The view from our balcony at the elephant lodge
Elephant bathing
Livi getting dipped
Saturday 6 March 2010
Laos
Hey readers. we're leaving laos tomorrow (not sure how) so i thought i'd do my first post on here and tell you all about it.
we arrived in laos' capital vientiane about 10 days ago after a hellish 24 hour bus journey with loads of babies. vientiane is more of a capital village than a city, pleasant but tiny and weirdly empty. the town of oundle was honestly busier. i don't think there are many people in laos. although nice, there wasn't a whole lot to see so we made a quick exit for vang vieng, which was different to say the least.
according to a lonely planet guide we found from 1994, vang vieng used to be a tiny unspoilt town on the nam song river. since, it has transformed into laos' party capital where people 'tube' down the river (hiring a rubber ring and spending hours floating back towards town), stopping at riverside bars populated entirely by westerners, primarily canadians, preppy english kids and israelis fresh out of national service. each bar has its own increasingly dangerous gimmick, whether it's a rope swing, mud wrestling or 'the slide of death'. then everyone migrates back into town in the early evening to sober up sleeping or watching back to back episodes of friends in video bars. our three nights there were good fun but messy, and aside from the drinking and our hotel's pet baby monkey there was pretty much nothing, so we moved on for the sake of our health.
our next stop, luang probang, from which i'm writing, is a fantastic place. the lonely planet describes it as 'the pearl of the orient', and although it says similar things about some of the least interesting places we've been, it may well be right. it's dominated by great cafes and restaurants set in colonial french architecture, and as a world heratige site it's completely unspoilt. from here we took a 2 day 'mahout experience', a trip to an elephant sanctuary where we learned to ride a group of female elephants, some as old as 50. the elephants were everything we'd heard they were; huge, intelligent, friendly animals, and bathing them at 6 in the morning as the sun rose over the forest was an unforgettable experience, though slightly hair raising at points - balancing on the elephant's neck isn't easy, especially if it gets spooked by a motorbike and decides to charge through the jungle.
so that's laos. see you in thailand. x
we arrived in laos' capital vientiane about 10 days ago after a hellish 24 hour bus journey with loads of babies. vientiane is more of a capital village than a city, pleasant but tiny and weirdly empty. the town of oundle was honestly busier. i don't think there are many people in laos. although nice, there wasn't a whole lot to see so we made a quick exit for vang vieng, which was different to say the least.
according to a lonely planet guide we found from 1994, vang vieng used to be a tiny unspoilt town on the nam song river. since, it has transformed into laos' party capital where people 'tube' down the river (hiring a rubber ring and spending hours floating back towards town), stopping at riverside bars populated entirely by westerners, primarily canadians, preppy english kids and israelis fresh out of national service. each bar has its own increasingly dangerous gimmick, whether it's a rope swing, mud wrestling or 'the slide of death'. then everyone migrates back into town in the early evening to sober up sleeping or watching back to back episodes of friends in video bars. our three nights there were good fun but messy, and aside from the drinking and our hotel's pet baby monkey there was pretty much nothing, so we moved on for the sake of our health.
our next stop, luang probang, from which i'm writing, is a fantastic place. the lonely planet describes it as 'the pearl of the orient', and although it says similar things about some of the least interesting places we've been, it may well be right. it's dominated by great cafes and restaurants set in colonial french architecture, and as a world heratige site it's completely unspoilt. from here we took a 2 day 'mahout experience', a trip to an elephant sanctuary where we learned to ride a group of female elephants, some as old as 50. the elephants were everything we'd heard they were; huge, intelligent, friendly animals, and bathing them at 6 in the morning as the sun rose over the forest was an unforgettable experience, though slightly hair raising at points - balancing on the elephant's neck isn't easy, especially if it gets spooked by a motorbike and decides to charge through the jungle.
so that's laos. see you in thailand. x
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