This is obviously very overdue as we’ve been in Sydney 2 weeks and will be heading home very soon, but it’s written, and the last instalment of SE Asia, so it would be silly not to post it….

Well, the monsoon has definitely hit Lao now, we had about 3 days of constant torrential downpour up north, so escaped to the south. Unfortunately we’ve missed out central Lao entirely and haven’t really done any of this country justice, but everything we were going to do, especially in the centre - trekking, biking down un-sealed roads etc - required slightly less drippiness. I really wanted to end the SE Asia part of our journey with some sun, so we’ve headed to a Thai island then Bangkok for our last couple of weeks, so I’m writing this sitting on a deck overlooking a beautiful bay with clear blue water and white sand…snorkelling later I think, but in the meantime…

One thing I’ve been surprised by on this trip is just how different the individual countries we’ve been travelling through have been. Most strikingly in the attitudes of the people and subsequent ethos and ambience of the country. I know I shouldn’t really be surprised; France, Germany and the rest of mainland Europe all have land borders and all have very different characters, but the borders of Vietnam, Cambodia and Lao have all been in constant massive flux for their entire history right up to present day, and the people have moved around en masse many times to escape wars etc. So I thought there’d be far more blurry lines, but that’s not the case at all. The people are so distinctive in what they wear, how they live, facial features, skin tone and their attitudes that even complete new-comers such as Tish and myself have been able to spot Vietnamese in Cambodia and Lao for example.

Lao’s attitude is affectionately described as extremely laid back, cynically described as just plain lazy!?! The people don’t seem to have any sort of work ethic or any of the entrepreneurial zeal of Vietnam, or even Cambodia to a lesser extent, and nothing moves fast. You’re occasionally half-heartedly asked if you want a tuk-tuk, but the drivers are mostly just happy to sleep! It doesn’t seem to occur to travel agents that you might want to find out about more than one form of transport - once when we’d finally communicated that we wanted to know about planes to Bangkok, we had to suggest the airlines to try and didn’t even seem to get anywhere then! Service in restaurants seems to be an inconvenience to the staff and you even have to try really hard to pay! And ‘4′ hour journeys can take 8 for no apparent reason. The Lonely Planet suggested that patience was a virtue necessary for travelling through this country, so it probably wasn’t the best country to pick for our last major stop,with our time constraint starting to play on our minds.

All that said, it has some truly stunning scenery, many lovely little villages of stilt houses, which whilst poor, don’t feel as poor as Cambodia, lots of very friendly people, and we’ve had some great times despite the frustrations of mother nature and father time.

Vientiane

Our first stop in Lao once again found us on the Mekong, this time the dividing line between Thailand and Lao. We only ended up spending one night here - an overnight stop between the flight from Siem Reap and our trip up to Luang Prabang. We were intending to spend a couple of days here on the way back down south, but it ended up being only 1 day before our night bus to Pakse. The town itself didn’t impress us so we weren’t disappointed, and the time was enough to see the National Monument and a rather fab garden full of random statues made out of molded concrete. The statues were all made by a rather eccentric man who found religion and this was his way of expressing it. Definitely by far the most fun and random religious sight we’ve seen. Back comes the mantra ‘we would have loved to spend more time here’…!

Luang Prabang

Although Vientiane is Lao’s capital now, Luang Prabang is the ancient capital; preferred by almost everyone we’ve talked to on our travels, we also found the town much prettier, cleaner and interesting. The french influence in this town was also quite striking thought not in such a grand way as Vietnam with impressively large buildings, rather, in the leafy houses, tended flower gardens and narrow paved streets. The area around Luang Prabang is incredibly mountainous and covered in dense vegetation (apart from where slash-and-burn farming has scarred the landscape) and very beautiful.  There are countless outfits offering trekking, kayaking, overnight stays in remote villages, and all sorts of opportunities to see and ride Elephants! Yay!

We went for a 3 day trip which encompassed all of the above and according to the Lonely Planet was the most eco-friendly of the bunch. The trekking was relatively easy, and would have been very easy in the dry season. However, the rain had made the path incredibly muddy and swelled every little stream, so we had lots of logs to balance across and my boots and trousers ended up caked in mud! There was one stretch of about 500 meters which the guide made us practically run along because it was teeming with leeches - yuk! I managed to avoid being bitten but apparently Tishy is tasty and was jumped on by one just after we waded through a river

The village we stayed in overnight was a very small one, 45 families, all living in houses on stilts. The family who ran the ‘guesthouse’ - another house on stilts with a couple of small rooms with blankets on the floor and a mozzie net - was obviously the wealthy family in the village: Their house was a lot bigger than any of the others, they ran a tiny shop out of it mainly selling sticky rice and cans of fizzy drinks, which coupled with the income from trekkers staying is probably why they are relatively well off. They were the only family with a wash room with and their own toilet. The wash room was incredibly basic - a breeze block enclosure with a short hose coming off a tap and little else inside - but still a huge cut above the rest who showered communally in sarongs at a raised tap in the middle of the village. They were also the only family to own a TV, and it was funny sight to see many other village children outside in the dark peeking through holes in the dried palm leaf walls trying to watch as well!

The rest of the 3 days were spent playing with LELEFANTS aka elephants!! (my Birthday prezzie from Alex colluding with Tish made this possible - Thank you Ally!!). Our first ride was on a seat on the back of the elephant. The elephant was called Mae Nam, and was apparently the matriarch of the group with a very determined personality - she will only let one mahout look after her, others have tried but she takes no notice, and if she’s not fed/washed etc, she won’t work properly! About half way through our ride through the jungle with her the mahout asked if I would like to take his place sitting on the top of her head, which I eagerly took, but Mae Nam clearly now realised I had no control and she could do whatever she liked, and proceeded to wander off the track whenever she chose, stop to eat here for a bit, pull down a tree there! I have a little scar on my head from a branch she decided to pull down which fell smack in the middle of my forehead!! A very willful animal! We had 3 bare back rides each as well. The Elephants

are taken up into the jungle to graze each night and we rode them up, back down in to the morning and then in to the river to wash them, which was quite definitely the highlight!! So much fun! These animals are amazing, have such distinct personalities, have had such rough lives logging up until now, and are clearly enjoying their new lifestyle. We chose a tour group which emphasised the animal welfare aspects, and this company are clearly doing all they can to improve things for these Elephants and help as many as possible. A fab trip :-D 

Southern Lao

After Luang Prabang we headed right to the bottom of the country. This wasn’t our original intention but we headed briefly to Vang Vien but the monsoon had properly struck and we spent 2 miserable days unable to do anything we wanted to and had had enough! So unfortunately we missed out all of central Lao, but our plans there were to trek, do village home-stays and bike trips and the like, all of which could be miserable and possibly just impossible if it was extremely wet.

So one overnight bus ride (and about 100 tiny bites from some unidentified evil insect all up my arm) later we arrived in Pakse, a sleepy little town used by travellers as a base to explore the area.  We decided to give ourselves 3 days here, one for the town and a trip to a very pretty waterfall, and 2 for a trip down to the 4000 Islands - where the Mekong becomes 14km wide here and there are thousands of islands, many big enough to hold villages, some just sand banks with a tree or 2 on top. We rented a bike and rode the 130kms down there ourselves, which again was fun in itself. The islands were pretty. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the fresh water Dolphins - they are south of the border in Cambodia at the moment apparently - booo! - but we took a rather hap-hazard trip round the islands by boat and were dropped on a large island where we hired extremely rickety bikes and rode round. Some of the ’sights’ described by our trip tout were hilariously pitiful - the ‘waterfall’ was just some big rapids and the ‘train’ was a random engine in a field, our ‘guide’ spoke almost no English and didn’t really seem to know what was going on, but it was a fun day and we spent it with 3 friendly fellow travellers. It’s a pity that we’ll be going in very different directions after Lao and won’t see them again.

I don’t think Lao has really made the same impression on us as Vietnam or Cambodia. For me, the monsoon finally catching up with us has been a real downer, and Tish really didn’t take to the laid-back attitude of the people. I think we would have come away with a completely different impression had we turned up in the right season and weren’t painfully aware of time in SE Asia running out. But such is life. Next time….! We’re spending our last 1 1/2 weeks in SE Asia on a beautiful sunny tropical island in Thailand to dry out!!!