Riyad and Sarah's Travels

Vientiane, Laos

Sarah and I had planned to continue east from Sam Neua to cross into Vietnam, but began having second thoughts about skipping the city of Vientiane.  It seemed a shame to have seen so much of the Laos without seeing its capital, although for us to do so required a day backtracking through Phonsavan and Vang Vieng on a local bus.

We have ridden quite a few long distance buses over the past five months, but our experiences in Laos had been the worst.  Not a single bus left within two hours of its departure time, with two not leaving at all.  Once it had rained heavily and we were only able to cross a muddy pass after several local villagers pushed us through.  Rest stops were at the side of the road for everyone to duck into the bushes.  But worst of all, every journey had half the passengers throwing up into small plastic bags before tossing them out the window.  I think that Laos now has more bags of vomit lying around than unexploded ordinances. 

But I digress… 

We went to Sam Neua’s airstrip to investigate rumors of a flight to Vientiane. There was indeed a flight leaving in a few hours on an eleven seat plane but it was full.  The woman behind the counter first offered to put us on the twice-weekly flight leaving in three days but after rustling a few papers on her desk said that was full too.  She apologized and tried to cheer us up with news that they were getting a bigger plane next year. 

Accepting our fate, we trudged out dejected, hitched a ride back to town on the bed of a passing pick up truck, walked up the hill to the bus station, and bought our tickets to Vientiane for 1 PM, four hours later.

No, the bus didn’t leave on time, but that was hardly expected.  We arrived at our destination 19 hours after it eventually left, the longest either of us had ever been on a bus.

The journey was definitely worth it as Vientiane was the most laid back capital in South East Asia. Traffic was orderly, touts were not aggressive, and locals were out getting in shape rather than hawking their goods. 

The food in town was amazing, with French culinary influences remaining long after they had granted Laos independence.

We rented bicycles to make our way around the city, something we would not have even imagined in chaos of Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.  We first visited the Pha That Luang, a Buddhist shrine and the most important monument in Laos.

Then headed to the Patuaxi, a structure resembling the French Arc de Triomphe and made from gifted American concrete. 

We had the fortune of running into our friends Dominick, Julia, and Robert from the slow boat cruise.  They were traveling  through Laos via a slightly different route than us but also ending in Vientiane.  It was great to see them again – they were among the few people our age on the boat, and we had all spent some time together in Luang Prabang.

Our first night we caught up and swapped Laos stories.  The following day we rented a taxi to visit the bizarre Buddha Park, featuring stone statues of Hindu and Buddhist gods.  The park was created in 1958 but designed to look far older so that tourists would visit.  One of the statues had a large open mouth we crawled into before climbing up for a panoramic view.

We returned to Vientiane and spent the rest of the evening socializing on Robert and crew’s deck.  They had lucked out in securing the penthouse after being mistakenly double booked.  We sat around talking while the sun set over the Mekong, before parting ways and to head off to different countries the following day.

Sam Neua, Laos

Laos had been declared a neutral country in 1962, but that did little to keep the neighboring American-Vietnamese war from spilling across its borders.  The North Vietnamese used Laotian territory to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam while the United States bombed the country’s Plain of Jars region and eastern territories relentlessly for nine years, making Laos the most heavily bombed country per person in the world. The full extent of US involvement was kept secret and only declassified in 2000.  Forty years after the war, the 30% of bombs that failed to detonate on impact, known as unexploded ordinances (UXOs), still kill or maim on average one person a day when accidentally unearthed by farmers or children.

After Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, Sarah and I decided to forgo Vientiane in order to see the war torn part of Laos off the tourist circuit.  We spent seven hours on a bus full of locals to travel to the small town of Phonsavan, where so many munitions had been dropped that disarmed bombs are now displayed as decorations in front of hotels and restaurants.

The Plains of Jars was given its name by large stone jars of unknown origin or purpose thought to have been built between 500 BC and 2500 AD.

Laos had recently submitted the area to UNESCO for world heritage status and was now focused on the safety of visitors.

The work done to remove UXOs from the region upstaged the jars themselves. We were told to walk between markers where UXOs had definitively been removed.

Surrounding areas were roped off by barbed wire among craters formed by United States bombs.

From Phonsavan we continued to the town of Sam Neua, again by a day long bus ride. 

The town was the opposite of Vang Vieng in that it had only two restaurants (that we could find) and was devoid of tourists.  Small children greeted us with sabadee (hello) while teenagers approached to practice their English.  One student ran up to us on the street to ask “can I have a conversation with you?” before describing his schooling and family and why he felt it was very important for him to speak English.

The main attraction near Sam Neua are the caves of Vieng Xai, where the communist rebel group the Pathet Lao, along with 20,000 supporters, avoided the bombing campaign and plotted to overthrow Laos’s US backed government. 

We boarded a jeep packed with four locals and several bags of fresh fish for the one hour drive from Sam Neua to Vieng Xai.  After arriving in the Vieng Xai market, we walked to the cave’s visitor center and being the only people to show up for the 9 AM tour, were given a private guide along with bicycles and headphones for an audio tour.

The three of us biked from cave to cave where our guide opened gates and told us which track to listen to. 

The commentary was fascinating, featuring a professional actor describing life in the caves accompanied by audio of airplanes whizzing overhead and bombs falling. 

Within the caves were different rooms and structures including the quarters of the Pathet Lao leadership, safe rooms where clean air was pumped in…

hospitals, army barracks, bedrooms for children, and even a stage for entertainment. 

It took us three hours to bicycle and walk through the entire cave city. 

The final audio message stated that peace came in 1975 when the United States realized it could not prevent countries from choosing the system of government which their people wanted and communist governments prevailed in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Being the only tourists in the region did have its downside.  We returned to the Vieng Xai market after the cave tour expecting to board a jeep back to Sam Neua only to find there wouldn’t be one until the following day.  Fortunately after a few hours in the market waiting for the bus we befriended two villagers who agreed to take us to Sam Neua on the backs of their motorcycles for slightly more than bus fare.

Vang Vieng, Laos

Vang Vieng should be no more than a rest stop on the winding mountain road from Luang Prabang to Vientiane.  The town has no cultural or historic significance.  But after a local entrepreneur started renting inner tubes for visitors to float down the adjoining Nam Song river, it has attracted backpackers in droves and its streets are now lined with hostels, restaurants, and bars playing old episodes of either “Family Guy” or “Friends”.

We’re way too old for the frat party scene and were reluctant to stop in Vang Vieng, but it was on the way and figured that worst case we could continue on after one night.  I was convinced we would do just that after arriving to find drunk college aged kids stumbling and yelling down the street and our hotel receptionist warning us about the dangers of using mushrooms.

The following day we were fortunate to run into a few of our friends from the Mekong River slow boat cruise and decided to give tubing a shot after all.  We rented inner tubes, Sarah donned a life jacket, and loaded into a tuk tuk for the drive 4km to the start tubing up river. 

Because it was the rainy season, the river was flowing much faster than usual making the three hour journey back take only one. This was a bit scary given all the tubing related casualties such as scraped legs and bloody feet on display throughout town.  (The number of serious injuries depended on whom you asked, ranging from one person who bumped his head to 78 people who have died this year alone.)

We hung around briefly at the start where music blared and people sprayed themselves with body paint.

Then we got in the tubes and headed down on our way. The water wasn’t that cold and tubing was far easier than I had thought.  We would lean backward in the tube while paddling with both hands to the other side of the river. 

Then as we approached another stopping point down the river we would grab a makeshift buoy thrown to us by local workers to be roped in.

Each bar had a different attraction which we all participated in.  It started to pour during the day but it didn’t matter because we were all wet anyway.  We made our way down river stopping to play tug of war rope over a mud pit…

and beach volleyball.

Other bars had a giant slide to catapult us into the river, a ledge to jump 20 feet down, and a board and rope to water ski against the current.  (I did all three but my camera battery had died.)

We were having such a good time that we left the last stop too late and floated down the river as the sun set. We weren’t too sure where to stop but eventually pulled ourselves to the bank and make our way to shore close enough to where we were supposed to end.  We didn’t get our full deposits back for the tube, but none of us were injured and we had a blast; probably the most fun we have had in our four months of traveling.

 Luang Prabang, Laos

Our journey from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos took three days.  We didn’t choose the fastest means of traveling the two hundred miles, but instead took a van to the Thailand-Laos border to continue on an aptly classified “slow boat” down the Mekong River.

We passed through Laos immigration and lumbered onto the long and narrow boat that fit about a hundred in a layout similar to an airplane.

Dozens of crowded rows of five seats faced forward separated by an aisle down the middle.  The skipper stood at the front to steer and in the back was a bathroom, snack stand, and engine room.  A hard roof covered the top.  From the sides of the roof hung rolled up tarps that were to be unfurled if it rained.  I was slightly disappointed that the seats were padded and comfortable because Sarah and I had been conned into buying seat cushions that were sold all over the border town.

The boat was tightly packed with people, its engines sputtered to life, and we set off around noon.  We continued down the Mekong River as its path went from marking the Thailand-Laos border to cut directly into Laos, stopping every hour or so to load and unload packages for locals who used our tourist boat to ship merchandise.  The skies were cloudy and it rained on and off during the day.  The scenery was unchanging as the water remained murky and similarly shaped green hills rose from the riverbanks. 

It was raining heavily when we arrived at Pakbeng, the halfway point to Luang Prabang and our stopping point for the night.  We waited on the deck struggling to find our raincoats while our bags were unloaded and people from town swarmed to entice us to stay at their guesthouse.

Sarah and I stuck with a group of ten that used our numbers to negotiate rooms for four dollars each.  We called it a night shortly after the hotel owner cooked us dinner, while our young shipmates, having been drinking all day, ventured to the town’s only bar to drink some more.

The following morning everyone was split onto two slightly smaller boats, leaving us far less cramped and with space to walk around.  The sun shone brightly all day, and the kids had partied themselves out and were mellow.  We found it far more relaxing to enjoy the pleasant weather and speak with travelers from all over the world.

We docked that afternoon in Luang Prabang, and said goodbye to all the people we had met, only to run into them at restaurants or on the streets of town during the next several days.  The city was quaint and walkable, filled with modern and colonial architecture built by the French.

Sarah and I passed on the various activities and sites around town, instead seeing the wats, hanging out in the coffee shops (finally finding a freshly brewed cup in Asia!), and eating and shopping at the night market.

Luang Prabang is one of the few areas in the region where monks actively seek alms in accordance with their belief to renounce worldly possessions.  We woke up early to see the procession.  Because it was raining, each monk held an umbrella in one hand and his jar in the other while walking down the streets single file to receive bananas, rice, and other food from tourists and locals alike. 

Chance encounters with our newly formed friends from the boat declined as they left town, moving onto Laos’s capital Vientiane to the backpacker town of Vang Vieng.  After three days enjoying the food and the atmosphere of the city we followed suit.