Laos Day 0 – 2: The Start

I accidentally deleted one of the two Fangki’s infamous drunken Langkawi videos. T___T Thankfully it was just a shorter version of about 1 minute, depicting him randomly throwing sand behind his back wtf. Tried various recovery options which failed, which saddened me, but I suppose these things do happen sometimes and I shall resign to the video’s fate.

I’m not too sure how I’ll go about chronicling my travels across part of Laos and Thailand, but I’ll make adjustments as we go.

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WARNING: APPROXIMATELY 34 PICTURES AHEAD.

Day 0 – 3rd December 2007

This part describes what I did the night before I left, so feel free to skip reading this if you want.

Went out at night to have dinner at Shiraz USJ 1 with Shawn, Heng, Andy, and Joe, after which I picked up Ding, and together with Heng we went to FTZ to have my final DotA game for the year. We played 3 rounds, which equate to about more than 3 hours in the cybercafe, where we lost miserably in all 3 rounds anyway lol. Met my collegemate Wen Jie there.

Went to Tanjung mamak after the DotA session with Andy joining us there. Had some pleasant chat before I realised I had to be back early, and fetched Heng back. The other two returned to my house at about 1am as Ding wanted to borrow my comics while Andy wanted to copy over some Heroes episodes before I leave.

Had another pleasant goodbye chat with them till 2am, which is when I had to sleep.

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Day 1 – 4th December 2007

I woke up at 5.30am, meaning I had only about 3 hours of sleep. Siew arrived at my house at 6.30am, and from there, my parents fetched us to the LCCT. Just as I stepped onto the LCCT, I had my first call of the day from my collegemate Roy, who was supposed to join us 2 days after. He told me that he had suspected dengue and may not be able to join us (which he didn’t, in the end).

There was a long queue at the check-in counter as apparently there were 150 other Laotians boarding the same flight, most of them (I’m guessing, from the way they clothe themselves) range from the middle-class to the upper.

Our flight to Vientiane took 2 hours and 50 minutes, where we arrived 5 minutes earlier than expected. Why this is of notable mention is because AirAsia is infamous for its delays, though I suppose delays for international AirAsia flights are less prone for obvious reasons.

A nice map to show you guys where Vientiane actually is – educational, no?

As I strode down the stairs from the Airbus, a cooling pleasant weather of about 25 degrees Celcius, akin to what Cameron Highland’s was 5 years ago, greeted us – it’s nothing like humid Malaysia that I’ve been experiencing for a great part of my life. And though I had expected a curious mix of excitement for being at a different land to dawn upon me (as I had felt when I landed in Cambodia six months ago), I felt nothing remotely of that sort. It’s a journey of nearly a month, and Siew concurred that he was more excited about our previous Cambodia/Vietnam trip than our current one.

In front of AirAsia’s plane. Even as the plane flew over Laos, you can see nothing but trees, trees, and more trees from a bird’s point of view.

When we arrived at the airport, we were unsure whether to take up the taxi offered after hearing tons of horror taxi stories from KLIA. But when we were told it was USD$6 for a 4km rrde to the town, which is similar to what Wikitravel had mentioned (I come prepared!), we decided to ride it. Apparently the taxi prices at the airport are government-controlled anyway.

Schoolkids controlling traffic with flags, in front of their school. As you can see, in Laos, the steering wheel is on the left side of the vehicle.

Our first taste of the Laotian laidback life occured when we were searching for a guesthouse. We scouted around for prices at several guesthouses as usual, and when we finally found the cheapest (we were also too lazy to walk around any longer with our heavy backpack) and decided to stay, the person manning the guesthouse told us, “If you want to look at other guesthouses first, it’s okay.”

Suffice to say I was culturally shocked. “No, I WANT to stay at your guesthouse.” Who’ve ever heard of a guesthouse who doesn’t want business?

Also the next other thing you will notice abruptly was how empty the streets are, for a capital city of a country. It was quiet, peaceful – nothing like the daily traffic jams and continuous stream of people walking around like in Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, or Washington DC.

Our first step was to purchase a Lonely Planet guidebook – with our in-grained Malaysian traits, the book was obviously photostated although it didn’t come as cheap as when we bought guidebooks in Cambodia. Siew was the navigator for the two of us for the remainder of the trip.

Erm again to demonstrate the emptiness of the roads. And the official flag of Lao PDR and what looked like a Soviet Union flag?

That Dham. The legend goes that a seven-headed dragon once resided inside it.

I thought this picture was hilarious, if you notice the woman across the road referring to a travel guidebook like Siew was doing.

How a Vientiane college looks like.

Oh, street signs are all in Lao scripts and French wtf, which is why the college name above was in French – Laos still has some French influence as a result of being conquered by the French decades ago. Siew and I were walking looking for the fountain (which is near where our guesthouse is) and saw a sign that says ‘fontaine’ or something similar with an arrow pointing towards the right. It took me some time to realise that it means ‘fountain’, apart from the small icon next to the word that was supposed to depict a fountain.

The lunch and dinner we had was so-so, and the price of the food was slightly expensive than Vietnam, although the drinks were reasonable.

Both of us didn’t bother to visit temples around the city as temples aren’t really our cup of tea. We walked around a lot, and as I mentioned before in my earlier entry when I was blogging from a cybercafe in Vientiane, I was hit by a sudden depression – my heart felt heavy to a homesick-like extent.

Us in our room. Siew was also getting sick, losing his voice.

While walking around, we signed up for a kayaking trip at Green Discovery (about USD$29 per person) that needed a few more people to lower its price. According to our itinerary, we actually still had a day more to go in Vientiane but decided that the capital has nothing else to offer and we left Vientiane the next day.

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Day 2 – 5th December 2007

Today, we’re heading to Vang Vieng from Vientiane while kayaking along the way.

Our morning began feeling sleepy and lazy despite already having about 10 hours of sleep. I normally have irregular sleeping patterns back home, but once I started travelling, I always seem to adopt a healthier sleeping lifestyle – but then again there’s almost next to nothing to do once the late night sets in.

We went to a nearby stall to eat some chicken soup noodle for 5000kip each (it’s about 9400kip to a USD$1 at that time), and the chicken was extremely tough. Siew ate a bite-sized yao char kuai for 1000kip.

Right on time at 8am, we reached the Green Discovery office where our pickup truck (also known as songthaew)was already there, with 3 other people in it. Introductions were made as usual – they were two Irish 20ish students Mark and Ray, and a Dutch woman who’s a diving instructor called Agetha (we found out much later that she’s actually 34).

Inside the pickup truck. Mark (or was it Ray?) was wrapping himself with Agetha’s multi-purpose cloth, which she said could double up as an actual attire, blanket, or a makeshift jacket.

Off we went on the pickup truck, which picked up an old French couple (the Frenchman’s only Malay phrase that he remembered was “Terlalu mahal”, which I confirmed for him does mean “Too expensive” wtf), and eventually any other Lao people along the way.

It sorta broke down once and had to change its back tyre.

This picture would be rather uninteresting if not for the lady on the motorbike (at the back of the picture) who was carrying ducks by dangling them on the motor. Animal cruelty wtf.

The most amazing thing about these pickup trucks is its ability to overload people on it ahead of its capacity – at one point we had 19 people (including the driver and his two sidekicks sitting in front) squeezed together in a relatively small truck, some standing and holding onto dear life as the truck rambled on its way. It got incredible when they had a cage of squawking chickens right on the ‘footstep’ of the truck as well.

It was then I realised the actual meaning of ‘pickup truck’ – it picks anything up.

Agetha, me, the Frenchman. The French couple realised they were on the wrong pickup truck when we switched trucks later.

The ride wasn’t that bad as the weather was cooling, save for my ass aching from sitting on the hard bench. It did get cold at one point, and in the end you have 3 Westerners (and a few local Lao) wearing thick clothes and 2 Malaysians dressing up for 32 degrees Celcius.

Getting ready for the kayaking ahead. (Some pictures may have some black circular marks, which were actually from my underwater camera bag. The light was too strong to see anything on the LCD, and so I only realised the marks later on in darker areas – nothing I can do about it, a little wasted really.)

Siew and I shared a kayak (duh).

Kayaking was an incredible experience, especially when you thrusted right in the middle of nature. There were only few actual scenic views along the Nam Lik river, but considering that you have nothing but trees left and right, it was something that we would hardly ever encounter back in Malaysia.

The rapids (there were 3 in all in this grade 1-2 river) were both scary and fascinating at the same time – an au naturel mini theme park on its own right.

Our boat capsized once at the second rapid (more detail on how I lost my camera for an entire minute could be glimpsed through my earlier entry), and I had tremendous difficulty trying to climb back onboard after Siew rotated our overturned kayak upright again – also bear in mind that my arms were exhausted from all the kayaking, my actual exercise in ages.

After Agetha rescued my camera floating along the river in its waterproof bag, we went on for a bit, dashed through our 3rd less violent rapid. At one point, Agetha and the tour guide apparently saw a snake in the river that bared its head and fangs at them, where the tour guide instinctively used an oar to bash on it.

Different position after the capsize. Isn’t the river beautiful?

We stopped by at a bunch of rocks for lunch.

The rest went for jumps, which I didn’t participate as my fear of heights and inability to swim is very real (I can float around while paddling like a dog though, if that counts). The picture depicts Siew jumping off from a height of 2.5m, and later on, Siew and 3 other fellow kayakers jumped off from a cliff at about 10m high WTF. That’s about three storeys high wtf.

The story goes that Siew initially didn’t want to jump off from the 10m high cliff, but after seeing Agetha – a woman – and the two other Irishmen jumped off, ego set in and off he jumped.

Resting after the jump. Ray (or was it Mark?) has an awesome tattoo of a tree decorating his entire back.

Lunch made by our Lao tour guides were fantastic, BBQ style: some beef and vege kebab thingy, fried rice, and baguette served on banana leaves.

We rested for what must have been an hour plus, before we enjoyed the rest of the Nam Lik river without any rapids. It was serenely peaceful.

We reached our final destination, and later tipped our tour guide 2000kip each (per participant) as he had been helpful and very stringent when ensuring our safety, never mind the slightly incomprehensible spoken English.

This is one of my favourite photos of the entire trip – aren’t the Laotian kids cute!

All the songthaews that were ready to pick up us kayakers – we weren’t the only kayakers around.

Yes believe it or not – motorcycle crossing the river on a sampan wtf.

We went back on the pickup truck, and the rest of the journey was spent looking at nothing but infant paddy fields, zillions of trees on either sides, and passing through very small towns. It’s like the scenery on the roads going up to Cameron’s or Frasers Hill or Genting, except that these roads in Laos seems to stretch on for.. like the entire country?

When we passed by kids on the road on their bicycles or walking (returning from after school presumably, considering their white uniform), they waved at us to which we waved back. Either they were too friendly or didn’t see many foreigners around.

Our journey to Vang Vieng was interrupted by stopping by at a town to buy bottles of Beerlao (Ray belanja-ed us).

That, my friends, is the Laotian toll wtf.

Me in Mark’s extremely comfortable jacket – was feeling very cold.

Drinking Beerlao had a consequence – the men had an incredible need to go by the roadside (happened twice) to relieve a bursting bladder.

Sun setting.

At another angle.

We finally reached Vang Vieng (with me feeling blood coursing through my body at an alarming rate), walked around for a bit while passing by several full guesthouses. The lot of us reached this mansion-like guesthouse (mansion in a Laotian sense, mind you) that charged only USD$4 per room per night – which means Siew and I pay only USD$2 each per night! That is ridiculously cheap. Because of my tipsiness which equalled my inability to think, I paid 20000kip and realised later that I lost out a bit on the exchange rate, heh.

Our room was fantastic compared to the one in Vientiane – TWO queen-sized beds; towels, soaps, and tissue are provided, coupled with a private bathroom (through incredibly small) with HOT shower! Our room only has a fan, but at a time when very early mornings and very late nights are chilly, any air-conditioning is ridiculous. Also considering the price we paid, it’s an incredibly good deal.

After dinner where I had bacon and egg burger (sick of noodles finally) and Siew ate laap, a national dish comprised of chopped vege, meat, and cili padi, we retired to our room. Didn’t feel like joining Mark, Ray, and Agetha for drinking as well as I didn’t feel too well.

And I slept at 9.30pm that night – possibly the earliest ever in that entire year.