South of Laos

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates

The more we travel in Southeast Asia, the more I want to go to Europe.  As soon as we left Myanmar, we made a decision to go to Europe, instead of going to Malaysia and Indonesia.  We were still planning to go to Cambodia from Laos.  During our last week in Laos, we decided to skip Cambodia and go to Sri Lanka instead, maybe India.  We allowing ourselves to change our minds as often as we feel like it.  Our money is running out, and we want to use it to enjoy our last months of travelling the most.

The closer we got to Cambodia, the more travelers we met arriving from Cambodia.  We heard their stories, and concluded that Cambodia was very similar to Laos.  Changing our minds at the last moment did cause us some trouble.  If we were not going to Cambodia, we had to go to Thailand.  Bangkok is the hub for the cheapest flights to anywhere.  Also, Dangis wanted to visit a dentist there.  And we could enjoy some of the luxuries that are available only in Thailand, and not in the surrounding countries, like coin-laundry machines.  Also, Thai food is tastier, and internet is faster.

First of all, our Laos visa was running out, so we needed to leave the country.  A day before going to Don Det, I caught a cold.  Don Det is one of 4,000 islands in Mekong River, located in the south of Laos.  We could see Cambodian mountains on the other side of the river from our bungalow.  Every stand-alone bush in the river had to be considered an island for the total number of island to add up to 4,000.  Anyway, Don Det was a good place to recuperate.  The whole island seemed to be in relaxed mood with weed being freely available to all its inhabitants.  

We rented ourselves an inexpensive bungalow on the shore of the river, where we got the most beautiful views of the sunset.  We spent most of our days in our hammocks reading, only interrupted by having a need to eat 3 times a day.  We chatted with other travelers while lounging in the restaurants, waiting for food.  A lot of times it took more than an hour for the food to arrive, as all of it was made from scratch, and the cooks were probably high on weed.  Eight days passed like that, and we were ready to leave the island the next day.  That evening I fell and sprained my ankle.  We delayed our leave by a day. 

In the boat across the river, we met a Lithuanian couple from Vilnius, Aide and Romas.  We were also in the same bus to Pakse, except they got off in Champasak.  They were very interesting conversationalists.  We stayed couple days in Pakse before leaving to Ubon in Thailand.  Again, we met our new Lithuanian friends in our guesthouse that day.  We spend all morning together chatting some more, sharing our travelling experiences.  It was a great pleasure.  We said our goodbyes one more time, and left with a bus to Ubon. 

After paying an overtime fee at Lao border (Sunday), we got the exit stamps.  At Thai border we learned that the visa-on-arrival was not available.  We were allowed in the country only to take our bags out of our bus waiting for everybody on Thai side of the border.  We got our Lao exit stamps cancelled before returning to Pakse.  We had 3 more days to leave Laos.  We even managed to get half of our money back for bus tickets to Ubon.   It was already evening.  We decided to spend it with our Lithuanian friends. 

We had 3 options for leaving Laos before our visa expired.  First, we could go to Cambodia, as originally planned.  Second, we could go back north to Savannakhet to receive a Thai visa.  Third, we could go back even further north to Vientiane, where we could receive Thai visa-on-arrival on the border. 

The next morning we left for Savannakhet (second option).  There was just enough time to receive Thai visa on the day our Lao visa expired.  We successfully managed to leave Laos that day, finally.

Once again, we enjoyed the food and the hot shower enormously in the little Thai border town of Mukdahan.

Laos

The Myanmar-Laos land border is not open for tourists.  We had to go to Thailand again before coming to Laos.  We spent a couple of days in Udon Thani.  Thai food tasted more delicious than the last time after 3 weeks in Myanmar.  And we could wash all our dirty clothes using a coin laundry machine.  The little things that make us happy then travelling. 

We crossed a friendship bridge into Laos by bus on Christmas Eve.  We arrived at Vientiane, the capital city.  

A lot of big houses and new cars gave us an impression that Laos is a rich country.  For our first meal we had fresh spring rolls and a rice dish.  To our surprise our food was cold.  As soon as we tasted it, we wanted back to Thailand.  After our first meal, we avoided Lao food.  We ate at the expensive tourist restaurants again.  Since Laos was a French colony some years ago, all the food was served with a baguette.  We ate a lot of pastas, pizzas, salads and fried rice.  The restaurants for local people never seemed appetizing.

The lodging costs less than in Thailand or Myanmar, making Laos the least expensive country to travel so far.  It is also the least impressive.  It is less authentic than Myanmar, but service is worse than in Thailand.  The Lao people are not very friendly nor honest.  It was cheaper for us to purchase a VIP bus ticket from an agency than to purchase a local bus ticket from a bus station directly.  It means that the person in a bus station is not telling us a true price.  Even the official tourist agency representative in Vang Vieng was trying to sell us the map that was supposed to be free. 

We can recognize the soviet opportunistic thinking.  The red soviet flags are still decorating a lot of the houses and businesses.  The local people even managed to close the entrances to the caves and mounts for the night to make sure that nobody enters without paying.  Even the crossing of the bridge is not for free.  It seems that people from the neighborhood set up with their signs in front of the entrances to any places that the tourists might want to visit, not allowing through anyone who does not pay.  These people are called local entrepreneurs in the official Lao guidebook.

Vang Vieng is located north of Vientiane.  It is a small town, full of tourists.  The prices of guesthouses, restaurants and tours are competitive, so it was a cheap place to stay.  We stayed there a full week.  We walked the surrounding areas, visiting one cave.  We walked into a cock fight on a Sunday afternoon by accident.

Since there were no tourists, it was the only place that we did not have to pay an entrance fee.  We watched the preparations of the roosters for the fight, as well as one fight.  The rooster preparations were very serious.  It probably took about an hour, longer than the fight itself.  There was some sewing of the eyelids involved, as well as some cutting and burning the roosters with the wet and hot piece of fabric.  Also, the roosters were forced to inhale smoke. 

The women were busy with the preparation of the food during the cock fight.  Only one local woman came to watch the fight.  The roosters were aggressive in the beginning, but soon were getting tired.  Still, none of them were giving up.  The men were very excited and cheered some times.  The owners of the roosters naturally were the most excited.  We could not tell exactly how the winner was chosen.  Right after the fight ended, the roosters’ wounds were taken care by their owners.  Besides the apparent torture, the owners seemed to really care about their birds.

On New Years Eve, we decided to take a full day kayaking tour down the river.  It involved tubing inside one cave and visiting the other, before the kayaking.  Tubing was exciting, even though it was a little cold inside the dark cave in cold water.  The short walk through the country side was pleasant.  The kayaking itself was fun.  We stopped at the first bar for a beer and some volleyball.  We past the Second bar and the Last bar.  We also passed a lot of people drinking in their tubes.  The river level and the current was low, so tubing was slow.  By the time the tourists got back to town, a lot of them were very drunk.

Our group of kayakers was big and fun.  We agreed to meet later to celebrate New Years together.  After some rest, we met in an Irish bar for some drinks and live music.  Before midnight we moved to an outside bar by the river.  There was plenty of space for the big crowd of tourists.  There were some fires to keep us warm.  The 80’s music was entertaining.  It was fun to meet New Years with a bunch of strangers we have just met that day.

After Vang Vieng, we decided to go to 4,000 islands, which are close to the Cambodia border.  On our way, we stopped at the second biggest city of Laos- Savannakhet.  We arrived there at 10pm on a Saturday night.  The town was already sleeping.  The next day we got to see its French quarter.  It was difficult to see any beauty through dirt and bad shape of the buildings.  The town was ugly with a lot of potential.  Still, the weather was pleasant, and we had a good rest. 

Travelling south by local buses is enjoyable: no air conditioning, and there are windows that open.  We get to listen to local pop music, which sounds like one never-ending old love song.  We did not stop for lunch breaks unlike in Thailand or Myanmar.  Instead, the bus became a little market during short stops with all the people selling prepared foods.  The bus tickets were not available for purchase in advance, and no seats are assigned.  Some people get to sit on a little chairs in between the rows, and others have to stand.  The buses also transport almost anything: live chicken, motorbikes, chairs…  I was wondering why we needed so many conductors on our bus, but they actually load and unload all the stuff besides selling tickets.  There was even one guy riding on the roof of our bus and helping with loading and unloading.