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?
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?
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