Laos – Daniel's Travels

In the Heat of Vientiane

Feb 21, 2018

When we decided to move on to Vientiane, we did that mainly because it has an international airport which permitted us to continue our travels to Vietnam. And as we were still missing the visa for Vietnam, it was also a good opportunity to organize it while staying in Laos’ capital.

The center of Vientiane is very international and it is in fact not so easy to find an authentic local restaurant, instead, there are lots of French cafés, pizza and pasta places, and other international restaurants. As we had quite a bit of time to kill because we had to wait for our Vietnam visa, this was however very welcome. And because it was up to 35° C during the day, cooling down in a café every now and then was also pleasant.

Tourist Attractions of Vientiane

While Vientiane does not offer the same amount and quality of tourist attractions like Luang Prabang or Vang Vieng, there are still a few sights worth visiting. The most important one is Pha That Luang, Laos’ national monument and a symbol of Buddhist religion. Nearby there are several temples and a giant golden reclining Buddha statue.

Another attraction is the Patuxai, Laos’ victory monument. It resembles a bit the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. However, it was built from cement and looked by far less interesting as its Paris counterpart. Ironically, even one of the explanation boards admits that the Patuxai is not really a beautiful monument. Nevertheless, because it was possible to climb it for less than 50 cents, it makes a good spot for getting a panoramic view over Vientiane.

Other than that, there are a few temples and government buildings to have a look at, but nothing overly spectacular (after having seen dozens of temples in the past months).

Around 25 km outside of Vientiane, we paid a visit to a so-called Buddha park. It is basically a park with all kinds of recently made Buddha statues put together seemingly in a random way. The statues themselves were, at least from my art understanding, were not of very high quality. While for tourists it is an interesting visit (for Vientiane standards), I guess that for the locals, this park does not have any religious or historic significance.

COPE Visitor Center

COPE stand for Cooperative Orthotic & Prostethic Enterprise and stands for an organization that provides artificial limbs, walking aids and wheelchairs in Laos. As explained in the post about the UXO Museum in Luang Prabang, due to many unexploded remainders of cluster bombs, tens of thousands of Laotians got injured by losing their hands, arms, or legs. With international support, the COPE organization provides victims with free medical treatment and appropriate aids to make their life easier. Visiting the COPE Visitor Center was very informative and once again showed us the tragic consequences of America’s secret war in Laos.

I can also recommend the following five minute movie created by COPE for more detailed information and numbers:

Getting Ready for Vietnam

The main reason we stayed in total four nights in Vientiane was because we needed to organize our onward journey to Vietnam. Unfortunately, a visa is required, and because it was New Year break in Vietnam, the authorities only issued visas on the 21^st of February. So we had plenty of time for getting our blogs a bit up to date and discover various cafés. But now we are ready for Vietnam and we will fly to Hanoi. We chose a 50 minute flight over an 18 hour bus ride.

Exploring Caves and the Mountains in Vang Vieng

Feb 17, 2018

After our visit to Luang Prabang we took a bus south to Vang Vieng, which is on the route to Vientiane, Laos’ capital. On the map, the distance between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng is not that large (180 km), but because the north of Laos is quite inaccessible due to the mountains, the bus ride took almost seven hours. We were happy when we finally arrived in Vang Vieng, which is located in between some impressive limestone mountains with many caves and impressive cliffs, most of it overgrown with dense vegetation.

Tourist Activities in Vang Vieng

Of course tourism has also arrived in Vang Vieng, which reflects in the village being full of tour agencies, bars, and restaurants. There are dozens of tour agencies selling the exact same activities. The actual number of possible activities can be counted on one hand however: Kayaking down the river, entering some caves either on foot or by sitting on an inflated tube on the water, enjoying the area in either a hot air balloon or a motorized hang glider, some longer trekking or taking a swim in a natural pool.

I have never been a fan of tours as you’re mixed with all kinds of people. Especially for things like kayaking or trekking, it can be very frustrating if there are people in your group who have never done such an activity before. Also, I don’t like being squeezed through the whole program in a given schedule. That’s why we decided to rent a motorbike for two days and go exploring the area at our own pace.

One word about the flying activities: hot air ballooning and hang-gliding sounds very tempting, however I told myself to never take part in such activities in a third world country as the equipment that is used is most likely not corresponding even closely to our safety standards. I have also observed that when paragliding in Colombia. I saw lots of equipment used by locals that most likely was sold from Europe once it has reached its end of life (for Europe standards). While a broken motorbike or kayak usually does not have serious consequences, broken flight equipment is fatal.

The Nature around Vang Vieng

While Vang Vieng is nothing worth seeing at all, the mountains, rivers, and dry rice fields around Vang Vieng are really wonderful. If it had not been so hot and dry during our stay, I would have loved to go trekking there, but with temperatures up to 35°C, we tried to keep physical activities outside to a minimum. Thanks to our motorbike, we could still see a lot of the region, even if it meant riding through dusty dirt roads for a full day. Especially the sunsets were magic during this time of the year.

Exploring Undeveloped Caves around Vang Vieng

I am a big fan of caves, and especially caves that have not been equipped with lights and walking paths. And these are exactly the kind of caves you can find around Vang Vieng. Also, the caves are very diverse, some of them are partially filled with water, others are 3 km long tunnels into the mountain, and others again consist of enormous halls where a human being looks very small inside the cave.

Undeveloped caves fascinate me because you actually can explore the cave yourself. You need to set reference points and have good navigation skills to find your way in and out of the caves, because not all caves are just bidirectional tunnels, but rather branched. Combined with the limited light that a head lamp provides, it is easy to lose orientation, and inside the mountain, there is no GPS or any other electronic aid that can point the way out. And of course you have to make sure that the batteries of your headlamp last long enough. But this is exactly what I love and stresses Ilinca out about it. The atmosphere gets even more special once you turn off your lamps and just listen to the sounds of bats, water drops, and sometimes underground rivers. Inside the caves it is so dark that even after a few minutes without light, your eyes still cannot see anything at all.

The Water Cave

Only one of the visited caves is set up for mass tourism. It is Tham Nam, the water cave. An underground river goes several hundred meters into the mountain. Along the cave, ropes were installed, and tourists can sit into tubes and pull themselves through the water deep inside the cave. Usually this cave is explored as part of a tour, however, I simply grabbed a tube that was floating around and went into the cave between the tour groups all by myself. Ilinca was guarding my possessions outside. Like this, I did not have to listen to the screams and basically had most of the cave to myself. I turned off the lamp for a few minutes and pulled myself inside the cave, only listening to the water flowing and imagining how I would get out of the cave if my head lamp stopped to work. It is hard to describe this in words, but it is a unique feeling. When the ropes stopped after a few hundred meters, the cave still continued, but as I was in there completely alone, I decided not to go in any further.

Swimming in Blue Lagoons

The main attraction around Vang Vieng were the numerous blue lagoons, which are basically natural pools that are filled with water coming from the mountains. In order to please the mostly Chinese tourists, wooden towers or trees were used as a spring board, and whenever someone had the courage to jump into the water from 5m height, everybody applauded. Most of these blue lagoons were completely overcrowded and were no temptation at all for us. I rather go for a swim again in Lake Zurich when I am back home.

One thing surprised us though at these blue lagoons: At least half of the Chinese tourists chose to go inside the pool wearing a life jacket. It is hard to imagine for a developed country like China that so many people either cannot swim or don’t feel comfortable in the water without a life jacket.

Moving on to Vientiane

Two full days in Vang Vieng are enough if you don’t go on some multi-day trekking adventures, so we decided to move on to Vientiane. It is only a 4h bus ride, so I guess we should arrived there more relaxed than when we arrived in Vang Vieng.

Historic Luang Prabang

Feb 14, 2018

Luang Prabang is a small historic city in northern Laos where Nam Khan River flows into mighty Mekong River. The historic center of the city is situated on a peninsula formed by those two rivers and is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site. Even though the city has become very touristic in its center with excellent dining opportunities and boutique hotels, it was still a calm place and a good way to start our visit to Laos. Luang Prabang is surrounded by a mountainous scenery, so there are also attractive sights outside the city limits, such as the Kuang Si waterfalls or limestone caves.

A Bad Start in Luang Prabang

I personally did not start in a pleasant way in Laos. After already having had some stomach issues back on Koh Rong in Cambodia, as soon as we arrived in Luang Prabang, things got worse with diarrhea, fever, and shaking. I think the source of these problems still point back to Cambodia.

As we have been travelling in countries with all kinds of tropical diseases (e.g. Malaria or Dengue Fever), I could not just sit it out as I would have done in Switzerland. So I had my first hospital visit on this trip to get a blood check. Luckily, the results were negative for all the tropical diseases, but I had some bacterial issues. A pack of antibiotics accompanies with some other medicine however brought my body back on track within two days, which was good as there is really excellent cuisine in Luang Prabang.

The whole visit to the hospital and the medicine cost me around $50. Back home in Switzerland, probably even shaking your doctor’s hand costs more J But I have to admit, the medical facilities back home are also much better, but for a simple blood test, they were sufficient.

The Historical Center

Luang Prabang’s historical center is really small and can easily be visited in one day on foot. Apart from numerous temples and pagodas, the royal palace, and all the small colonial houses, the city center impressed us with its beautiful location with the Nam Khan and Mekong River flowing basically around the old town on three sides. Every night, there was also a night market along the main street, however, the displayed goods were basically the same all over the place. Many things that looked like hand-made turned out to be industrially produced on a closer look, my guess is in neighboring China.

Kuang Si Waterfalls

It took some convincing from Ilinca’s side to travel 1h by Minibus out of town to see Kuang Si waterfalls. Reasons are that I did not expect them to contain lots of water due to the dry seasons, and because I have already seen many nice waterfalls during my travels. But I am really glad we decided to go, as it is a cascade of several waterfalls embedded in dense forest, with numerous natural pools to go for a swim. In addition, there was even a small animal rescue park where they take care of rescued bears.

The only catch with Kuang Si waterfalls is, that other tourists also know about it. I have read on blogs before that the noise of the tourist groups that get transported there every day ruins the wonderful atmosphere. To avoid the crowds we tried to be there as early as possible. We arrived there at 8 in the morning and there was literally nobody there. Wonderful! Not only is it nicer to take pictures of the waterfalls without dozens of people on the picture, but also is the morning light perfect. We spent in total three hours at the waterfalls and the adjacent bear rescue center. When we left at 11, the place was completely overrun by tourists. I am so glad we managed to get out there so early.

The Cluster Bomb Museum

During the second Indochina War, American Forces heavily bombed Laos in an attempt to cut off the supply routes of the Vietcong. Many of these routes led through Laos. Apart from using Napalm to burn down and Agent Orange to defoliate the trees, the Americans also used Cluster Bombs to destroy large areas of land. Cluster Bombs are bomb shells that contain hundreds of so-called bombies, each of which causes damage in a radius of 30m when hitting the ground. In mid-air, the Cluster bomb opens up, spreading the bombies over an area of two to three football fields. The long term problem with these cluster bombs was that about one third of the bombies did not explode on impact, and hence just like landmines are a big threat to everybody working in agriculture, because these bombies may explode anytime when being hit.

The UXO museum (UXO = unexploded ordnance) in Luang Prabang gives a lot of information about this huge problem of Laos, that I have to admit, I was completely unaware of. And it also shows movies of people who got killed or seriously injured while trying to make a living on the countryside. There is international help with the removal of these UXOs, but so far only half a million UXOs have been disarmed and destroyed. Around 78 million are still out there, and locating and destroying them is an enormous effort. Until then they pose a big threat to the Lao population and it is one of the reasons why Laos is developing so slowly.

Going South to Vang Vieng

Due to my illness, we spent in total 5 nights in Luang Prabang, which is more than enough. Now we are heading south to Vang Vieng, which is a 7 hour bus ride away. Most of the roads will be in the mountains, so I expect some nice views and a most likely uncomfortable bus ride.