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The SE
Asia tour Vientiane (Laos) to London, via KL and Cape Town Vientiane is impressively undeveloped. Apparently, two years ago, they only had two paved roads in the whole 'city'. We stayed long enough only for me to recover from my bout of the mystery 24-hour fever. We got the bus to Vang Vieng the next day. This took us through some gentle though unspectacular scenery until we got the Vang Vieng where some impressive limestone 'karsts' form on side of the valley, next to a large river. The town itself is clearly changing rapidly thanks to an ever-escalating number of backpackers looking for that ever-elusive really-out-of-the-way place to hang out. There were even two internet cafes there, though apparently no cars. The average income of the Lao is around £1 per day. Tourism in its most accessible form - backpackers - is too tempting to stay away from. The local
nightlife consisted of people ignoring loud Karaoke machines in the main
rooms of guesthouses. There were,
allegedly, some opium dens but we avoided that scene. The people there were fairly friendly,
though inconveniently my hiking sandals were stolen from outside my room one
night leaving me with hiking boots only. After a
couple of days we go the bus to Luang Prabang. This was a nine-hour ride in a crappy bus, with some standing
an others sitting on plastic stools in the aisle. The journey was slow but spectacular. The road wound its way carefully though stunning green valleys
and passes whose steep sides were probably the same 2000 years ago. We could understand the literary
references to the wide variation in shades of green on display in SE Asia –
from the grasses to the leaves, shrubs, and rice paddies. Luang
Prabang turned out to be much nicer than Vientiane. There was more going on
too. It’s sat at the confluence of
the Mekong and the Nam Khan. The
Mekong is still wider than the Thames in central London here, despite still
being 2000 miles from the South China Sea.
It’s used as a base for many people to go trekking into the hills to
see Lao hill tribes. One couple we
spoke to said there trip wasn’t well organized as the guides were stoned on
opium and forgot all the food and the mosquito nets! We spent most of our time here just
relaxing. I watched the
England/Germany Euro 2000 game in the front room of the house next door with
some friendly Lao people who didn’t speak any English but seemed intimately
familiar with…you guessed it: Manchester United. We had
planned to take the two-day slow-boat from Luang Prabang to the Thai border
at Huay Xai, but the operators decided to change the schedule, only running
two-day boats twice a week. Instead
we could get a three-day boat (too long) or the 6-hour special, which
required ear defenders and crash helmets because of the danger of crashing. And it cost about US$25. We said no thanks and took the bus back to
Vientiane, overnighted and got another bus back to the stark civilisation of
Thailand and Bangkok. We just
spent the last couple of days in Bangkok relaxing and doing as little as
possible before our connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. After freezing to death in the spectacular
airport in KL, we flew back on a half empty 747 to Cape Town. We both
had a very relaxing week in Cape Town, doing a bit of shopping, golf (me),
facials (not me), and seeing people.
We flew back to London on 1 July on the Virgin day flight, which was
as excellent as ever. Looking
back, it was a great experience and certainly hasn’t put me off
travelling. I don’t feel any great
need to go back to south-east Asia, though Indonesia is appealing. I think we would have done better if we’d
had more money. It was a pretty tight
squeeze, financially. After the
trip, one person asked me why we had spent so much time and effort haggling
over what was, for us, really very small amounts of money but a great deal in
local terms. There are a number of
reasons. One is that on a low budget
(roughly £10 per day), you have to be disciplined about your spending. Lots of people try to charge one much more
than the going rate. If this is
repeated you will pretty soon run out of money – and this mounts build up
significantly over a long period like three months. We also haggled on principle.
Not being wealthy, we didn’t see why we should have to pay 10 times
the market rate for an item or a service that was no different to that with
the local population got. We accept
that our ability to pay is greater and we understood that we could, and in
many cases should, pay more than the local population. The last point is that if you just accept
the prices, they will go up rapidly as people realise they can rip you off
more. This only makes it worse for
future travellers. Highlights
of the trip were the trip from the Thai border to Siem Reap in Cambodia on
the back of a pick-up, the Sanctuary on Thailand’s Ko Phangan, and Hoi An in
central Vietnam. ‘Till the
next trip. Ben This page hosted by |
