A bumpy night time ride on the poorly maintained roads of rural Vietnam brought our bus to the isolated jungle border crossing of Nam Phao. We arrived in one piece after a bone jarring few hours, but we arrived at 3:30am and the border didn't open for business until around 7:30am. At least we got to get a few hours of non-bumpy sleep time in. With the opening of the border crossing, we were ushered out of the bus into the cool jungle morning air where we had to walk the kilometre or so from the Vietnamese checkpoint to the Laotian checkpoint... no matter, the jungle was beautiful.
Almost immediately I could feel the difference from Vietnam as we rolled through the Laotian outback. It instantly reminded me of Cambodia in its rural rusticness and untamed beauty. With one of the largest intact original jungles in Southeast Asia, there is much to be seen by trekking from various spots throughout the country. Even though the country boasts so much undisturbed natural beauty, there is evidence of a hunter-gatherer presence up to 40,000 years ago which later developed into agricultural societies and empires. Most recently Laos was unwillingly sucked into the fringes of the Vietnam War and suffered greatly during the "secret war" waged from 1953-1975. During that time the US CIA trained Laotian hill tribesman to fight a guerrilla war with the South Vietnamese who were making repeated incursions into the north of Laos to support their battle with North Vietnam. During this time it is said that one US plane load of bombs was dropped on the country EVERY 8 MINUTES in history's largest bombing campaign ever. To this day the Laotian countryside still has the world's largest concentration of UXO (UneXploded Ordinance).
Back on the bus for about another hour and we rolled through the town of Ban Na Hin... my first stop in Laos. I hopped off the bus after saying farewell to the Daves and Oscar; we planned to meet up in Vang Vieng later in the week. As I gathered my bearings a kind of tuk-tuk on steroids pulled up and a local woman got out and asked me if I wanted to go and check out Kong Lor Cave. What luck! That was the very reason I chose to stop in this little jungle-side town. I quickly crossed the road and booked a room in the first guesthouse I could find, ditched my backpack, and jumped into the vehicle. Perfect timing!
On board the tuk-tuk I met a couple of Danish girls headed to the cave as well, we decided to travel it together and hopefully get some discounts. We drove for about an hour deep into the Laotian countryside through a number of very rural villages until we approached Kong Lor National Park. There we were dropped off with a promise to be picked up in 2 or 3 hours for the return journey to the town. We approached the river and found a number of stands selling local food and drinks, so we fueled up before hiring a couple of dugout canoes and guides to take us up the Hinboun River through the 7.5 kilometre cave.
Kong Lor cave was first discovered in the 16th century, but wasn't exploited for ecotourism until 1995. The first motorized dugout canoe went through the cave in 2008. The cave is one of Southeast Asia's most impressive limestone karst formations with spots inside so unimaginably huge that a helicopter could easily fly around inside. We descended to the river and followed our guide into the gaping entrance of the cave. Just inside the entrance was a sandbar with several dugouts beached. We hopped in and began to be dazzled right away with the fading light from the monstrous cave mouth. Soon all we could see was what we could point out with our high-powered headlamps... sometimes they weren't able to penetrate the heights of the gargantuan cavern.
Inside the cavern we stopped a bit of the way in to explore an outcropping of cave formations (stalgmites and stalagtites) in some places lit up by funky lighting. As we continued upstream we occassionaly had to get out and push the dugout through shallows because the water level was low during this part of the season. At the other end of the cave we emerged in a secluded valley nestled amongst limestone cliffs before stopping at a riverside refreshment stand to cool off before the return journey. The way back was mostly just motoring through hoping to make it back in time to catch our tuk-tuk back to Ban Na Hin.
Back in the town I took a meal and spent an hour or two wandering around soaking up the bucolic atmosphere. Then I headed back to my guesthouse to get a proper night's sleep with some much needed air conditioning... my next day would be one in transit.
I woke up early as the guesthouse owner told me that the local bus to Vientienne would come through sometime between 7:30am and 8:30am (timing is kind of general and non-specific in Laos). After a filling and cheap breakfast it was only a matter of minutes before my bus rolled by along the main road. This was a local bus, meaning no air conditioning, less than ideal seating, stops just about everywhere and anywhere a person wanted, and speeds that would make sap flowing in winter look fast. The 250 or so kilometre journey took about 6 hours to get to the south end of Vientienne. Once there I needed to get some transport to a bus station in the city centre to try and catch an on-going bus to Vang Vieng. After being traded from tuk-tuk to tuk-tuk like an over-the-hill hockey player in the NHL it still took a good hour to travel the 10 kms or so to my destination as we detoured around picking up and dropping off other people along the way... this is definitely a country where to be in a rush is to court insanity.
At the bus station I discovered that the last local bus of the day had left just an hour earlier. No problem, I was prepared to spend a night in Vientienne, all I needed to do was figure out which bus I would take the next day. As I was struggling to interpret Laotian schedules a local chatted me up asking where I was heading. Turned out he had a private mini-bus he was trying to fill up for a late afternoon run up to Vang Vieng and the price was right for me... sweet! So far, even though traveling took time in Laos, it seemed like all my connections were happening fortuitously. Off we went down the street to where the mini-bus was parked and a bunch of foreigners milled about along the sidewalk. This is where I met an Australian guy named Sam. We struck up a conversation and became buds pretty quick.
It took another 4 or 5 hours of travel time to cover the 150 or so kilometres between Vientienne and Vang Vieng. The road conditions were... curious. All along the route the highway was composed of 100 metre stretches of nice pavement interspersed with 100 metre stretches of wretched pothole filled dirt road. It kind of confused me why they would choose to pave the highway in this fashion instead of simply paving straight from point A to point B and continuing as funding permitted. The end result was an arduous, slow, and very bumpy ride. No matter, the countrside was pleasant enough and some of the towns we passed through had some fantastic old French Colonial style buildings.
On the mini-bus Sam and I chatted up a couple of foreign girls who had been living and working in Vang Vieng for the past 7 months. We quizzed them on places to stay and things to do. When we got off the bus they showed us the way to some nice cheap and friendly hostels. Once settled in, Sam and I were itching to check out some of the fabled Vang Vieng nightlife.. so off we went.
Vang Vieng has been around since the 14th century as a staging post between Luang Prabang and Vientienne. The town gained its current name in the 1890's under French colonial rule and during the Vietnam war, between 1964-1973, the US built an air force base and runway called "Lima Site 6" to operate its Air America CIA operations from. In 1999 the owner of a local organic farm bought some rubber tubes for his farm volunteers to float down the Nam Song river on. The activity took off and developed into the tourist attraction it is today, much to the chagrin of many locals. Although the tubing industry brings oodles of tourist cash into the town's economy, the loud music, binge drinking, drug use, and general disrespect for local cultural traditions has many Laotians concerned for the future development of their youth under such conditions.
On our morning wander through town, Sam and I ran into the Daves and Oscar, who I had met in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, at one of the restaurants. Looks like found our crew for the stay in Vang Vieng! And they were eager to initiate us into the decadent pandemonium that is Vang Vieng tubing. After a very bumpy tuk-tuk ride to the outskirts of town, we ended up at the riverside organic farm that started it all. As we walked to the river's edge, and the only bridge to cross to the first establishment, the thumping sound of competing bass lines greeted us along with a view a few hundred 20-something foreigners amidst a Dionysian frenzy.
After four days of travelling from town to river and back, Sam and I realized that we hadn't really taken the time to explore any of the natural beauty around Vang Vieng and we were both running out of time. Originally I had wanted to travel further north in Laos to explore some more of the pristine jungle and the city of Luang Prabang as well as some of the northern Thai cities, but, alas, I still had my Indian visa to sort out in Bangkok which could take anywhere from 5-14 days. In order to avoid being repeatedly sucked in to our crew's shenanigans, we beat a hasty retreat and booked a bus/train combo from Vang Vieng to Bangkok. And so ends my all too short a stay in the country Laos... no worries, I have a feeling I shall return to South-East Asia to further explore and enjoy Cambodia and Laos.
Almost immediately I could feel the difference from Vietnam as we rolled through the Laotian outback. It instantly reminded me of Cambodia in its rural rusticness and untamed beauty. With one of the largest intact original jungles in Southeast Asia, there is much to be seen by trekking from various spots throughout the country. Even though the country boasts so much undisturbed natural beauty, there is evidence of a hunter-gatherer presence up to 40,000 years ago which later developed into agricultural societies and empires. Most recently Laos was unwillingly sucked into the fringes of the Vietnam War and suffered greatly during the "secret war" waged from 1953-1975. During that time the US CIA trained Laotian hill tribesman to fight a guerrilla war with the South Vietnamese who were making repeated incursions into the north of Laos to support their battle with North Vietnam. During this time it is said that one US plane load of bombs was dropped on the country EVERY 8 MINUTES in history's largest bombing campaign ever. To this day the Laotian countryside still has the world's largest concentration of UXO (UneXploded Ordinance).
Back on the bus for about another hour and we rolled through the town of Ban Na Hin... my first stop in Laos. I hopped off the bus after saying farewell to the Daves and Oscar; we planned to meet up in Vang Vieng later in the week. As I gathered my bearings a kind of tuk-tuk on steroids pulled up and a local woman got out and asked me if I wanted to go and check out Kong Lor Cave. What luck! That was the very reason I chose to stop in this little jungle-side town. I quickly crossed the road and booked a room in the first guesthouse I could find, ditched my backpack, and jumped into the vehicle. Perfect timing!
On board the tuk-tuk I met a couple of Danish girls headed to the cave as well, we decided to travel it together and hopefully get some discounts. We drove for about an hour deep into the Laotian countryside through a number of very rural villages until we approached Kong Lor National Park. There we were dropped off with a promise to be picked up in 2 or 3 hours for the return journey to the town. We approached the river and found a number of stands selling local food and drinks, so we fueled up before hiring a couple of dugout canoes and guides to take us up the Hinboun River through the 7.5 kilometre cave.
Kong Lor cave was first discovered in the 16th century, but wasn't exploited for ecotourism until 1995. The first motorized dugout canoe went through the cave in 2008. The cave is one of Southeast Asia's most impressive limestone karst formations with spots inside so unimaginably huge that a helicopter could easily fly around inside. We descended to the river and followed our guide into the gaping entrance of the cave. Just inside the entrance was a sandbar with several dugouts beached. We hopped in and began to be dazzled right away with the fading light from the monstrous cave mouth. Soon all we could see was what we could point out with our high-powered headlamps... sometimes they weren't able to penetrate the heights of the gargantuan cavern.
Inside the cavern we stopped a bit of the way in to explore an outcropping of cave formations (stalgmites and stalagtites) in some places lit up by funky lighting. As we continued upstream we occassionaly had to get out and push the dugout through shallows because the water level was low during this part of the season. At the other end of the cave we emerged in a secluded valley nestled amongst limestone cliffs before stopping at a riverside refreshment stand to cool off before the return journey. The way back was mostly just motoring through hoping to make it back in time to catch our tuk-tuk back to Ban Na Hin.
Back in the town I took a meal and spent an hour or two wandering around soaking up the bucolic atmosphere. Then I headed back to my guesthouse to get a proper night's sleep with some much needed air conditioning... my next day would be one in transit.
I woke up early as the guesthouse owner told me that the local bus to Vientienne would come through sometime between 7:30am and 8:30am (timing is kind of general and non-specific in Laos). After a filling and cheap breakfast it was only a matter of minutes before my bus rolled by along the main road. This was a local bus, meaning no air conditioning, less than ideal seating, stops just about everywhere and anywhere a person wanted, and speeds that would make sap flowing in winter look fast. The 250 or so kilometre journey took about 6 hours to get to the south end of Vientienne. Once there I needed to get some transport to a bus station in the city centre to try and catch an on-going bus to Vang Vieng. After being traded from tuk-tuk to tuk-tuk like an over-the-hill hockey player in the NHL it still took a good hour to travel the 10 kms or so to my destination as we detoured around picking up and dropping off other people along the way... this is definitely a country where to be in a rush is to court insanity.
At the bus station I discovered that the last local bus of the day had left just an hour earlier. No problem, I was prepared to spend a night in Vientienne, all I needed to do was figure out which bus I would take the next day. As I was struggling to interpret Laotian schedules a local chatted me up asking where I was heading. Turned out he had a private mini-bus he was trying to fill up for a late afternoon run up to Vang Vieng and the price was right for me... sweet! So far, even though traveling took time in Laos, it seemed like all my connections were happening fortuitously. Off we went down the street to where the mini-bus was parked and a bunch of foreigners milled about along the sidewalk. This is where I met an Australian guy named Sam. We struck up a conversation and became buds pretty quick.
It took another 4 or 5 hours of travel time to cover the 150 or so kilometres between Vientienne and Vang Vieng. The road conditions were... curious. All along the route the highway was composed of 100 metre stretches of nice pavement interspersed with 100 metre stretches of wretched pothole filled dirt road. It kind of confused me why they would choose to pave the highway in this fashion instead of simply paving straight from point A to point B and continuing as funding permitted. The end result was an arduous, slow, and very bumpy ride. No matter, the countrside was pleasant enough and some of the towns we passed through had some fantastic old French Colonial style buildings.
On the mini-bus Sam and I chatted up a couple of foreign girls who had been living and working in Vang Vieng for the past 7 months. We quizzed them on places to stay and things to do. When we got off the bus they showed us the way to some nice cheap and friendly hostels. Once settled in, Sam and I were itching to check out some of the fabled Vang Vieng nightlife.. so off we went.
Vang Vieng has been around since the 14th century as a staging post between Luang Prabang and Vientienne. The town gained its current name in the 1890's under French colonial rule and during the Vietnam war, between 1964-1973, the US built an air force base and runway called "Lima Site 6" to operate its Air America CIA operations from. In 1999 the owner of a local organic farm bought some rubber tubes for his farm volunteers to float down the Nam Song river on. The activity took off and developed into the tourist attraction it is today, much to the chagrin of many locals. Although the tubing industry brings oodles of tourist cash into the town's economy, the loud music, binge drinking, drug use, and general disrespect for local cultural traditions has many Laotians concerned for the future development of their youth under such conditions.
On our morning wander through town, Sam and I ran into the Daves and Oscar, who I had met in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, at one of the restaurants. Looks like found our crew for the stay in Vang Vieng! And they were eager to initiate us into the decadent pandemonium that is Vang Vieng tubing. After a very bumpy tuk-tuk ride to the outskirts of town, we ended up at the riverside organic farm that started it all. As we walked to the river's edge, and the only bridge to cross to the first establishment, the thumping sound of competing bass lines greeted us along with a view a few hundred 20-something foreigners amidst a Dionysian frenzy.
To put it bluntly, we were all stunned and exhilarated at the flagrant disregard for safety whatsoever. As we stepped into the first establishment we were offered free local drinks and invited to a number of bar games. Paying for drinks was something people did if they weren't willing to swim across the river to next of 12 or so establishments that lined the river and provided free entry drinks to all. As one floated down the river, employees would toss out lines to reel you in and help you climb up to their platforms. Most of the riverside spots had a variety of death-defying activities to participate in including: jumping/diving platforms, zip lines, slides, and rope swings. As fun as all this may sound, keep in mind that in 2011, 22 people DIED on this river due to inebriated poor judgement in the use of these activities. I quickly named the place "the right to die playground". After talking to one of the owners, we learned that only a month earlier an Australian fellow had died at our favourite spot when he fell over a railing into the shallow dry season river and landed face first on some limestone projections... definitely a place to be mindful.
After four days of travelling from town to river and back, Sam and I realized that we hadn't really taken the time to explore any of the natural beauty around Vang Vieng and we were both running out of time. Originally I had wanted to travel further north in Laos to explore some more of the pristine jungle and the city of Luang Prabang as well as some of the northern Thai cities, but, alas, I still had my Indian visa to sort out in Bangkok which could take anywhere from 5-14 days. In order to avoid being repeatedly sucked in to our crew's shenanigans, we beat a hasty retreat and booked a bus/train combo from Vang Vieng to Bangkok. And so ends my all too short a stay in the country Laos... no worries, I have a feeling I shall return to South-East Asia to further explore and enjoy Cambodia and Laos.
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