China - Kunming

I left Laos at 2.30pm on the 26th of April, with China Eastern Airlines to Kunming. The first thing I noticed was that I was the only western person on the flight. Now, the plane was pretty small, however this was the first time in 2 months that this had happened. It was amusing as the flight attendant said all the announcements in Chinese, and then in very broken English, which I'm sure was only really for my benefit....!


Arriving at Kunming, I was then the only western person in the airport! The customs police gave me an awfully funny look as I handed over my passport aswell. I was beggining to realise that this end of China was obviously quite untouched by tourists, which would be a bit of a change after travelling through western tourist invaded Vietnam Cambodia and Laos.


After an early night, I woke up at 8ish the next morning, and decided to go for a bit of a walk around town. A bit of a walk around town turned into 5 hours of getting completely lost and walking hopelessly around the back streets of Kunming trying to find my way back to my hostel! Every single street sign except maybe 2 or 3 are in Chinese, nothing in English. Also, no one speaks English, which was a massive suprise as I thought, quite ignorantly, that China would be the opposite to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. But its not, which makes for some quite amusing situations!

The following day I managed to do the exact same thing again....!

Kunming as a city is probably a good intro into China for someone who hasn't been there before...but it is mainly a buisness town with not a hell of alot to do.

The following day, I headed to Dali...

Laos - Luang Prabang

So after an eventuful two days riding Elephants and Trekking, I decided a couple of days of chilling out were in order....which considering I was in the most relaxed country in the world, quite an easy thing to achieve!

I saw Ville off to the airport the day after we arrived back from the trek. It was sad to say good bye as we had such a cool time for 2 weeks, but I will be catching up with him when I get to Helsinki which will be fantastic.

So I literally did just do nothing for a couple of days. I did climb to the top of Wat Phu Si, which had a fanastic view of Luang Prabang. I also went for a trip out to the water falls, which were very pretty to look at. But thats about it!

What I did see though was some of the most crazy rain storms I have ever seen! One night I was eating dinner and chatting to a french guy called Piere, and all of the sudden out of no where, the rain came down...and didn't stop for 2 days! It was insane! However, for nearly 2 months I had seen next to no rain and had brilliant weather, so it was nice for a change.

All up I spent a total of 6 days in Luang Prabang, and loved every second of it. Such a stunning town to look at, and a very easy place to just sit back and watch the world go by.

On the 25th, I headed back down to Vientiane, where on the 26th, I headed to country # 4...China!!

Laos - Trekking - Luang Prabang

So, after dropping Elephants back at the camp, we came back to the lodge and had some breakfast, before setting off on our trek.

Our guide Souk had told us the whole trek should take around 4 - 5 hours, travelling through the Jungles, fields and Minority Villages along the way.

So we set off, the weather not looking wonderful, but I figured the overcast day might keep the blistering tempretures down a notch. Unfortunately, after around an hour of walking, the clouds parted, and the onslaught of heat began.....

We crossed over the Nam Khan river on a wonderfully safe bamboo bridge, and headed into our first village. The village was home to two Lao minority groups. All the houses were made of bamboo, and for a village holding around 100 people, there was only one tap pumping fresh water for showering and drinking.

As we were walking around the village, all the kids came running out to us to say "Sabadee!" and to laugh at us aswell, as big tall white people are seldom seen in this part of Laos, so we were somewhat of a novelty for them!
I asked these girls if I could take there pictures, which they said yes to. After I took it, I showed them on the screen of my camera, andthey thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. I love how something so simple, that we as westerners take for granted, can amuse these kids to no end. Its little things like that you just don't see at home.

Once we left the village, we walked through the forest for a while, before we began trekking through a clearing. Our guide explained to us that the clearing was once covered in the same trees we had seen previous, but now to make more money, the farmers burn all there land so they can make rice fields to export around Asia. I had noticed alot of burning land on my various bus trips throughout Laos, which now all came together in my mind. It was good but sad in the same way. It was ruining the wonderful forests and jungles of Laos, but building the economy, which Laos is in desperate need of.

We continued trekking through the fields for about an hour, before Souk lead us along a different path towards a mountain. He explained to us that if we went to the right, we could be in the next village with 20 minutes, but if we go to the left, we can get a great view of the country side but it will take longer. It was more of a statement than a question, so considering the trek had been reasonably easy so far, we just followed.

As we got closer and closer to the mountain, I began to realise just how difficult this next part might be. The path was beggining to become non existant, and was getting steeper and steeper by the meter.After almost 45 minutes climbing in a strait line and on an almost 90 degree angle, I started to not feel so great. I had drank enough water, close to 1.5 litres already, but I was getting hotter and hotter, and more and more lathergic as I climbed. I knew I didn't really have much choice but to climb, as they only way back was down. Which now that I was about half way up, looked quite scary!

After another 20 minutes of climbing (which felt like an hour), I finally made it to the top, dripping with sweat, bright red in the face and feeling like a truck had hit me. I basically collapsed on the ground for about 15 minutes, drinking another bottle of water trying so hard just to cool down.

So, as the picture depicts, I sat there, like this just trying to feel better!

After about 20 minutes, I could feel myself starting to come good, and with Souks promise that the rest was either downhill or flat, we set back off again.

We stopped for lunch about half an hour later, but considering I had downed around 2 ltrs of water in the space of 2 hours, there was no way I could fit anything in. So I sat there munching on some sticky rice and the equivilent of beef jerky, only the buffalo variety!

After we finished, we stopped in at a school where Ville showed off his soccer moves with the village kids, and kicked the ball around for about half an hour. The kids loved it! Towards the end, we had produced quite the crowd watching and cheering.

We then set off for another 2 hours of walking back towards Luang Prabang. After about an hour of walking, a thunderstorm came out of no where and brought a welcome relief from the heat, even if we did get drenched.

At around 3pm, we found our ride back to Luang Prabang, and collapsed into the seats of the Van. I estimate we probably trekked for around 18k's all up, which means I had just had not only the most active day of my trip, but quite possibly the most active day of my life! Any weight I had put on in the past 2 months travelling would have all just fallen off!

As difficult as the day was, it was still an awesome experience, and one I would do again and again....however hopefully the second and third time would be a little easier than the first!!

Laos - Elephant Mahot Training - Luang Prabang

The trip from Phonsavan to Luang Prabang wasn't to bad, just really really long....! It's amusing, because when you look at the map, Luang Prabang is infact only about 90k's away from Phonsavan. However, due the mountains, bad roads and the fact there are next to no bridges in Laos, the trip slowly takes up and down these huge mountains, around rivers and towns, eventually turning a 90k trip into a 245k trip. All I can say is thankgod for Ipod's, books and the fact I was on a good bus!



After arriving in Luang Prabang a little after 5.30pm, I found a guesthouse and then met up with Ville at his hotel. Ville was leaving for Thailand within 3 days, so we decided to go find a 2 day trek we could do together before he left. We headed to All Lao Travel Services on the main street, where we picked up a leaflet for a 2 day Mahot Training Course & Trek. It basically consisted of Elephant riding & trekking through the jungle, Elephant Bathing in the river and a 5 hour trek. All for $70US each including all food and accomodation. We signed up to leave the following morning at 9am.


That morning we woke up to pouring rain, which luckily stopped at around 8.30am! We were picked up from the travel center, where we met our guide Souk, and he drove us away from Luang Prabang for about half an hour. We arrived at this river, where there was no bridge and no boat to cross, so we had to wait for about 20 minutes for the boat driver to rock up and take us across to our accomodation! Apparently he was asleep....






Once we finally got over the river to our accomodation (which was fantastic might I add!), we were given our "Mahot Gear", a stunning dark blue denim uniform which was about 3 sizes to big for me! Mind you, I had kind of stopped caring about how I looked when I left melbourne, however in this get up I did feel like a bit of an idiot, yet very gangsta at the same time!



We crossed over the river again, and walked for around 30 minutes. The first evidence of Elephants we saw very giant massive Elephant poo on the ground, which resembled bright green coconuts. For this rest of our time, every time we passed some (which was quite a number of times!) Ville would say "mmmm fresh coconuts for breakfast!".



Then as we walked up a hill, we came face to face with our first Elephant. They were absolutely massive! I had never seen Elephants before, except at the circus once when I was a kid, so I was completely awe struck by them. There size was the main thing that got me....they were huge! The camp was home to around 6 Elephants, ranging in age from around 25 - 50, male and female.

Our first Elephant ride was reasonably tame, we had a Mahot (Elephant Trainer) riding in front, and myself and Ville were on the back in a seat. It was a good introduction into what was to come in the afternoon...! We trekked through the jungle for around 1 hour, which given how slow the Elephant actually moves, was only around 1 or 2 k's. It was brilliant though, riding up through the trees, along streams, up big hills. It was suprisingly smooth the whole way.

Things started to get a bit more interesting as the Mahot lead the elephant into the River for the first time, which was the most bizarre thing I have ever done. The elephant just casually walked through the river, stopping to have a drinking every now and then, which was understandable as he was lugging us three and it was about 40 degrees! Me and Ville then got our first shot riding the Elephant for a little while, to get used to the feel and learning the comands to control the Elephant.




We headed back to the lodge for some lunch and a quick rest, before heading back to the camp for our first solo ride of the Elephants. Well, almost solo, we still had the mahot's sitting at the back just incase we started to fall off! I was sitting right at the front, on the Elephants neck, with absolutely nothing to hold onto....no ropes, no seats, no nothing. Now, when you are trekking on flat ground thats not that much of an issue, but the minute you start climbing up hills its another story! It was a little scary, but lots of fun at the same time.

After about 45 minutes, we dropped the Elephants back to the camp, and headed back to the river, where the Mahots met us about an hour later. We hopped onto our Elephants, and took them into the river for bathing. This is quite possibly the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life! As they Elephant got deeper, the Mahot told her to sit down so she (and me!) would get almost submerged in the water. We then proceeded to spend the next half an hour throwing water all over the Elephants head to clean them, and also cool them down at the same time. The elephants were loving it, Ville's Elephant wouldn't stop diving its head under the water every few minutes nearly throwing him off in the process!



Once we had finished, we walked the Elephants back upto the river bank, where the Mahots took them back to the camp.

Ville, myself, and our guide then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the river trying to cool down after such a hot day!

We headed back to the Elephant camp at around 6pm, and rode the Elephants back out to the Jungle where they slept away from the camp for the night. After saying goodnight to them, we headed back to the lodge, where we had a fantastic dinner made for us, which we needed after such an active day.

The following morning, bright and early at 5.45am, we got up and picked up the Elephants from the Jungle and rode them back to the camp. So while all you guys were at work or eating breakfast, Ville and I were riding Elephants through the jungle! Just another Monday morning in Laos really!

Laos - Phonsavan

Now, when I bought my ticket for the bus to Phonsavan from my guesthouse in Vang Vieng, the ticket said "VIP BUS" - which means reasonably new bus, aircon, mainly western tourists.

What I got was this:




Not quite what I was expecting!!! All up, the bus was missing 6 windows, the seats were mostly broken, and there was around 16 sacks of rice piled up in the aisle, which I had to climb over to get to my seat. When the bus finally left, they had oversold the bus by about 10 tickets, so people were actually sitting on the bags of rice.....!





However, like I said in the previous post, you really shouldn't come to Laos without a sense of humour, and this was one of those moments when you really needed one!

Anyway, the bus did make it to Phonsavan, after around 8 hours of travel up and down the mountains in the Lao country side.

Phonsavan is a tiny town, the main street is the only street, and its around 4 k's long. The only reason people come here, and the only reason I came here, was to see the "Plain of Jars". The Jars are a bizarre formations situated on three different sites about 10 - 20 k's out of Phonsavan. No body knows where they came from our why they are there or what they are made of. The typical Lao rumour is the were used to make Lao Lao hundred of years ago for Lao New Year parties.....given the size of the jars it would have been one hell of a party!!



I signed up with a tour for about $11US with 3 other backpackers I met on the bus, and a Belgium couple in their 60's who had been travelling the world for almost 15 years.

The first site, and by far the biggest, was probably the most impressive. Spanning over around 6k's of country side, there are around 60 jars on the site, as well as a cave in the middle.



After going to the first site, the last two sites were a bit of a let down as far as size was concerned, however, they were a lot prettier. The view from the last two sites were amazing, and there was a bit of shade, which is always welcome during the hot season in Laos.

We spent all up around 5 hours travelling through the three sites and stopping for lunch. It was an interesting part of the world to see.

Phonsavan is also in one of the areas that was most heavily bombed in the 1970's by the US. So everywhere you walk, there are signs warning you about Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) which still haven't been cleared. The Plain of Jars is one area that has been mostly cleared, but its still not worth wondering of the dirt tracks just in case...!

The next day, I headed to Luang Prabang to meet back up with Ville...

Laos - Vang Vieng

Ok, first off let me apologise for the lack of updates on here. I am trying to be as up to date as possible, but at the moment I am about 2 weeks out!

So, Vang Vieng...........

Ville and I had every intention of leaving Vientiane for Vang Vieng at 10am, which was what our bus ticket said. However, you do learn very quickly that here in Laos, everything happens on a different time frame. So for no apparent reason, we left at 11.30am instead. Bizarre....

Having heard from guide books, the internet and fellow travellers that Vang Vieng is a bit of a dead end town filled with dead end back packer bars constantly playing dead end re-runs of friends/family guy/the simpsons, we decided to stay out of town instead. We headed to a place called the Organic Farm, which was around 4k's out of town situated right next to the Nam Song river. When we arrived the place looked quite good, very quiet and very picturesque. The owner showed us to our rooms, which were $5US a night, and then we decided to sit down and have some lunch at the restaurant.

While waiting for our food, some very hippy looking young backpackers came into the restaurant and sat down next to us. They were talking about the work they had done on the farm ie: cleaning the goats house, farming etc etc, so me and Ville presumed they must live and work at the farm. After a little while, one of the hippy kids came over to us to say hello and asked when we got there, where we were from etc etc etc.

Then he comes out with "So, you guys will be doing some volunteer work on the farm while your here??"
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
It took all of my composure not to spit my drink everywhere and start laughing hysterically.

One look at Ville told me he was thinking the same thing: "Volunteer? On a farm? We are on holiday!!!!!!"

As politely as we could, we declined the young mans offer, and decided then and there that we would have to check out first thing in the morning and find a guest house in the city.

The next day signified the beggining of Lao New Year, which is a three day new year celebration in which almost all of Laos shuts down and its one big party in every corner of the country. Vang Vieng was no exception. All the locals walked around wearing super bright Hawaiian Shirts, and could be seen drinking Beerlao as early as 8.30am. However, the big fun of Laos New Year is not the drinking, dressing up and dancing. No no no, its all about how many western tourists you can soak with water for the three days! No joke, you couldn't walk any more than 5 meters without some random child comming out of no where with a huge bucket of water to throw at you. Everyone was armed with water pistols, water bombs, garden hoses and buckets. This is a great time of year to visit Laos, however, make sure you have come with a sense of humor and a dry pack to protect your valuables....!!

At about 11am, we started our first day of tubing. Tubing is what Vang Vieng is famous for, and to be honest with you, theres not a hell of alot else to do here except tube. For those of you who are unaware, Tubing is sitting in a giant tractor tyer inner tube and floating down 4k's of water. The fun part however is stopping off at the many makeshift bars en route to drink, eat and fly off giant rope swings.

Our first tubing day ended up being rather eventuful. At our 5th stop, a young lao boy started squirting me with a water pistol, so I chased him with my water bottle. As I ran, the lovely safe and stable bamboo balcony I was running on snapped from underneath me and I went flying through the floor. Lucky for me, I had had quite a few drinks so didn't feel much pain, and found it rather hillarious....which even now it still was quite funny. However, in hindsight, it could have been a lot worse. It was around a 7 meter drop from the balcony down to some rocks and then the river, lucky for me and managed to pull myself back through before any more damage was done. I finished up with a very cut, bruised and swallow right leg, and a few cuts up my right arm. I do wish someone had of got a picture or a video though, it was pretty funny....!!

The next day we decided to hire some push bikes and went riding through the country side of Vang Vieng, which is much prettier than the town its self. All up we probably rode for about 15k's, going down some dirt roads and finding some nice parks. We even accidently ended up crashing a Lao new year party full of locals, which finished with us drinking Beerlao and dancing with them....while being soaked by water of course!




We ended up going tubing again, this time managing to get some really nice photos along the way, which you can view via the link on the right hand side of the screen.



Ville and I managed to go without watching American TV re-runs every day we were in Vang Vieng except one, where we spent about 3 hours watching Family Guy one night when it spontaneously bucketed down with rain. The restaurants with the TVs are the only restaurants with cover so we didn't have much choice...honestly!

All up, we spent 5 days in Vang Vieng, which was probably about 2 and a half days to long, as there really isn't anything to do there aside from drinking, tubing and watching TV. However, we did have a blast there all the same.

Me and Ville then went our seperate ways for a couple of days, as I headed to Phonsavan, and Ville headed direct to Luang Prabang.

Laos - Vientiane

Its funny the people you run into in the most random of places.....

Just after I checked in for my flight to Vientiane, and was waiting to move through customs, I ran into Ville. Ville I met for all of 20 minutes about 2 weeks earlier in Nha Trang, over a beer at our hotel, and there he was, waiting for the same flight as me! Crazy...! We decided once we were on the flight that we would head towards the same guesthouse, and it turned out we both had roughly the same travel plans for Laos aswell. So a new travel buddy friendship was born!

The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane in Vientiane was how small the airport was. For an international airport that has connections to most of south east asia, china, russia etc etc, it was tiny! It was like landing in the middle of a farm if it wasn't for the giant runway in the middle.

The second thing I noticed was how hot it was. It was 10am when we landed, and it would have already been 35 degrees....!

I paid for my visa, and myself and Villa headed out to find a tuk tuk to take us into town. All the guide books said don't get a taxi from the main exit, as it will cost you to much (too much being $5....). So we headed out the main gates of the airport, where we were immediately approached by another taxi driver, who offered to drive us into Vientiane for $1 each...! Once in Vientiane, me and Ville both booked into the same hotel. I got a nicer room than what I have been used to...mainly because after a night bus and two nights in a dorm room and hanoi, I was absolutely exhausted and needed my own space for a bit. I'm so glad I did it....I slept like a baby that night.

The next day me and Ville headed to Vientiane Swimming Pool and spent the morning there, which we ended up doing for the next few days we were in Vientiane. It was so great not to run around trying to check out sights all day. It was great just to chill out...!

On the way back to our hotel for lunch, we met this old guy called Dowel, who would have been about 70, covered in Tattoos and was traveling the world on his own. He was a sweet old guy, but one of those guys you meet and think "wow, I hope I or anyone else I know ever ends up like that". Dowel had had a pretty rough life, with friends dying in the past few years and his wife left him 7 years ago etc etc etc. He just decided to travel to be away from everything at home. He was a great, happy & funny guy with a reasonably positive outlook on life, considering the circumstance he was in. Ville and I had a beer with him most nights, as otherwise he sat out the front of his hotel, on his own, drinking beer after beer after beer after beer.

One thing about Vientiane that stood out from the other places I have been so far is how quiet it is. After travelling through Vietnam where every driver is a horn junky, and everyone is trying to get your attention to buy something, coming to Laos is like a breath of fresh air. People pass you in the street saying "Saybadeey" (which means hello, or good day), with the biggest smile on their face, and thats all they want to do. Say hello. Theres no alterior motive here.

Vientiane easily would have to win the award for the most laid back capital city in the world. Everything in Laos is done on "lao time", meaning you order food in a restaurant...maybe you will get in 15 minutes....or maybe you will get it an an hour. No one rushes, everyone is just so chilled out its amazing.

After a couple of days of chilling out Lao Style (ie: swimming, bowling and drinking beerlao everyday!), we decided to go and see the most famous monument in Laos - Pha That Luang, which is a giant gold temple dedicated to Buddhism. There were at least 150 monks walking around the grounds as well. It was really quite amazing to look at. We walked around the grounds for around an hour, and then headed to the market which is just outside the Temple grounds.

Now, before I tell you the next bit, I must first explain what Lao New Year is.

Lao New Year is a three day (or sometimes 4 or 5 day) festival in which the people of Laos and in some parts of Thailand celebrate the Lunar New Year, with amazing fashion. It is the one holiday of the year that everyone in Laos looks forward to, as for three or 4 days, absolutely everything closes down.

This festival is also known a little more commonly as "The Water Festival".

So, when me and Ville left Pha That Luang, and were walking around the market, a Lao guy came up to me and said "Excuse me miss??", presuming he was trying to sell me something, I began trying to say politely "No Thankyou", when all of the sudden he poured a 1.5ltr of freezing cold water all over my head!! He yelled at the top of his lungs "HAPPY LAO NEW YEAR!!!" and the whole market broke into hysterics! It was absolutely hillarious.....!

I absolutely loved every second I was in Vientiane, and has definitely got my vote for one of the best capital cities in the world!!

The next day we jumped on a bus to head to Vang Vieng, one day before Lao New Year officially began....