From Laos to China

July, 2013.

6,5 hours. It's not much at all in Asia in travel time. That's what it took to reach Luang Namtha from Luang Prabang with our minivan. Compared to travelling in Finland 6,5 hours is alright here. Somehow time doesn't feel the same everywhere, or maybe it's just the attitude towards the time and place. In Asia you don't want to stress yourself when you travel as much as 15 hours straight, because you know reaching places takes more time here - if you're not travelling by plane that is. And then again you'd reach the central part of Finland by now, which feels like a long way to go, half the country! But when you travel for hours everything's alright as long as the bus has a toilet or you make stops along the way. Because the minivan had no toilet we made two stops along the way.

It was raining the whole day, so the mountain road was in a very bad condition with landslide areas. Huge mud puddles had stopped some cars and people were pushing them. We got pretty close to pushing our car too, as the driver made some crazy moves straight into the huge puddles nearly capsizing the van, and even drove near the verge of the mountain road. We were driving about 15 km/h, because the road was so bad. We were afraid of more landslides, but luckily everything went well.

Our minivan was mainly packed with tourists. When some of them left the driver soon filled the seats by picking up random local people along the way in need of a ride. Our van was so crammed we could hardly move during the trip. This pick-up system seems to work much better than the Western transport system with timetables and bus stops and is used in many Asian countries. It has its disadvantages too, like the non-existent timetables and over packed cars. You never know when the bus will arrive and if there's seats left, so sometimes you might wait for a long time for a ride.

Luang Namtha is a very small city, which mainly attracts the trekking and nature lovers. We didn't have time for those, as we were supposed to be out of Laos in three days, so we just relaxed and stayed for two nights. Our hotel seemed like a nice place at first, but turned out it had a lot of mosquitos and that wasn't all. When I woke up one morning I noticed that the bed bugs had been eating my leg! We didn't bother to change the hotel, as we only had one more night before leaving LN.

The curfews in Laos also applied here. The hotel rules adviced tourists to be back in the hotel by ten p.m. At some places you can't enter the hotel anymore, if you arrive too late. People have literally slept outside because of this, even if they had a reservation and knew the hotel staff!

View from our hotel. We were surrounded by mountains again with nature everywhere.

Fish aquarium at our hotel

Laos also has a water festival.

We had a very interesting dinner in a Canadian owned restaurant called Forest Retreat Bamboo Lounge next to the Dokchampa hotel. I ordered a pizza with local vegetable toppings called a "jungle pizza". The waiter said the toppings change each day, depending on what they can find from the jungle. So we waited impatiently to see what they're going to serve me. After a thirty minute wait I had a pizza in front of me that looked like it had either fish or chicken on top of it, but it didn't smell like either of them. We asked the waiter what it was and he said the name for the vegetable, but we forgot what it was.
Steve tried it at first just in case it was meat, and turns out this veggie was hot! Then Kari tried it and made the same remark, now both guys turning more red from their faces each minute and laughing. This veggie was truly hot, as these guys can handle hot food! One might've thought this veggie was something suspicious, as the guys were having so much fun eating it. Jemma and me were laughing at the red guys, but they still wanted to eat more of it. As I can't handle hot food I let them pick that stuff out of my pizza and let them enjoy their weird fun. I then ate the rest of the pizza which was good, although expensive. The next day we returned to this restaurant, as Kari wanted to have his own jungle pizza, but they didn't have the same veggie anymore.

The restaurant charged extra from tea bags and cheese, as milk products aren't really used in Asia. Tea in Laos is a weird concept. You need to order the tea bag seperately unless you're having Lipton tea, which can usually be found everywhere. All the special local teas with mint, ginger, etc only include the herb and hot water, it's very plain. We also ate lunch in a local restaurant at the opposite side from the hotel. It was very popular, cheap and the food was good.

Forest Retreat Bamboo Lounge

LN had some dog packs roaming the streets. They were very friendly and streetwise and usually searching for food and playing with each other. There were also birds sleeping and nesting in our hotel, so we could watch them from close. The surrounding jungles bring a lot of birds to the city.

One dog pack on the main street

We missed the night market

Electric motorcycle

We had no complains ;)

On Saturday morning we left LN. Steve and Jemma also left to Thailand. We still got to hang out together for a while at the bus station, where we all waited for our busses to leave. We were very excited to go to China again, although a bit nervous how we will manage there again with just a few learned Chinese sentences Julie taught us and wrote on papers. Also knowing how rude the Chinese can be was not something we were looking forward to.

We took a local bus from LN to China, and it took 6 hours to get to our destination. We stopped three times on the way, first at the border of Laos in Boten city, which we reached in 45 minutes, then at the border of China and later elsewhere in China.

Boten city in Laos is about one kilometer from the border of China and has renminbi as the main currency. There's casinos, large hotels and shopping malls. The Boten Special Economic Zone (BSEZ), mostly funded by Chinese enterprises, transformed the undeveloped city. Because gambling is illegal in China the people cross the border to Laos to gamble. However, for the Lao people it is also illegal to gamble in their own country, so they also go elsewhere to gamble - if they have the money. Boten is considered as China, because Mandarin Chinese is widely spoken there and the majority of the population is Chinese.

Bus station in LN

Boten International Customs checkpoint. Are there other customs this fancy out there?

The Boten checkpoint's golden building is financed mainly by Chinese and cost over 400,000 euros to build. We've never seen anything like it at any borders. Asia never stops to amaze. This customs went fast and also the Chinese customs at Mohan port, although we did have to step outside of the bus with all of our bags and walk through the customs building with them. Before that I had to search a bathroom though and hope that the bus won't leave without us in the meantime. Because we couldn't understand what the bus driver was saying to the passengers we had to follow what everyone else was doing and now some passengers went to search the bathroom.

Mohan port in China, near Laos border.

We stopped for lunch for 45 minutes at a city in China I forgot the name of. The driver knew exactly where to find his lunch and disappeared fast out of sight, while we walked around and only saw one small shop that didn't have much to offer for us, so we just grabbed some small and unhealthy snacks. Our trip towards the city of Jinghong (Xishuangbanna prefecture, Yunnan) was full of beautiful sceneries. There were lush green forests everywhere, high hills and curvy roads. Everything looked well taken care of and clean.

By passing through the endless amounts of mountain tunnels China has our travel time shortened. The last half an hour of the trip was interesting, as we were only descending. Jinghong lies 558 meters above sea level and we descended from about 1,100 meters fast! It locked the ears like being in an airplane. The altitude differences were incredible, we could see such huge drops down from our street to other streets below us that it made your head dizzy. The other roads were so far down that they seemed to be on another planet. Because of these altitude differences in the high curvy mountain roads China has built frequent escape roads next to the main roads where a driver can steer his car in case of an accident. Seeing these roads eased our minds too, as the roads can sometimes feel really crazy. A river followed our road somewhere far below, sometimes escaping our eyes for ages and then coming back to view. The river was so far below, that it made us feel like we were driving on top of the world.

Lush green hills of Yunnan

Next blog: Jinghong (Xishuangbanna, Yunnan), China.

Tubing in Laos can be a screamer

Vang Vieng
5.7
Today seemed like a good day for an afternoon tubing, so we searched the party street for a company renting the tubes. We found one soon. Before we were ready to go they asked us to sign waivers in case something happened on the river and marked our hands with numbers, probably to identify us in case we drowned or something. When you sign the waiver it means you're doing this at your own risk. They also asked us if we can swim and gave lifejackets to those who wanted them. Because there's been so many deaths and accidents on the Nam Song river it's no wonder they've taken these precautions. The company then drove us some 15 minutes away from town where the tubing, and supposedly relaxing floating, start was. The tubes were in good shape, so we trusted them to be ok. The river also seemed calm, so we didn't worry about that either. Some other things surprised us though...

Tubing number

The tubes are open from the bottom, so we had to rent a drybag for the camera etc and hold on to the bag through the whole tubing. We left our dive gear and drybag back in Lembongan, because we didn't plan to do any water sports here.
During the whole tubing time your butt is in the water. I imagined all kinds of creatures biting our butts, just hoping nothing happens. I wonder why the tubes aren't sealed. This wasn't a reason to worry either though.

The tubes

While tubing we saw some ferries cross the river and other people on boats and tubes. Some photographed and filmed us, even a film crew that was on a boat with a reporter talking to the camera. The first surprise on the river was a boat heading straight towards me with good speed. I had to yell to the captain so he would see me, as he was looking somewhere else. He got close enough to scare me a little before noticing me. This could've turned nasty. Who knows how often boats collide here with the tubesters. You can't escape a boat with a tube, maybe just dive into the water real fast before the boat hits you. But if you're too drunk, like some people here, you might not react soon enough.

As we continued floating along the river we suddenly heard a hysterical scream somewhere behind us. Our group was now scattered everywhere on the river in the slow current. Florrie had drifted into bushes near the river banks and she was screaming. A snake had slithered between her legs from the river. Anyone would've been in panic with a snake on their lap! Somehow the snake soon disappeared though and we thought now was a damn good time to have a break in the next bar.

One of the bar areas along the river

They have nice rest spots, some free drinks and games

For breaks there are bars along the river, who sell and even offer some free drinks. We'd managed to tube some twenty minutes before the first break. The bar crew throw you a rope and then pull you to shore. We were offered free Lao Lao shots (local whiskey) and we had just one, although it's a bit risky to drink those. They've sometimes caused blindness and even death. While the others also had beers I got myself a Breezer, since you can't find cider so easily in Asia. The bar area offered some games, but we only had a short break and watched some other tourists playing and even showering together outside. The mountains surrounded us again and the scenery was very beautiful everywhere. Florrie was still shaken from the snake experience, but was brave enough to continue tubing.

The busy river also had quiet places

We hadn't tubed for too long, when another surprise struck. This time Jemma was screaming. We thought there was another snake, but it was a big spider that had jumped on the tube. Kari was close enough to go and help her. Why was our group attracting the snakes and spiders everywhere?! We had already seen them in the jungles and caves before and not even the river kept them away from us. Luckily there were no other surprises left.

We couldn't stop for another bar anymore, as we had to rush to return the tubes for 6 p.m. or you lose some of your deposit. If you wonder where the last bar on the river is you'll see it. It has a huge sign screaming "Last Bar". A big group was just coming from there as we tubed past it.

Last Bar

Wet feet, relaxed soul

A small village at a river bend

You'll know when you've reached the end of tubing, as it's marked with a huge sign saying "stop tubing". Julie was probably aiming to reach the next city with a tube though, as she somehow managed to drift away from this spot and it took her a while to find us from the beach.
The sun was just going down, so we finished in a beautiful setting. The tubing took an hour and a half, but the times are different for each, depending how long you spend time at bars and how fast the currents are.

Don't tube any further.

Finished at sunset

We returned the tubes a bit late so we lost some of the deposits, which wasn't that much. Although we had some scares on the river we all still agreed tubing was a fun and "kinda" relaxing way to spend a few hours. I'll definitely do that again someday. Even Finland has its annual tubing events, but the scenery isn't as beautiful as in Laos. People are drawn to it in Finland only because of drinking and fun company.

Next blog takes us to the North of Laos; to Luang Prabang's Buddhist temples and monasteries, its old town centre (UNESCO World Heritage Site) and more.

Scenery on the road to Luang Prabang. It's heartbreaking
to see the massive deforestation with your own eyes.

Rock climbing in Vang Vieng

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.

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!

Nam Song river and the mountains

Nam Song river

View from the riverside hotel

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.

This massage place looks like it's about to crash down.
It's not the ladyboy-massage place.

Vang Vieng streets. The mountains surround the town.

Rentable fun

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.

The local hospital, in case you need it. It's
situated conveniently close to the river.

Respect local habits and culture.
Lao people dress conservatively.

Vientiane bus

One of the climbing schools in the area

Musical instruments

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.

Locals playing at the town center

Local house

One of the bridges crossing the Nam Song river

Crossing the river

Nam Song river

Local roadblock

The scenery along the road was beautiful. Lots of mountains, ricefields and small rivers.

Locals working at the ricefield

Tourists can also try their skills at the fields

What a view to cycle at!

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.

Formations inside the cave

Thai bronze reclining Buddha statue

The top opening is far, far out of reach!

Fancy a walk in these nail sharp rocks?

Cave creatures

Watch out for the holes on the floor!

Glowing ceiling

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!

The Blue Lagoon

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.

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.

View of the mountain we were gonna climb in

Crossing rivers to get to the climbing spot

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.

This area has a few climbing routes. We either
scattered or took turns at routes.

Inside mountain routes

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.

Kari and Steve nearly at the top

Me nearly done with the King Cobra route. It looks
easy, but has harder spots and is rated 6a.

One of the routes with a spectacular scenery

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!

Heading back

Pha Daeng gate

Plantation

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.

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.

One of the riverside bar/restaurants

A Finnish sign!

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.

Local ants

Colourful bug