Laos

Fifteen days in Laos is double the time originally allotted to the country but having made a sound group of friends kept us here longer. The group has now dispersed leaving me and Paul behind in Vientiane to board our overpriced flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Wednesday evening while they all fly to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Luang Prabang was a lovely town to have visited, small; with a population of only 22,000, it was near impossible to travel up or down the main road without bumping into somebody we recognised- there was a real sense of family/community spirit here. Such a small and peaceful place was a great introduction to the country and characterises the place so well: Friendly and laid back; horizontally at most times. After only a few hours I got the feeling Laos will be the best place we visited and I stand by that, minus the capital.

Luang had several sights to behold but the sweltering heat, 37^oC plus, humidity and general lazyness of ones legs put off visits to temples located on the top of hills and museums perched atop a pile of steps. Having said that I hired a bike for two days and cycled around the 4km circuit that comprised the two main roads simply for the exercise. We also visited some waterfalls whilst here. Waterfalls doesn’t sound at all inspiring but any place where water collected in a pool deep enough to swim in was a welcome escape from the heat. Some of the falls were lovely; perfect turquoise pools surrounded by tropical vegetation looked stunning.

Mmmmm..... Waterfalls


Nightlife in Laos is somewhat tame with its two bars generally closing no later than 23:30. Because of the limited number of watering holes bumping into people was unavoidable and welcomed: Our ‘family’ unit grew and bonded until, having shed people traveling in different directions or simply too lazy to up and move, we formed a close group: The nomadic nine.

We moved on to Vang Vieng which has, according to Lonely Planet, become a right of passage for backpackers. The only real activity here is to hire a huge inner tube from a tractor tire and float down the Mekong. The floating was real boring, achingly so because my arms became paddles, but the stops on the river were something different. Bunched relatively close together were zip lines and rope swings into the river. The height of these swings increased as we moved further down the river; I was happy to swing from 20 feet, no more thanks! Not even the Dutch courage duped me to climb to the 35ft swing. Hilarity prevailed each time Paul used the swing, for some reason he couldn’t hold on to it. As his forth attempt approached the crowd grew silent in anticipation of yet another catastrophic belly flop; he didn’t let anyone down. It’s such a shame water and cameras don’t mix because the photos would have been hilarious.

Apart from this we didn’t really do much the only other highlight was the cycle to a lagoon for a swim, again to avoid the excruciatingly humid heat, and visiting its caves: Caves set into the karst topography of the area which involved a lot of climbing through narrow passages in pitch black, with only flip-flops on and one small 20watt torch between me Paul and Becky. We bottled it. To humiliate myself further I should add that our guides were ten year old children also climbing in flip flops but as we all know, children are fearless.

Expanding on my earlier point: “laid back; horizontally at most times”. No better example can be found than the resort restaurant in Vang Vieng. The standard procedure for eating in a restaurant usually involves a pattern similar, if not identical to this:

1. Take a seat and be issued with menu.
   
2. Staff take my order.
   
3. Food arrives; munch, munch, munch. Yum.
   
4. Pay bill, decide whether to leave tip (haha! tip)
   

Instead try this:

1. Take a seat and after five minutes decide you should probably collect your own menu.
   
2. Wait for staff to take order.
   
3. Oh no the staff aren’t coming. Engage legs to walking mode, place order at counter.
   
4. Not always but very often the wrong food arrives, tell them so and they look so distraught; like telling a child they can’t have sweets.
   
5. Eventually the correct food arrives and it’s good.
   
6. Pay bill and decide how long to wait around for the correct change to be issued. Usually this is because they don’t have the currency to break your notes therefore they say “tip, tip”. All together now: “Non, non”
   
   OR
   
   Pay bill and be given too much change back and correct the balance for them.
   

Okay, so that is a shit story but the point I’m trying to get at is this: Laos is a very poor country with a GDP per capita of [according to BBC News website] US $470. In order for this resort and it’s staff to earn more money surely it would help if they perhaps paid a little attention to customers and take the order for them. Getting the order correct wouldn’t be a bad idea either, it would surely avoid wastage, oh and to ask for a tip after this?! I’m not trying to sound tight or terrible here, more reflective: If they could just wake up and put a little effort into their jobs perhaps they could earn more.

We leave the capital tomorrow, Wednesday, on a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to visit the temples of Angkor Wat, they look really impressive: I just hope we can avoid the unexploded ordnance (thank you very much U.S.A) and bandits.


Relaxing after a lazy day in Vang Vieng