Laos - Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Route 13...

In our last post we had visited Kuala Lumpur, a city that left us with mixed feelings about it. That was soon to be forgotten, however, because after out trip to the UK (for our second wedding blessing!) we spent two weeks in Laos. Well, what can we say? We absolutely loved it and sure you will too if you spend a few minutes reading this post...


Laos. Say it. 'Laos'. Before we came to Thailand we had no idea how to pronounce the name of this relatively unknown country that happens to be sandwiched between Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Myanmar (Burma). I pronounced it as 'Lay Oss' but it's in fact 'Laaow'. Once a kingdom in the mid 14th century called 'Land of a Million Elephants' and then ruled by French Indochina, Laos is now a communist country ruled by the Lao People's Revolutionary Party. Laos has had a turbulent recent past mainly due to it's involvement in helping the north Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. This led the United States to rigorously bomb parts of Laos, creating political divisions which accumulated into a civil war between the Pathet Lao and the Royal Laotian Government. Disgustingly, due to its involvement in the Vietnam conflict, Laos is reported as being the most bombed country on the planet per capita by the US. The Guardian alleges that there are 80 million (yes, MILLION!) unexploded bombs scattered around parts of Laos. Up to this day a few people a month still die or are maimed by these bombs which are still being found by bomb disposal teams across the country. Since the war, Laos has existed in the 3rd world whilst it's neighbours (with the exception of Myanmar) have left her far behind in terms of economics and infrastructure. Their darker history aside, however, we also heard of a country where you can buy freshly baked panini's right next to noodle stalls, of old French colonial mansions and a friendly people who walk to the beat of their own drum. About 10 bpm as were to find out!


As the plane descends over Lao, you realise how relatively untouched this country still is. Regarded as the most naturally preserved country in SE Asia you are greeted below with green rolling hills, muddy lanes and meandering livestock. Landing in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, looks as if you're landing in a small town in the middle of no where. Straight away we knew we'd love it. When we breached the check in and made it to the exit (there's only one) we were expecting touts shouting 'taxi' at us, only to find that we had to actually look for one. There's a brilliant quote in the Lonely Planet where they write that if you had to compare different SE Asian countries as tuk-tuk drivers, the Thai tuk-tuk driver would take you to a gem store, the Vietnamese tuk-tuk driver would chase you down the street for business and the Laotian tuk-tuk driver would actually need waking up. This is true. Although we didn't get a tuk-tuk into town, our taxi driver drove at walking speed. Overtaking a cow took about ten minutes. Everything was in slow motion, from the people walking along the main road to the motorbikes riding on pavements. Vientiane was going to be our decompression chamber after a hectic couple of weeks in the UK and we made it just that. A sleepy city, there isn't much that strikes you as arrive, although, like everything we saw in Laos, it's a slow burner. Set alongside the Mekong river, you can find temples tucked behind modern buildings and start up businesses that dot the road. Along the main drag, Nam Phu, is a simple row of guesthouses, bars and street stalls that cater mainly for the tourists. There weren't many and, thankfully, the sex scene here is hidden which is a nice change. We're not square, it's just that it's nice to walk down a street occasionally without seeing a group of vacant, miserable looking Asian girls being picked up by drooling farangs. That first night we ate at the noodle stalls on Nam Phu, still jet-lagged but not tired enough to avoid drinking the countries favourite export - Beer Laos. A very fine lager, indeed. Here's to Beer Lao, a beer that advertises it's products on speed limit signs. Yep.


We stayed at a guest house which is about a five minute tuk-tuk ride away from the river - the name of which escapes me as it was forgettable. To be honest, although the service was friendly and the rooms were clean, you can stay in better accommodation for not much more right next to the Mekong, which we did the next day.


One thing that struck me the next morning as we were walking down to the river front was that Vientiane, although wholly different in almost every respect, reminded me of Thailand back in the 80's, when I was a little nipper. This was a bit of a surprise for me because I hadn't had this experience since moving back to Bangkok last year, where I almost expected at least some kind of hint of my past. What brought it back was simply the fact that noise and air pollution didn't affect the senses of city life. The fact that we could actually smell the sandalwood on a busy street, or the coriander of a family's dinner wafting over a brick wall, the trees, the soil itself, tiger balm, fish sauce, clove cigarettes. These smells, I know it sounds stupid but it's true, hardly exist in Bangkok anymore, unless you're on some back road. The sounds were reminiscent too: the slow bang of a hammer on bamboo scaffolding, traditional Thai/Laos music, the cheap exhaust on a clapped out motorbike, bird song and...silence!

We went to see the Patuxai monument, a nod to the Arc De Triomphe in France. 

You can climb to the top for a few thousand kip (12,000 to 1 quid, or 50 Baht). 

A view of the Avenue Lane Xang.

We'd decided to hire a 4x4 to drive to Luang Prabang and headed out to find Europcar, the only car rental company in Laos with a website. Anyone read French or Laos?

For about 300 quid we hired a Ford Ranger 4x4 for eight nights - something that we'd be very pleased about later. We also found our new lodgings, the Lao Silk Hotel which is on Francois Ngin Street, just a few minutes walk to the riverside. This hotel was only 15 quid a night and it was clean and modern with air-con. Oh, and it happened to be next to a pub and a superb Italian restaurant called the Aria Italian Culinary Arts Restaurant. For any cheese/wine/pizza starved expat or traveller, this place is heaven. The food was excellent and we had never tasted red wine this good anywhere else in Asia. 

We gorged ourselves and, with jet lag kicking in, headed back for an early night...after a pint of Beer Lao, of course. This beer is incredibly good, based on locally grown rice and imported hops and yeast from Germany. Beer Lao Dark is a really tasty dark beer and you can really taste the roasted malt. A large bottle is less than one quid. Mmmm...

Right. This is it. Jet lag dissipating and a 4x4 truck waiting to take us through the mountains to Luang Prabang. We were told that the 400 km trip from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, which is in the north of Laos, would take about 8 hours. Rather than drive the whole way we decided to break up the trip and stay at Vang Vieng on route. In fact, Phu Tang Resort, just 17 km north of Vang Vieng, is where we headed to. I'd never driven on the right hand side before and I'm quite glad that I learnt how to in Laos, as people drive here as if asleep. After a few km's of driving down a long busy stretch of road out of Vientiane on the Route 13, we entered into what would be the predominantly rural landscape of limestone karst mountains and rice fields.

Our trusty Ford Ranger. 

Only four hours in, we arrived at Pha Tang Resort which is right on the Nam Song river, a Mekong tributary. Imagining a slow meandering river next to the resort's restaurant, we actually encountered a large, frothing beast. I didn't know how the restaurant, which was over the river supported by stilts, managed to stay upright. That aside, the rooms were great and we tucked into some delicious nosh whilst gazing at the karst mountain that overlooks the resort on the other side of the river. The only other guests there were some middle aged Thai men who, as the waiter told me, were with their Laotian 'Mia Noys', or 'minor wives'. Basically, their bit on the side. Unfortunately, the walls separating the rooms were pretty thin...

The view from the restaurant on the river.

The next day, we were off early. I've never had to dodge cows and goats on the street before but one thing you do notice is that everyone works the fields, including the kids. This is when it really hit us how poor Laos is. 

And how beautiful.

Buffaloes working the farms were more common than any tractor.

And we passed miles and miles of rice paddies.

As we continued our journey higher into the mountains, the air was cooler, the clouds lower. As you can see, Laos' main agriculture is rice and about 80% of the population work it.

I got quite adept at dodging cows.

And kids.

We stopped for lunch and had this view presented to us while the staff went back to sleep after serving us.

Along the way we picked up a couple of hitch hikers, Dave from America and Nut from Thailand, who were on their way to Luang Prabang to meet some American college kids on a field trip. We only gave them a short lift along the road and dropped them off outside a guest house where I think they were going to organise bookings for their trip. Little did we know that we would hook up with them again later!

The roads begin to wind so much as you gain altitude, so much so that the longest stretch of straight road at one point was about 10 meters or so. The tourist buses taking travellers from Vientiane to Luang Prabang scream round these corners and rampage through the small villages that dot Route 13 at serious speed. These villages, although next to the main transport artery that connects northern Laos, are still incredibly untouched. All the housing is still wooden, something that we didn't see even in our visit to Chiang Dao, Thailand, last year. It seems the villages came first and then the road. To be precise, some sort of muddy track did exist as the main mountain pass, but the relatively new tarmac road has introduced large vehicles that everyone has to dodge every day. 

The trouble with there being only one road is that there's no pressure release when traffic hits. Which it did. Big time. 

The night before it had rained heavily, causing a few mudslides along the way. As you can see from the photo above the road is cut into the mountain with little to no mudslide barrier. Just round that corner in front was a slide measuring about fifty meters in length. The larger vehicles, being too heavy to challenge the slippery mud, had pulled over to let smaller vehicles through. Unfortunately the people coming from the other direction also had the same idea, creating a complete standstill. We pulled the car over and turned the engine off - little did we know it would stay like that for about five hours. About an hour in, a feeling of community arose as people shared food, water and what little information they had about the length of the tailback. An old Thai lady knocked on my window and gave us a bag of peanuts. The local villagers seized the opportunity to sell sticky rice and fruit. The fellow driving a Beer Lao truck  decided it was time to open the crates and have a party. Car doors opened and blasted out 'luk thung', the upbeat and cowbell-heavy music of the farmer. Erika and I got out and started to play some cards on the back of our 4x4 whilst eating our peanuts. Night fell and we all wished for it to stay dry. At about 8pm, the cars started to groan forward, inch by inch. Someone knocked on my window again and it was Dave and Nut, the chaps we'd picked up the day before. They had hopped onto a local bus and were walking down the road to get some idea of the situation. Having seen the state of the buses and their death defying attempts to drive over the mud, we offered them a lift in our truck - we had two seats spare so why not? It was also good to have some company and to share experiences on expat life. We moved closer to the mud slide with me keeping the truck in 4x4 mode. I got out the car and tip toed my way down the dirt track to get an idea on what challenge laid before me, passing the wooden huts of the local villagers, all nonchalantly staring at this strange international mix of human life milling about their doorways. What I witnessed didn't fill me with much confidence. In fact it's safe to say I was quaking in my flip-flops. In front of me was a thirty meter stretch of road covered in three inch chocolate-thick mud that sloped diagonally from left to right. To the left was the mountain, to the right a sheer drop into nothingness. Let me rephrase that: a sheer drop to certain death. If you've ever witnessed a car attempting an icy or muddy road and you see it lose control, you'll understand what I mean when I say 'morbid helplessness'. You can only watch it happen, this slow-motion emergency, and hope for the best. We saw this happen dozens of times. I saw a mini van, full of petrified tourists, attempt the stretch of muddy road. The driver approached in first gear, ever so slowly, until the van lost traction and started to slide to the edge. Instinctively he pressed the brake - a big no-no as the van turned into a sleigh and slid  towards the edge of the cliff. Luckily, about ten villagers ran up and pushed the van back on course. The driver, wide eyed now and aware of the danger, kept it in first gear, ominously sliding towards the other parked cars and the black hole to his right. After about three very long minutes he completed the 30 meter stretch. I was up next. By this time an audience of fifty or so villagers appeared and they lined the road, cheering me on. I told Erika and the boys to get out the car and to follow me on foot. I closed the door, started the engine, put it into 4 wheel drive and released the hand brake. As soon as the hand brake was released and I tapped it into first gear, I started to slide to the right and hit the brake. "Don't brake! Don't break!" this fella was screaming at me through my open window, which really helped to calm me down. I looked to my right as the back right wheel started to drag the truck towards the edge and had visions of it rolling down the hill. I was starting to panic as my truck lost control and lifted my shaking foot off the brake, which felt incredibly wrong given my current predicament. I lifted the clutch to put the car back into first gear and mercifully I stopped sliding down. The truck stopped, facing diagonally 270 degrees which allowed me to witness the villagers laughing their heads off at this very serious looking farang. I continued on in first gear with the truck sliding to the right every few meters or so and it felt like  forever. My left foot was shaking as it tried to control the clutch because I couldn't use the brake. Finally, I felt the wheels hit the tarmac and my whole universe was locked back into shape. Erika and the boys jumped in, whooping with joy, and we headed towards Luang Prabang. It took about ten minutes for my heart beat to resume it's normal plod. We arrived in Luang Prabang at midnight and we followed Dave's colleagues (who'd met us in town) to a guest house called Phoonsab Guesthouse. We had no idea what the accommodation would be like but were presently surprised to be greeted with a large, wooden room full of teak furniture with a big double bed and a private enclosed balcony. Knackered, we crashed out.

The next morning we woke up and I had a look out the window to find we were slap bang in the middle of the main tourist stretch of road. A bad thing? Nope. All trucks and loud cars are banned in Luang Prabang to preserve it's World Heritage Sight ambiance. The noisiest thing we heard was the putter of a 'jumbo' tuk-tuk. I went downstairs and looked around the main street and I think you can say it was love at first sight. The mix of French colonial townhouses and the low hum of Laotian life going on in front of me seemed to complement each other in a setting that was so new to me.


Our room was the last window on the left. It looks smaller than it actually is in this photo!

Sissavong Road.

There are monks everywhere you look, weaving their way through the tourists who are lazily munching on croissants and sipping quality roasted coffee. A tuk-tuk driver pulled up in front of my beaming face.

Tuk-tuk driver: "Good morning! Would you like some ganja?"

Me: "Erm...no, thanks"

Tuk-Tuk driver: "Opium?"

Hello, Luang Prabang. 

We got our cameras and wondered, which is what you do here. The main centre is hugged by the Mekong River to the north west and the Nam Khan to the east. Within the banks are quiet tree lined lanes peppered with old temples and European architecture. The big rolling brown rivers have the occasional boats puttering up and down them, whilst the tuk-tuk drivers relax and play French bowls. 

We followed the curve of the river and found ourselves in a blissful daze. Did I buy the opium? Didn't need to! We wandered around the beautiful, old temples. The following pictures are taken from Wat Xieng Thong (where royal coronations were held 500 years ago) and Wat Manorom (which has an 800 year old Buddha image inside).

You can't hear it but about one hundred monks were chanting their evening prayer from within the red walls of this temple below. It was at this point we realised we'd come to a pretty special city.

 We saw some monks in an art class and we weren't sure if we were allowed to bother them. With such a large tourism impact on Luang Prabang (although still subtle)  I'm sure these guys get a little annoyed with curious tourists, gawking at them around temple walls. However, once you've saved up and travelled all this way, what's the point in hesitation? As we stepped up a couple of steps and caught their attention, all very young, we realised that they were very welcoming, albeit a tad shy. Buying a print by these young monks puts money into (hopefully) the temple's pockets, so we went and bought a print.

After thanking the monks, we went round the corner to witness a pottery class. Aware that, in Thailand at least, that monks aren't allowed to converse freely with women, I did most of the talking. I asked them where they were from, how old they were - the usual TEFL stuff! We were surprised to find out that they were mostly from Thailand and had come to Luang Prabang to study. Erika got this picture of one of them at work and I seriously think she needs to submit this to National Geographic or something! 

Erika's website is here.

After a very hard day's strolling, we were persuaded by some people to get on a boat and go across the Mekong river to a new bar hidden in the jungle. As a Vietnam war movie buff I'd always dreamed of seeing this beast and finally I had the chance to get on it. The boat was a bit rickety but we managed to make it across.

And we stretched out on some cushions, relaxed with a cocktail...and got bitten by about one million mosquitoes.

As the sun fell, we called the boat boy to take us back over the river so we could have a look at the night market. Although the market has the usual SE Asian tourist goods on offer (t-shirts, sarongs, CD's) it has a huge range of local handicrafts and jewellery. Don't forget to barter - I did so in Thai and it worked fine.

I bought t-shirts, she bought stuff to hang/drape/decorate, we went to bed.

The Kwang Si Waterfall was next on our list. Having been disappointed with our experiences of water falls in Thailand, I really wasn't too fussed about this. What I was fussed about were the Sun Bears at the Bear Rescue Center just nearby. When we arrived, however, it was bath time or something and they were nowhere to be seen. We trekked a short distance to the varying pools of the waterfall where we witnessed some people swinging from a rope into the water.

The waterfall was stunning. 

On our way out we considered buying some 'laos-laos', a traditional Laotian rice whiskey, normally housing the odd snake or scorpion.

And Erika chatted to this elderly lady who owns one of the tourist shops near the entrance to the falls.

We went back and wandered around the streets, just taking in anything we saw, eating at anywhere we passed. There's a place, un-named, on the bank of the Mekong that does BBQ food where you cook your own dishes in the center of the table - highly recommended. We sampled, at last, some amazing quality wine at two wine tasting bistro's on the main road. Both bars were as good as the other: low lighting, soft jazz, good selections of wines from around the world. You know, we were really slumming it....

Mostly, we just strolled about enjoying the Euro-Asian marriage of architecture and cuisine. 

A family playing badminton in the street.

Here's one of the large tuk-tuk's called 'jumbo's'. Sleeping driver is hidden...

Every now and then you walk past some classic cars...

...whilst listening to the gentle chimes of bells reverberating against the breeze.

If there is a city in heaven, I'd like this to be it.

The next day Erika wanted to go to an infamous village of silk weavers and we headed off. It's about two miles north of Luang Prabang and down a dirt track. It took a while but we found it tucked away. In these shops you can watch very experienced women weave all kinds of Lao silk on centuries old wooden looms, and then buy some to support the community. 

Indigo silk, naturally dyed. 

Not THE shop but one of the shops on the way.

Weaving in action.

Drying the dyed silk in the sun.

And they start weaving very young. 

Well, it was hard to leave Luang Prabang but we did. A perfect place for a honeymoon. We hopped into our truck and zoomed off back down Route 13 heading back to Vientiane. We weren't the only ones travelling on the road that day...

...oh, and we hit more mud. Luckily we'd arrived at the hot spots early on and didn't have to wait too long. We picked up a couple lads from Ireland, Shane and Barry, who we'd rescued from quite possibly the most ominous bus-ride ever. This was bitter sweet as we got to meet two lovely blokes who then repaid us (quite generously and needlessly) by paying for our accommodation that night in Vang Vieng. Cheers guys! We ended the night by having a few drinks and then left off to Vientiane the next day. Before we knew it, we were on our flight back to KL and then to Bangkok. 

Laos was definitely the highlight of our travels so far and if you get the chance to visit this beautiful country before the hordes lay claim to it, do it NOW.

Until next time - which will be Jakarta!