Greetings from Vang Vieng, Laos. Here is a brief summary of what we've done and encountered since our last installment.
Cycled 230 kilometres, most of that up hill...eeeek.
Past through 60 or so villages
Shot at 20 monks, 10 policement, 5 old people, 300 motorcycles, and 400-500 children and backpackers...with water pistols.
Ordered 2 vegetarian meals both of which came with a bonus piece of meat (beef, dog, snake??!?!?)
Stayed at a number of guesthouses where the shower was a bucket of cold water, and the bucket also doubles as in instrument in which to flush the toilet
Encountered one snake, a spider the size of my head, 10 cockroaches, and 1 million flying insects
Observed 40-50 men along the way carrying AK47s and other such assault rifles, often with bayonets
Observed 100 or so people with machetes
Taken 2 bus journeys, both of which were challenging to our stomachs and also shared the experience with 20 or so vomiting locals
Used alot of hand gestures in order to communicate
Saw the Plain of Jars...awesome
Had 2 decent meals over the week
Saw 5 other cycle tourists within the space of 15 km in the same area...all of them going up hill from whence we just rode! yeeeeehaaaaa.
Cycled across impressive mountains, with limestone cliffs and peaks
Went caving in 2 awesome caves...very purrrrty, and dark
Gave up approximately 5 km at the top of a 20km hill climb at the end of the day, when it was dark, scary, and there were bandits reportedly in the area and we had just seen many a scary looking farmer with the afore mentioned weaponry; and Lissa started having panic attacks...who wouldn't..and the song 'high way to hell' was on repeat in her head.
Aux had a bad experience with noodle soup and it rendered him ill for a few days
Lissa set the down hill record of 56km/hr...eeeeh..cuz i'm fatter and I have more luggage :)
Aux set the up hill record...and performed approximately 10 wheelies much to the glee of the local kids
Said 'Saaabaaaiiiideeeeeeee!' (heeeeeeeeeeeeeloooooooooooooo!) more times than i can count to local children
Have decided that Laos men are sooooooo lazy and that women do all the work...
Just watched 6 episodes of 'Friends' (in english!) whilst reclining in a relaxing cafe eating breakfast...eeeeh.
Here's aux to tell you what we've actually been up to...
Lissa :)
in the week since we were in luang prabang we've covered a fair
distance over some of the most mountainous terrain in laos. the
landscape is really similar to south island of nz. less snow, 28 degree
temperatures, but mountains, hills, trees, and of course lots of inbred
looking locals. the first day started out well, a 40 or 50 km ride from
luang prabang, we got the right road this time. i managed to snag a
lift up a nasty hill from a rope that hung off the back of a big slow
moving truck and got some funny looks from phalangs (white people) on
the VIP bus behind it. lissa wasnt so lucky so she soldiered up and we
met at the top of the hill, after some time we reached the village that
we had set out for the day before, and it really didnt meet the high
expectation that id built up after 2 days of thinking about the place.
it was crap, the people were crap and the food was really crap. it was
morning still, and not really lunch time so none of the 'cafes' had
food and none of the people wanted to serve or even look at us. so i
managed eventually to get across that we wanted lunch, pointed at a few
things out of our phrasebook like chicken, pork, mixed vegitable. this
got a reaction, and a plate of mixed vegitable was prepared for us. the
first of many that we ate over the next few days (out of bare
necessity) and that i will never eat again. its pretty much green leaf
of origin unknown and stringy green thing with leaves, also of unknown
species. with the ever present sticky rice. not so much mixed veg, i
would have been happier with peas and carrots. well the moral is,
never ever go to a town called xiang nugen.
so continued on, eventually arriving at the start of the 20 km
hill climb. we bought some left over lunch from some guy (i think it
may have been dog) and i had a swim in the river with some local kids
to prepare myself, and we started up the hill. thats where the day
started getting shit. it got dark and we ran out of energy when we were
about half way up, and we were a little worried about bandits from what
wed been reading on the area and the large amount of men with guns
coming out of the plantations. after pushing our bikes in the dark for
a while we eventually got picked up by a lady who ran a guesthouse in
the town we were going to. i argued with her for a while and she finally agreed to give us a lift. sweet. it was a skanky rrom, but
much better than sleeping in the bush. we stayed in that village the
next day cause it rained all day, and it was cold! was really warked
walking around in cold rain among thatch huts, doesnt really seem real.
i hung out with some local kids and dug up insects for their breakfast.
next day, back on the bikes, we rode to a town called phou khoun,
passing a huge number of guys hanging out on the roadside in pairs with
old rifles, bayonets and all. it was pretty odd. i ask all the engligh
speaking lao people why they are there, and can never get a straight
answer but apparently the hmong (hill tribe people) have some kind of
beef with the cops, and they fight it out occasionally. fair enough.
they were pretty friendly though, i stopped and had a chat (as much as
is possible) with a couple of them while i waited for lissa to catch
up, and they even let me take a photo. after a pretty good ride up and
down some hills we made it into phou khoun, a junction town there the
road from luang prabang meets the one going to vientiane and another
going to phonsovan. we got a room right above the junction, and
obserevd the people milling around. this town must be a little richer
because the people here carry ak47's rather than the old rifles that we
saw on the road. we had dinner. mixed veg soup. the vegitarian dishes
here all come with one piece of meat floating in them somewhere. that
piece made me violently ill for the next couple of days.
next day caught the bus to phonsovan. windy road. thank god for
the anti nausea pills that came in our bag of drugs. this towns in the
middle east of laos, one of the areas thats still badly contaminated by
uxo's. the americans bombed the shit out of this area in their war, and
the evidence is still apparent, there are bomb craters everywhere, and
most houses are built using bits of bombs, usually as foundation piles.
the people are really poor cause they cant use their land properly
because of the danger posed by unexploded shit, but they use the
debris from the war to full advantage. all the cutlery is made out of
recycled american aircraft that crashed on lao territory, just lumps of
aluminium beaten into the shape of a spoon. it ads a vital exra
dimention to noodle soup knowing that the eating impliment im using
once dropped bombs on vietnam and laos. the americans even bombed their
arghaelogical treasure, and one real tourist attraction, the plains of
jars, damaging many of them. they are still really cool though, made by
a vanished people thousands of years ago (it sounds almost mythological
being a vanished people. i wish i could become one of them when i
die). nz has done heaps of work here clearing bombs so the site can
gain world heritage status or something. go the kiwis.
left phonsovan the next day, took the bus back to the junctiontown, known to me as AKtown. they
sell crudely made samuri swords at the shops here. i figured it might
be a good defence against wild dogs. didnt want to buy one but i asked
the lady how much. she said 68000 kip (about 8.90 nz). i said no,
started to walk away, she says ok, 50000. no. ok 30,000. jesus, i didnt
want to buy the fuckin thing, theres no room for undecided shoppers
here, but its kinda good to know how low you can haggle to. we got out
of there as quickly as we could cause its a shit town. hit the road
about 12.00 for a big series or downhills out of the mountains. we
stopped for lunch and were accosted by this huge bird that i thought
was maybe a turkey. not a turkey. it had a blue head really scaly
and wrinkled with a big red fold of skin hanging down below its beak.
looked more like a dragon up close. it was clearly as confused as to
what it was as we were because it kept trying to do its mating display
at a very old blind cat. the cat didnt know what was going on, but the
bird scared the shit out of it. i guess thats one point to the birds in
a losing game. good on it. after it strutted around fiercely for 10
minutes, all puffed out and snarling and hissing, the woman that owned
the cafe picked it up, and it meekly allowed itself to be carried away,
and given a plate of food. we left.
got to kasi that afternoon, and passed out from the heat. woke up
in the evening, poached a coconut had dinner and played cards. we were
the only phalangs in town so we left early in the morning, and got to
vang vien in the afternoon after meeting up with a belgian dude at the
local buddha caves. he was also on a bike, and had just finished riding
through cambodia. he gave us some tips about that country and hung out
with us while we argued with our unwanted guide who tried to rip us
off over the price of the caves trip. we went to an organic farm and
had a mulberry smoothee in the heat of the afternoon. sweeeeeeeeet. and
a cheese sandwich. oh yeah. ive dicided that im addicted to cheese, and
the shit that they give you here is that processed crap that i wouldnt
wipe my arse with. its hardly an acceptable methadone, but this cheese
at the organic place was real. first cheese in 8 weeks or so, and it
was a goodun. viang vien is a real party town. there are 5 pizza
restaurants, about 4 bars that only play friends at a high volume, and
another 4 that dont. most of the bars have elevated lying down things
so you can get horizontal and drink (instead of the other way around)
while watching passers by, and most also have a special menu at the
back of the book with prices for magic muchroom pizzas (trippy pizzas),
happy pizzas, magic mushroom tea, bags of opium, weed and mushrooms. i
guess thats the reason for the lying down things. there are also some
cool non drug related things to do here, tubing on the river where you
can stop along the way at a number of riverside bars and have a beer
(ok so not as many non drug related as i thought), and a lot of
kayaking options. will see to that this afternoon i think.
