Our
Vang Viene group all went their separate ways and I headed off alone for the
Luang Prabang on the bank of the Mekong River in Northern Laos. It’s a pretty,
mid-sized town with some temples, great fruit shakes and the requisite
waterfall. In our tuk tuk on the way back from the waterfall came across the
immediate aftermath of a fairly bad motorbike accident. Looked like a helmetless
local fella going too fast went flying off the road into a ditch. We stopped to
see if the cops needed us to give him a lift back to civilization and I got a
disturbing view as someone lifted his leg. Yuck, ouch and slightly nightmare
inducing. At least temporarily dampened my enthusiasm for riding bikes. Did
lots of hanging out, a bit of swimming and rope swinging, and played some
volleyball with the locals at a chilled out local bar called Utopia. Quite
funny, Laos has a midnight curfew so all the bars close at 11:30 but for some
reason the local nightclub/disco stays open till like 1:30 so everyone seems to
go there after the bars. Booming loud music and about 80 percent locals to 20
percent tourists. They seemed rather, understandably, amused by all the Falang
(foreigners) wearing hippie clothes and dancing around crazily. Then after the
disco closes everyone moves venues to the town’s bowling alley which stays open
till 3AM or later and drinks local Lao Lao whisky and bowls. Random but really
quite fun. So did that a few nights, at times followed by the even later night
hangout on some steps down by the Mekong. Finally had enough though and onwards
to Nong Kiaw a small village even further north towards the Chinese/Vietnamese
border region.
Arrived
from Luang Prabang and immediately realized this would indeed be a relaxing and
quiet departure from the previous week’s partying. A really tiny village where
the chickens seemed to outnumber the residents. A fact attested to by the
constant, noisy crowing of the roosters. I ordered chicken constantly at the
nearby restaurants in hopes the one that kept waking me up early every morning
would be on the menu, but no luck. Had a great little bungalow right on the
river though and met some nice people early on. Did a bit of trekking to nearby
caves where the locals sheltered during the relentless bombing campaign of the
US “secret war” in Laos. The Ho Chi Minh trail apparently ran nearby and lots
of local places have repurposed the unexploded bombs (after being
professionally disarmed presumably) into nice decorations and lamps. Rented
mountain bikes with a Dutch guy and girl and rode through some of the nearby
villages. They obviously don’t see especially many tourists as we attracted
attention everywhere we went and I ended up saying Saibadee (hello/goodbye) to
what seemed like hundreds of local children. Stopped at the river near by one
village and had a swim in the river where there were about 30 naked local kids
happily splashing about, doing flips and cartwheels and rolling around in the
dirt. They seemed intensely curious about us and eager to impress and by the
end they’d stopped playing and were just in a big circle around the three of us
staring intently. Guess that’s what it feels like to be on the other side.
Really liked remote Laos though, everyone is so friendly and it seems genuine
and unrelated to them seeing you as a big wallet and none of the kids beg or
ask for money. Not much of a nightlife but we’d go out for good food and drink
the local home brewed whisky which came in glass bottles filled with local
herbs and pieces of wood and other random stuff. It’s actually not terrible
tasting for how strong it is. Lots of relaxing, chilling in the hammock on my
balcony overlooking the river and reading was a nice change of pace. Met a
bunch of people who were trying to get to Sapa in Northwest Vietnam same as me
and we decided to charter a boat and travel together.
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