Southern Laos: The Four Thousand Islands of the Mekong (A main bullet point presentation)

We’ll keep it brief because all we really did on some of the 4000 Islands was relax our brains away.

- Took a ferry to Don Khong, (Khong Island a.k.a Large Island) the biggest of the 4000, where there was nothing to do in this mindlessly lazy place but relax to the sight of the brown Mekong and the sound of the temple drums.
- Watched a pack of water buffalo waddle through town munching on colourful flowering trees in front of the temple.
- Meditated and had a nice, unforced conversation with a chatty novice monk.
- The next day we headed to Don Det (Det Island), an island filled with unimaginative hippies and typical backpackers.
- Found a $5.00 USD Mekong view wood, thatched-roofed bungalow and hammocked our days away.
- Drank a ‘special’ milkshake and lost a day of our lives (see above pictures of Alissa to confirm potency of shake).
- Rented bicycles and crossed a bridge to the connected island of Don Khon (Khon Island) in search of the extremely rare Irrawaddy Dolphin.
- Saw some large splashes in the water from the corner of our eyes. We could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the endangered Irrawaddy Dolphins. We did see Cambodia though.
- Met a troubled dive instructor that almost started crying when he recalled a time when he lost the lives of 2 Russian tourists in the deep Mediterranean Sea. He recommended that we take an open water deep sea diving course on Koh Tao Island in Thailand. Looking back we don’t know how he convinced us of it!

Getting Out Of Phongsali: A Story of a Man of Many Jobs, Foggy Flight Conditions, and Machine Guns Pointed At Our Heads

We had an amazing time in Phongsali and stayed there for more than a few days. It was really untouched by tourism. With no attractions to see, we spent most of our time strolling the city and eating, drinking, and conversing with local Lao people as well as trekking the surrounding hillsides.

After not too long we yearned to get back to civilization and decided to save ourselves 3 days of back tracking and a traitorous bus ride through Oudomsai and Luang Prabang by purchasing a plane ticket out of this remote city. It sounded simple enough but, it tuned out to be not even the slight bit simple.

We asked the local townsfolk where we could purchase plane tickets and they directed us to the Phongsali Hotel. We went into this eroding building and saw a small empty booth just big enough for one person with a homemade 'Lao Air' sign scotch-taped to the top.

We hollered for service and after some time a man with strong alcohol on his breath emerged from a back room with loud thumping music. He asked us if we wanted a room. We told him we're looking for tickets back to the capital Vientiane. He immediately turned from hotel receptionist to tour agent and walked from the front desk to the homemade 'Lao Air' booth. In his best effort to hide his slurring speech he explained that there are only two flights a week out of this province- one on Wednesday and the other Saturday. We booked two tickets out of here for Wednesday and he took our passports, money, and personal information. He told us that the bus driver would pick us up from our guesthouse early that day.

On Wednesday morning we woke up to some of the thickest fog we've ever seen. There is no way our plane could navigate through mountain peeks onto some small unpaved runway, we thought.

Out of the fog emerged the bus driver, the same man who packed our bags into the minivan 'bus'. Slowly the 'bus' took off into blanketing fog on our way to the airport in the nearby town of Boun Neua. The road was absolutely horrible, so we had to pop some pills to calm our motion sickness. Finally we arrived at the airport, which by all means did not resemble an airport at all. It was a small empty building about the size of a convenient store with two signs outside barely separate from each other that read 'Arivals' and 'Departures'.

We grabbed our bags and waited for our flight. The same man that sold us our tickets and drove the 'bus' was also the person responsible for weighing and labelling our baggage. He checked us in and directed us to a small waiting room.

We met two Philippinos that would be flying to Vientiane with us. We all anticipated leaving this small town and getting some fresh coffee from the capital but wondered how the airplane would ever take off.

We were all so happy to get out of this place. Our happy faces were all shot down in a second as the man with so many jobs, the man we were so convinced was going to be our pilot, walked into the room and looked out the window and mumbled "the flight is cancelled" before walking away.

We all looked at each other and said, "What did he say?"

Matt replied, "The flight is cancelled?"

The Philippinos commented, "No, it can't be!"

Alissa cried, "I'm not staying here! I'm going to kill someone, this place is making me crazy!"

The Philippinos went to the front desk to confirm the message, then they were quickly organizing a way out. We also over heard a Taiwanese business man make some plans over the phone. We got our tickets refunded by the multi job man and he told us that there are no busses out of the province until tomorrow morning. This was not going to work for us. We managed to arrange two outs. One was Taiwan and the other was the Philippinos.

Because the take-charge Taiwanese businessman wanted to take 3 days to reach the capital and the Philippinos wanted to get there as fast as they could, we sided with the impatient Philippinos. The Philippinos filled us in on why they are in Laos. Remember how we mentioned how Laos is a charity case, well, they both are International Accountants who run their own business auditing aid projects for international charities and governments. Interesting work. Interesting people. We shared many of the same opinions about Lao and had many laugh-out-loud moments with those two down-to-earth accountants.

We spent a few hours in the town of Boun Neua watching in awe of Taiwan who went to the back kitchen of an apparently empty restaurant and made himself "special recipe fried rice" from the ingredients found in the abandon kitchen. We were also blown away by the pageantry of different hill tribe women and their elaborate and wildly elegant traditional costumes. You might notice the lack of people photos on this blog. This is partly because we find picturing people quite intrusive and a bit rude. We know this from firsthand experience in Korea. Actually the sight urged us to ask for permission but ALL tribe women responded with a terrifying "NO!"

In these areas they hold the belief that if you take their picture you are taking their soul. Some will allow you to take their pictures but ONLY if you send them the picture, you know, so they can get their soul back.

Actually, a few times in Phongsali province we ran into tribes women that ran in completeand utter terror away from us. This is really untouched land! Oh.... sorry back to the story...

The accountants got a hold of a shinny new 2009 Laos government Toyota Pathfinder (I think) along with a government driver. And we cruised in style back to Luang Prabang. This ride made those painful roads as smooth as Laos silk. This was the swankiest we've traveled thus far and we didn't take that A/C and extra leg room for granted, that's for sure. It didn't take long before we dozed off. Actually, we slept most of the trip after the darkness of night drowned out the beautiful virgin landscape.

In the middle of the night, on some rural back road in the middle of nowhere we awoke to AK47s pointed at our heads and ready to fire!!!

Two vigilantes had barricaded the road. Our cool-as-can-be government driver said something in Laos to these militant looking men and we passed through no problem. We looked like ghosts but we were safe.

The government driver said they just wanted money and that these roads are a bit dangerous at night if you're traveling alone. Cue Alissa: "No Shit Sherlock!"

Trekking In the Mountains to Hill Tribe Villages In Phongsali

Click on these links on Matt's tea blog to read a lengthy and tea focused tale of our adventurous hike to visit the hill tribe people of the Phounoy Tribe. Or at least look at the pictures.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Chinese New Years In Phongsali: Getting Drunk With Grandma

After arriving in Phongsali we still had much to do. Firstly, we had to find a place to sleep. Secondly, we had to find something to eat.

With so few visitors to Phongsali, finding accommodation was no problem. The atmosphere of the city was immediately festive with EVERY shop and house decorated with that iconic symbol of the Chinese New Year, that red thin papered lantern. Every second house had music blaring from loud speakers with dancing that spilled into the streets.

We were absolutely starving having only has a Chinese breakfast at the Oudomsai bus depot 13 hours ago. So we settled into a dirty, overpriced, windowless, Chinese operated hotel without much looking around. With stomachs growling louder than party beats we wandered the small center of the city in search of food.

We must say that it was quite difficult evading the locals invitations to come in and party but we knew full well that drinking on an empty stomach would lead to a quick end to the night. I think we both shit our pants a few times when sugared-up, wide-eyed children lit clusters of fireworks off right in front of us. Actually, if we had an audio clip of the walk through town it would sound more like a battlefield than a celebration.

We must have walked down every street before accepting (actually re-accepting) an invitation to drink it up Chinese New Years style.

All restaurants were closed down for the holidays. The ironic thing was that because it was Chinese New Years every house had a full extravagant table setting of food. We were even desperate enough to poke our heads into some houses and haplessly point to the setting. But everyone declined our offer for food all the while offering us shots of homemade rice wine. This food wasn't to be eaten, it was the food offered only to deceased ancestors. We settled down in cheap plastic lawn chairs located in a large tent that flooded into the street. At least we had a drink!

We managed to bump into two Frechies that had made a Lao friend. We asked their new friend if we could get some food, any food. He immediately pulled out his cell phone and was on top of it.

The food did come- Chinese stir fried ginger pork with Lao sticky rice. We didn't hesitate to devour it local style, with our hands. The food was good. The rice wine was strong. This intoxicating elixir above 50% alcohol screwed us up good!

Under the large tent the locals explained to us that today was the second day of celebrating Chinese New Years. On the first day, they summon the spirits of the relatives that have passed away. For the sake of simple communication and for sheer humour value we all called the spirits 'Grandma'. On the second day they eat and share food and get smashed off stronger-than-strong moonshine for the sake of 'Grandma'. When we asked where 'Grandma' was now, the old men who we were drinking with pointed to a large rectangular wooden box covered in incense and wrapped in bright, flashy fabrics. This box was in the center of the tent and often people would walk up to it and light incense and pray to 'Grandma'.

And so all night long we got trashed with the old men and 'Grandma' as loud music pumped out of drive by motorcycles and nearby houses as people prayed, danced, and celebrated in the street.

The locals gave us the big invite the next day when they were going to take 'Grandma' to the old stadium and do some sort of 'good bye for now' ceremony with her. When we asked when this will take place they just said, "when we decide, that is when". Every body in town was drunk. The party was intense.

We managed to get back to the characterless hotel and fall asleep. The next morning we woke up to middle school students chugging beer and dancing in the lobby to the same loud music we fell asleep to.

When we went outside all the same people were still drinking with 'Grandma' in the tent and the dancing, music, and praying seemed like it never ended the night before. This was crazy!

As we bummed around town catching packs of woman's exotically dressed in costumes from years ago, we saw a large truck being driven by monks. In the back of the truck was 'Grandma' and staggering behind the slow moving truck was all of the dedicated people in the tent. They stumbled along, throwing dry rice at 'Grandma' as the truck made it's way into the distance.

Beautiful Laos Wildflowers

The Most Horrible Bus Ride In Our Lives To The Remote Laos Province of Phongsali

Our bus was scheduled to leave from Oudomsai to Phongsali at 8:00AM. It didn't leave until around 12:30 PM. We spent the time waiting at the run down terminal discussing the geopolitical ramifications of an ever increasing Chinese presence in Northern Laos with an author of a book on the people of Laos (see Link). We chatted for awhile while sipping on fresh Laos coffee the traditional way. Fresh grounds are placed in a sock-like filter and boiling hot water is poured into the sock. When the liquid is fully drained from the filter it is poured into a cup with sweet condensed milk at the bottom. Mix it. Drink it. It's quite sweet but good indeed.

When the bus finally arrived at the station for boarding all chaos broke loose as locals carrying live pigs in nylon sacks and roosters in bamboo woven baskets pushed their way into prime seats saving their spots with their bags and jackets.

In the confusion Matthew helped shove our bags onto the roof of the old, dusty bus where a man stacked them with bags of corn, rice, and other goods until the single decker bus resembled a dilapidated double. Alissa made her way onto the bus and threw someone's bag onto another seat securing us seats together. After witnessing some tense moments as arguments broke out over prime seats, we were finally off.

We made many, many stops, in fact, we stopped in every little town along the way. It was slow, but beautiful to experience the small unchanged village life of the different hill tribes.

The houses were made of bamboo or wood, simple, traditional, and functional, not much has changed in these villages for hundreds of years. The women still adorn exotic, traditional costumes. It was like flipping through real life pages of National Geographic.

Every time the bus stopped, locals would haul their chickens off the bus which sometimes required a bus attendant to climb on to the roof of the bus to retrieve the cargo. Everybody on the bus really had a laugh when the bus driver accidently pulled away before the attendant made his way down from the roof. After riding the twisty road for a few hundred meters, the attendant, who must have been clinging to the roof rails, threw a rope used to tie down the cargo in front of the driver's window to signal distress. The bus stopped to let the man back down into the bus. The look on his face when entering the bus was priceless.

A few hours later we had another laugh at something that was sure to happen. When it did, we still laughed. Kind of like watching the same comedy twice.

Yes, while driving on the twisty dirt roads that spinned up the mountains, a bag fell off the roof. We laughed harder when we confirmed that the bag wasn't ours.

As we traveled along, the bus climbed to higher altitudes and the road got worse with each kilometre, kicking up big plumes of red dirt. The odd patches of road that were paved had large sections washed out from this autumn's flash floods. We still don't know how the shitty bus managed to navigate these giant gaps that swallowed up all but the very minimum of road way required to pass without falling into the mountain valley below.

Alissa claimed she smelt gasoline and was covering her mouth in disgust. We both could smell something a bit off but the smell slowly depleted throughout out long journey North.

It was a hot bus ride at times especially in the heat of midday. The heat was compounded by the fact that all windows had to be sealed closed to prevent the thick clouds of red dust from entering. After a few hours of habituating to the noxious smell of chemicals, finally the source of the odour was discovered. The inconspicuous culprit had two jerry cans of gas wrapped in old clothing. He was ratted out by some of the passengers in front of him. The attendant scolded the man and immediately took the cans of gas and threw them from the moving bus.

A lucky passerby even decided to take his new found treasure home with him. His face looked like he just struck gold as he lugged the heavy cans off the side of the road.

Of course we found the whole ordeal completely amusing. We couldn't seem to stop laughing. It was pretty funny but, then again, we were pretty bombed from wallowing in the fumes for hours!

Soon things started to cool down as the sun dipped behind the mountains. It took a few more hours before we finally reached Phongsali, 12 hours after our initial departure time. We breathed a sigh of relief when our bags were finally lowered from the roof of the bus. Little did we know what was in store for us in Phongsali.

Oudomxay

Although we spent little time in this sleepy mountainous town, we have fond memories of Oudomxay. When here, the Chinese influence is undeniable as is the beauty of the mountains backdrop.

We just stayed here for a day on our way to the secluded far North Province of Phongsali.

The Chinese food at a small, filthy restaurant in this town was quite possibly the best we've tried. Besides gorging on oily Chinese...

We had a great view of the city from our cheaper than cheap room.

We climbed a hill and visited a temple at the top of the hill watching the sun set behind the panorama of mountains.

Mmmm.... good ol' Oudomxay...

Alissa Fell Off An Elephant!!!

More on that one later...

Alms Giving In Luang Prabang

Since Laos is all about giving, we decided to wake up really early and do just that.

Due to the ultra high number of temples in Luang Prabang, you can't help but miss the majestically flowing bright orange robes of practicing Theravada monks. Really they are all over the place.

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No more stunning in the wee hours of the morning, at the crack of dawn, when all of the monks leave the temple grounds with bagging bowls in hand to make their daily alms round, just as the Buddha preached over 2500 years ago.

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The locals set up mats along the sidewalk and bring sticky rice and fruit to make their daily offering. And so we too made our way out onto the sidewalk looking for a place to purchase rice before sunrise. We purchased two 1/2 kilograms bags of steaming-fresh rice and scouted out the best place for our offering. We decided on the not so auspicious spot right beside the local grannies. Surely these folks know where you can get the biggest bang for your alms giving buck!

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Just in the instant of deciding on our spot, and at the very moment as the sun peaked into the horizon, the peaceful army of orange flooded into the streets. We scampered into position with sticky rice ready at our side. Then, led by a senior monk, a single file line of young novice monks marched towards us.

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With as much reverence as we could muster this early in the morning, we plunked our sticky rice into their begging bowls.

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Through this simple act of giving, we too were receiving. As the monks made their way back to the temples to continue their daily routines the sun filled the sky. We both felt a certain contentment as we started off our day.

Luang Prabang And Thoughts On Why People Love Laos

We took a bus to Luang Prabang and experienced our first taste of really wicked-twisty roads. The once capital city and royal city of Laos is only a small city of around 26 000 but has 31 temples in it. Because of the abundance of old royal charm and old temples, the whole city is UNSCO funded and protected.

In this city we became obsessed with socialist Laos' answer to Starbucks, a small artsy chain of cafe's called Joma (more on that later). While drinking some of the best coffee that we've ever tried (damn, Laos makes good coffee) we pondered the question "What makes Laos so damn good?" We ran into so many people who claimed that Laos is the best place to travel.

Sure Laos has great beer. Beer Lao has won acclaim and awards worldwide. Now that's just the obvious!

It also has quite possibly the best coffee in the world. Planted by the French in the mid-to-early 1900s, it was once called "the Champagne of Coffee". But, not all people we ran into were coffee connoisseurs.

Laos' raw, untouched nature makes it extraordinarily attractive. It has more uninhabited, uncultivated land than any Southeast Asian country. It doesn't matter where you go in Laos, vast swaths of nature comes with it. This is definitely one of its charms.

Laos definitely has good food, although most is heavily influenced by it's neighbours. To quote one beefy Canadian man we meet on our travels "Man, the only reason I came to Laos was to pig out on BBQ... Like, why did you guys come to Laos?" Alissa, a bit caught off guard, replied, "Ummm... I think Matt likes hiking, and I guess I like bug spray." Do we even need to elaborate further- the food is great, the bugs are bad.

Laos' people are truly a kind-hearted bunch. Not once have we been scammed while traveling Laos (Ok in the South someone was trying to sell us inflated bus tickets but they only jacked the price a few dollars). We seem to still be on our guard from Vietnam. There's really no reason to be on defence though, the Laos people are calm, helpful, patient, and accommodating. They have good, kind souls. People love Laos people, this much is true.

But, sipping on black Laos Arabic Roast, we came to an understanding, an understanding that most travelers don't reach...

When travelling in Laos you willingly or unwillingly help the country and the people in it. Everything you buy, every tour you take, every village you visit, every coffee you drink, usually a large portion of the proceeds go to helping communities directly or indirectly supporting organizations that do so. There is no way you can travel Laos without making a positive contribution.

No matter how you look at it, "Charity Case Laos" or "Feel Good Laos", you walk away making a difference, and that feels good.

Vientiane

Here are some shots from the capital city of Laos, Vientiane. We fell in love with this city instanty. It's happy, laid back people, and it's no hastle attitude makes this city feel like home. The population is about the size of Regina. We loved it so much that we spent four days enjoying this beautiful city.

Here are some of the sights we saw here...

Notes From Our Twentysome Hour Bus Journey From Vietnam Into Laos

* Introductory note: We have two options on getting to Laos from Vietnam. A: The convenient, expensive route. We could go to Hanoi and fly in. B: The budget travelers option. We could take a series of busses that would eventually take us to the capital city of Laos. Since we have the time, we both decided that option B suits us mainly because we get to enjoy the wondrous scenery on the way in. This decision goes against all the advice we have heard from other travelers. There are more than a few horror stories about this option. We risk it.

January 15th 1:30 PM

Our bus was supposed to pick us up by now. There is no sign of it. This is only the beginning.

2:00 PM

We finally get picked up not by our bus but by some sketchy little scuttle bus.

2:45 PM

I think we've drove around this city 4 times now in this shitty little van. We both wonder when we will leave Hoi An.

2:50 PM

They take our tickets and give us new tickets before they drop us onto a big sleeper bus.
Finally we depart Hoi An in a sleeper bus (a bus with seats that are reclined like a lazyboy... ah maybe more like those reclining beach chairs). We we're told that we would be in a seated bus until our transfer to a sleeper bus in Hue at 6:00 PM. Things were better than expected.

3:30 PM

Somebody on the bus farted.

4:00 PM

An unnerving grinding sound is coming from the rear drivers side. That can't be good!

4:30 PM

The bus pulls over into a fix-it-shop located in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Everybody in town takes a look at the problem.

4:45 PM

The rear wheel is completely removed as the whole town gathers around the wheel taking in the unforeseen excitement. We go outside and play with the local children most of which has probably never seen a foreginer before. They are amazed.

5:30 PM

Alissa admits to farting a few hours ago.

5:35PM

The wheel is back on and we're ready to go!

7:00 PM

We arive in Hue. But it seems our connecting bus has already left!

7:10 PM

The workers from the bus company look like they don't know what the fuck they are doing. After an argument between two of the bus workers, one of them approaches us. He claims that we only purchased sitting seats and tells us that we must go to the sitting seats for the remainder of the trip. We tell him that we purchased sleeper tickets and he says that our tickets don't say that. We explain that a man from his bus company took our original tickets which have 'sleeper' written on them and replaced then with these tickets that have 'your screwed' written in invisible ink on them. We tell him, " Do what you want but we're not moving." He gives up, we keep our sleeper seats, and the bus heads to Vinh, Vietnam.

7:30 PM

Alissa admits that it actually wasn't a fart but a quief.

8:30 PM

The bus stops at some small town and we eat the shittiest pho (Vietnamese noodles) we've eaten yet.

9:00 PM

We're on the road again ... We fall asleep.

January 16th Maybe 3:00 AM but don't know for sure.

The bus rouses us from our sleeper-seat slumber. A stern voice urges us with a persistent call of "hurry up, hurry up". Barely awake, we gather our bags and stumble out of the bys only to be enthusiastically greeted by a man, who must be Laos. While Matthew loads the bags into the luggage stored beneath the bus, Alissa ventures into the bus to check out our seats. She is greeted by a bys full of horney Laos men hooting and hollering at the Victoria Secret T.V. Special on the T.V. at the front of the bus (the equivalent to hard core porn in ultra-conservative Laos) and all to the back drop of techno beats blaring from large subwoofers. The excitement seems to peek as these worked up Laos men seem to think that the T.V. special has come to life as Alissa struts down the main aisle in her Lululemon. Stray hands reached for Alissa's bottom, but the party grinds to a silent halt as Matthew boards. The Horney men instantly turned to bashful gentlemen with eyes on the floor as the mannered men made room for the two of us to sit together. The techno beats thumped loader than ever as the bus took off into the dark mountainous distance. As we comfortably nod off to Jessica Simpson in the latest, skimpiest style.

Maybe 4:00 AM but again, we don't really know.

We wake up to complete darkness. No music, no Victoria Secret, just complete darkness and silence. The bus is pulled over into the ditch and even the bus driver is snoring.

5:30 AM

The bus starts up again and we are off into the darkness once more. We doze off.

6:30 AM

The bus wakes us once more as it pulls into the Vietnam boarder check point just as the sun seems to lighten the sky behind jagged shadowed mountains. We are escorted off the 'party bus' and into Vietnamese immigration. Inside are what seems to be a mob of confused travelers with no line to be seen as people hold their passports tightly while waving dollar bills. It's mass confusion in Vietnam immigration!

7:30 AM

After one hour of pushing into line and $2.00 USD of bribes, we finally make our way out of Vietnam and into Laos. The walk from Vietnam immigration to Laos was one of the most beautiful sights we have witnessed as waterfalls careened over rocky streams so high up in the mountains that it gives us a chill.

7:40 AM

We arrived at the laid back, candle lit immigration office in Laos. The pushy Vietnamese crowd gave way to peace & love while everyone patiently waited in-line, in the solace of cast shadows. We checked out the visa fee list, the list that shows what countries must pay to enter we groined at the fact that Canadians had to pay the highest fee. Two women behind us started laughing and joking because they're fee was only a fraction of what we had to pay. They commented that they only married their Mexican husbands so they could travel cheaply!

8:30 AM

We find our bus and hop on hopping it will be an hour or two till we hit the capital. Time seems to take a backseat to scenery. We witness large black stone, jagged topped, monolithic mountains that seem to jut out of the surrounding forest only to have their peeks completely snapped off. We both agree, that this is more like a scene from 'Jurrasic Park' then something we expected to see in Laos.

1:00 PM

Our bus pulls over for some lunch. We had our first 'Beer Lao' and both agree that it's the best damn beer we have ever had. The food is also good.

1:30 PM

Our bus is off again.

3:00 PM

We finally arrive in the capital city of Laos, Vientiane. After finding a guesthouse, we watch the sunset on the Mekong with Beer Lao and some of Laos famous Papaya Salad. This single trip has been the longest we have ever had. As the sun reflects pinks and oranges over the quite Mekong we smile and are happy to be in Lao.