A beautiful town perched between two rivers, one being the MeKong. The people are incredibly friendly and the temples and waterfalls are stunning.  Of note were the young monks walking about town.  Every morning at 6am they would parade around the streets where the locals (and now the tourists) would hand them food for the day.  We spent a good while talking to these guys while visiting the temples – most are orphans that join to avoid the streets and acquire some form of education – pretty sad really.

All in all, a very relaxing few days and we ate and drank plenty.

A selection of our favourite photos here.

UNESCO World Heritage Site #9

A quick run through a sightseeing day:

The standard moped in Asia, a Honda 125 semi-automatic, sounds like a weapon!

A typical village scene, dusty roads with bamboo houses on either side.

All the locals bath and wash their clothes in the river, an amazing sight.  This is usually a chore for the ladies.

Phukhan Cave, scary if you are slightly claustrophobic.  We spent most of our time crawling through the nooks and crannies.

Putting on a brave face!  You crawl for quite a distance and get very dirty in the process.

After caving, time for a wash and to cool off in one of many lagoons surrounding the mountains.  Almost all provide a swing of sorts – very enjoyable and cool in the midday sun.

My first plunge of the day!  This particular lagoon was very shallow, about 4ft deep, as I quickly learned when my ass hit the gravel.

These local lads were very very amusing.  They spent the afternoon harpooning the lagoon and cooked their catch on a couple of burning logs.  The remainder of their catch they brought home for supper.

We just missed what would have been the best shots of the day, these young monks (about 20 in total) diving and summersaulting in the lagoon.  We seen them from a far but as we got closer they were out of the water and ready to leave.

Our favourite lagoon of the day with almost tropical water which run down from the mountain.  It was so deep you could dive from a great height, which I did on several occasions but only caught on video.

After our swim it was time for a beer and rest, sightseeing can be a little tiring at times .

Fixing a puncture on this all-round vehicle – with a trailer similar to this, most are used as buses between villages.

The locals using the Mekong for their daily bath, we didn’t want to hang around too long for obvious reasons.

This travelling lark is crap, we are bored and wished we were back home WORKING!

Basically, you rent a tube for around $4 and get taken to the top of the river and float down stopping off at many cocktail bars. Within 3 minutes, there are locals along the bank enticing you in for a drink – they have big long bamboo sticks that you grab so they can pull you in  – it’s brilliant.

All the bars have these crazy zip lines and swing ropes that go out over the water, sometimes up to 20m high (see the pics) . The local BeerLao costs about $1 and most throw in free shots of the local Lao Lao liqueur. The more adventurous can order happy shots containing magic mushrooms, opium or marijuana.

Loads of alcohol (and drugs if one wished) mixed with swing ropes and zip lines makes for a great afternoon. As with most of these countries, there’s not much for safety standards, so many were carrying bruises or worse as the day progressed, but I guess that makes it all the more fun. 

We had so much fun we stayed at the last bar too long and ended up tubing down the river in the dark – a little scary.  It was definitely the most adrenalin filled day of our trip so far.

We used our underwater housing unit and took a ton of pics and some videos which we are unable to show you.  The last pic is my favourite, me heading down the water slide head first – Sam only managed to capture my legs – you do go pretty fast and I landed flat on the water – it did hurt!

Five of us stuck together for the adventure, photos include Helen and Claire from England, Megan from the US and ourselves.

If you’re ever in Laos, head for Vang Veing!

Never mind, onwards and upwards to Vang Veing to go tubing (next post) which we’d head so much about.

Unlike most of our previous expeditions we encountered no scams, just downright rudeness and being treated like third class citizens. The buss was an hour late which is to be expected in Asia, so no surprise there. 15mins after departing the bus terminal we pulled in at the side of the road and a lorry approached loaded with cargo.  Our rucksacks were immediately dragged from the undercarage and thrown to the side of the road and replaced with the load.  Until we strongly objected, our bags were put on the top of the bus not tied down or covered.  For 7 hours until we reached the border, we continually dropped off and collected their payload. 

Throughout our 28 hour ordeal we were moved 4–5 times to different parts of the bus, had to sit on this ever changing loot and make no mention of our disgust for fear of being pushed around like many of the more vocal passengers.  Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep!

It’s hard to image such a buss journey, but this is a true account.  As passengers we were a mere excuse to take a bus across the border while the driver and his 5 collaborators made a shed load of cash transporting these goods, legal or otherwise!

Somewhat amusing now, but a little nervous at the time.  Travel would be rather boring if we didn’t have stories like this to tell.