Day 125 – Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai, THAILAND BOUND!

The only thing on today’s agenda was to book our bus to Thailand. When we went asking the other day we discovered most buses were in the evening but found one place that did a day bus so we went on the hunt to refind that shop. We were unsuccessful, well we are pretty sure we went in the right shop and they said evening so we think we were given duff information the other day, which isn’t surprising! So we had two options, do we leave today or tomorrow? As you already know from the title we went with today. We grabbed a quick lunch and went back to our hostel. I was all ready to haggle our way out of paying for a whole night because we were checking out now instead of tomorrow but the guy didn’t seem fussed and checked the book and said ‘2 nights?!’ I said yes and that was it. We only paid for 2 even though we didn’t check out until 2pm… sweet deals!

We were originally told we were going to be picked up at 6pm and then someone turned up and said it would be 5. Either way we were staying in the hostel until our pick up so it made no difference. 6.15pm and still no one has turned up… we got someone to ring them and eventually someone appeared. They didn’t seem happy we were late but it wasn’t exactly our fault! I already feel like this journey is going to be terrible…

There were only about 10 people on this bus but we knew from previous experience it would stop a million times, pick up and drop off random people (probably family/friends) and just take forever to get anywhere. We were handed a snack, which was a surprise and it was alright. Chrissy and I watched a few random things on my laptop and then decided to try and get some sleep about 11pm, so I moved a few seats so we had two each. This journey was suppose to take 12 hours, it took 18. Some guy decided to sleep on the floor behind my seat (I was at the back) and open the windows and generally just be rude and annoying (he was the man who was angry at the station too). I couldn’t find a good way to sleep and overall I was just very happy it was our last bus and we were finally leaving Laos!

Day 124 – Luang Prabang Waterfall.

Free breakfast! The best thing a hostel can do is free breakfast because it actually makes people get up and out of bed to make the most of the day and when you’re trying to organise 10 people it becomes very helpful. Some people from our room along with some others we met last night decided that today we would go and visit the Kuang Si Falls, which are located just south of Luang Prabang.

The weather wasn’t great and as we were waiting for a couple of people to get drinks and things the weather turned and started to chuck it down. We were told it was dry season… I think you’ll find we are in monsoon season with the amount of storms we have encountered recently! We were trapped under a tent for a good 40minutes before it stopped. We decided, as it was a couple of people’s last days that we would go to the waterfall. Chrissy and I debated about going tomorrow instead but the more people you go with in a tuk tuk the cheaper it is so we gave in and went anyway. It took about 20 minutes to drive there and the views were stunning.

On arrival we paid £1.50 to enter the park and the first place we got taken to was to see the bears. The bear sanctuary looks after 23 Asiatic Black bears and they have been brought here by the Laos government to save them from being tortured in a bile farm. Apparently they are kept in small cages and there bile is sold because it is used in traditional Chinese medicines.

Kuang Si Falls has a 60m cascade and is collected in various pools along the path until you reach the top. This place would have looked amazing in the sun but just seeing it was good enough. Within minutes of reaching the waterfall the rain started again. Chrissy and I made shelter in a café whilst some of the others went swimming. We got the tuk tuk back to town after the rain had stopped and I was very excited to have a warm shower and put on my joggers. Four of us went out to explore the market and get some cheap street food for dinner. We found a street off the market that had these buffet stands. You pay 10,000 kip (75p) to fill your plate as much as you can. It was a cheap and satisfying dinner!

Day 123 – Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang.

We were picked up in a mini bus around 9am to be taken to our last Laos destination. We had been informed this part of the journey was going to be windy and quite long. I’m glad we had been told because I felt more prepared! It took about 6 hours to get to Luang Prabang and although the bus was quite cramped and a little hot the journey wasn’t that bad. We were dropped in what seemed like the center of town for once! Obviously we were hassled by tuk tuk drivers so we made our way through them into a travel agent and discovered the hostel was only a 5 minute walk away.

We found it, got a dorm room and because there were two of us we saved 5,000kip each, doesn’t really make sense but I’m game! Although we haven’t done anything being sat in a van for most of the day we still feel a little tired so decide to chill out here for a bit before going out for some food. The thing to do in the evenings in Luang Prabang is to go to a bar called Utopia and then because that shuts at 11.30 everyone then goes bowling, as it’s the only place that sells alcohol.

We went to Utopia with everyone else that was staying in our dorm room but Chrissy and I were the only ones who needed to eat. I had the chicken satay and oh my god, I think it might have been the best satay I have ever eaten. It was just SO GOOD! The drinks in this place were actually really expensive (well in kip anyway…) and I don’t really understand the hype over it but bowling on the other hand was awesome! It was the first time I had played in a long time and might have been the first time properly without the barriers and I wasn’t THAT bad. I even managed a half strike, that’s called a spare isn’t it? Anyway, it was £1.50 for 10 rolls of fun!

Day 122 – Tubing in Vang Vieng.

We went to bed quite early last night because of that crazy storm so getting up to go on a small trek and some tubing wasn’t that hard. We got picked up just before 9am and thought we were going to be in a small group but it ended up just being the pair of us and a guide. We got driven out to see four different caves. The first cave was called Elephant cave because part of the rock formation looks like an elephant, I’m not sure whether it is natural or if someone has made it like that, but either way it was pretty cool!

We then went and explored through two more caves, I can’t remember what they were called but it was really cool! The last cave we sat on a tube and pulled on a rope the whole way through. It was so dark but there is something exciting and mysterious about being the only three people in a cave. We were then given lunch which consisted of a chicken skewer thing and rice, delicious!

We were then driven back to the start of the tubing river called the Nam Song. Like I said yesterday, this place is famous because of the tubing. So there used to be 26 bars, or something like that? Now there are only 4. It used to have zip lines, slides and other stupidly dangerous things and after, I think, 22 tourists died in 2011 the Laos Government thought they should do something about it. They turned up and ripped it all out in 2012 meaning most people now miss this place out. It is currently dry season meaning the river doesn’t have as much water in it as it normally would, so I was quite glad we had a guide because by the end we couldn’t be bothered to try and swim our way down the river in the tube, so instead we held onto his kayak and made him do all the work. I’m not quite sure how far but we covered quite a lot of ground, maybe 8km? Who knows, but it was far! We didn’t go in any of the so called bars, we didn’t really see any one else apart from some people kayaking but overall I really enjoyed my day. It was really relaxing to float down a river chilling in the sunshine!

Once again the evening brought us a crazy storm so we didn’t really do a lot!

Day 121 – Vientiane to Vang Vieng.

The hostel came with a free breakfast, which is great seeing as we haven’t stayed somewhere that does one in so long. We were supposed to be picked up at 9 but they didn’t arrive until 10am. I’m glad that all Asian countries (I’ve ever visited anyway) stick to the same rule of being late and doing what they want, when they want. The journey was quite quick at being just under 4 hours long. We arrived at some place and kind of guessed how to find the central area. We didn’t really have any plans on where to stay so we just wandered in one of the first ones and decided to stay there. We get a king size bed each so it’s not all bad.

We went on the hunt for some lunch and ate at one of the first places we found.

All of the cafes in this tiny town have beds with tables and have friends on repeat on the tv, literally every place has friends on, you can’t escape it.

The weather was looking a bit dodgy so we decided to head back to our room and within minutes of arriving the heavens opened and a massive thunderstorm appeared. I think we made the right decision to head back. After a few hours it stopped, just in time for dinner! So we went out, ate and booked ourselves on a caving/tubing trip for tomorrow. Tubing is the reason Laos is famous on the ‘banana pancake trail’. It used to be a big thing and about 600+ people went tubing a day but since late 2012, they ripped out a lot of the bars and stuff so now the maximum on a good day is 200 but most days it’s only about 50 people. The way it is now is way more my thing than it used to be!