July 2nd, 2013.
ສະບາຍດີ (sabaidee). Hello. Greetings from Laos, where we are still travelling at in this blog. Now we were heading to the backpackers party/tubing destination Vang Vieng (ວັງວຽງ) with the 10.40 morning bus with Julie and Kari. The rest of our group stayed in Vientiane and waited for their visas to Thailand. They were gonna catch us in Vang Vieng again. Tomoko had to leave the group after only a few days, so now there were seven of us left.
The nearly 4 hour bus drive had one break and we arrived to Vang Vieng at around 2.30 p.m. At the bus station we took a free minivan to the hotel area. We hadn't booked a hotel, so we needed to find one now. The one we chose to stay in, the Chanthala Guesthouse, had a bathroom with a musty smell, but we decided to stay, as the smell was only there and the hotel was cheap. The hotels right on the main street (the party street) are noisy, so we picked a hotel a few minutes away from it.
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| Chanthala Guesthouse behind its restaurant |
Because we didn't have no plans for today we relaxed, walked around the small town and ended up enjoying the views of the Nam Song River from the restaurant of an expensive hotel right next to it. The rooms here cost 50 dollars per night!
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| Nam Song river and the mountains |
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| Nam Song river |
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| View from the riverside hotel |
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| View from the riverside hotel |
Later we planned the trip during dinner at a good vegetarian restaurant called Veggie Tables. Like all the tourist places Vang Vieng also has a variety of massage parlors to choose from. One of them is a ladyboy-massage, where the workers were belting out karaoke songs. Listening to them mangle the classics off-key wouldn't probably be a relaxing experience. I wonder who would enjoy that.
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This massage place looks like it's about to crash down.
It's not the ladyboy-massage place. |
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| Vang Vieng streets. The mountains surround the town. |
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| Rentable fun |
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| The delicious pancakes of Asia |
As Vang Vieng is mostly a party/tubing place for backpackers, the streets are full of shops selling party and tubing stuff. There's all sorts of clothes with Vang Vieng/tubing printed in them, funny sunglasses, loads of alcohol and things for tubing like drybags. The restaurants also sell all things "happy" in them; from happy pizza to happy shakes. You can probably guess what that means...
But Vang Vieng has seen its best party days. In 2011 the local hospital recorded 27 tourist deaths (drowning or diving head first into rocks while partying), which caused the Lao government to carry out a crackdown here later in 2012. They closed down most of the riverside bars. Some of the bars still left show videos from the wildest days and after you've seen them it's easy to see the big change this town has gone through. Sure there are some wild bars around, but we were happy to stick to the quieter ones.
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The local hospital, in case you need it. It's
situated conveniently close to the river. |
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Respect local habits and culture.
Lao people dress conservatively. |
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| Vientiane bus |
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| One of the climbing schools in the area |
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| Musical instruments |
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| Colourful evening |
3.7
The next morning we rented bikes (or as they often call them here, pushbikes) and headed to Tham Phu Kham cave and Blue Lagoon some 7 kilometers from the town. First we crossed the bridge over to the
other side of the river. This bridge has a small fee. The road was unpaved and rocky at first, but improved along the way. It's best to rent a mountain bike here. Our bikes cost us 20 000.- KIP per person, which at the time was 2 euros.
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| Locals playing at the town center |
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| Local house |
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| One of the bridges crossing the Nam Song river |
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| Crossing the river |
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| Nam Song river |
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| Local roadblock |
The scenery along the road was beautiful. Lots of mountains, ricefields and small rivers.
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| Locals working at the ricefield |
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| Tourists can also try their skills at the fields |
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| What a view to cycle at! |
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| Amazing! |
It took 45 minutes to reach the lagoon/cave area. We visited the sacred Tham Phu Kham cave first, which has a small fee. We had our own lights which were needed. Before you get to the cave you need to climb about 15 minutes on sharp rocky path 100 meters up and in these temperatures it's a sweaty exercise. It's good to carry water with you. The cave isn't operated or taken care of in any way, so you have to be really careful inside, as there are unrailed holes on the floor so deep you can't even see the ground below.
We walked the cave as far as we could, which took about 50 minutes. It's more of a high cave than wide, but it takes time to explore, as it's dark and you want to see everything. There are rocks, stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and size and many various sized ponds at the back. Some creatures we saw were a big grasshopper, jumping insects and what looked like the world's largest spider, giant huntsman spider, which reaches a size up to 30 cm with its leg span. That was a real monster spider with an evil stare.
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| Formations inside the cave |
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| Thai bronze reclining Buddha statue |
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| The top opening is far, far out of reach! |
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| Fancy a walk in these nail sharp rocks? |
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| Cave creatures |
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| Watch out for the holes on the floor! |
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| Glowing ceiling |
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| The back of the cave |
After the cave we took a swim at the small and a bit cold lagoon. It felt really good after the excessive sweating. The lagoon is so deep that you can't feel the bottom while standing straight. There's also some carps and small fish. The lagoon has a couple of swings and free terraces to relax at. People jump from the tree that stands next to the lagoon, so we decided to try it too. It had been a while since my last jumps. Of course while doing a backflip from the branch in two meters I lost the bikini tops detachable straps. Luckily I didn't lose the whole top, but the jumps ended there. Damn I hate bikinis!
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| The Blue Lagoon |
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| The jump spot |
Back at the city we found out our friends had just arrived. We took a shower, returned the bikes and went to dinner to the same restaurant where we had our breakfast, right at the end of the party street. I had another cup of the local herb tea, which is served with herb leaves. It's pretty tasteless. As we were thinking of doing some rock climbing here we booked a trip for the next day.
Our whole group was going.
The rest of the evening was spent at a riverside bar, which had a relaxing atmosphere. You find all kinds of bars here but we chose the more quieter one again so we could chat in peace. Like
elsewhere in Laos, here they also close down bars and shops early. It meant around 9.30 p.m. for some places. A big thunderstorm began when we got back to the hotel and the sky was filled with huge lightnings and soon it rained so hard that the mountains disappeared from sight. The thunderstorm was so noisy that we couldn't even hear our TV! The wind was strong too. The weather was quite similar the night before.
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| View from another riverside bar |
4.7.
Half a day climbing course done. We´ve never taken any climbing courses before, just free climbed in some places, so it was fun to finally get to know some of the techniques and equipments used in this hobby.
The course didn't cost much with Central Climber School. There are a couple of climbing schools in the town.
We left early in the morning, when the rocks were still dry and the weather was good. July isn't the best time for climbing in Laos as it's the rainy season, so it was better to leave early in case the rain returned. We took a short drive close to the lagoon before reaching the Pha Daeng mountain climbing area. Then we trekked through the jungle, crossed the river twice and climbed up sharp rocks about 20 minutes. We were wearing only slippery sandals and some of us nearly lost them in the river. They weren't the best for trekking, but no one told us we were going to do trekking in the first place before reaching the climbing spot and that we should wear good shoes.
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| View of the mountain we were gonna climb in |
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| Crossing rivers to get to the climbing spot |
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| View from the Pha Daeng mountain |
Vang Vieng is one of the best climbing areas in the world. There are many routes to all demands. As we were beginners we only climbed three full routes. Even two routes can mess up your arms and legs if you've never done this before or exercised. After each climb you need to relax for a while and gather your energy. Some of the more experienced climbers also relax and stretch their arms after each climb. Our arms were jelly, but we still wanted to try a harder route.
All the routes we climbed were 30 meters high, but the grades (which describe for instance the difficulty and danger of each route) changed. The grades change depending on the country and Laos uses the French scale/grade. We didn't get far with the last route, which was our hardest, as we had no energy left anymore. Even the tips of our fingers were getting shaky and useless. This hobby requires strength and endurance from body parts you normally don't use or train much.
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This area has a few climbing routes. We either
scattered or took turns at routes. |
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| Inside mountain routes |
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| Steve helping the staff with the ropes |
The starting point for the climbs was somewhere around 150 meters, so the views were spectacular to the town and surrounding fields. You were at around 180 meters when you reached the end of your climb. We had a great day and lot of fun challenging ourselves and loved the views and swinging in high places! What a fun way to exercise and great experience! I found out I still have some climbing skills left and I even surprised the fit locals for being so fast. Kari did very well too, considering it had only been 2 months from his knee surgery in Bali. He still couldn't bend the knee too much, so that brought more challenge to his climbing. It was amazing to see him climb with that knee. I wonder how many would be so determined and brave to use their operated body parts so soon after surgery.
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| Kari and Steve nearly at the top |
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Me nearly done with the King Cobra route. It looks
easy, but has harder spots and is rated 6a. |
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| One of the routes with a spectacular scenery |
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| Our group with three Swedish guys |
Afterwards we climbed down from the mountain the same way we came up, only now we climbed with bare feet, because the sandals were too slippery on the sharp and muddy rocks. Later we found out our arms and fingers were so overstrained that it was hard to do even the simplest things like open a bottle and hold something in your hand! It was funny, although you felt really helpless. It took about two days to recover. You really don't use your fingers like you do when climbing. Those weak bastards need their own workout!
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| Heading back |
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| Pha Daeng gate |
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| Plantation |
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| The Central Climber School |
After the climbing we headed to the lagoon again. We took a tuktuk/songthaew, which didn't cost that much. The tuktuk had a strange gas tank inside with clumsy looking rubber hose and we were wondering how dangerous it might've been. It didn't really surprise us to find something like this as people do various things here themselves, even when they're not qualified for it and are not familiar with safety issues.
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| Gas tank in the tuktuk |
The ride went well though, but the road felt even more bumpy with a tuktuk than with a bike. As we got to the lagoon our driver waited for us there, which was about two hours. We were swimming, sunbathing and jumping. There weren't many people around so we had the jump tree nearly to ourselves. While Jemma was wondering if she's able to jump or not everyone else were doing all kinds of crazy jumps, all the while encouraging Jemma to go for it. Even the locals were joining in on our cheers. The small fish nibbled our legs a little, which was a similar kind of experience to a fish spa.
I had another pair of bikinis with me on the trip and these remained in one piece.
Later we headed to a bar for a while. The locals were handing out free drink coupons on the street and we collected quite a bunch of them. The guys didn't need them as they were drinking beer, but us girls wanted to try some of the local drinks. They were good. When we headed to our hotel two dogs started following us like we were their best buddies. They were so sweet and seemed to be inseparable.
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| One of the riverside bar/restaurants |
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| A Finnish sign! |
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| Trying out some of the street food |
We were still gonna spend at least a day or two in Vang Vieng and try at least the famous tubing. But more about that in the next blog.
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| Local ants |
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| Colourful bug |
