Monday, November 23, 2015

Laos


Our short time in Thailand consisted of visiting two cities, Buriram and Ubon Ratchathani. Both not really tourist destinations, but we enjoyed the cities and the food! I can now say, at least for the 7 countries weve been in Thailand really does have te best food. In Ubon we had heard that a festival was supposedly going on, Awk Phansa (I've seen it spelled a jillion different ways) which celebrates the end of the rainy season. We weren't sure really what it entailed and no one we found really spoke enough English to explain it to us. We ended up contacting some locals on couchsurfing and ended up staying with an awesome host, Jaa. She is one of those people always going a mile a minute, so high energy and just fun to be around. On her recommendation we checked ou a nearby temple and stumbled into some locals preparing treats for he festival later that day. They had four or five huge pots going of a type of coconut candy. I don't know everything that goes into it, but it's basically a coconut caramel that has to be constantly stirred over an open flame as the consistency changes. It's hard work, but it's a group effort and we were quickly invited in and put to work. It was great to be able to join in with these locals and their celebration, and the end result was so delicious! Later on we might up again with Jaa and headed to the festival. It was huge -- it seems that Asians will take any excuse to celebrate and run with it. There was a lighted boat procession on the river, fireworks going of everywhere, loads of people, traditional thai music and dancing (along with the hip neighborhood bands of young kids), and Muay Thai matches happening all night. It was a lively atmosphere and I was glad we happened to be in town at the right time to see it. The next morning we boarded a bus to pakse, to cross the border into our final country, Laos. Arriving in Pakse, we caught the tail end of their celebrations as well- they were having a boat racing festival to end their weekend celebrations. Though we didn't catch any races (we tried but got too hot waiting for what seemed like forever) we did eat some good food and got to see the Lao people celebrate and have a good time. In moderation of course, the whole country has an 11:00 curfew, which means you have to be back on your guesthouse by 11:30 or risk being locked out! Those crazy communists... From Pakse we decided to ret a motorbike and spend a couple days exploring the Bolaven Plateau. This is an area higher in elevation, which grows the majority of laoatian coffee. There are also numerous waterfalls to explore. The first day we saw 3(?) beautiful waterfalls, the last had a bamboo raft and rope you could use to pull yourself right up under the falls, very cool but scarier than you may expect. The first night we stayed in paksong, the coffee capital of Laos. In the morning we stopped into Jhai coffee, and had a great time talking to the local there, Tao. He had grown up in paksong and had been growing coffee all his life. He said it was a huge transition for him getting hired by this western owned coffee shop and having to learn all the intricacies of brewing. We had a couple pourovers of the different beans, and aero press brews upon his recommendations. They were all delicious, and I wouldn't be surprised if lao coffee gets a lot more popular in the near future. From there, we headed to the village of Tad Lo -- known again for its numerous waterfalls. The village itself is gorgeous. We had a bungalow overlooking the river, complete with hammocks. There were piglets, goats, horses, water buffalo and more all just wandering around the town. I wouldn't be surprised if this place becomes much more of a tourist destination soon. We made a couple more stops along the way to try more coffee while we returned to Pakse. From Pakse we explored a small riverside town, Champassak for one night and then bussed to Savannhaket for a short detour before heading up to Tha Khaek. Lots of cities, I know. Sorry if these have turned more into a list rather than interesting reading. In Tha Khaek we had plans to do another motorbike loop, probably the most well traversed route in Laos, to explore the countryside and the Kong Lo cave, a flooded cave in which you can take a 7 km boat ride through. The loop itself is beautiful, lots of changing scenery, and the typical Laos landscape of amazing green mountains clouded in mist. We made our way through rice paddies, mountains, jungles and more to a small village where we got a peaceful bungalow to spend the night. The next day we made our way to the village of Kong Lo. We got there a dusk was hitting, and settled into a small guesthouse off the main road. We had to walk back through the small village to t to town to find food, and walking through these small houses in the dusk, with smoke rising out of fires, the huge mountains in the background, and the river rushing by your side felt magical. It was such a beautiful place and so special to be seeing this small village. After 8 months of seeing these rural villages it still doesn't quite hit you that this is how these people live day in and day out. Such a different world and life from what I know. The next morning we awakened early to go down to the cave. Seeing the village in full light was quite a view. The mountains surrounding you, reminded me a lot of Yosemite -- instead of the meadows it was just rice fields. We made our way down to the cave, met a Belgian guy who joined our boat, and took off with out trusty guide, Bong. He informed us the power was out in the village, so there would be no light in the cave except for our headlamps. It really was pitch dark. At one point we got out and walked to see some of the cave formations close up, while bong paddled the boat and met us downstream. It was really eerie and almost otherworldly down there -- so dark and it stretched so long. It took close to 90 mins. to reach the end of the cave, which then we got to go back through! A very cool experience, and great stop on our loop. We stopped in one last small town, checked out a swimming hole and then made our way back to Tha Khaek. Four days and 450 km. on the bike complete! From Tha Khaek we caught a bus up to Vientiane, our first big city. It was kind of underwhelming, expensive accommodations, and not a lot of food to try. We ended up spending two nights there before heading up to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is infamous for being the tubing capital of Laos, where once upon a time hundreds of tourists at a time would get wasted and float down the river going from bar to bar. It got quite a bad rap, and the government has really tried to tone down its party image -- all the tourist fatalities probably helped with that. We were debating skipping it, but an 11 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang didn't sound fun, so we stopped off in VV. It's a beautiful spot, it's easy to see why it gained so much popularity. Everything is catered to tourists, which gets old, but is is nice every once in a while. There is western food everywhere, souvenir shops and bakeries, and every restaurant seems to be decked out with low tables and pillows to lounge on instead of actual tables and chairs. Also, for some weird reason all these restaurants seem to just screen reruns of Friends all day long. Walking down the streets there are just loads of these restaurants in a line, and they all have a different episode on. You can hear the laugh track echoing almost everywhere you go. As weird as it is, getting some food and relaxing in the big pillows with a Beer Lao in hand and Friends in the background is a great way to spend time and relax in Vang Vieng. On our last day we did do the infamous river tubing. The party scene really wasn't too bad up until that point, but we actually got our tubes in the morning to have a peaceful float down the river. They bus you up 4 km upstream and it takes just under two hours to float back to town and enjoy the scenery of limestone cliffs all the way back. We actually ended up getting another ride out of town to float back a second time! This time we saw a bigger crowd, still trying to keep the traditions of the past going strong. There are only a couple riverside bars still open -- we just grabbed a couple beers in town to enjoy while floating down the river our second time. From VV we headed to Luang Prabang, one of the most loved cities in Laos. It is an attractive city, quite cleans with a cute little old quarter area -- similar to the feel of Hoi An in Vietnam. Still, we weren't so into it. Lots of western restaurants, not too much interesting local food to be found, the typical attractions of small waterfalls, caves and temples. Kind of the attractions you start to get burnt out on when traveling Asia for so long. We spent a couple nice days there, including Paul's birthday where we drank probably too much lao lao (local rice whiskey) and tried close to every bar in town. We were too full on alcohol to even have a decent meal, so that happened the next day. All in all a nice few days of exploring what the town had to offer. From there we bussed up to the small town of Luang Namtha, close to the Burma and China border. It was an unpleasant 8 or so bumpy hours. We rented a motorbike this morning and are now in a small village, Muang Sing just miles from the Chinese border. It really feels like we are out in the middle of nowhere. The plan to explore some of the villages nearby, get up early and check out the morning market before heading back to luang namtha was a good one. Despite being in such a small town the market was quite large as it is the main market and 'commerce' of the entire region. We really saw the locals in action. The market was divided into two sections, the regular sellers inside with tables and tables of produce, herbs, meat (we saw an entire whole cow head, just bloody and hacked off at the neck) and everything in between. The second part of the market is the village people who come to sell and set up around the perimeter of the market on the ground. They sell their unique produce, homemade lao lao (rice whiskey, which Paul was urged to try at 7 in the morning - 2 shots!) and even locally caught squirrels and rats. Very interesting to see what was being bought and sold -- it was probably one of our favorite markers we've seen, and there have been a lot by this point. After a last night in luang namtha, we were onto our last border crossing back into Thailand! Less than one month until were back in CA!