Traveling Laos

Laos has been an interesting stop on our world tour. Although we only had time for a brief stay, it really has been a complete contrast to everywhere else we’ve visited so far for two main reasons. Firstly, the pace of life is so slow here – the country feels so laid back as to be horizontal. It’s a very dreamy, beautiful place, suitable for sipping a cocktail while gazing at the stunning scenery. Secondly, travelling around here is far from laid back! This has been the most exciting / terrifying / stunning / insect ridden – varied set of journeys we’ve had so far.

You’ve probably read my post about the joys / terrors of flying with Laos airlines (even though their safety record and plane fleet has apparently vastly improved in recent years). If you haven’t and want to laugh at my cowardice have a look below. But to summarise, don’t fly with these people if you’ve an aversion for small propeller driven planes, or turbulence caused by monsoon clouds and mountainous terrain. Or if the combination of the above bothers you. At all!

After our entry to Laos in this spectacular fashion we decided to move from Louang Phabang to Vientiane by bus. This would be better, no? After all, the days of war-stricken Laos are over – there hasn’t been a bandit attack on a bus on this route since, oh, 2004? This must be better than flying again! Well, actually it was. The journey lasted 10 (long) hours, but at least was through absolutely stunning mountainous scenery. I’ve sat on many coaches driving through the Alps but I’ve never had a trip half this beautiful before. Hopefully you can get an idea from the best blurred-sideways-taken-out-of-the-bus-window- photo I’ve ever taken!

The mountains themselves (though very pretty) were however a bit of a pain. The road could find no way around them, so had to go up and down and over… you get the idea? Lots of hairpin bends, cliffs, ravines – and a boy racer bus driver to complete the picture. Not a trip for those prone to car-sickness. And as it’s the rainy season we kept on coming across disconcerting landslides too – every few miles part of the mountain above would have slipped down to partially block the road, making our driver swerve out towards yet another a 100m drop. But hey, we got through, no problem!

No, all this was fine. And no bandits appeared. The only really traumatic part of the trip was the music. Our lovely driver’s favourite pastime seemed to be blasting Laos-style-easy-listening-rock-music at full volume while he made his nauseating manoeuvres. Most of you probably know that we’re really not into easy listening at the best of times, but imagine wailing East Asian singing (with obligatory guitar and flute solos for each song) pulverising your brain for hours on end. We couldn’t even listen to our mp3 players – this was so loud it cut through the headphones and ruined whatever music you put on. And the songs all sounded the same! They had exactly the same pace, beat, instruments, production - even the same tune (more or less) – enough to make you scream! And just to make sure you got the monotony, after each song finished an excerpt of it was repeated with people screaming over it (in the way that people only ever scream in soap operas). In summary, travelling in Laos is, erm, interesting.

Leaving Laos was easier. Thailand and Laos are divided by the course of the Mekong river for much of their border. Vientiane is only 22km from the border crossing the ‘Friendship Bridge’, and so we simply took a (very boring) bus across to the sleepy Thai town of Nong Khai. Here we wandered on the other side of the Mekong and experienced another day of manic rainfall / violently sunny weather before catching an overnight train back to Bangkok. Unfortunately here the boring transport ran out again.

We’ve been on plenty of ancient, dusty night trains on this trip. But this was the first one where none of the windows in the carriage would close and the staff left the lights on all night. OK, Thailand is not exactly cold – what’s the problem? Bugs. As we swept slowly through the paddy fields of Northeast Thailand we accumulated a nice little insectoid ecosystem in our carriage. You could see them clustering manically around the lights. And of course one of the little devils would land on you every few seconds looking for a tasty drink of fresh blood.

The bug avoidance tactics of various passengers differed quite a bit. The cluster of US college boys at the back tried to ignore them (and ended up with fetching clusters of mosquito bites over their arms the next morning). We decided to attack the things with the DEET repellent spray my lovely vet students gave us as a parting gift when we stopped teaching. It kind of worked – insects still landed on us, but they usually gave up swiftly enough. On the downside we were also a bit repelled by the stink of the stuff, but couldn’t fly off to escape! But my favourite anti-mosquito tactic was from a French girl sitting behind us. She armed herself with a fly-swat the size of a tennis racket and brandished it menacingly back and forth. This backfired a tad when a bug actually landed on her or her boyfriend – they may have had an impressive selection of bruises to show for the trip! And of course it wouldn’t have worked so well after they dropped off to sleep…

Anyway, our next mode of transport should hopefully be a lot more boring. We’re flying to London for Amit’s wedding – leaving here on the 29th of July, and then returning to Thailand to resume our travels on the 7th August. We’re travelling with the very well known ‘Gulf Air’. What could go wrong?

Scared again...

If you’ve read this blog over the last few months, you might remember that when we were in India I posted about the terrors of flying in planes with propellers – we didn’t like turbulence that felt like the plane had just hit a brick wall… you know what I mean? Anyway that wonderful experience was courtesy of Jet Airlines, who actually were excellent and have a very good international reputation.

Moving on a few months – meet ‘Lao Airlines’. Or rather don’t if you can avoid it! The only way you can easily get from Chiang Mai into neighbouring Laos is by flying, especially if you have a tight schedule to keep to (and thanks to my best friend Amit and his wedding in London in a few weeks time we do). Of course the only airline that flies from Chiang Mai to Laos is ‘Lao Airlines’ – a small government-owned company with an appalling safety record. At least, the safety record is really bad for their domestic flights. We did an extensive internet search before booking our tickets, and were reassured that the international flights used nice big planes – Airbuses or Boeings. Only the internal flights between Louang Phabang and Vientiane (the capital) used the dodgy old converted Chinese military craft. So flying in from Thailand should be fine. Absolutely fine.

As a result, when we walked out of the airport bus to see our plane was a small, propeller driven thing where the luggage was stowed just by the cockpit we were a little taken aback. Stepping cautiously on board we thrilled to see the chairs seemed to be tacked onto the floor with little more than drawing pins. But reassuringly the tiny seats were upholstered in a flower pattern coloured with violently florescent shades. Very soothing. Oh, and the final calming touch was that the seat belts attached to our chairs were completely different from everyone else’s on the plane – mine was absolutely huge, twisted, and completely unadjustable. Really useful if things did go wrong!

Anyway, as you can tell from this post we survived the flight in our lovely little ATR 72. There was a heck of a lot of turbulence in places – well it is the rainy season so we expected that. The engines made a huge amount of noise so that the whole plane seemed to resonate. And every now and then the tone on the engines would suddenly change pitch, making you feel as if they’d stalled or something. Nice!

But the pilot was perfectly good, and touched down in Louang Phabang very smoothly despite the poring rain. Actually it was probably the most beautifully scenic landing we’ve ever had due to fantastic views of the Mekong river and surrounding mountains capped with lush forests and golden temples. It took our minds off the scary flight which is saying something! As did the cute little airport which, to be honest, looked more like a petrol station. Now we’re sitting in our very atmospheric hotel room, waiting for the rain to ease up slightly as we can’t wait to explore the town. The glimpses we had from the plane and our taxi window were tantalisingly lovely to say the least. This is a smidge more remote and untouched than Thailand!

Leaving China

Travelling through China has been a lot of fun, but it’s not exactly the easiest place to get around – mainly due to linguistic difficulties. As we’ve said before, the collection of languages called ‘Chinese’ are impossible! Even trying to make yourself understood for basic phrases is a nightmare, and the locals do not allow for this. If they speak no English they do not even try to help your understanding of what they are saying by pronouncing carefully or slowly – if anything they speed up and yap at you as if you’re being difficult! Not helpful! Oh well, at least we got around it most of the time. I was quite proud of my Chinese character writing by the end of the trip!

One thing that is very obvious out here at the moment is that China is mad about the Olympic games. OK, you might expect Beijing to be excited, but the rest of the country is almost as caught up. Beijing itself is in the final throes of a substantial makeover – it has a lovely new airport completed in the nick of time, and many of the down-town buildings we saw last year have been rebuilt. Er, and some have been pulled down for reconstruction… but looking at the rate of putting them back up they are never going to get it all done in time! But the temples have been given facelifts, the parks look fantastically well tended, and the Forbidden City has had more than just a lick of paint. Just as you’d probably expect.

The strange thing is that the rest of China seems to be trying to follow suit. Every town or city we visited had major squares given over to celebration of the Games – complete with huge silken models of the ‘Friendlies’ (the Olympic cartoon mascots that get EVERYWHERE). Every town seems to have its own array of ‘Official’ Olympic shops, there are banners across streets, posters on lampposts and in shop windows… you get the picture. We’re really curious to see if the UK will be this strongly infected with Olympic fever in a few years time!

We actually left mainland China in a lot of style. When getting to Pudong airport in Shanghai you can catch the world’s only Magnetically propelled train – the Maglev. It’s very, very, VERY fast! Each train carriage has a digital speedometer, so we watched the world wiz by at a top speed of 431 km / hour. That’s about 267 miles / hour! Not bad for an airport shuttle. Then when we checked in we were seriously jammy, and managed to get a free upgrade to business class for our flight to Hong Kong. This is the first time it’s ever happened to me (although Gary’s been lucky once before) and it was great! We had huge, comfy reclining seats, we were served edible airline food, NICE wine – and best of all, Haagen Das ice-cream for dessert! Perfect! I hope this happens again some time.

Leaving the SARs Hong Kong and Macau was a bit of a comedown. We found Asia’s answer to EasyJet and Ryan Air: Air Asia. A nice little low-cost airline with fares to Bangkok for only £50 each. Not bad for a 3 hour flight, but unfortunately no free upgrades to Business Class. Actually, no Business Class at all come to think of it!

Anyway, to end our experiences in China, we’ll give you the inevitable scary versus fun listings:

Some things we’ve found great…

1. The Great Wall. Predictable entry, eh? Well, it’s brilliant. Huge, long, and very impressively snake-like as it winds over hills and mountains. More than anything we’ve seen on this trip so far (including the Taj Mahal, Jaisalmer, Terracotta Warriors etc) we would really recommend you see this. Go to Simatai if you can as it is particularly impressive there, and you can have a ride on the rope way (what we’d call a zipline or flying fox) back down over the lake after your climb!

2. Musical fountains and light displays. This is something they do surprisingly well in China. There are lots of places where they have silly huge fountains with choreographed jets of water rising and falling to music – we saw them in Xi’an, Hangzhou, and of course, Macau. Some of the effects are really impressive such as simulations of tsunamis or opening flowers, especially when combined with tacky under water lighting, or better still, occasional jets of fire! Really silly. Hong Kong’s answer to this is the ‘Symphony of Lights’ – a nightly display where many of the major buildings flash their lights and green lasers in synch with music across the harbour. Apparently it’s in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest permanent light display. The music is incredibly cheesy, but the whole thing is so ridiculous and over the top it’s brilliant!

3. Trains. Once you’ve found a way to book tickets the rail network in China is cheap, efficient, and actually usually runs to time. Scarily the trains often leave slightly early – which is a shock to the system after living in the UK. The best are the Bullet trains – just like the Japanese ones, but a fraction of the price. There is a drawback however. When waiting for a train you are not allowed onto the platform, but held in large waiting areas instead. People are only let through the barriers a few minutes before the train arrives, so you get a stampede in busy stations as hundreds of people try to catch their train. It’s a shame, and spoils what would otherwise be a great network.

4. JJ Inns. Formally known as JinJiang Inns, this fantastic chain of business hotels has loads of branches across China. They are clean, spacious, give you nice complementary internet connections and tea, and best of all: REALLY cheap. Usually about £15 a night! We loved them, and will miss them in Thailand. Apparently there are other similar chains of hotels in China, but we stuck with JJ Inns as they were so good – and as they have a website which allows you to reserve rooms reliably without needing to enter your credit-card details. Brilliant!

5. Chinese Food. Dim Sum – lovely little Chinese Dumplings - are great. They come in all shapes and sizes, steamed, fried, boiled… lots of variety. And they are especially nice to eat when you choose them from trolleys in Hong Kong. And that’s just one example! Beijing duck is very delicious, incredibly rich – and has enough calories to last you out a few weeks without food! China is a very large place with loads of regional foods, many of which are absolutely delicious. But (see below) order with care or you might get a scorpion or a bullfrog…

6. Non-Chinese Foods. What we found surprising is that some western foods are incredibly well produced in China. We’ve had the best popcorn and candy floss we’ve ever tasted out here. And they have some great sushi, especially in Shanghai. Go to number 666 Fuzhou Street and eat at the fantastic Japanese restaurant on the ground floor.


And some scary things…

1. Scorpions on Sticks. OK, we’ll deal with food in general in a moment, but this delicacy deserves a special mention. Even the Chinese seemed to find it strangely fascinating – loads of them were taking photos of the wriggling kebabs at the same time as us! We still haven’t worked out whether you are meant to eat the little devils alive and wriggling or if they get fried first. Anyone know? Please reply to this post as we’re very curious!

2. Other scary foods. Erm, well, if you’re board of scorpions you could try a variety of insects, or how about chicken feet? Freshly steamed of course. Or other options include braised pig’s intestines, spicy duck’s neck or stewed bull-frog. And many, many more. Yum. Tempted?

3. Bridal Parlours. These things weren’t so popular in Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, but you could find them on virtually every street in the other cities. The parlours seem to specialise in dressing the bridal couple up in as hideous and elaborate (and garishly coloured) wedding clothes as possible, before taking pictures of them. Many of them seem to advertise these pictures with computer generated backgrounds, so the couple look as if they are on an athletics track, or in a field or something. Very odd. Is this an essential part of getting married in China? Do these places even outfit the couple for their big day? Or are they just photo shops? We didn’t have a clue, but we were fascinated by how popular they were. And by the spectacularly hideous bride’s dresses in the windows! Some were truly impressive - my favourite was a marshmallow shaped monstrosity made of mass of bright yellow fills!

4. The language(s). Tonal. Millions of incompatible dialects. People that speak REALLY fast. And a written language that manages to be more complicated and less intuitive than Japanese. Impressive and ultimately impossible.

5. Whistle Blowing Traffic People. Now China actually has a very well ordered traffic system, with reasonable roads, lane discipline, traffic lights etc. It works well. Unfortunately it is supplemented by whistle-blowing people at some major junctions who wave at traffic, pedestrians, and blow the incredibly shrill whistles continually. On and on… nightmare. And completely unnecessary too, as all they do is look at the traffic lights and then tell the traffic to what the lights are already telling them! Why? The sad thing is that after a few days in Thailand we’ve seen them here too. Grr, more earache.

6. Hotel calls in the middle of the night. OK, this isn’t limited to China. ‘Massagee? You want massagee? Soooo Beautiful. Massagee OK?!’. Gary was impressed!