying (for the purposes of ordering from the menu), nobody ate. There were a few non-descript vegetable choices that I didn't feel up to trying. But what caught our eye were the platters of larvae, the piles of fried beetles and the whole deep-fried frogs. As one guy put it, normally he'd give it a try. But seeing as we were about to be trapped on a bus for another 7 hours or more, what would we do if it didn't agree with us? Point well made.

And the journey continued...with a full bus again. A few kilometers after our dinner break, we stopped to let on 3 more people. And I was once more back in Lao bus hell. Each minute felt like an hour, and each hour a lifetime. By the light of the full moon outside, I could just about tell that we were passing through some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen- at warp speed.

By the time we arrived in LNT, it was 3 am. And unbeknownst to us, they had built a new bus terminal. One that was not a 5 minute walk from the 6-square-block downtown, but rather 10 km out. And foolishly, I had thought I could just rock up at 3 am and knock on a guest house door, and so I had not made advance reservations. So the friendly tuk-tuk driver let me use his phone to call the few guesthouses I had listed in my Lonely Planet. However, only one of them answered, and she told me, sorry, she was full.

Eventually we decided to just take the tuk-tuk downtown and try our luck knocking on doors. But when we asked the lone tuk-tuk driver if he could take us, all he said was, No, not until 5 am. What? Why? But unfortunately neither he nor any of the other 6 people dropped off with us could speak English. So after asking repeatedly, and getting the same answer, we gave up. We could either wait, or walk, or sleep at the bus station.

My face must have said more than I intended, cause soon the Lao people started discussing something at length, which concluded in everyone climbing in the back of the tuk-tuk and telling us to "Come, come". And so we headed into town at around 4 am, stopping along the way to drop one person off, then letting Yoshi and I off downtown. We still have no idea why they wanted to wait until 5 am. They weren't waiting for more people to arrive at the bus station. Perhaps they were going somewhere that didn't open until 5 am (a factory or something?) Or maybe it had something to do with the curfew.

Anyway, we knocked on a few doors, wandered a few deserted streets, and finally nabbed one hostel's last room, getting to bed at 5 am.