| | OK, remember what I said about good roads in Laos? That's true... Only for the 20km from the border to Vientiane and the streets in Vientiane itself. I will say Vientiane offers a much better intro to Laos than does Poipet to Cambodia from Thailand. The road to Vang Vieng, while paved was full of potholes. Given that only a few years ago the only method of transport around the country was by river, I guess it's still considered a great improvement! I do have to say unlike Albania, I didn't see anyone on a horsecart! once out of Vientiane, the surroundings look very much like Cambodia, stilt village houses everywhere and lots of mud. Vang Vieng was very nice, very chilled, great scenery too... Well except for this one strip of identical guesthouses all showing reruns of friends, serving the same pseudo western food, and each containing about 95% white people. Yeh, just seems so odd and yet so familiar. I will never understand why some people come all the way to Laos to do things they do at home. They could save that horrendous air fare too! I admit I've been splurging a little in this short Laos trip of mine and got myself a $12 hotel room in a village where most guesthouses have rooms for 5. But coming from Europe where even $12 might not afford you a night in a public park, I thought it was a pretty sweet deal. The hotel was pretty good given its location, except for a bunch of drunken idiots making noise on the hallways and some really annoying Canadian girls (the flag patch gave it away) giving the staff a hard time. Hmmm. No wonder why they slapped on higher visa fees for Canadians. Rented a bike and planned to go explore the caves and the karst hills a bit. I came across one cave on the other side of the river and decided to check it out. Bad idea! Getting to the cave involved a walk through a narrow path along the rice paddies, many sections over narrow planks over muddy streams. But that wasn't it. Finally i got to a "ticket booth" which consisted of some 10 year old kids claiming ownership of this cave asking for 10,000 kip entrance and 50,000 for one of the kids to act as a guide. 50,000 for a guide? I thought no way, considering how small these caves were supposed to be. Then the path turned into a deluded swamp and I ended up walking in the rice paddy for the rest of the way, getting entirely soaked in mud and who knows what else! The caves itself were nice, but not too different from others I've seen. On the way back, I noticed there in fact was a solid path just a little to the right. Somehow I wasn't the only one to miss it since, I met 2 others also completely soaked in mud! Finally got back to the hotel and washed everything off. That night must've been the most amazing thunderstorm I've ever seen. Lightning striking everywhere and rains just pouring down for almost 2 hours. At one point the electricity in the hotel went out completely. Yet still there were village kids running around playing in the water. Caught the first minibus in the morning back to Vientiane. One great thing about southeast asia is how you can book a bus at a guesthouse/hotel and they actually come pick you up for free! In Europe they'd probably charge you 10 euros just to bring you to the bus station! Of course the bus driver drove around the village for an hour to every guesthouse trying to fill up the bus and finally we were on our way on that potholed road. At least drivers here are less nuts than in some other countries I've been in. The bus did get a flat tire mid way, but they got that sorted in about 10 minutes. More annoying was that we were all sweating because the A/C didn't work! Back in Vientiane, I made a quick stop at That Luang, another major Laotian monument, had lunch in the only mall in town, and made my way back to the border. Thailand is definitely much more organized than its neighbors, at least the roads are good! Once at Nong Khai station, I tried to get a 2nd class ticket only for them to tell me only first class was available. Fair enough. First class on Thai trains isn't really worth it, but you do get more privacy... if you happen to have the whole compartment to yourself. Otherwise you share with some odd stranger. Lucky for me, my compartment partner was some easy going Brit retiree Thailand who self proclaimed himself as "NOT a sex tourist". Unfortunately for us, the woman in the compartment next door sounded like some angry, pissed off European babushka woman who once yelled at us for talking too loud. So we made kept talking, this time about her, just to keep pissing her off. The train arrived in Hualumphong at 6:20am, which is suprisingly early given the tendency for Thai trains to be at least 4 hours late! Got to Karn's place to pick up my stuff only to find it's Typhoon 8 in Hong Kong, so I'll have to be staying another night here. |
