Lazy days in Laos

Crossing the border into Laos from Thailand was a piece of cake. We got a local bus from Chiang Rai to the northern border town of Chiang Khong, where we bypassed the extortionate tuk tuk drivers and started walking the 3km to the immigration checkpoint. About halfway there, after failed attempts to flag down passing utes, a local guy and his wife on a motorbike with attached side-car for transporting goods, stopped and offered us a ride. We gladly accepted and when he dropped us off we gave him some money as thanks, which we had to force on him. Exiting Thailand couldn’t have been easier as there was no-one else there, and after crossing the new Friendship Bridge we were quickly granted a visa and entry into Laos.

Getting a ride to the Thai/Laos border from some kind locals

After spending a night in the Laos border town of Huay Xai, we bought our tickets for the two day slow boat down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. As it was low season the boat wasn’t even close to being full, so we didn’t have any worries about not getting a seat. In fact, they even took some off – the seats are just old car seats plonked down (not secured) in the boat. They were fairly comfortable though so we settled in for two days of motoring down the mighty Mekong. 

As it was still the rainy season, albeit nearing the end, the river was pretty full and flowing very fast, with some very dangerous looking whirlpools and currents. It was also a chocolate brown colour, so not exactly appealing for a quick dip. The first day was about 7 hours of sitting and looking at the beautiful scenery, reading, eating and sleeping. Thankfully you don’t sleep on the boat, so we spent the night at a place called Pak Beng, which seems to exist purely to cater for tourists on the slow boats going in either direction. Day two was much the same, although we’d changed to a slightly smaller boat which wasn’t really an issue. 

Looking out over the Mekong in Pak Beng

The only issue arose when the boat stopped in Luang Prabang. It’s a well-documented scam which most people on our boat knew about, that the boats now stop 10km out of town, meaning you have to pay an extra $3 each to get a tuk tuk into Luang Prabang. The boats used to stop further down the river where you could simply walk into town, but the tuk tuk mafia (yes, such a thing actually exists) convinced them to move the end point out of town so they could monopolise the transport into the centre. Obviously none of us wanted to be victims of this scam, so in unified protest we all refused to get off the boat for about an hour, demanding they take us to the next stop. I think we all knew it was futile, but we wanted them to know we weren’t ignorant pushovers. We even went so far as to call the police, demanding they come down and talk to us. A young guy who spoke English did come down and ‘explain’ the situation to us, but he was probably just playing dress-ups and not even a real cop. Eventually we ended up getting off the boat, but while most of the group was milling around at the top of the hill where we were supposed to buy tickets for the tuk tuks (a dead giveaway it was a scam – you NEVER have to buy a bloody ticket for a tuk tuk), a few of us just walked off down the road, planning on finding a cheaper ride. There were about 6 of us, and when we turned around we saw the rest of the group (minus about 5 people) following after us. What a brilliant ‘fuck you’ to the tuk tuk mafia, it was perfect. About 500m later we came to an intersection with a main road, and within 5mins we were all loaded onto tuk tuks for a quarter of the price. Fucken a, that’s how it’s done people.

Defying the tuk tuk mafia

Celebrating with our boat crew

Laos is a small country (slightly smaller than New Zealand) and is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. But despite having no coastline it’s a stunningly beautiful country, with lush forests and rugged mountains, giving it a slightly more untouched feel than other countries. Luang Prabang is a quaint and rather dignified city, surrounded by mountains and at the meeting point of two rivers. With its crumbling old French provincial architecture, bustling and colourful markets, orange-robed monks walking the streets and peaceful atmosphere, it’s no wonder this city is the most popular tourist destination in Laos. We really enjoyed our time there five years ago, and impressively, Kurt even remembered where stayed, so we ended up returning there this time.

We spent almost a week there, wandering around town and eating the amazing baguettes we couldn’t get enough of last time. And even though it rained a fair bit, we got a beautiful sunny day to go out to Kuang Si Falls with a group of others (some we’d met on the slow boat), where we spent a few hours walking around and swimming in the deliciously cool water. There are a couple of temples around but we were very much over that, so Laos was going to be all about chilling out and basically doing sweet fuck all.

Lao style baguette

Kuang Si Falls

After Luang Prabang we’d planned on going to Phonsavan to visit the Plain of Jars, but after further investigation we found that because it was still rainy season the roads would be terrible, making visiting the sites difficult. Also, there was a bribe you had to pay the cops in order to visit them (which also had to be done on tour as it apparently wasn’t possible to do independently) which put us right off going there. So, in the end we skipped over that and headed straight for Vang Vieng.

The bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was supposed to take about 6 hours, but because of landslides and terrible muddy road conditions (and a massive container truck getting stuck across the road and blocking traffic for 3 hours), it took 12.5 hours instead. Fun times. Vang Vieng is another beautiful town, set beside a river and surrounded by towering karst hills (very similar to Yangshuo in southern China). The big drawcard here used to be tubing down the river, getting totally wankered at the many bars lining both sides. However, after many deaths of drunken tourists and pressure from the government, this activity was basically shut down in 2012. It’s still possible to do it, but now only three or four bars remain open along the river, reducing the chances of getting so dangerously hammered. Of course it still happens, but on a fraction of the scale it used to be. We were actually going to do it again (in a much more sedate and responsible manner in our old age of course), but because of the rain and high river levels, it was closed a lot of the time. So we happily spent our days in much the same way as in Luang Prabang – wandering around, eating more tasty baguettes and getting our relax on. The town is noticeably more developed than five years ago, and with tubing taking a back seat, tourism has opened up to a more mature crowd (including big tour groups from China and South Korea) who prefer activities like kayaking, climbing and mountain biking. After 10 days or so we decided it was time to re-visit our favourite place in the country - Don Det.

Don Det is a small island in the region called Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands), right in the very south of Laos. Among this large number of islands in the Mekong only three are really visited by tourists, with Don Det being the most popular with backpackers. After about 20 hours of travel from Vang Vieng, we were looking forward to finding a little hut and getting in some serious hammock time. From past experience we headed straight to the sunset side of the island, and after checking out a few places we chose one with 6 or 7 river-front bungalows, all with private bathrooms which was a rare luxury. The bungalows are all very basic with literally just a bed and mosquito net, toilet and cold shower (water straight from the Mekong), but the best part is the deck and hammocks overlooking the river, the perfect spot to watch the stunning sunsets every day. It was also only AU$4 a night. We quickly fell into a daily routine of getting up to walk around the island (which took about 1.5 hours), having noodle soup for lunch at a local joint, reading in hammocks, some internet time at one of the cafes, sunset watching, dinner, then bed. We didn’t even have a single beer in the entire 10 days we were there. Unbelievable, I know. It was the perfect way to end our relaxing month in Laos, a country we loved just as much the second time around. 

Our little river-front bungalow